I'm a freelance writer specializing in technology and business.
New business taxes creating 'a whole new group of losers'
When the federal government introduced new tax rules last year, small businesses said they were being unfairly targeted by “punitive” measures. According to Small Business Association Canada, up to half of the country’s entrepreneurs say they’re already feeling negative effects.
Changes to passive income is one pain point. In the February budget, the Liberals implemented a grind-down mechanism for small business tax deductions by which every dollar of passive income over $50,000 — for example...
Are you an entrepreneur or a small business owner? Or both?
So, you own a small business. Does that make you an entrepreneur? There’s more to this question than mere semantics. All entrepreneurs are small business owners at some point, but not all small business owners are entrepreneurs.
They may start in the same place, but they rapidly diversify, says Christopher Young, partner in EY Canada’s private client services practice. He spends a lot of time with Canadian entrepreneurs as part of his involvement in the company’s Entrepreneur of the Year awar...
Blockchain mortgages, touted for real estate investors, get thumbs-down on security concerns
Blockchain advocates have long touted the technology’s ability to disrupt entrenched business models. Now, several companies want to use it for real estate crowdfunding in a bid to circumvent the banks.
Bermuda-based Viva Network wants to exploit the blockchain’s ability to store records and transfer value quickly across international borders. “Viva Network is a platform that has developed a peer-to-peer version of the mortgage-backed security, known as the Fractional Mortgage Share (FMS),” s...
Your AI pet project is only as smart as its garbage training set
No one said it'd be easy
AI isn't immune to one of computing's most basic rules – garbage in, garbage out. Train a neural network on flawed data and you'll have one that makes lots of mistakes.
Most neural networks learn to distinguish between things by sampling different groups. This is supervised learning, and it only works if someone labels the data first so that the network knows what it's looking at.
But how can you find the "right" data to train your AI, and confirm its quality? Well, w...
How Veterans Are Defending Our Networks
Veterans spent their lives serving a mission of defense. Cybersecurity professionals do the same. Could employing vets be a way to fill the skills gap?
How to Build a Next-Generation Cybersecurity Team
Cybersecurity challenges are increasing, and people are getting harder to find. Here’s how to build a solid team.
Buzzwords Will Kill The Internet
Sharif Fotouh, the founder and CEO of Compass-owned edge data center builder EdgePoint Systems, talks to Danny Bradbury about why certain buzzwords make him squeamish.
Software shortcuts: Pay down your techie debt. It's time to fix a price
Rushing to ship won't get you to the other side
Technical debt: we probably create it every day. It happens when you do things that might get you closer to goal now, but which create problems that you’ll have to pay for later.
The concept “technical debt” in software design and development comes from Agile development guru Ward Cunningham. He described what happens when you rush to ship software without applying what you’re learned about the problem you’re trying to solve.
If you don’t refact...
Hyperledger 3 years later: That's the sound of the devs... working on the chain ga-a-ang
But is anyone actually using it?
The Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger project was announced in December 2015. When Apache Web server daddy Brian Behlendorf took the helm five months later, the Foundation’s blockchain baby was still embryonic. He called it “day zero.”
Driving Hyperledger was the notion of a blockchain, a distributed ledger whose roots are in digital currency Bitcoin, for the Linux ecosystem - a reference technology stack that those comfortable with a command line could experimen...
2017 – the year of containers! It wasn't? Oops. Maybe next year
Immature tech still has a bunch of growing up to do
2017 was a big year for containers. One of the biggest container events came from the Linux Foundation, and it was – by its own admission – one of the most boring.
The Foundation’s Open Containers Initiative (OCI) finally dropped two specifications that standardise how containers operate at a low level. Chris Aniszczyk, vice president of developers relations at the Foundation and the OCI’s executive director, likens the initiative’s work to ...
Threat to net neutrality also threatens Canadian startups, says founder
Dec. 14 will be an important day for Internet users in the U.S., and for technology entrepreneurs north of the border. The Federal Communications Commission will vote on a draft set of proposals called the Restoring Internet Freedom Order, created by Donald Trump-appointed chairman Ajit Pai. They threaten many of the principles of net neutrality that have underpinned the Internet since it began.
The new order would repeal 2015 measures that regulated ISPs as telcos, instead reclassifying them...
Sure, Face ID is neat, but it cannot replace a good old fashioned passcode
Facial recognition isn't the most reliable authentication right now
Apple's iPhone X is one of several technologies bringing facial biometrics into the mainstream. It seems to have everything bar a heat scanner; the TrueDepth camera projects an impressive-sounding 30,000 infrared dots on to your phiz, scanning every blackhead in minute 3D detail.
The company claims some impressive figures, and it isn't the only one touting facial recognition as a mainstream solution. Others include Microsoft,...
Former UK.gov IT man and Python king's guide to neural networks
If you're going to learn about neural networks, you could do worse than learn it from someone who got five A levels (all grade As), has his MSc in Advanced Computing, and can tell you how to build your own neural network in 30 lines of code, even if you don't know any calculus.
There aren't many people fitting that description, but we know one - and we interviewed him.
How SMBs can easily accept electronic payments | Financial Post
Setting up with a credit card processor can be costly and time consuming. There are other options, such as PayPal and Square.
Canadian CDO role mostly mythical, survey finds | IT World Canada ...
It’s the sexiest job in tech. It’s at the cutting edge of digital change, and gives a single individual the chance to modernize an entire company.
Read more: http://www.itworldcanada.com/article/canadian-cdo-role-mostly-mythical-survey-finds/395402#ixzz4qmybl7vW
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