Blockchain (the technology behind Bitcoin) is in a hype phase. It has been touted as the solution to many issues around trust. To some extent blockchain is still a solution in search of a problem. Blockchain will, however, become an important technology, and perhaps during 2018 we will begin to see some practical uses.

CASL, Canada’s anti-spam legislation, has been under review. It is a horrible law where the cost / benefit ratio is way off. Most small businesses simply don’t have the resources to comply. And no matter how hard they try, larger businesses have a difficult time complying . . . [more]

I’m sure you’ve noticed the fairly substantial increase in the buzz around artificial intelligence (AI) these days. And, generally speaking, I am at once intrigued and honestly sometimes a little frightened by what seems to be on our horizon.

Case in point. You’ve probably seen the recent Sophia sensation, the humanoid robot built by Hanson Robotics. Sophia is engaging, seems intelligent, has a sense of humour and made history in October when the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia granted “her” citizenship.

Hanson Robotics founder and CEO David Hanson’s approach to artificial intelligence is to create human-like robots that . . . [more]

A few days ago I returned to my office after a meeting to find emails and voicemails telling me that someone was sending facebook messenger messages pretending they were from me. The first message sent was an innocuous “Hello, how are you doing?” But if the recipient engaged it quickly turned into how I got a $300,000 government grant to pay off my bills, and tried to convince the recipient to send an email to “the agent in charge” to see if they were eligible. I suspect if followed through it would either ask for payment of a loan . . . [more]

Should laptops be banned in law school classrooms? Probably

In “Laptops Are Great. But Not During a Lecture or a Meeting“, Susan Dynarski writes that research shows that: “college students learn less when they use computers during lectures. They also tend to earn worse grades. The research is unequivocal: Laptops distract from learning, both for users and for those around them.”

Dynarski explains that when using a laptop students are focused on transcribing the lesson. They are not focussed on processing information. However, when they are using paper and pen students are focused on processing information. They have . . . [more]

The not-so-smart money has pushed the price of a Bitcoin well above US$6,000. The crash is inevitable. The first-mover “cryptocurrency” is based on an inefficient proof of work model designed for anonymous transactions on a public network. The next generation of blockhain developers, like those working on the Ethereum platform, are less interested in the ideology of anonymous transactions than the practicality of efficient business applications. Corporate adopters like the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance have already noted the pace of migration from anonymous public blockchain networks to a combination of public and permissioned private networks. Since “altcoin” currencies are not . . . [more]

The new iPhoneX is hot. So hot that in Hong Kong, where I’m currently located, they are selling them out of suitcases on the sidewalk for approximately CDN$2,000 and up (depending on the size).

One of the phone’s hottest features is that it allows for it to be unlocked, simply by looking at it. Here’s what Apple has to say about Face ID:

 

Much of our digital lives are stored on iPhone and it’s important to protect that information. In the same way that Touch ID revolutionized authentication using a fingerprint, Face ID revolutionizes authentication using facial recognition.

The US Department of Justice has declared that President Trump’s tweets are official statements of the President – at least in one case. In another, mentioned in the same ABA story, it is saying that they are not, at least to the point that the President can block people from his Twitter account.

What is your view? Are the posts subject to freedom of information laws and official records laws, so that they have to be preserved, they have to be accessible on request, they have to respect privacy rights?

There is a difference between politicians in government with official . . . [more]

OK, I’m going to talk about AI and unauthorized practice in just a second, but first…

Who can resist those stories with the teen genius? The wunderkind trope. That Dutch teen with the Boomy McBoomface contraption setting out to heal our polluted oceans. That Mark Zuckerberg fella circa 2004, with the other face thingy.

Who is not in awe of an uncalloused mind lit by bedazzling precociousness and disarmingly naive ambition?

Take Joshua Browder, for instance. He’s surely that kid—our teen wonder—for legal automation. He taught himself to code at age 12 and first came to glory two years . . . [more]

At the Can-Tech (formerly known as IT.Can) conference this week Mike Brown of Isara Corporation spoke about quantum computing and security. Within a few short years quantum computing will become commercially viable. Quantum computing works differently than the binary computing we have today. It will be able to do things that even today’s super computers can’t.

For the most part that is a good thing. The downside is that quantum computers will be able to break many current forms of encryption. So it will be necessary to update current encryption models with something different.

That may not be a simple . . . [more]

Anyone interested in cars and the data they will increasingly collect should read the article in the November Automobile magazine titled The Big Data Boom – How the race to monetize the connected car will drive change in the auto industry.

It talks about how much data might be generated (4,000 GB per day), how that sheer volume will be handled, and how it might be monetized. And the challenges of cybersecurity and privacy.

Auto makers are well aware of the privacy issues. Challenges will include how to deal with privacy laws that vary dramatically around the world. Will . . . [more]

To reduce the risk of hackers coming into government database through the Internet, the Government of Singapore has required all public service computers to be cut off from the Internet. Public servants are allowed to use the net from separate computers that are not connected to their government data.

Yes, that means that a lot of people will have two unconnected computers on the go at the same time.

This article explains the process and the reasons, in the words of the Prime Minister. who called the move “absolutely necessary.” He does admit in the article that if a . . . [more]

Addison Cameron-Huff is an active legal force in the Toronto tech community focused exclusively on the blockchain and internet startup space. He can often be found speaking at events and previously co-chaired OsgoodePD’s Critical and Emerging issues in Blockchain Law. He recently joined Decentral Inc., the company founded by Ethereum’s co-founder, Anthony Di Iorio.

As the world reacts to the uncertainty of cryptocurrency offerings, such as initial coin offerings, initial token offerings and sales of securities of cryptocurrency investment funds, many startups in the community are having discussions on what the future of Canadian innovation in the cryptocurrency . . . [more]