News You Need to Know

We love digital news and follow it closely. Here are some of the recent headlines in case you missed them!

Trudeau cabinet advised to do more to prevent digital media abuse in elections

NANAIMO, B.C. — Foreign and domestic actors will almost certainly abuse digital media to try to manipulate voters and undermine the integrity of Canada’s next federal election, experts are warning the Trudeau government.
But while there’s no silver bullet to prevent it, the government is being urged to implement at least two measures that experts say will help make Canadians less susceptible to manipulation: require online political advertisements to be totally transparent and require digital media to disclose every automated account or “bot” deployed to amplify political messages.
NATIONAL POST

Google Assistant: Say ‘Tell Me Something Good’ To Brighten Your Day

With social media and mobile devices, people are more exposed to the news than ever before. And with a lot of troubling news spreading lately, it makes people more vulnerable to anxiety and a negative outlook.
Researchers at Yale University coined this concept “the hope gap” — which is when people are more focused on a problem rather than the solution thus causing even more stress.
FORBES

Remote Inuit communities will benefit from first-time access to modern high-speed Internet

Nunavik residents to get new or faster Internet access thanks to investments from governments of Canada and Quebec
KUUJJUAQ, QC, Aug. 22, 2018 /CNW/ – Internet access is more than just a convenience: citizens, communities, businesses and institutions need it to find information, offer services and create opportunities. That’s why the Government of Canada is helping all of Nunavik’s 14 Inuit communities and 28 institutions get online with new or improved high-speed Internet access.
Stéphane Lauzon, Parliamentary Secretary for Sport and Persons with Disabilities, on behalf of the Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, announced a joint federal-provincial investment of $125.2 million in high-speed Internet today at the Kativik Regional Government office in Kuujjuaq. The Government of Canada, through the Connect to Innovate program, and the Government of Quebec, through the Ministry of economy, science and innovation, which mandated the Société du Plan Nord to carry out this project, will each invest $62.6 million in the project. The Kativik Regional Government will contribute $500,000.
CNW

Netflix is testing a payment feature to bypass Apple’s App Store fees

Netflix is testing an experimental feature that bypasses Apple’s App Store for sign-up fees. Some users are seeing that the iOS app won’t display a sign-up page to open a new account. Instead, Netflix will direct these users to pay via mobile webpage, eschewing Apple’s percentage cut of subscription fees, as spotted by TechCrunch.
Netflix and other apps currently pay Apple 30 percent of a user’s first subscription and 15 percent for renewals. The test began in June in ten countries and has expanded to 33 this month, but it will ultimately end by September 30th, a customer service representative told TC. The US apparently isn’t affected and neither is the UK, but users in countries like Canada, Australia, Mexico, and Japan are getting redirected to the mobile web when they try to open a new account. Netflix declined to officially confirm this information.
THEVERGE

Vancouver’s digital strategy awarded

The Canadian city of Vancouver has won a national award for its digital strategy. It won the large public sector transformation category in the 2018 IT World Canada Digital Transformation Conference and Awards.
Vancouver is the first city in Canada to develop and implement a digital strategy and the first to hire a chief digital officer. The four-year strategy, implemented in 2013, has enabled the city to go from having low digital maturity relative to other global cities to being a template and model for cities around the world looking to take their digital footprint to the next level.
SMART CITIES WORLD

In a bid to attract younger viewers to its TV channels and digital services, Bell Media Inc. has acquired the rights to a library of Vice Media programming as well as new shows airing on its U.S. network, Viceland – just months after Rogers Media Inc. ended its $100-million joint venture with Vice.
Rogers ended its deal with the New York-based media company in January, taking Viceland off the air in Canada and transferring its interest in a Canadian production studio back to Vice. According to sources, the TV station was losing money, struggled with low ratings and did not meet targets for subscriber growth, even though it was carried by all major cable and satellite companies in Canada.
GLOBE and MAIL