MaRS, a non-profit that supports high-growth startups and scale-ups tackling issues in the health, cleantech, and fintech sectors, has announced the launch of the Growth Acceleration Program, a multi-sector initiative designed to support executives of scaling, high-growth companies on their way to reaching C$20 million in revenue. The Growth Acceleration Program, funded by FedDev Ontario, is ideal for ventures with total funding of C$10 to C$20 million and/or annual recurring revenue of C$5 to C$20 million that have a core product in the market with traction beyond early customers. “Given the ..read more

Today is the day IT honours an unsung hero: The data backup. This is World Backup Day, a day for sitting back and reflecting on all the hours your IT team spends on honing their backup strategy, testing backup procedures and perfecting data restoration skills. In truth, for many IT leaders, this should be a day to think about honing your backup strategy and how to regularly test backup procedures and data restoration. Why? For one thing, according to a 2022 report by backup specialist Veeam Software, on average, respondents to a survey said their organization was able to recover only 64 per ce ..read more

After two extended deadlines, countless legal hurdles and a spate of criticism, the historic C$26 billion takeover of Shaw by Rogers has been cleared. Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne gave the final verdict today in a press conference in Ottawa, and announced a total of 21 legally binding conditions with Rogers and Vidéotron to ensure more competition in the telecommunications sector. “The establishment of an effective national fourth player who can compete and drive down prices has been the goal of successive governments for decades. Today’s announcement allows for the establishm ..read more

World Backup Day advice, new malware targeting Linux and more Welcome to Cyber Security Today. It’s Friday, March 31st, 2023. I’m Howard Solomon, contributing reporter on cybersecurity for ITWorldCanada.com and TechNewsday.com in the U.S. Today is World Backup Day. I have a long story on ITWorldCanada.com which is tailored for IT department leaders in mid-to-large firms, so on this podcast I want to address IT leaders in small businesses. The good news is backup and recovery should be easier because your environment will be simpler compared to a multi-million dollar retailer. Still ..read more

Ethics group files complaint to the FTC against OpenAI’s, Microsoft slips ads in new Bing bot and Cloudflare uses lava lamps to generate randomness for better encryption.   These stories and more on Hashtag Trending for Friday, March 31st. I’m your guest host for the week, James Roy – here’s today’s top tech news stories. The AI arms race has taken the tech world by a storm and it’s not slowing down. But ethics groups and experts are now worried. Yesterday, the Center for AI and Digital Policy (CAIDP) filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) arguing that GPT-4, O ..read more

HP launched the next generation of its LaserJet printers at the HP Amplify Partner conference held in Chicago this week. This new line of printers represent more than a simple update with an addition of a few new features or a new look. What was unveiled is a major leap in both design and printing technology, designed to meet two factors that HP sees as driving demand in the coming year – the hybrid work environment and the emergence of sustainability as a key factor in purchasing. To accommodate the new hybrid office, all of the printers in the series have a much smaller footprint to fit smal ..read more

There are tons of awards for achievements in IT. We honour CIOs, CISOs, Channel Partners, and Digital Transformation – and a whole lot more. Does the world need one more award program?  YES!  It needs to celebrate the IT Pet of the Year. IT professionals are passionate about their pets. Those little creatures have kept us company during COVID and they keep us sane through all of the ups and downs of our technology-driven careers. This year, on National Pet Day, April 11, we will select the best photos or videos of your IT Pets, and our readers ..read more

Administrators of 3CX VoIP systems are urged to uninstall the desktop client until a security update is released, after the discovery of a serious compromise of the softphone. As an alternative, customers are urged to install the web-based version, known as a PWA (Progressive Web App). The desktop application has been compromised by an unknown threat actor to add an installer that communicates with various command-and-control (C2) servers. This afternoon, researchers at Huntress Labs released a PowerShell script that can be used to check locations/versions of 3CX and run against the hashes to ..read more

More than a thousand key players in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and technology, including Yoshua Bengio, founder and scientific director of Mila  –  the Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, have signed an open letter initiated by the Future of Life Institute to ask AI labs to immediately pause, for a period of at least six months, the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4. The signatories are concerned that “AI systems with human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity, as shown by extensive research and acknowledged by to ..read more

Canada’s largest private sector union, Unifor, is urging the Competition Bureau to release the findings of its civil investigation into Google’s alleged anti-competitive online ad practices. The scope of the investigation, initiated in October 2021, was to examine whether Google’s online ad practices would impede the success of competitors, result in higher prices, reduce choice, and hinder innovation in ad tech services. The investigation also sought to determine whether Google’s practices are harming advertisers, publishers, and consumers. “Since the time the inquiry began, Canada’s crisis i ..read more