Archive for May 12, 2020

Click Materials Partners With Cardinal Glass To Bring Residential Smart Window Technology To Market

Posted in Commentary with tags on May 12, 2020 by itnerd

Click Materials (Click), pioneer of a next-generation electrochromic glass technology, today announced a development partnership with leading glass producer Cardinal Glass Industries aimed at bringing Click’s smart window solution to the homes of millions across North America. Click has developed a patented technology that significantly reduces production costs of electrochromic glass by 60%, making smart windows more accessible for homeowners seeking ways to lessen energy consumption and costs. 

Click’s electrochromic window technology will enable users to adjust the tint of a window between clear and dark states through an app, smart device or voice control, allowing for greater control over incoming solar heat and light levels that can lead to lower overall energy consumption and improved emotional well-being. Click’s partnership with Cardinal Glass, a top producer of premium windows, will help propel its smart windows into a multibillion-dollar market and bring significant energy savings to millions of North American households.

Click’s novel spray coating approach to applying thin films used in electrochromic windows uses manufacturing equipment readily available in the industry and markets across the U.S., has high production yields, offers unique benefits including faster switching times than what is currently possible and can be applied to curved surfaces at a fraction of the cost of current production methods.

As individuals, corporations, communities and governments around the globe strive to implement smarter, greener and more resilient business practices, the market for smart technologies proven to conserve energy and reduce carbon footprints has never been greater. Click is poised to be first to offer an internet-of-things (IoT) integrated smart window solution for broad adoption across residential, commercial and automotive sectors.

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BIG Digital Launches SafeChek Entranceway Technology

Posted in Commentary on May 12, 2020 by itnerd

BIG Digital Corp  launches their SafeChek™digital entranceway technology to support the safe opening and operations of businesses across North America. 

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to evolve, governments are starting to allow businesses to re-open amid strict new guidelines that will see many companies seeking innovative solutions to protect their workers and the public. 

Big Digital will provide SafeChek™ at grocery stores, malls, commercial buildings and offices to enable queue management (including wait times and number of people inside), product and service messaging, (such as store hours and out-of-stock items) and visitor SafeChek™ sensors (including mask and fever detection) in order to support best practices for social distancing. 

Big Digital is partnering on the SafeChek™ project with A1 Innovation Group, a pioneer in people-counting solutions.  

BIG Digital’s SafeChek™ entranceway technology allows organizations to maximize safety through people counting systems to control occupancy levels and real-time communication with customers at indoor and outdoor entranceway locations such as malls, retailers, airports, walkways, elevators, project and construction sites. This technology keeps the public informed with important messages on safety as the economy starts to cautiously re-open. 

Some of SafeChek™ entranceway technology’s extra customer communication features include reservation / appointment messaging, out-of-stock items, current wait times and promoted items to help consumers make informed decisions and ease anxieties around visiting or getting back to work in public spaces. 

For business owners, key data and analytics provided by SafeChek™ entranceway technology includes:  real-time building occupancy, visit duration, frequency and customer traffic which can help support effective pandemic planning and operations. 

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Dell Technologies Announces Enterprise SONiC Distribution

Posted in Commentary with tags on May 12, 2020 by itnerd

Dell Technologies is announcing Enterprise SONiC Distribution by Dell Technologies, a new set of fully supported open source networking solutions that help enterprises modernize and simplify the operations and management of their data centers at scale.

As organizations increasingly rely on modern hybrid cloud models to do business, the historically monolithic and proprietary approach to networking has created inefficiencies and unneeded complexity. Dell Technologies is building off the work Microsoft spearheaded as part of the Software for Open Networking in the Cloud (SONiC) open source project. By integrating SONiC into the DNA of the Dell EMC PowerSwitch Open Networking hardware, Dell’s Enterprise SONiC Distribution removes complexity and creates an agile and flexible network through an approach built on open standards.

With commercial-grade support for Dell’s Enterprise SONiC Distribution, cloud providers and large enterprises have a new level of production-tested tools, services and support that previously required significant internal investment technology support teams. It gives customers support for full-stack solutions with enterprise capabilities and advanced functionality.

Dell Technologies provides a broad selection of open network operating systems, giving customers the ability to choose the hardware and software platform that best suits their priorities and take advantage of the benefits of open source innovation without sacrificing support or security and eases of integration into their own IT environments.

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We Now Have Proof That Apple Has Completely Lost The Plot When It Comes To Security

Posted in Commentary with tags on May 12, 2020 by itnerd

You might recall that I’ve been covering a rather nasty exploit in iOS Mail that has been exploited in the wild. Now this and one other security issue was promised to be fixed by Apple a couple of weeks ago. But that didn’t happen. Though the other security issue that I mentioned was confirmed to be fixed in a beta of iOS 13.5, there was not any news about this more serious issue with iOS Mail being fixed.

That changed over the weekend when ZecOps who are the people who disclosed this bug and how dangerous it was, posted this which notes this little tidbit:

MailDemon appears to be even more ancient than we initially thought. There is a trigger for this vulnerability, in the wild, 10 years ago, on iPhone 2g, iOS 3.1.3

All together now…. OMG!

This takes a situation where Apple has dropped the ball and made it an absolute #EpicFail. I say that because you would think that if a bug that is beyond critical in nature, and has existed since February 3rd, 2010 which is the date that iOS 3.1.3 was released, you’d think that Apple would fix that ASAP. But clearly Apple doesn’t see things that way. And now that ZecOps has gone into detail about how this exploit works, you can be sure that an already dangerous exploit has just gone nuclear because every miscreant will be trying to take advantage of this.

Now the good news. Sort of. ZecOps has confirmed that a fix was in the beta that was iOS 13.4.5, which has since become the beta for iOS 13.5. Which means that someday Apple will release a fix for this. But what if you don’t run iOS 13 because you are on an iPhone 6 or older? Will Apple release a fix for this exploit for iOS 12 seeing as Apple has done that in the past? Or will Apple just give the middle finger to those users? We’ll have to see.

It really highlights how much Apple has screwed this up in epic fashion. Not fixing an exploit that has existed for this long and is clearly not trivial shows that Apple absolutely doesn’t take the security of its user base seriously. And everything that Apple says about security are just talking points that sound good, but don’t actually mean anything. I have to say, it’s stuff like this that makes it increasingly more difficult for me to want to spend Apple money on Apple hardware and services going forward. And I am sure that once this news gets out, many other people will feel the same way.

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CCTS Reports 12% Drop In Telco Complaints…. But The Devil Is In The Detail

Posted in Commentary with tags on May 12, 2020 by itnerd

The Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS) has served up its Mid-Year Report and it shows a 12% drop in complaints. That sounds good on the surface. But let’s dig into this some more. The companies that are responsible for this are:

  • Cogeco -75%
  • Bell -26.3%
  • TELUS -6.7%

And Bell couldn’t wait to trumpet this news to the world seeing as they have been known as having absolutely horrific customer service at times:

However, there were increases. Complaints from Fido and Rogers increased by 29% and 6% respectively. Which isn’t good for Rogers and Fido. And I am pretty sure that Rogers and Fido won’t be promoting these results.

And other highlights include:

  • “Disclosure issues” and “incorrect charges” were the most complained-about problems, making up 26% of all reported issues.
  • Breaches of the Wireless Code decreased from 61 to 46, breaches of the Television Service Provider Code increased by 4 to a total of 5, and breaches of the Deposit and Disconnection Code, increased from 0 to 3.

So while there are things that have improved, clearly there’s still work to be done as Rogers and Fido clearly need to pull up their socks here.

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