Go Ahead, Snooze Your Alarm. New Study Says It Actually Isn’t That Bad | CNET

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We’ve all been tempted by the snooze button once or twice, especially when we want to steal a few more moments of precious sleep. A 2022 study by Notre Dame found that 57% of adults regularly snooze their alarms. If you’re also a habitual snoozer, have you ever considered if this habit is detrimental to your health? New research into the impact of snoozing challenges conventional wisdom, suggesting that it might not be that bad after all. Read full story here: Go Ahead, Snooze Your Alarm. New Study Says It…

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Canadians continue to choose terrible passwords. Does yours make the list? | Global News

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It’s no secret that 2023 is going down as a bit of a dumpster fire, so is it any surprise that people are still using garbage passwords? Despite being told time and time again that we should all be using stronger, more creative passwords to protect our online information and data, many Canadians are still using the weakest passwords possible, new research shows. Password manager NordPass has discovered that of the 200 most common passwords used worldwide this year, about 70 per cent can be cracked in under a second.…

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Data broker’s “staggering” sale of sensitive info exposed in unsealed FTC filing | Ars Technica

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One of the world’s largest mobile data brokers, Kochava, has lost its battle to stop the Federal Trade Commission from revealing what the FTC has alleged is a disturbing, widespread pattern of unfair use and sale of sensitive data without consent from hundreds of millions of people. US District Judge B. Lynn Winmill recently unsealed a court filing, an amended complaint that perhaps contains the most evidence yet gathered by the FTC in its long-standing mission to crack down on data brokers allegedly “substantially” harming consumers by invading their privacy.…

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Nova Scotia Power wants customers to foot leftover $25M Fiona bill | CBC News

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Post-tropical storm Fiona may be in the rear-view mirror but it’s still on the front burner for Nova Scotia Power. The company is stuck with a $24.6-million bill that it says is threatening its profits. This week Nova Scotia Power asked regulators for permission to collect $24.6 million in Fiona-related operating costs — like meals, travel and overtime — from ratepayers over an unspecified period of time. It is the first time the company has asked the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board (UARB) to defer so-called operating, maintenance and…

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Posthaste: The Canadian dollar is getting hammered — and its future looks even bleaker | Financial Post

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So what’s up with the Canadian dollar? While many thought the currency would strengthen in 2023, the loonie has slid to depths not seen since the height of the pandemic. (This morning it was trading near a 6-month low of 72.43 US cents) A big part of this mystery is that the drivers of the currency have changed. When a hawkish Bank of Canada was raising interest rates it supported the loonie, but now that the slowing economy has reduced the risk of more hikes, new drivers are taking over.…

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Windows 11’s huge 2023 Update is available now: Here’s what’s new | PCWorld

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Mere days after Microsoft released the Moment 4 Update for Windows 11 users, adding numerous new features and improvements to Windows 11 version 22H2, the company also unleashed the huge annual Windows 11 2023 Update (also known as Windows 11 version 23H2). “Because Windows 11, version 23H2 shares the same code base and servicing branch as Windows 11, version 22H2, this feature update will be delivered via Windows Update (as with the monthly update process) to enable a quick installation,” Microsoft explains. Read full story here: Windows 11’s huge 2023…

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Why A Few Bad Quarters Won’t Spell Doom For The Electric Car Revolution | InsideEVs

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If you went into 2023 thinking this year would mark the permanent rise of electric vehicles along some perfect, up-and-to-the-right growth curve, a gloomy tide of recent news may have you wondered how and when, exactly, you ended up in the Twilight Zone. In just the past few weeks, General Motors had a disastrous Q3 earnings call where it abandoned its goal of building 400,000 EVs by mid-2024, announced a delay of more electric models and even hit pause on a new battery plant. Read full story here: Why A…

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What the evolution of our own brains can tell us about the future of AI | engadget

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The explosive growth in artificial intelligence in recent years — crowned with the meteoric rise of generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT — has seen the technology take on many tasks that, formerly, only human minds could handle. But despite their increasingly capable linguistic computations, these machine learning systems remain surprisingly inept at making the sorts of cognitive leaps and logical deductions that even the average teenager can consistently get right. Read full story here: What the evolution of our own brains can tell us about the future of AI |…

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Police in Canada look into tech that accesses your home security cameras | CBC News

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An officer looks at a screen showing a network of security cameras from people’s homes and businesses around the city, which can be watched all at once, in real-time. They access areas from which emergency calls come in, or scenes of crimes. That’s how policing is done in some U.S. cities — and police forces in Canadian cities are looking into it. “We foresee a progression for the Hamilton police to incorporate this technology in the future, however there are currently no timelines for implementing this,” Jackie Penman, a spokesperson…

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How an award-winning Halifax professor nurtured a network of battery entrepreneurs | CBC News

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They call themselves the “Dahn lab” graduates, and they’re powering an unlikely, Halifax-based research hub for batteries designed to replace fossil fuels. At the tightly wired network’s heart is Jeff Dahn, a professor of chemistry and physics at Dalhousie University, who on Oct. 9 was presented with the Olin Palladium Award from the Electrochemical Society for a lifetime of working to improve rechargeable batteries. The prestigious prize has previously been won by Nobel laureates. According to the award citation, the 66-year-old researcher is an author or co-author of 78 inventions…

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