TELUS Living breaks ground on 55-unit Vancouver-Point Grey development

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 12, 2025 by itnerd

TELUS celebrated the official groundbreaking of a new TELUS Living development in Vancouver’s Point Grey neighbourhood. Located at 2608 Tolmie Street, the former Point Grey telephone exchange will be transformed by TELUS and its development partner, LPI Management Ltd., into a sustainable, mixed-use building featuring 55 purpose-built rental units and four retail spaces, helping to address the urgent housing needs in the community. The Vancouver-Point Grey development joins two other TELUS Living buildings under construction in Nanaimo and Sechelt, delivering 254 rental homes in early 2026. A further 18 properties are proposed to add more than 3,000 homes across British Columbia over the next six years, with plans to expand the program to Alberta and Quebec.

Located in the heart of Vancouver’s Point Grey, the site is uniquely positioned with proximity to UBC and other key facilities. The development will serve diverse housing needs, from students and young professionals starting out to established residents looking to downsize and remain close to the neighbourhood they love. 

Project Highlights: 

  • Six-storey mixed-use building featuring 55 purpose-built rental units and four ground-floor retail spaces 
  • Diverse unit mix with studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units to accommodate students, young professionals, families, and downsizers
  • Smart home technology powered by TELUS’ PureFibre network, offering seamless connectivity with smart home devices that enhance security, energy efficiency, and residents’ overall living experience
  • Climate conscious development promoting high energy efficiency to minimize environmental impact
  • Sustainable transportation based on proximity to transit and bike routes with one level of underground parking and robust cycling infrastructure 
  • Community-focused amenities including co-working and study areas, indoor and outdoor social lounges, bike storage with end-of-trip facilities, parcel lockers, and pet-friendly features

This groundbreaking marks a significant milestone in TELUS Living’s mission to transform existing real estate holdings into purpose-built rentals that bridge the housing gap with smart, sustainable, and community-focused developments. Through its copper-to-fibre network migration, TELUS has unlocked opportunities by repurposing central offices, which are buildings that once housed copper-based equipment and served as the backbone of British Columbia’s phone system. For more details on TELUS Living please visit telusliving.com.

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Ridge Security Earns 95% Willingness to Recommend rating, Gartner Peer Insights

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 12, 2025 by itnerd

Ridge Security, leader in AI-powered offensive security for Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM), today announced that it was the second highest vendor to score a willingness to recommend with 95% in the 2025 Gartner’s Peer Insights “Voice of the Customer” for Adversarial Exposure Validation.

Based on 22 reviews validated by Gartner as of August 2025 Ridge Security recently announced RidgeGen, a comprehensive Agentic AI framework designed to take security validation from automation to autonomy. Powered by RidgeGen, Ridge Security’s flagship product, RidgeBot, covers an organization’s IT infrastructure, including hosts, networks, applications, APIs, and LLMs, making it the platform with the most comprehensive offensive security framework ever developed. We feel like the willingness to recommend score from Gartner Peer Insights™ “Voice of the Customer” is evidence of the company’s growing demand for Adversarial Exposure Validation technology.

According to Gartner, Adversarial Exposure Validation represents a market segment focused on solutions that continuously test, validate, and measure an organization’s security posture by emulating real-world attacker behaviors. These technologies operationalize adversarial techniques to assess and prioritize exposures with precision and repeatability.

Within this framework, Gartner Peer Insights defines willingness to recommend as the percentage of verified end users who indicate they would endorse a vendor solution to their peers, a key measure of customer advocacy. Derived from 18 months of practitioner reviews, this metric offers an evidence-based view of user confidence and satisfaction with Ridge Security’s flagship product, RidgeBot.

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Wise Platform partners with Wealthsimple 

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 12, 2025 by itnerd

Wise Platform, Wise’s leading global payments infrastructure for banks and enterprises, today announced it’s working with Wealthsimple, a financial services platform on a mission to help Canadians achieve financial freedom, on an improved offering for sending money internationally. This partnership enables Wealthsimple’s chequing and joint chequing customers across Canada to access low-fee, fast and transparent international payments directly from the Wealthsimple app or website, delivering added convenience for Canadians sending money abroad.

Wealthsimple users can now make secure international payments to 30 countries in 10+ currencies from the convenience of their Wealthsimple chequing or joint chequing account. In just a few clicks, Wealthsimple clients can set up a transfer by selecting their recipient, inputting the amount they wish to send in CAD, and selecting which currency they would like their recipient to receive. The in-app experience clearly displays the mid-market exchange rate (the rate you see on Google), lists any additional fees, and provides a window of time for when funds will arrive so the customer has real-time insight into the cost and speed of their transfer.

According to a 2024 report from Payments Canada, one in five people sent money internationally using their Canadian bank account in the previous 12 months–a 33 percent increase from the previous year. Notably, 50 percent of Canadians aged 18-34 sent money abroad once a month. Wealthsimple’s decision to partner with Wise Platform underscores the rapidly-growing demand for modern, reliable international payments services as more Canadians live, work and connect across borders.

Wise Platform leverages the power of Wise’s robust global payments network. Wise directly participates in seven domestic payment systems, is supported by over 70 licenses worldwide, and settles 74% of payments instantly (in under 20 seconds). This best-in-class infrastructure has made Wise Platform a leading partner for banks and large enterprises globally looking to make their international payments offerings more competitive. Wealthsimple joins a growing roster of major banks and enterprises who are partnering with Wise Platform to provide efficient and secure services to customers who need to send money abroad.

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VDURA Unveils Data Platform V12 

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 12, 2025 by itnerd

 VDURA today announced Version 12 of the VDURA Data Platform, a major software release that redefines scalability and resilience for AI and high-performance computing (HPC) environments. V12 increases performance on every metric and introduces a new elastic Metadata Engine, system-wide Snapshot Support, and optimized integration for hyperscale class HDD’s using Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) technology to deliver unprecedented performance efficiency, durability, and capacity scaling across the data lifecycle.

Building on the performance foundation established in V11, VDURA V12 Key Highlights of Data Platform V12 include:

  • Elastic Metadata Engine: A next-generation, scale-out, metadata engine designed for increased performance. It dynamically scales across nodes to sustain performance as file and object counts grow, eliminating traditional bottlenecks and improving metadata operations by up to 20x.
  • Snapshot Support: Enables instantaneous, space-efficient point-in-time copies of datasets for AI pipelines, model checkpoints, and operational recovery. Snapshots integrate seamlessly with support for both manual and policy-based retention.
  • SMR HDD Optimization: Extends the VDURA data platform to support Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) drives for ultra-dense data storage. A new write-placement engine organizes sequential zones intelligently, unlocking 25–30% more capacity per rack without compromising throughput or data integrity. 

Breakthrough Performance Meets Resilient Scale

The Elastic Metadata Engine enables metadata operations to scale linearly across multiple metadata nodes, supporting billions of files and objects under active use. Combined with snapshot and SMR tier support, V12 further reduces total cost of ownership while extending VDURA’s lead in AI-scale storage economics. With aggregate throughput performance increased by more than 20%, V12 delivers unmatched efficiency for training pipelines, inference workloads, and hyperscale data movement.

Availability

VDURA Data Platform V12 will be generally available in Q2 2026 for all V5000 and V7000-class systems. Existing customers running V11 or later can upgrade in place via an online software update with zero downtime.

The Mountain vs. the Data Transfer Record at SC25

On Nov 18, 2025, at 11:30 AM CT, Hafþór “Thor” Björnsson returns to SC25 Booth #2033 with VDURA to break the AI and HPC data transfer record. Powered by Phison Pascari SSDs and the VDURA Data Platform, Thor will move hundreds of petabytes in seconds, demonstrating the next level of data performance and scalability.

Last year, Thor stunned the crowd with his World Record Data Lift, hoisting over 282 PB of capacity, the most data ever lifted. This year, it’s all about speed.

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TD meets loss with care, not complexity—introducing Empathy

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 12, 2025 by itnerd

Navigating the loss of a loved one can be overwhelming, both emotionally and administratively. To help ease these burdens, TD has collaborated with Empathy, a leading technology company that helps individuals navigate life’s toughest moments, to offer post-loss care to eligible clients who are using TD’s estate settlement services, including executors of an estate and their families. This support includes around-the-clock access to trained Care Managers and tech-enabled guidance through the many steps that follow a loss.

According to Empathy’s Grief Tax Report, an estate can take over a year to settle, require multiple hours of paperwork, and leave some families thousands of dollars out of pocket, even when plans are in place. To support families through these difficult times, TD is pleased to be able to offer Empathy’s care platform.

Empathy is available on a complimentary basis for eligible TD Estates clients. The TD Estates team is able to support with financial disbursements, while Empathy offers digital tools and Care Managers. The Empathy platform provides assistance that includes:

  • Personalized, step‑by‑step Care Plan that adapts to each family’s situation and priorities;
  • Real‑time human support from trained Care Managers for guidance and hands‑on help;
  • Benefits and claims support to help families identify and collect what they’re entitled to;
  • Grief resources, including audio guides, meditations and a private journal.

TD is the first bank in Canada to offer Empathy’s services, an innovation born from a successful pilot earlier this year with the TD Enterprise Innovation and Canadian Personal Banking Estates teams. This collaboration with Empathy underscores TD’s focus on putting people first, offering meaningful support when it matters most, and building lasting trust through life’s most difficult moments. This approach to innovation is fostered by TD Invent, a strategic effort across the Bank to power purposeful innovation.

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Other World Computing (OWC) Expands Thunderbolt 5 Lineup with OWC StudioStack and OWC Mercury Helios 5S

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 12, 2025 by itnerd

 Other World Computing today announced the launch of the OWC StudioStack, the world’s first, fastest, and highest-capacity Thunderbolt 5 stackable hybrid storage solution for Mac Studio and Mac mini machines. In addition, the company announced the OWC Mercury Helios 5S, the most powerful and easiest way to utilize PCIe cards with Thunderbolt 5/4/3 and USB4 notebooks and small form factor computers like the Mac Studio, as well as add more Thunderbolt 5 ports.

OWC StudioStack

With the OWC StudioStack, users can upgrade their Mac Studio and Mac mini devices with the fastest and highest capacity stackable hybrid storage solution on the planet – all wrapped up in an aircraft-grade aluminum that nestles perfectly underneath your setup.

Key Features:

  • Internal Class Speed: Up to 6302MB/s real-world performance
  • Capacity: Up to 8TB NVMe SSD and up to 24TB HDD storage space
  • Expanded Connectivity: Three Thunderbolt 5 (USB-C) 80Gb/s and three USB-A 10Gb/s ports for more device, display, and drive possibilities
  • Widely Compatible: Use with Thunderbolt 5/4, USB4 Macs and PCs, and Thunderbolt 3 Macs
  • Highly Reliable: Aircraft-grade aluminum offers rugged protection of installed SSDs plus effective heat dissipation to keep everything cool for consistent top speed
  • Near Silent Operation: Engineered with a smart, adaptive fan that activates only when needed, making it ideal for uninterrupted creative focus
  • Future Flexible: Both DIY “build your own” and ready-to-run solutions are easily future upgradeable with a faster, higher capacity 2280 NVMe M.2 SSD and a higher capacity SATA 3.5″ HDD or 2.5″ SSD
  • Complete: Includes Thunderbolt 5 80Gb/s cable

OWC Mercury Helios 5S

Modern notebooks, small form factor computers, and “all-in-one” desktop computers are slender marvels of engineering, but they have a significant shortcoming: a lack of internal space to install PCIe cards for added functionality. The OWC Mercury Helios 5S opens a world of pro-grade, full-size workstation capabilities to those machines via a single Thunderbolt or USB4 connection.

Key Features:

  • Expands Small Machines: Use video capture, high-speed fiber/Ethernet, NVMe RAID, audio I/O, and other cards to unlock the potential of MacBooks, Mac Studio, Mac mini, and other space-confined computers lacking a PCIe slot
  • Internal Class Speed: Up to 6000MB/s bandwidth available for simultaneous read/write
  • Pro Level Card Ready: (1) PCIe 4.0 x4 (x16 mechanical slot) for half-length, full-height, single or double-width cards
  • Expanded Connectivity: Three Thunderbolt 5 (USB-C) 80Gb/s ports, each with 15W power delivery for more device, display, and drive possibilities
  • Widely Compatible: Use with Thunderbolt 5/4, USB4 Macs and PCs, and Thunderbolt 3 Macs
  • Whisper Quiet: Aircraft-grade aluminum housing and high-efficiency cooling fan provide cool, nearly silent operation
  • Easy Card Installs: Captive thumb screws, so no tools required
  • Complete and Secure: Includes Thunderbolt 5 80Gb/s cable and power cord retainer

The OWC StudioStack is available for pre-order now at a starting price of $329.99, with shipping planned for mid-December. To learn more, please visit: https://www.owc.com/solutions/studiostack.

The OWC Mercury Helios 5S is generally available now (GA) for $329.99. To learn more and order, please visit: https://www.owc.com/solutions/mercury-helios-5s.

The OWC StudioStack and OWC Mercury Helios 5S will be showcased live and in-person, together with other key OWC Thunderbolt 5, storage, and connectivity solutions in OWC Booth #8218 during next week’s Inter Bee 2025, taking place November 19 – 21, at Makuhari Messe (Chiba City, Chiba Prefecture, Japan).

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Former CISA Associate Chief of Strategic Technology Joins Post Quantum Cryptography Security Startup

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 12, 2025 by itnerd

Today, QuSecure announced that Garfield Jones has joined the company as Senior Vice President, Research and Technology Strategy. A renowned technical advisor and test and systems engineering manager with extensive knowledge of IT and DoD systems, Dr. Jones will lead QuSecure’s technology strategy to meet U.S. Federal Government mission and security requirements, and build and nurture partnerships with stakeholders to drive strategic planning and continuous innovation for cryptographic management.

More info about Garfield is available here: http://qusecure.com/garfield-jones.

Before joining QuSecure, Dr. Jones served as Associate Chief of Strategic Technology for CISA, where he developed the strategy and guidance on using innovative, leading-edge technology across the agency, including articulating and documenting the future technology vision to achieve mission objectives and goals. Dr. Jones led the PQC initiative at CISA, consulting with executive branch-level staff on crafting and disseminating guidance for federal agencies and national policy on research and development, and on the adoption of PQC technology.

Specifically, Dr. Jones worked with the OMB, ONCD, and various federal agencies to execute tasks outlined in Executive Orders 14306 (Sustaining Select Efforts to Strengthen the Nation’s Cybersecurity) and 14144 (Strengthening and Promoting Innovation in the Nation’s Cybersecurity) and memos such as OMB 23-02 (Migrating to Post-Quantum Cryptography) issued by the Executive Branch.

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Black Kite Releases Global Adaptive AI Assessment Framework (BK-GA³™) Developed in Consultation with Shared Assessments 

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 12, 2025 by itnerd

Black Kite today announced the release of its Global Adaptive AI Assessment Framework™, BK-GA³™. Designed to keep pace with evolving AI security threats, BK-GA³™ is the first truly global framework for assessing AI risk. BK-GA³™ was developed by the Black Kite Research Group and in consultation with Shared Assessments LLC, the member-driven leader in third-party risk assurance.

When developing BK-GA³™, hundreds of unique requirements across over 50 assessment frameworks were evaluated and best practices were synthesized to create a unified standard capable of evolving with the threat landscape. As a result, BK-GA³™ enables teams to apply a single, focused AI risk framework to efficiently identify vendor control gaps across their third-party ecosystem efficiently.

Key capabilities include:

  • Continuous Adaptation: Regularly updated by the BK-GA³™ working committee to reflect evolving standards and emerging AI threats.
  • Global Assurance Alignment: Maps to established frameworks, such as ISO, NIST, and more.
  • Unified Best Practices: Synthesizes best practices from hundreds of unique requirements across 50+ assessment frameworks into a single standard.
  • Built-in Intelligence: Considers OSINT and insights from the Black Kite Research Group to stay aligned with the latest trends and emerging AI threats.

BK-GA³™ is available both publicly and through the Black Kite platform. The publicly available component is a freely accessible AI risk framework developed with input from industry leaders and supported with continued collaboration from Shared Assessments. Black Kite customers can access the new framework through the Black Kite platform, where they can automatically access vendor AI risks.

To access BK-GA³™, visit https://content.blackkite.com/ebook/black-kite-global-adaptive-ai-assessment-framework/

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November Patch Tuesday Commentary From Fortra

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 12, 2025 by itnerd

Tyler Reguly, Associate Director, Security R&D, Fortra

Microsoft seems to have decided that the past few months have given us all the entertainment that we needed and toned things down a little this month. We do have one CVE that has seen active exploitation (CVE-2025-62215) and 6 CVEs that Microsoft has assigned a severity level of Critical (CVE-2025-60724, CVE-2025-62214, CVE-2025-62199, CVE-2025-60716, CVE-2025-60724, CVE-2025-30398). This set includes the single CVE, CVE-2025-60724, to also earn a critical severity on the CVSS scale with a score of 9.8. That 9.8 is something that will likely get a lot of discussion.

One of the things that makes CVE-2025-60724 interesting is a remark that Microsoft made in the FAQ, “In the worst-case scenario, an attacker could trigger this vulnerability on web services by uploading documents containing a specially crafted metafile (AV:N) without user interaction.” This is where I tend to find fault with the way Microsoft handles these vulnerabilities. We have traditional Windows cumulative updates, but a very non-standard attack vector – file upload. There are plenty of unknowns with this one and a lot of questions that we could ask… “Does the technology matter? The backend language processing the metafile? The web server selection?” Microsoft isn’t exactly giving me a lot of confidence that I could mitigate or reduce my risk if patching isn’t immediately possible.

If I’m a CISO, then CVE-2025-60724 has me worried this month. We have a vulnerability that Microsoft and CVSS agree is critical and an attack vector that requires no user interaction and no privileges, just the ability to upload a file. We know nothing about the file type, the technologies that are impacted (other than GDI+ in the title), or the services impacted. Do I need to worry about my SharePoint infrastructure? What about third-party software – my wiki or my bug tracker? This is definitely one that feels a little spooky without a lot of extra details being provided.

While not directly related to today’s patch drop, I wanted to call attention to the additional documentation (via blog post: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/msrc/blog/2025/10/understanding-cve-2025-55315) that Microsoft published related to CVE-2025-55315. This is fantastic additional context around the vulnerability and the risks involved. This is the type of documentation that we should see for every critical or actively exploited vulnerability that Microsoft patches. If you are a CISO or in communication with a Microsoft TAM, you should reach out and let them know that this is an improvement to their communication and that releasing content like this for more vulnerabilities and in a more timely fashion would be hugely beneficial to the security community.

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2026 Predictions From Parallel Works

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 12, 2025 by itnerd

Matthew Shaxted, CEO and Founder of Parallel Works, shares his perspectives on how the next phase of enterprise AI will be defined by the rise of private infrastructure, specialized cloud providers, and a growing emphasis on data sovereignty and hybrid architectures.

The Rise of Private AI: Enterprises will increasingly move away from fully relying on public hyperscalers and toward private or semi-private AI infrastructure. Neo cloud providers will take center stage as hedge funds, defense contractors, and other data-sensitive organizations will begin leveraging them for GPU access and to manage Kubernetes environments. This will then allow them to transition to owning their own AI systems. This shift reflects a growing desire for control, cost predictability and sovereignty in how AI workloads are trained and deployed.

Neo Cloud Providers Challenge Hyperscaler Dominance: Specialized GPU-focused cloud providers — often delivering services 4x less than Amazon, Google, or Microsoft’s cost — will carve out a meaningful share of AI workloads. Their pricing models, flexibility, and regional presence will give mid-sized enterprises and research institutions a more viable entry point into advanced AI and HPC workloads. This new tier of “neo clouds” will increasingly become a bridge between expensive public cloud offerings and private infrastructure ownership.

Sovereign AI and Policy-Aware Scheduling: As data sovereignty concerns escalate, organizations will prioritize the ability to keep sensitive data and AI workloads within defined regions or facilities. Intelligent scheduling and policy-driven orchestration will become more prevalent and essential capabilities, ensuring compliance while still enabling performance and efficiency. Sovereign AI will reshape infrastructure strategies in defense, healthcare, and financial services, where regulatory guardrails are non-negotiable.

Hybrid Multi-Cloud as the Default Model: By 2026, hybrid and multi-cloud architectures will be the standard for HPC and AI, replacing the one-size-fits-all approach of monolithic on-prem systems. Workloads will dynamically move across on-prem, cloud, and specialized resources (GPUs, quantum, etc.) to balance performance, cost, and compliance. Cloud bursting and heterogeneous workload placement will no longer be differentiators — they will be table steaks for competitiveness in AI-driven industries.

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