We all love free stuff, so it’s no surprise that Canadians are pledging allegiance to a growing number of loyalty programs. However, many of us are not bothering to cash in on our rewards. A new report from Bond Brand Loyalty estimates that collectors are sitting on a whopping $16 billion worth of unused rewards points — that works out to a value of $629 per collector. The Mississauga, Ont.-based marketing agency surveyed 9,299 Canadians online in January and February. It found that 55 per cent of collectors don’t even know how many points they have,…
Read MoreAll Fossil-Fuel Vehicles Will Vanish In 8 years In Twin ‘Death Spiral’ For Big Oil And Big Autos, Says Study That’s Shocking The Industries | Financial Post
No more petrol or diesel cars, buses, or trucks will be sold anywhere in the world within eight years. The entire market for land transport will switch to electrification, leading to a collapse of oil prices and the demise of the petroleum industry as we have known it for a century. This is the futuristic forecast by Stanford University economist Tony Seba. His report, with the deceptively bland title Rethinking Transportation 2020-2030, has gone viral in green circles and is causing spasms of anxiety in the established industries. We are…
Read MoreTrump’s Wall Will Do Nothing To Block The 740,000 People Who Overstayed Their US Visa Last Year — Quartz
For years, the best—and virtually only—publicly released statistic tracking illegal immigration in the US has been the number of people caught at the southern border. Now, the US Department of Homeland Security is scrutinizing a lesser known type of undocumented immigrant: the one who comes in legally. In a new report released May 22, the agency has attempted to count the people who overstayed their visas in fiscal year 2016. The results tell a different story than the border apprehension numbers, and suggest that the US should broaden its singular…
Read MoreTax Worker Fired After Biggest Privacy Breach At Revenue Canada – Politics – CBC News
The Canada Revenue Agency has fired an employee for the biggest single privacy breach ever detected involving confidential taxpayer accounts. The employee improperly accessed the accounts of 38 taxpayers in detail, and briefly accessed another 1,264 accounts using a search function to find surnames and postal codes. The incident happened in an agency office in the Prairie region before March 23, 2016, when an investigation was launched, says an internal report. “No changes were made to any of the accounts,” says the document, obtained by CBC News under the Access…
Read MoreThe Older The Doctor, The Higher The Patient Mortality Rate, Study Finds | Ars Technica
The age of your doctor may impact the quality of the care you receive—and even cut your chances of survival—researchers report in the British Medical Journal. Harvard researchers looked over data on more than 700,000 hospital admissions of elderly patients cared for by nearly 19,000 physicians between 2011 and 2014. They found that mortality rates crept up in step with physician age. The stats are adjusted for a variety of variables, such as hospital mortality rates and severity of patients’ illnesses. All the patients were aged 65 or older and…
Read More‘Hard-To-Beat’ Distracted Driving Tickets Shock Drivers Who Think They’re Safe At A Stop – British Columbia – CBC News
Masoud Jahani was “shocked” when he lost a fight to overturn a distracted driving ticket he got for plugging his cell phone into a charger while stopped at a North Vancouver intersection in 2015. Jahani used his legal training and spent $700 appealing the ticket in B.C. Supreme Court but lost this month, because B.C.’s stringent distracted driving laws allow wide latitude for police to target any driver who touches or looks at a digital device. “How does this stop distracted driving? I’m exhausted. I’m not sure I’ll take it further…
Read MoreOil Prices As Little As 4 Years From Collapse Amid Historic Shift In Transport: Report
A new report from a Stanford University lecturer predicts oil prices could collapse permanently as soon as four years from now, as electric cars and ride-hailing fleets bring a rapid end to the age of the personal combustible-engine vehicle. The report points to a significant threat to Canada’s economy, dependent as it is on oil and auto manufacturing, but it also predicts “huge opportunities” for companies that jump into the new “transportation-as-a-service” industry. “We are on the cusp of one of the fastest, deepest, most consequential disruptions of transportation in…
Read MoreUS Utility Offers Clients Cheap Tesla Batteries For Grid Backup
For the first time, a power utility has teamed up with Tesla to use its battery packs for extra grid power during peak usage times. Vermont’s Green Mountain Power (GMP) is not only installing Tesla’s industrial Powerpacks on utility land, it’s also subsidizing home Powerwall 2s for up to 2,000 customers. Rather than firing up polluting diesel generators, the utility can use them to provide electricity around the state. At night, when power usage is low, they’re charged back up again. Green Mountain Power said the idea started after a…
Read MoreTrudeau To Promote Canadian Tech At Microsoft Summit | CTV News
VANCOUVER – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to pitch major multinational companies on investing in Canada’s technology sector on Wednesday, joining top business leaders inside the closed-door Microsoft CEO Summit in Redmond, Wash. Trudeau’s visit comes as U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration poses both challenges and opportunities for Canada’s high-tech industry. Trump’s “America First” rhetoric and his plans to slash corporate taxes could mean more investment flows south of the border, but his restrictive approach to immigration could draw talent north, experts say. Trudeau is the first sitting head…
Read MoreA Secretive Silicon Valley Tech Giant Set Up Shop In Canada. But What Does It Do? – Technology & Science – CBC News
It’s one of the most valuable and secretive technology companies in Silicon Valley: Palantir Technologies, a developer of data mining software used by spies, banks and some of the biggest companies in the world. The company was co-founded in 2004 by billionaire Peter Thiel — previously the co-founder of PayPal — and now an adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump. Financial institutions are said to use Palantir’s software to detect fraud and cyberattacks, while pharmaceutical researchers have been sold on its potential to more speedily discover new drugs. Hershey says…
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