A Vancouver police sergeant has become the first Canadian ALS patient to receive the Neuralink brain implant, as well as the first to undergo a new neurosurgery technique to insert the device. The news: On May 20, police sergeant Lee Marten underwent an experimental surgery at the University Health Network’s Toronto Western Hospital, becoming the…
Canadian e-commerce giant Shopify and Hong Kong-founded, Singapore-based competitor Shopline settled their copyright lawsuit this week. The news: Shopify sued Shopline two years ago, accusing the subsidiary of global tech firm Joyy of copying its e-commerce software “wholesale” to build a competing platform. The Ottawa company claimed Shopline infringed upon its copyright by producing and…
For years, quantum computing has been pitched as one of the next great leaps forward in technology. A 2026 McKinsey analysis suggests this new approach to complex problem solving could unlock nearly US$2.7 trillion in value by 2035, opening the door to breakthroughs in areas ranging from finance and transportation to new drug discovery, more…
Devi Narayan is a former investigator with the Toronto Police Service and is now CEO of Autnhive, a Canadian cybersecurity firm specializing in AI system security. I spent years as an investigator with the Toronto Police. I watched organizations pour money into firewalls, monitoring systems, and security audits to protect against cybercriminals. Breaches still happened,…
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM More than 1,300 people die from extreme heat in the United States each year. The events behind the worst of those deaths usually share the same explanation: a heat dome, a ridge of high atmospheric pressure that parks itself over a region and won’t move. Two are forming right…
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM A Stanford Medicine study has identified a protein that roughly doubles in aging joints and blocks cartilage from repairing itself. Blocking that protein in older mice regenerated hyaline cartilage across the joint surface. Human tissue samples from knee replacement surgeries responded the same way after just one week of…
If you read BetaKit’s latest newsletter, you already know that on Sunday we teased some upcoming changes. This is one of them. I’m happy to announce the launch of a second weekly edition of The BetaKit Newsletter. Landing in your inbox every Wednesday at 4:30 pm ET, it will offer more of the sharp, award-winning…
Cory Doctorow is an award-winning Canadian science-fiction author, journalist, and tech activist. He also coined the word that neatly summarizes the plight of modern tech: enshittification. Doctorow recently spoke at OCAD University as part of a workshop to help imagine more equitable and sustainable tech futures. His call to arms (elbows?) has been abridged with…
Alex Tapscott is the CEO of CMCC Global Capital Markets, Co-founder of the BRI and the co-author of the institute’s report Rebuilding Canada for the New Technology Order, published June 16. Today, we celebrate Canada Day. While Canadians rightly mark our Confederation in 1867 as our founding, only in 1879 did Sir John A. Macdonald…
Happy Canada Day! On this special day, we have another special episode of The BetaKit Podcast just for you: an hour-long sit-down with Canada’s AI Minister, the Honourable Evan Solomon. “Either we build the innovation here with our entrepreneurs, or we buy it from someone else. And either we make the rules here, or we…
