Archive for December 12, 2018

Meridian’s New, Automated Price Matching Service Puts Dollars Back Into The Pockets Of Members

Posted in Commentary with tags on December 12, 2018 by itnerd

In a victory for price conscious consumers, Meridian has announced the pilot launch of ‘Price Drop’ – a free service that automates the traditionally time-consuming process of price matching, promising to put real dollars back in the pockets of thousands of Members.

While 75 of the top retail chains in Canada all offer price matching, research shows that only between five and eight per cent of shoppers actually take advantage of these price matching policies. The biggest reasons for those low numbers? Well, it comes down to the time and effort typically involved in price matching, along with a general lack of awareness of lower prices being offered subsequent to a purchase.

With Price Drop, Meridian has automated the process. After making your purchase, either in-store or online, simply snap a photo of your receipt using the Meridian mobile app or submit your receipt by email. Meridian will then search for price drops on any of the items you’ve purchased. If Meridian finds a better price, we’ll notify you by email or via an in-app notification and automatically claim the refund or share the proof you need to claim the difference in cost from the retailer.

Price Drop is the first of its kind to be offered by a Canadian financial institution. It is free-of-charge for Meridian Members and there is no limit to the number of receipts that can be submitted or refunds received.

Meridian partnered with Winnipeg-based fintech company Pricerazzi in order to bring Price Drop to its Members. In a recent survey of 1,500 Meridian Members, 82 per cent said they’d be interested in trying a price matching service. The Price Drop pilot launched in early November with Meridian employees and select Members. The service is expected to launch in the first quarter of 2019.

To see Price Drop in action, or to get on the waiting list for when it goes live, visit www.price-drop.ca. You can also download the Meridian app from the Apple App Store or Google Play.

Box Announces Box for G Suite Integration

Posted in Commentary with tags on December 12, 2018 by itnerd

Box a leader in cloud content management, today announced the general availability of Box for G Suite, a seamless new integration that makes it incredibly easy to create, edit, and manage Google Docs, Sheets and Slides directly in Box. Box today serves more than 90,000 paying businesses, including 69 percent of the Fortune 500, and the new integration will be rolled out to Box’s entire user base, both paid and free. The roll-out is currently underway and is set to be completed by mid-January.

First debuted at Google Next in July, the comprehensive Box for G Suite integration further simplifies collaboration in the cloud by eliminating data silos and delivering an intuitive, seamless user experience:

  • Users can easily create, edit and collaborate on G Suite files, including Google Docs, Sheets and Slides, without leaving the Box application and all edits are automatically saved back to Box.
  • All G Suite files saved in Box benefit from Box’s robust permissions, admin controls, security and advanced governance and compliance capabilities.
  • Users not only benefit from G Suite’s robust editing and real-time collaboration capabilities, but can also leverage Box’s productivity features, such as task management, workflow automation, and real-time alerts.
  • Box for G Suite works alongside the latest Box integration with Gmail, allowing users to attach Box files and download email attachments directly to Box, without leaving the Gmail interface.

Enterprises including Indiana University have been testing the Box for G Suite integration since the beta release announced at BoxWorks 2018 in August.

The Box for G Suite roll-out is currently underway and is set to be available to all Box customers by mid-January. To get started with the integration, visit the Box for G Suite Community Page.

Martello Selected for BlackBerry L-SPARK Accelerator Program

Posted in Commentary with tags on December 12, 2018 by itnerd

Martello Technologies Group Inc. announced today that it has been selected alongside six other promising Canadian technology companies to participate in the BlackBerry/L-SPARK Accelerator Program. Spanning more than six months and focused on intensive, one-on-one, training, the accelerator program is designed to bring new products to market using BlackBerry QNX technology.

As part of the new accelerator program, BlackBerry will help Martello research and develop network solutions that deliver high performance services on the increasingly complex networks created by the Internet of Things (IoT). According to Gartner, in its December 2017 report, Forecast: Internet of Things — Endpoints and Associated Services, Worldwide, 2017, the global IoT market will reach 25.1 billion endpoints by 2021, with total spending on endpoints and services reaching $3.9 trillion in 2021. From autonomous vehicles to smart cities, real-time IoT applications create network complexity, and Martello’s technology can help manage network resources, capacity and performance for these real-time IoT applications.

Martello’s proven solutions, already deployed in more than 150 countries around the world, continue to be recognized by industry. In October, the company received the Outstanding Information & Communications Technology Company (ICT) Recognition Award from IEEE, and in September, Martello was recognized with a Frost & Sullivan Leadership Award for NPM (Network Performance Management) and was also ranked as Ottawa’s Fastest Growing Company on the Growth 500 list of Canada’s Fastest Growing Companies. In August 2018, the company received theINTERNET TELEPHONY SD-WAN Product of the Year Award, and in June 2018 Martello debuted on the Branham 300 listing of Canada’s top ICT companies.

The Chinese Are Named As The Source Of The Marriott Hack….. Hmmmmm……

Posted in Commentary with tags on December 12, 2018 by itnerd

In a plot twist that I wasn’t expecting, the Chinese are being named by the US Government as the people behind the Marriott hack. That’s the hack where 500 million people are affected. The New York Times has details on this and what the US Government is likely to do about it:

The hackers, they said, are suspected of working on behalf of the Ministry of State Security, the country’s Communist-controlled civilian spy agency. The discovery comes as the Trump administration is planning actions targeting China’s trade, cyber and economic policies, perhaps within days.

Those moves include indictments against Chinese hackers working for the intelligence services and the military, according to four government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The Trump administration also plans to declassify intelligence reports to reveal Chinese efforts dating to at least 2014 to build a database containing names of executives and American government officials with security clearances.

Other options include an executive order intended to make it harder for Chinese companies to obtain critical components for telecommunications equipment, a senior American official with knowledge of the plans said.

Well, seeing as Canada is currently holding the CFO of Huawei at the request of the US because she’s been named as someone who orchestrated violations of sactions against Iran, you have to see this is as an escalation of tensions between the US and China. Assuming that the Chinese are behind this hack of course. I suspect that the story behind this hack is about to get very interesting very quickly.