Diligent’s new tool helps corporate boards evaluate themselves and improve [Portfolio]

Gone are the days of board members meeting just four times a year to discuss a company’s financial performance. Instead, increasing pressures are prompting the need to make sure everyone is well prepared and handling any issues effectively.

That new reality is what drove the launch of New York-based Diligent Corporation’s newest product. The company, which already provides board collaboration and communication tools to more than 4,700 organizations and 140,000 users, including 40 per cent of Fortune 1000 companies, has introduced Diligent Evaluations to make board evaluations easy to administer and analyze for both administrators and directors.

Read my full article on ITBusiness.ca.

Sun Life feels ready for oncoming “insurtech” [Portfolio]

There may be a generational divide when it comes to embracing online services for banking and insurance, but for Sun Life, that generational divide is shrinking.

“Everyone is touching a digital channel today,” Cynthia Stark, VP of digital strategy for Sun Life Financial global marketing, tells ITBusiness.ca. “It’s just a degree of comfort and how deep how they will go.”

She would know: Sun Life recently refreshed both its Canadian website and mobile app, and though many customers are only using the company’s online services to review information rather than conduct transactions, it was important that both platforms be able to accommodate as wide a range of users as possible, she says.

Read my full article on ITBusiness.ca.

CRA to expand EFT audits in 2017, PwC warns [Portfolio]

The next two years will see an expansion of the Canada Revenue Agency’s efforts to review international funds transfers (EFTs), which means many taxpayers can expect to see an “EFT letter” next year, according to a recent PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) Tax Insights brief.

The CRA initiative builds on efforts by the agency that since the beginning of 2015 have required financial intermediaries to report international EFTs of $10,000 or more to the agency. But while the fishing net may be widening, businesses that do things by the book shouldn’t worry, according to Montreal-based PwC partner Marc Vanasse.

“It’s business as usual for those who are reporting to government on fund transfers,” he said.

Read my full article on ITBusiness.ca.

Trust in fintech suffers from a generational divide [Portfolio]

The big banks may have more time than they think before their “Uber moment” arrives based on this year’s Digital Money Trends Report, which found that Canadians are still wary of fintech, even as they increasingly search for information about financial products online.

The second annual report released by online financial comparison site RateHub.ca found that Canadians to not place a high level of trust in fintech companies yet, especially compared to their counterparts in the U.S., as there are fewer players here and less awareness. In addition, fintechs in Canada are newer and Canadians tend to have entrenched loyalty to the Big Five banks, unlike the fragmented financial services south of the border.

Read my full article on ITBusiness.ca.

Flourishing Internet of Things still faces adoption, security challenges, Juniper finds [Portfolio]

Internet of Things (IoT) growth predictions have been bullish for a number of years, and new data from Juniper Research predicts the number of connected devices will triple in the next five – but that rosy forecast comes with some caveats.

The recently released The Internet of Things: Consumer, Industrial & Public Services 2016-2021 predicts the number of connected IoT devices, sensors and actuators will hit more than 46 billion in 2021, which is a 200 per cent increase from 2016. The growth will be driven in large part by a reduction in the unit costs of hardware, the organization found, forecasting that industrial and public services will post the highest growth over the next five years, averaging more than 24 per cent annually.

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Juniper predicts more chatbots and fintech in 2017 [Portfolio]

Ashley Madison users have already unwittingly encountered a great deal of bots, but in 2017 they are going to become more prevalent – and more transparent to the user, according to U.K.-based Juniper Research.

In its top 10 predictions for the year, the organization forecasts that chatbots – virtual agents which operate via social networks and messaging platforms – will grow in presence and popularity, streamlining e-commerce activities such as booking flights and hotels, or to order items directly by speaking with a bot through an app.

Read my full article on ITBusiness.ca.

‘Fourth revolution’ driving Thomson Reuters’ upcoming tech centre, VP says [Portfolio]

Thomson Reuters earned a lot of buzz two months ago after announcing that it would create 1,500 jobs as part of a new technology centre in Toronto. But while that initiative is still taking shape, it’s actually part of broader strategy that includes a network of labs around the world, including existing facilities in Canada.

For example, the Canadian media/financial and legal information giant already has a lab in Waterloo, started more than two years ago, which Mona Vernon, the vice-president of Thomson Reuters Labs, said it’s part of the company’s strategy of associating itself with innovative ecosystems. In the case of Waterloo, that includes connecting with Communitech as well as local startups, while its data scientists leverage the technology corridor connecting that region to Toronto.

Read my full article on ITBusiness.ca.

Micron’s Successful Quarter Reflects 3D NAND Progress [Portfolio]

TORONTO — Financial analysts attending yesterday’s quarterly update from Micron Technology were congratulating the company on its strong numbers, but the real story might be that it’s mastered 3D NAND.

“What’s encouraging is where they are with their 3D NAND,” said Jim Handy, principal analyst with Objective Analysis. In a telephone interview with EE Times after Micron’s Q1 2017 conference call, he noted that other vendors, particularly Samsung, have struggled with 3D NAND, whereas Micron appears to making good progress. “Micron’s transition time is going to be longer than other technologies because they have to buy new equipment.”

That includes whole new factory in Singapore, noted Handy. “There’s something that eluded everyone else that Micron seems to have got right.” He speculates that its decision to use a floating gate process might have been a factor, as other vendors went the charge trap route. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised that Micron has shown everyone the need to go with floating gate instead of charge trap.”

Read my full article on EE Times.

New Consortium Drives Micron’s Xccela Bus [Portfolio]

TORONTO – Micron Technology’s recently launched Xccela Consortium is ostensibly aimed at promoting its high-speed, low signal count octal interface bus and ecosystem, but at least one early member of the group sees as also being necessary for unifying a fragmented market for NOR flash technology that supports the growing market for instant-on applications.

“Serial NOR flash has pretty much diversified over the past decade,” said Mike Chen, GigaDevice Semiconductor’s senior director of technical marketing, in an interview with EE Times. “Everyone has their ideas to and is designing their own product based on their customer needs. Everyone has their own ideas.”

This has led to complicated product lines, Chen said. Based on customer feedback from the field, he said having a standard would make his life much easier. “We see a need in this product line to have some sort of unification,” he said.

Read my full article on EE Times.

A CMO to Know: Kevin Suitor, TELoIP [Portfolio]

Kevin Suitor to didn’t set out to become a CMO, but his college co-op placement changed his intended career path. “I got the selling bug,” he says.

The newly appointed CMO of TELoIP Inc. went to Ottawa’s Algonquin College for electronics engineering and, thanks to one of his professors, found a co-op placement with Bell Canada that would put him down the path of sales rather than technology.

Read my full article on ITBusiness.ca.