The tax credits that helped turn Canada into a gaming powerhouse are now reaching a much broader range of companies. Today, provincial Interactive Digital Media Tax Credits, or IDMTC, can apply to businesses developing everything from training simulators to immersive software platforms, reflecting just how much the definition of “digital media” has changed over the…
Wealthsimple is officially wading into the prediction markets game with a standalone app this summer. The news: The Toronto FinTech company announced today that it’s releasing Wealthsimple Predict, an app that would give many Canadians their first taste of legal prediction market trading—a type of financial trading that allows users to bet on specific outcomes….
A year after launching, June Health has secured $2.4 million CAD as it looks to sell more businesses its employee benefits platform tailored to women. The news: Toronto-based femtech startup June Health announced on Thursday that it closed $2.4 million in pre-seed financing from insurance provider Securian Canada, Montréal’s AgeTech Capital, the co-founders of Canadian…
During a weekend in February, Geoff Teehan decided to try his hand at vibe-coding. Despite having limited coding experience and never building anything like this by himself before, the longtime Canadian product designer was able to develop and publicly launch a relatively polished game within a matter of hours using AI tools. Color’s interface is…
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM So many of us participate in the same morning coffee ritual: the machine warming up, the pressure building, the crema settling into the cup. It’s such a fixed sequence that it’s hard to imagine any part of it changing. But against the odds, researchers at the University of New…
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM High fruit intake is associated with many wonderful health benefits, like protecting our lungs from air pollution and lowering diabetes risk. But did you know it’s also linked to a seven percent lower risk of breast cancer? The compounds driving that association, according to Natalie Ledesma, M.S., RDN, an…
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM The California grid has a timing problem. Solar runs from mid-morning through early evening. Demand peaks later. Batteries have bridged part of that gap for years, but only about four hours’ worth. On June 1, a project in Kern County doubled that window. Tumbleweed, a 125-megawatt battery installation, went…
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM A dam fell in Iceland last December, the first the country has ever deliberately dismantled. The structure on the River Melsá had long since stopped generating power. Sheep were living in the old powerhouse. “It wasn’t providing any electricity,” said Hamish Moir, a river engineer from CBEC, the Scottish…
Shopify’s latest major product update brings in brick-and-mortar options for purchase pickups and returns while simultaneously continuing the company’s push into agentic commerce. The news: The spring 2026 iteration of the biannual Shopify Editions newsletter, called “The Everywhere Edition,” was released on Wednesday with over 150 product updates to the Shopify platform. In addition to…
Montréal’s NorthStar is helping a division of Canada’s air force track threats in space ahead of its anticipated public offering this fall. The news: The space tech company, founded in 2015, announced an agreement today with the Royal Canadian Air Force’s 3 Canadian Space Division (3 CSD) worth more than $40 million CAD over 12…
