Toronto Electricians and Electrical Contractors

EFF, Coalition Urge Supreme Court to Maintain Public Access to Government’s Use of Privately Developed Technology Some of the most controversial technologies government agencies use to surveil the public or automate decisions about them are developed or overseen by private parties. Whether it’s automated license plate readers (ALPRs), cell-site simulators, or algorithmic tools used by federal courts and other agencies to make decisions about people’s life and liberty, the federal government increasingly purchases the technology from private contractors. But a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case before the U.S. Supreme Court threatens to further restrict the public’s ability to learn about when government uses technology. That’s why EFF, along with a coalition of other organizations, filed a friend-of-the-court brief on Monday asking the court to decline an effort to expand a FOIA exemption that prohibits the disclosure of private parties’ trade secrets and confidential busine...

Why Are Creators Paying for TikTok’s Mistake? TikTok is an app that makes it easy for people to make short lip-synching videos, which unsurprisingly makes it a goldmine of creativity and memes. TikTok recently got in hot water with the Federal Trade Commission because it failed to comply with Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). COPPA requires online services that are either “directed at” children under the age of 13 or have knowledge that they have users who are under 13 to arrange for parental permission before they start collecting personal information about those users. The FTC fined TikTok $5.7 million and ordered it to delete personal information of young users, with the option to transfer copies of the videos back to them. The FTC required TikTok to “destroy” the “personal information” of any account belonging to someone currently 13 or under, or who was under 13 when they joined. In other words, the account, its videos, the fans, everything that had been built...

As a marketing veteran, I must admit, MIPIM Cannes appeared to be another  real estate tradeshow event with the same formula- conference, tradeshow and corporate brands.  I couldn’t have been more wrong! MIPIM Cannes was a virtual who’s who in the global property markets and they had a lot to say and business to do.  Many of the world’s growing cities were there demonstrating their future vision, and those plans were green and sustainable.  I saw cities putting citizens and the environment at the heart of their strategies, and I also observed corporations obsessed with the employee experience in their work environments, and this is the message that hit home for me.  For our part, Schneider Electric contributed to the conversation with executives on panel discussions on engaging the future with digitization in smart buildings. Schneider Electric real estate at MIPIM Cannes Michael Sullivan, VP Buildings Segments, discussing how digitization and smart build...

For many of us, our older siblings are our earliest mentors.  That’s because they frequently pass – directly or indirectly – their life lessons down to us. We benefit because, when applied correctly, that knowledge– wisdom, really– can help us navigate through life’s challenges a bit more smoothly, which helps us get ahead. That scenario can be easily applied to the world of industrial manufacturing, especially when we look at the close, almost familial relationship between safety and cybersecurity. As in many families, where siblings often take on distinct but complementary roles and personalities, safety and security each serve and execute a specific, critical function. Like siblings, they are closely related, with safety being the older, more mature of the two. That means the cybersecurity function can benefit from many of the lessons safety has learned over the years. But more importantly, we are beginning to understand that applying this acquired knowledge to the cybersecurit...

My previous blog posts tackled the huge growth opportunity that is B2B eCommerce and its specific dynamics in the electrical distribution industry. But what does it take to successfully reap the benefits of B2B eCommerce? What are the main challenges faced when it comes to putting together a well-oiled B2B eCommerce organization?   Challenges to overcome to successfully implement and drive B2B eCommerce In fact, for a B2B organization, getting into eCommerce is easier said than done. B2B eCommerce is more than just another channel. It is a business strategy, set to enhance the overall end-to-end customer experience. This means B2B organizations need to include into their digital transformation approach the various departments, organizational structures, complex legacy technology environments, systems, operational processes and business priorities. We can regroup this into three main challenges that come with setting up B2B eCommerce: People, Technology and Processes. In this bl...

The benefits of industrial IoT are clear: improved productivity and energy efficiency at the same time . IIoT integration enables industrial companies to achieve greater efficiency even in the face of volatility (such as changing consumer demand and market trends) and stringent regulatory requirements . Yet given the need for speed with digital adoption, we all must take a moment to consider what could make or break any industrial enterprise: cybersecurity. As information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) converge, a much wider cyber-attack surface has opened up. What previously was protected by proprietary OT protocols and hard-wired connectivity across the factory floor is now open game to hackers trying to do their dirty work through targeted IoT endpoints — whether a smartphone, field engineer’s tablet, connected variable speed drive, or any IoT-enabled asset. Seventy-nine percent of CEOs say their digital adoption is happening faster than they can attend to securi...