By David Farrell
Ontario commish to keynote at OAB
Monique Lafontaine, Ontario Commissioner, CRTC is the Keynote Luncheon speaker at this year's conference set for Nov. 8 at the Marriott Toronto Airport Hotel. Further detail on the OAB website.
Rogers, Fido and Bell call centre workers penalized for reducing plans
There's a reason telecom customer are often frustrated when they deal with a call centre — employees are penalized if they reduce or cancel a customer's services, so some try all kinds of tactics to avoid doing that. – Erica Johnson, CBC News
Canada urged to respond faster as digital landscape evolves
Critics say the federal government must act now to protect cultural industries from the threats posed by a rapid technological change. – Alex Ballingall and Alex Boutilier, Toronto Star
The new NAFTA (USMCA): What it means for Copyright Industries in Canada
Preservation was the name of the game for Canada’s negotiators and they largely succeeded in this goal. That is not to say that Canada was not required to make some concessions in order to hold onto what it wanted to protect… In the area of copyright, there were changes that are hard to characterize as concessions since they bring significant benefit to Canada’s creative industries, while also being on the list of US negotiating objectives. – Hugh Stevens Blog
Canada won’t act alone on new tax rules for digital giants: Morneau
Canada is pushing the G20 to speed up its timeline for setting new rules for taxing the digital economy, but will not act before an international consensus emerges.
The European Union and Australia are considering interim measures that would change the tax rules for large digital companies such as Amazon, Google and Facebook but Canada will not be joining those efforts. – Bill Curry, The Globe and Mail
Bell would suffer 'commercial harm' by running far-right candidate's election ad
A hearing today will consider whether a court can even hear Faith Goldy’s complaint that the broadcaster violated her constitutional right to freely express herself. – Joseph Brean, National Post
Stingray Business acquires DJ-Matic
Stingray’s commercial services division Stingray Business has acquired DJ-Matic, a provider of in-store media solutions (music, video, digital signage) for businesses with clients in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark. By joining forces, Stingray Business adds 10,000 locations to the count and acquires +25 years of experience in the European Entertainment and Music industry. -- Broadband TV News
IFPI report shows radio continues to be resilient
The massive study (available as a PDF download from the embedded headline) from the global music trade org reports that 86% of consumers listen to music on the radio.
Davos summit loses media, business support over missing journalist
Bloomberg, The Economist, CNN, the Financial Times, the New York Times and CNBC join Richard Branson in distancing themselves from the summit later this month as a sign of protest over the disappearance of a Saudi journalist, Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. – Thomson Reuters
These are the most crowded categories in Apple Podcasts
With more than 500,000 shows in the Apple Podcasts directory, it has never been more important to cut through the clutter and stand out from the crowd.
And if you want to stand out from the crowd, it helps to know what the crowd looks like. – Dan Misener, Pacific Content
Real-time translation rolls out to more Google Assistant-enabled headphones
At the moment, the real-time translation feature supports some 40 languages including English. The voice command "help me interpret..." then a language is enough to launch the Google Translate interface on the phone, with audio routed through the headphones and the phone speaker as you try and keep up a conversation. – David Nield, Tech Radar
How tech swagger triggered the era of distrust in government
Much of that early libertarian net culture—white, rich, smart, and full of "let's just geek around it" swagger when it came to government—has become mainstream in Western democracies in 2018. – Susan Crawford, Wired
How the wealthy will conquer the universe
“Once such superhumans appear, there are going to be significant political problems with the unimproved humans, who won’t be able to compete,” suggests the late physicist and author Stephen Hawking in The Sunday Times. “Presumably, they will die out, or become unimportant. Instead, there will be a race of self-designing beings who are improving themselves at an ever-increasing rate. If the human race manages to redesign itself, it will probably spread out and colonize other planets and stars.” – The Daily Galaxy
These 12 apps and services can help you ditch Google completely
Got a beef with Google?
After news of the Google+ fiasco, we know at least some of you do. But it's hard to leave Google — for most, Google powers much of our daily, digital lives. Its tremendous array of useful apps and services makes it really easy to stay with Google forever.
Luckily, a list recently appeared on ProductHunt — called "No More Google" — that provides "privacy-friendly alternatives to Google products." – Nick Bastone, Insider
