Android Pay has finally arrived in Canada

Jun04
by Shahid Sharif on June 4, 2017 at 5:44 pm
Posted In: NFC, Payments, Wallet

Today I was making some online purchases, and it suddenly occurred to me to check if Android Pay ever did make it to Canada. To my amazement, it launched on 31st May, 2017.

At the launch, MasterCard and Visa cards from following banks will be accepted:

Bank of Montreal (BMO)

Desjardins

National Bank of Canda (NBC)

Presidents Choice Financial

Alberta Treasury Branch (ATB)

Canadian Tire Financial Services (CTFS)

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC)

Scotiabank

With support for Debit cards arriving on 5th June.

As you can see none of the giants are participating at this point.

More details on Android Pay support in Canada here: https://support.google.com/androidpay/answer/7405561?hl=en

You will need Android devices running  v4.4 (KitKat) or higher  with NFC support to enjoy Android Pay.  It is also compatible with certain apps and online services too, allowing users to complete one-tap purchases.

Android Pay has been available in the U.S. since 2015.

Enjoy mobile payments.

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Google IO 2017 Sundar Pichai keynote highlights

May18
by Shahid Sharif on May 18, 2017 at 11:49 am
Posted In: Technology

Below are the highlights from Sundar Pichai’s keynote during the Google IO 2017 that was held on 17th May, 2017.

  1. YouTube: One billion users, who watch one billion hours of video daily.
  2. Google Maps: users navigate one billion kilometers every day.
  3. Google Drive: Launched in 2012, it has 800 Million+ users , there are three billion objects in google drive.
  4. Google Photos: Launched in 2015, has 500 Million+ users, every day users upload 1.2 billion photos.
  5. Android:  Two billion active devices.
  6. Mobile first to AI first.
  7. Smart Reply: Being released today to one billion Gmail users, machine learning systems learn to be conversational and automatically suggest response buttons.
  8. Voice and vision are two new modalities after keyboard and touch, to enable humans to interface with machine in natural in immersive ways.
  9. Speech Recognition word error rate is improving: July 2016: 8.5% , Oct 2016: 6.8%, Dec 2016: 6.1%, Current: 4.9%
  10. Two weeks ago Google Home started recognizing 6 individuals in a household, providing a personalized experience for each and everyone.
  11. Voice is becoming an important modality in Google products
  12. Google Photo can: Understand the attributes behind a picture, can improve quality of a low light, grainy picture, if there are obstructions in a picture, they can be automatically be removed.
  13. Google Lens: Being released today. Vision based computing capabilities, which will understand what you are looking at and help you take action based on that information. Will ship first in Google Assistant and Photos, and will come to other products later.
  14. Building AI first data center. Last year launched Tensor Processing Units(TPU), which are a custom hardware for machine learning .  They are 15 to 30 times faster and 30 to 80 times more power efficient than CPU’s and GPU’s at that time.  TPU’s are used across all Google products.
  15. Last years TPU’s optimized for inference.
  16. Cloud TPU’s are next generation TPU’s, each is optimized for training and inference.
  17. Each cloud TPU is capable of 180 Trillion FPU’s.
  18. A TPU pod is comprised of 64 Cloud TPU’s capable of 11.5 Petaflops.
  19. Cloud TPU’s are coming to Google Compute Engine as of today.
  20. Google is bringing all its AI efforts together in http://Google.ai, which is a collection of efforts and teams across the company focused on bringing the benefits of AI to every one. Will focus on: Research, Tools, Applied AI

Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2VF8tmLFHw upto 56:44 mark.

 

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Bell Security Alert

May16
by Shahid Sharif on May 16, 2017 at 5:26 pm
Posted In: Security

Received this Security Alert today from Bell:

I have not been a Bell customer for over 8 years and looks like they did not delete my account.  Wonder what their data retention policy is.

Bell
Vous trouverez la version française ci-dessous.
I am writing to inform you that Bell Canada was contacted by an anonymous hacker about the illegal access of customer information. Your email address was included in the information illegally accessed. We apologize for this situation.
Our investigation has found no indication that financial, password or other sensitive personal information was accessed. Bell has worked closely with government and law enforcement to investigate and analyze the situation. This incident is not connected to the recent global WannaCry malware attacks.
Bell believes there is minimal risk involved but there are appropriate general precautions to take to protect your personal data from fraudulent activity.
• Please note that Bell will never ask for your credit card or other personal information by email.
• Be cautious of unsolicited or suspicious communications asking for any personal information or that refer you to web sites that may ask for personal information.
• Avoid clicking on links or downloading attachments from emails you do not know or trust.
It is good practice in general to change your passwords and security questions frequently, and to review all your service and financial accounts for any suspicious activity.
For more information about cyber crime prevention, please visit the RCMP web site at Rcmp-grc.gc.ca, and the federal government’s cyber safety web site at Getcybersafe.gc.ca.
The protection of our customer and corporate information is of primary importance to Bell. We work closely with government agencies, the RCMP and other law enforcement, and the broader technology industry to combat the growth of hacking and other cyber crimes.
To learn more about this incident and how to protect your personal information, please visit Bell.ca/SecurityAlert or call us at 310-BELL.
Sincerely,
Wade Oosterman
Group President, BCE Inc. and Bell Canada
Je vous écris pour vous informer que Bell Canada a été contactée par un pirate informatique anonyme concernant l’accès illégal à des renseignements sur les clients. Votre adresse de courriel figure parmi les renseignements qui ont fait l’objet d’un accès illégal. Nous sommes désolés de cette situation.
Selon notre enquête, rien n’indique que des renseignements financiers, des mots de passe ou d’autres renseignements personnels sensibles auraient été piratés. Bell a travaillé en étroite collaboration avec les organismes gouvernementaux et les autorités policières afin d’examiner et d’analyser la situation. L’incident n’est pas lié aux attaques mondiales récentes du logiciel malveillant WannaCry.
Bell croit que le risque est faible, mais vous pouvez prendre certaines précautions générales pour protéger vos données personnelles contre les activités frauduleuses.
• Veuillez noter que Bell ne vous demandera jamais de fournir de l’information sur votre carte de crédit ou tout autre renseignement personnel par courriel.
• Méfiez-vous des communications non sollicitées et suspectes vous demandant de fournir des renseignements personnels ou qui vous renvoient à des sites Web qui pourraient vous demander ce type de renseignements.
• Évitez de cliquer sur des liens ou de télécharger des pièces jointes provenant d’adresses de courriel que vous ne connaissez pas ou qui vous semblent douteuses.
Il est recommandé de changer fréquemment vos mots de passe et vos questions de sécurité, et d’examiner tous vos comptes financiers et de services pour y détecter toute activité frauduleuse.
Pour obtenir de plus amples renseignements sur la prévention de la cybercriminalité, veuillez visiter le site Web de la GRC à l’adresse
rcmp-grc.gc.ca et le site Web du gouvernement fédéral sur la cybersécurité, à l’adresse pensezcybersecurite.gc.ca.
La protection des renseignements des clients et de l’entreprise est de plus haute importance pour Bell. Nous collaborons de près avec les autorités gouvernementales, la GRC et d’autres organismes d’application de la loi, ainsi qu’avec l’ensemble du secteur des technologies afin de combattre la croissance du piratage informatique et des autres types de cybercrimes.
Pour en savoir plus sur cet incident et apprendre comment protéger vos renseignements personnels, visitez Bell.ca/alertedesecurite, ou communiquez avec nous au 310-BELL.
Cordialement,
Wade Oosterman
Président de groupe, Bell Canada et BCE Inc.
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Did you know Windows10 has a key logger?

Mar25
by Shahid Sharif on March 25, 2017 at 5:25 pm
Posted In: Security

Windows10 seems to have a key logger enabled by default. The option says “Send Microsoft info about how I write to help us improve typing and writing in the future” and unlike Google Dashboard, there seems to be no option to delete your content that Microsoft has collected so far. Disabling it only prevents the collection of your typing after the option has been disabled.

You can read the Microsoft Privacy Statement here: https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement

To check or disable the key logger:

Click on Start, select Settings:

On the Windows Settings screen click Privacy (lock icon):


General is already selected, if not, click it:


Make sure this option is turned Off:


Good Luck!

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Protect your privacy by moving to the dark web

Jan08
by Shahid Sharif on January 8, 2017 at 11:57 am
Posted In: Privacy, Security

What is Dark Web?

It is an area of the internet that cannot be searched via famous search engines, like Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, etc. It forms a small part of the deep web, which serves the www content that exists on the darkents.

The darknets which make up the dark web include Tor, Freenet, and I2P.

Risks of using the Dark Web

Using the Dark Web also comes with its own risks.  The moment you start using the tools to get on the Dark Web, the security agencies get alerted and you end up on their priority list.

References

Link: Protect your privacy by moving to the dark web

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