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Canadian Business - Your Source For Business News

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The rise of artificial intelligence is both celebrated and feared. At once a testament to human ingenuity that promises to revolutionize the way we live and work, AI threatens to make untold numbers of jobs obsolete. PwC, for example, estimates nearly 40 per cent of jobs in the U.S. are at risk due to automation, especially in the transportation, manufacturing and retail industries. Earlier this year, senior deputy Bank of Canada governor Carolyn Wilkins warned of job losses and greater income inequality stemming from AI and robotics, though she expects these technological developments to eventually create more jobs than they replace. The disruption caused by AI has also been on the mind of Daniel Pink lately. As the author of six books on work and human behaviour, Pink was somewhat early to the discussion about the impact of automation on white-collar work. In 2006, he wrote A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, which outlined the skills workers need to stay employable in an increasingly outsourced and automated era. Canadian Business spoke to Pink, who will speak at the upcoming 2017 GREAT CEOs Speaker Series in Mississauga, ON about why he's ultimately optimistic that adoption of AI will be positive for society and the future of work.
You recently gave a talk on "surviving" in the age of automation, which implies a threat. So what exactly is the threat?
My argument is we are in a shift from one economic era to another. I'm in my early 50s, and I grew up in the American midwest. People of my generation were raised to believe a certain set of rules about how to get ahead: Get good marks in school, go to university, and pursue a profession that's going to give you some amount of economic security. In terms of skills and abilities, what employers wanted were logical, linear, spreadsheet abilities. Today, those skills are still absolutely necessary, but they're no longer sufficient. Now it's abilities that we've overlooked and undervalued that matter most: Empathy, design thinking, inventiveness, big picture thinking. There are some forces in the world tilting the skills in favour of these more artistic, empathic, big-picture skills.

MORE: How tech firms are racing to perfect conversational artificial intelligence
Okay, what forces?
One is offshoring of white-collar work. In the short run it hasn't had much of an impact, but in the long run it's going to have a huge impact. Think about a place like India. If a tiny portion of India's population reaches college educated, upper-middle class status, say 5 per cent-that's like 65 million people. Think about that. That's double the population of Canada, competing with Canadians for jobs. The other threat is automation. In the last generation, machines replaced our backs and our muscles. Now artificial intelligence and machine learning is replacing parts of our brains-the logical, linear part. You can go online and get an uncontested divorce for like 200 bucks, for example. If I go to a lawyer, it's going to cost 2,000 dollars. And the lawyer isn't doing anything with an uncontested divorce. So this nudges us into a fundamentally different economic era, where the central economic actors are not knowledge workers but creators and empathizers. People who can do stuff that's hard to outsource, hard to automate and that augments machine intelligence rather than replaces it.
What kinds of jobs are you talking about?
When you talk about it at the level of professions, it's really hard. In the same way that 15 years ago, we didn't think there would be jobs for search engine optimizers or social media consultants. It's more about the content of work. Let's take something like a financial advisor. That person needs knowledge of asset allocation, but the truth of the matter is a lot of that kind of thing has become commoditized. If that financial advisor is going to survive, what is she going to do? She needs to have greater amounts of empathy, understand where her client is coming from. That person needs to be very good not at the reductive task of problem solving, but at the more creative, complex task of problem finding. Can you see around corners? Can you identify issues that your client doesn't face now but might face in the future?
You've mentioned empathy a few times. Why will that be more important in terms of employment?
Machines have a very difficult time-actually, human beings are not that great at empathy to begin with. Machines are even worse. There's some really good research out of Harvard showing that the fastest growing job categories in the U.S. required math skills and social skills. Jobs that require just math skills are easy to automate. They're routine jobs. But the jobs that require math skills and social skills-communication, working with others, all of these things you're supposed to learn in kindergarten, those end up being valuable because they're very hard to reduce to code or assign on a spec sheet to people living overseas.

MORE: Canada could be an A.I. powerhouse-if we can halt the field's brain drain
There's a huge a focus on teaching kids to code at a very young age in North America. Is its importance overblown?
I don't know, but learning how to code without social skills is not a good recipe. Number one, having good social skills helps you understand what people want and need. You could be an expert in coding something that is irrelevant to people's lives. Second, in the design of most complex software, it's a collaborative process. You have to be willing to work with other people, and have the give-and-take of saying, "My code isn't as good as yours. Let's use yours."
There's a lot of debate about how many jobs will be lost to AI, and the displacement it will cause. How concerned are you about that?
This is not the first transition we've made. The same thing happened when North America went from agriculture to industry. This is just another one of those transitions. But in every one of these transitions there's been hew and cry about how jobs are going to be lost, there will be widespread unemployment, this scorched earth of despair, and it's never come true. What it does signal to me is that it underestimates human ingenuity. When I was growing up in Ohio, there was talk of moving from a manufacturing economy to a services economy. My father was like, "That's nonsense. We're going to have an economy where everyone is running around giving each other haircuts? That's not an economy." He didn't envision this whole world of e-commerce consultants, or Facebook consultants or even something like massage therapists. If past is prelude, it's not going to be this widespread devastation that a lot of people predict. I don't know for sure. My saying that represents a leap of faith. It's not because I'm a crazy optimist; it's just that's how it's usually been.

MORE: Meet Botler, an A.I. chatbot that helps people immigrate to Canada
But surely there are industries and people who will lose as AI becomes prevalent.
Oh, there's no question about that. There's going to be huge dislocation. There was dislocation when we went from manufacturing to the information age. We did a terrible job dealing with it. That's why you have cities that are completely hollowed out. We didn't have the social safety net to keep people from falling into despair, and we didn't have the mechanisms to help people retool. Here's what we should be concerned about: The most common job in most states in the U.S. is truck driver. If you have self-driving cars, you'll have a lot of people out of work. That is a huge issue. At some level, it's a slow-moving crisis, and we don't respond well to slow-moving crises. We need to look at this the same way we look at Hurricane Harvey or Irma. We say, "This is terrible, we can't let people suffer," and we respond immediately. But the possibility that we could have one million unemployed truck drivers in 10 years, we don't approach those problems with the same sense of urgency.
So why are you still optimistic?
To continue with this example, the chances are that self-driving cars will lead to a whole array of industries and professions that you and I can't envision right now. In general, it's going to be a net positive to the economy. But there are going to be a lot of people suffering. And the United States has done a terrible job dealing with that. We'll need a structure for continuous learning, to help people retool and re-skill to make their way.

Daniel Pink is speaking on The Cascade Effect: How Small Wins Can Transform Your Organization on October 19 at the Mississauga Convention Centre as part of the 2017 GREAT CEOs Speaker Series.
MORE ABOUT ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE:

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Here's why we shouldn't fear artificial intelligence

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The rise of artificial intelligence is both celebrated and feared. At once a testament to human ingenuity that promises to revolutionize the way we live and work, AI threatens to make untold numbers of jobs obsolete. PwC, for example, estimates nearly 40 per cent of jobs in the U.S.

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Gamification

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Gamification

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Gamification is a business tool representing a whole new direction for achieving the goals you have set for your company. But small businesses have been shying away from it because of the emphasis on large, global enterprises deploying the technology. That's too bad because gamification is a tool small businesses can easily implement to create innovative programs allowing them to compete with large brands.

So What is Gamification?

The simplest definition of gamification is: a process for integrating game mechanics into something that already exists to motivate participation, engagement and loyalty. This can be almost anything, from your website to social media presence, day-to-day operations, customer engagement and more.

Gamification introduces game design elements into non-game applications to make them more fun and engaging. It uses competition, points, achievement, rules of play, status and self-expression to encourage actions through positive feedback.

What is Game Mechanics?

The components of a game are called game mechanics. And as it applies to gamification, the right set of game mechanics are used to engage or motivate the user.

The following 10 game mechanics are used in gamification for applications in different combinations to accomplish the desired goal. They are:

What Gamification is Not

Gamification is not the creation of games for business application. According to Bunchball, a leader in gamification solutions, it is "About amplifying the effect of an existing, core experience by applying the motivational techniques that make games so engaging."

Gamification Solutions

Founded by Rajat Paharia in 2007, today Bunchball supplies solutions for companies including Warner Bro., EA, Adobe, SAP, T-Mobile and many more. But its services it offers can also be used by small businesses.

Some of the other companies providing gamification solutions are: MLevel, LevelEleven, Badgeville, and Intuitive. There are vendors specializing in different segments, including sales, education and customer loyalty.

Most of these companies and others have a free trial period with limited features. If you want a free solution you can also try OpenBadges. Developed by Mozilla, it is an open source platform for creating and issuing badges to your employees after they go through a training or achieve a milestone.

Examples of Gamification

Samsung Nation is another example of gamification. The company rewards its users with badges as they progress through different levels of achievement. The badges and levels are given after users create content, watch videos, review products, engage with their community and other activities.

Again while Samsung is a large enterprise, it is important to note the vast majority of these solutions can be applied by a small business. This is because users are interacting with the same technology - a smartphone, tablet or PC. It doesn't matter how large your company is. Gamification can work both as a way to improve your team and engage potential customers

What is more, many small businesses are already using different aspects of gamification, without knowing it. If you give a coupon for an email address and have loyalty cards, those are forms of gamification.

How can Gamification Help Small Businesses?

Gamification delivers proven and tangible results, which can be measured with the analytics tools most vendors provide. This one is from Bunchball.

Businesses have experienced an increase in engagement across social media, both internally and externally. This includes things like more website traffic, lower times for adoption and conversions from free trial to purchase, and reduction in onboarding time.

However, there is also a downside if not managed properly. Gamification creates high-levels of expectation, which can be responsible for a false set of incentives. Additionally, gamification should compliment any other systems you have in place and not replace it. And last but not least, the motivation has to be more than money. This is especially true for millennials, who have different sets of motivation than previous generations.

Conclusion

In order for a gamification solution to be successful, it has to be well designed, executed and maintained. The methods have to be varied, and the information it provides has to be used to improve not only your business, but the application itself. Gamification is not a panacea that will magically make everything better. But it has proven tools for improving the engagement level of employees and customers can also be fun and engaging.

More in: compete with large brands Photo via Shutterstock What Is

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What is Gamification and How Can It Help My Business? - Small Business Trends

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Gamification is a business tool representing a whole new direction for achieving the goals you have set for your company. But small businesses have been shying away from it because of the emphasis on large, global enterprises deploying the technology.

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Changed the article
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-downside-of-legalization-more-potheads/

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https://www.canadianbusiness.com/innovation/should-we-fear-artificial-intelligence/

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https://www.canadianbusiness.com/innovation/should-we-fear-artificial-intelligence/

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Artificial Intelligence

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Artificial Intelligence and predictive algorithms will shape the future of regulatory work. But if the machines behave badly, is the upside worth it?

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) and predictive algorithms used to be science-fiction technologies of the future. Now, they're prevalent in our everyday lives, transforming the way we live, whether we know it or not.

From applications in health care, finance, transportation, security, market research and social media, AI is a wide-ranging tool that often works in the background, allowing us to process, translate and apply information to improve the way we do things.

The promise of the next generation of digital tools is powerful. Indeed, for areas of social good, like health and public safety, it has the potential to be the ultimate social-equality tool. Because if we can predict where and when we might be harmed, then taking care of people just got a whole lot easier.

Technical Safety B.C. is using a proprietary predictive algorithm that assists and supports clients and safety officers in reducing the number of safety incidents in the province.

As a regulator overseeing the safe installation and operation of equipment and systems, Technical Safety B.C. assesses equipment and systems that over four million British Columbians use daily. From SkyTrain, to electrical systems in condo buildings, to hot-water boilers in schools, elevators in malls and more.

Five years ago, we questioned how we could improve our processes to reduce the number of incidents and to better locate hazards before they become harmful.

We realized quickly that the relationships between our clients and our safety officers are crucial to informing better safety behaviour, whether it's through educating clients on best practices, being a resource to answer questions or working with them to correct hazards found.

To improve how we can better locate safety hazards, we developed an in-house computer algorithm known as the Resource Allocation Program (RAP). This algorithm uses permit and inspection data from our own safety officers and a simple model to prioritize work for safety officers with the focus on the areas where the highest potential risks would lie.

As part of RAP's machine-learning process, each and every time our safety officers assess the work and equipment on a site, they record a data point on their findings that the algorithm then uses to adjust or confirm the accuracy of its safety prediction. This is how AI works - with a continuous feedback loop - just as we do as people, continuously adapting based on the latest information. That's why it's called machine learning.

Machines are tools to help humans. And we use machine learning in exactly that way. As a tool.

We have since developed new models for RAP using the latest machine-learning technology, and have seen it adapt even more quickly to reflect emerging risks. Our teams continually work on improvements through testing to see how machine learning could enhance our approach. Our tests showed that through machine learning the algorithm's prediction of high-hazard electrical sites improved by 80 per cent.

But what if machines behave badly?

Recent reports in the media of rogue algorithms show us that, left unmonitored, machine learning can recreate and reinforce biases and cause undue harm.

We think algorithms working for the public good should meet an extremely high ethics test, to ensure that they meet the highest test of accuracy, are free from undue bias and that those using them as tools are also offered a role in designing in protections to meet societies' values. In other words, that there is "a human-centred" approach.

When we first introduced the concept of using algorithms and machine learning to help with our decision-making, our own employees voiced concerns that the new automated prediction algorithm could create privacy issues. That it might miss or misjudge risks; or that reliance on algorithms might displace human jobs.

To address these issues Technical Safety B.C. employees and local AI ethics consultancy, Generation R, worked to introduce an ethics roadmap that lays out a framework for using data and advanced algorithms to expand on the safety system in B.C. This is leading-edge work, even raising the interest of a UN committee on the use of machine learning.

As humans, we are all challenged with working in a world full of changing complexities. For Technical Safety B.C., our clients and stakeholders are moving forward, adopting digital solutions in their own businesses and facilities. Alongside their rigour, we must be proactive in seeking solutions to reduce the number of technical safety hazards and improve how we mitigate risks. Embracing technology and leveraging the latest AI tools to better assist our safety officers and clients is the natural next step in helping us deliver on safety services.

Artificial intelligence is often met with hesitation. Certainly, its implementation requires special consideration to ensure the adoption into an organization's work flow goes smoothly. But when applied with consideration, this technology can provide the tools to better connect an organization to its purpose - with accuracy, efficiency, and with a moral code.
Catherine Roome is president and CEO of Technical Safety B.C. CLICK HERE to report a typo. Is there more to this story? We'd like to hear from you about this or any other stories you think we should know about. Email vantips@postmedia.com.

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Catherine Roome: Meeting the challenge of artificial intelligence with safety in mind

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Artificial Intelligence and predictive algorithms will shape the future of regulatory work. But if the machines behave badly, is the upside worth it? The use of artificial intelligence (AI) and predictive algorithms used to be science-fiction technologies of the future. Now, they're prevalent in our everyday lives, transforming the way we live, whether we know it or not.

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I'm done with artificial intelligence. I will settle for human intelligence. Preferably smart human intelligence.

Our access to human intelligence - let's call it HI - is increasingly limited in our online environment. Humans have become a rare species, accessed only after hours wasted waiting on the phone.

Recently, I applied online for the Power Smart rebate on my new, energy-efficient heat pump that purrs away on the wall in my Saturna Island home. The rebate can be as much as $800, so it's worth the effort to claim it.

I scrolled through the thickets of information on the B.C. Hydro web page and finally located heat-pump rebates, but I couldn't get past Page 1. I tried several times, but was blocked from completing the form.

Maybe an internet problem, I thought. Our internet server is on a neighbouring island across the Salish Sea in America. Maybe Trump is mad at Trudeau again over the stalled NAFTA talks.

But after several days of online frustration, I called Hydro, and after an hour's wait on the phone for customer service, contacted a dumb human. I told him my online problem, asked him for a postal address so I could apply for the rebate by snail mail, and gave him my account number.

"We don't give out postal addresses," said dumb human, "you must apply online. What is your account number?"

I told him and asked for his name. "I don't give out my name," he said. "What is your account number?"

"Well, I am offended by your tone of voice," dumb human huffed. "I will ask a techie to contact you within two business days. What is your account number?"

It was Friday. Two days would delay my application until the following Tuesday. I hung up.

Our Canada Post postmistress is a smart human. I took the Hydro bill up to the post office at the general store and showed it to her.

"I can see the problem," said the smart human. "Canada Post has the wrong postal code on your account. It says you live on Galiano Island, not Saturna. That's why you can't complete the online application when you use your correct postal code."

Wondering whose hydro bill I'm paying on Galiano, I returned home and googled Hydro's president's office, searching for a smart human who could help me collect my rebate. The web page showed a postal address - 333 Dunsmuir St., Vancouver, B.C. - but no phone number. I still couldn't complete the heat-pump rebate application and the deadline was ticking closer.

Several days later, I received an email from a Hydro employee suggesting the problem could be the postal code, and instructed me to use the one on file to process the application.

"Our record shows VON XXX as the premises address. Please try to use this with account number YYYYYYYY," the email stated. (I have changed the numbers to protect the innocent, namely me.)

"That's a dumb idea," said the smart human postmistress when I told her Hydro's instructions. If I knowingly used a wrong address to solicit money through the mail, I could face possible mail-fraud charges.

When I emailed this information to the Hydro employee, I received a snail-mail application form online as fast as you can hit a "reply" button, along with the employee's Hydro office address and her assurances that the postal-code error had been corrected.

I printed the form, filled it out with the correct postal code and sent it by Priority Post. A day or so later, the employee phoned me to say she had received the form and that the heat-pump rebate, along with the Priority Post cost, was being processed as we spoke.

Smart human intelligence saved the day again.
Former Canadian senator and cabinet minister Pat Carney will be reading from her best-selling, short-story collection ON ISLAND: Life Among the Coast Dwellers at the North Shore Writers Festival on April 21 at the West Vancouver Memorial Library. Her talk is entitled: How to Write a Bestseller without Porn, Sexual Misconduct or Shoot-em-up - Bang Bang. CLICK HERE to report a typo.
Is there more to this story? We'd like to hear from you about this or any other stories you think we should know about. Email vantips@postmedia.com.</p

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Pat Carney: Artificial intelligence versus human intelligence

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I'm done with artificial intelligence. I will settle for human intelligence. Preferably smart human intelligence. Our access to human intelligence - let's call it HI - is increasingly limited in our online environment. Humans have become a rare species, accessed only after hours wasted waiting on the phone.

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Chiara & Huy ( Global Warming: Climate change

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cop 21: un climate change conference | paris

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The Trump administration has entered Stage 5 climate denial | Dana Nuccitelli

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Dana Nuccitelli: If we're already doomed to disastrous climate change, then there's no reason to cut carbon pollution, argues the Trump administration

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Chiara & Huy ( Global Warming: Climate change ) 

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Chiara & Huy ( Global Warming: Climate change ) 

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Leading climate scientists paint dire portrait of years to come if we maintain carbon-emission status quo

smithsonian.com

Today, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report on the forthcoming impacts of climate change. The consensus? It's not looking good. As Jonathan Watts of The Guardian reports, unless the world makes some drastic and immediate changes to combat the damage already done, hundreds of millions of people may be irreversibly imperiled by drought, flooding, extreme heat and increased poverty in the decades to come.

Three years ago, nations in the Paris agreement issued a pledge reduce greenhouse gases with the stringent goal of limiting the rise in temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels, circa the 1850s. But scientists and climate researchers alike were quick to vocalize their doubts about the practicality of this cap. In fact, this goal felt so infeasible that a second was proposed in tandem: aiming to stall at a 2-degree-Celsius (3.6-degree-Fahrenheit) rise, which scientists then considered the threshold for the most severe effects of climate change, reports Coral Davenport for The New York Times.

But evidence in the new report, in which a team of 91 scientists from 40 countries analyzed over 6,000 scientific studies, shows that the future is bleaker than once thought. A 2-degree-Celsius rise in temperatures would spell widespread disaster. Even if the world manages to shave off that extra 0.5 degrees, we'll still be well on our way to flooded coastlines, intensified droughts and debilitated industries. A seemingly small 1.5-degree-Celsius bump in temperature would also alter weather worldwide, wreaking havoc on agriculture and natural ecosystems, and cost about $54 trillion in damages, according to the report. Because agriculture is the leading source of income in already poor countries, it's likely that a crippling wave of poverty would ensue.

To make matters worse, the world is already clocking in at 1-degree-Celsius warmer than preindustrial levels, which means we're more than halfway there. At the rate we're going, global temperatures are set to hit the mark by 2040-unless a lot changes, and fast.

"Limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is possible within the laws of chemistry and physics," energy policy expert Jim Skea of Imperial College London, one of the authors of the report, explains to Christopher Joyce at NPR. "But doing so would require unprecedented changes."

Among them would be a 40 to 50 percent reduction in emissions by 2030-a mere 12 years from now-and a completely carbon-neutral world by 2050. Usage of coal as an electricity source would also have to take a significant plunge to make room for renewable energy, such as wind and solar, Davenport reports.

Climate scientists warn that these goals probably won't be met without some serious new technological firepower designed to suck greenhouse gases back out of the air. Considering that such techniques could save us even in the event that we overshoot the 1.5-degree-Celsius mark, this route sounds pretty appealing. There's just one problem: We still have to invent and conventionalize some of these tools before we can actually put them into use, Joyce reports.

Currently, a few experimental methods exist that can snatch carbon dioxide directly out of the air, but at up to $1,000 per ton of carbon dioxide, the price tag of such carbon capture is staggering-and billions of tons await extraction.

"The best way to remove carbon dioxide from the air," explains MIT engineer Howard Herzog in his book Carbon Capture, is "to not release it into the air in the first place," Joyce reports.

But the hurdles to clear aren't just technological. As Davenport reports, the new study's authors have already conceded that dampening the rise in temperature is probably " politically unlikely." President Donald Trump announced intent to withdraw from the United States from the Paris agreement in 2017; it is now the only country publically opposing the accord. A recent U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report estimated that maintaining the administration's current course will yield a 4-degree Celsius (7-degree Fahrenheit) rise in temperature for the planet as a whole by the end of the current century. The report explicitly acknowledges the human impact on climate, but instead uses the data to justify continued non-action. In other words, the administration is arguing that our " fate is already sealed," reports The Washington Post.

Hitting the 1.5-degree-Celsius goal won't be easy. But saving a mere half-degree could make a huge difference in some parts of the world. For instance, it could pull corals back from the brink of complete eradication-an inevitable fate with a 2-degree-Celsius rise-and ease the severity of climate-related poverty, food shortages and water stress, Watts at The Guardian reports. And with scientists and government officials raising global alarm bells, perhaps there is hope that we can yet forestall the devastation.

"We have a monumental task in front of us, but it's not impossible," study co-author and climate scientist Natalie Mahowald of Cornell University tells Joyce at NPR. "This is our chance to decide what [the next 50 years] will look like."

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About Katherine J. Wu

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The World Was Just Issued 12-Year Ultimatum On Climate Change

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smithsonian.com Today, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report on the forthcoming impacts of climate change. The consensus? It's not looking good. As Jonathan Watts of The Guardian reports, unless the world makes some drastic and immediate changes to combat the damage already done, hundreds of millions of people may be irreversibly imperiled by drought, flooding, extreme heat and increased poverty in the decades to come.

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A smarter smart city

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On Toronto's waterfront, where the eastern part of the city meets Lake Ontario, is a patchwork of cement and dirt. It's home to plumbing and electrical supply shops, parking lots, winter boat storage, and a hulking silo built in 1943 to store soybeans-a relic of the area's history as a shipping port.

Torontonians describe the site as blighted, underutilized, and contaminated. Alphabet's Sidewalk Labs wants to transform it into one of the world's most innovative city neighborhoods. It will, in the company's vision, be a place where driverless shuttle buses replace private cars; traffic lights track the flow of pedestrians, bicyclists, and vehicles; robots transport mail and garbage via underground tunnels; and modular buildings can be expanded to accommodate growing companies and families.

An aerial view shows the land to be included in Quayside, the tech-centric neighborhood Sidewalk Labs and Waterfront Toronto plan to build.

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In the early 2000s, so-called smart cities were all the rage. Captivated by the idea of urban districts that would use technology to reduce energy consumption and pollution, make transportation more efficient, and lure affluent tenants, countries including China, South Korea, and the United Arab Emirates hired developers to transform large swaths of land into photogenic cities stuffed with the latest innovations.

"All of our thinking and decisions on Quayside are shaped by the question 'What do 21st-century technologies enable us to do better?'"

All fell short of their lofty ambitions. Sidewalk Labs, which was founded in 2015 as a subsidiary of Alphabet to develop technology for alleviating urban problems, believes it can buck the trend by working closely with the community and tailoring the technology to local needs. "People have been trying to build the city of the future for more than 100 years," says Rit Aggarwala, the executive in charge of Sidewalk Labs' urban-systems planning. "But we really want to tap into [Toronto's] existing vitality and character."

The neighborhood, called Quayside, is Sidewalk's first big project. It will start life on a 12-acre plot mostly owned by Waterfront Toronto -a local development agency founded by Canada's federal, provincial, and municipal governments-and is expected to house an estimated 5,000 people. Later development could expand to a neighboring 700-plus-acre parcel of industrial waterfront and involve tens of thousands of residents. "All of our thinking and decisions on Quayside are shaped by the question 'What do 21st-century technologies enable us to do better?'" says Aggarwala.

Driverless cars will have a big role. Sidewalk assumes they will navigate more precisely and obey traffic laws more consistently than human drivers, so it wants to put narrower lanes in Quayside and carve out more room for sidewalks and parks. In theory, using shared self-driving vehicles will mean that fewer people need to own cars, saving families a projected $6,000 a year.

Sensing and monitoring public activity accurately and frequently will be key. Running autonomous buses on city streets requires knowing when to change lights and other signals to give cyclists and pedestrians priority.

Sidewalk Labs says the sensor information would also support long-term planning. The data would fuel a virtual model of Quayside, which urban planners could use to test infrastructure changes quickly, at low cost, and without bothering residents. It could also be stored in a shared repository that entrepreneurs and companies could draw on to make their own products and services for Quayside.

Waterfront Toronto issued a request for a partner in March 2017 and announced its choice of Sidewalk Labs in October. The two organizations now have a year to decide what technologies to deploy, which companies besides Sidewalk will provide them, and how to finance the project. Sidewalk has pledged to spend $50 million on the first phase of planning, which has already kicked off, and pilot testing, which is scheduled to begin later this year. Construction could start next year.

"If Quayside is successful, cities in Canada and elsewhere won't have any choice but to emulate it, because it would have enormous implications in terms of sustainability and quality of life," says Christopher De Sousa, who directs the school of urban and regional planning at Ryerson University in Toronto.

City as smartphone

Unsurprisingly for a company spawned, in part, by technologists, Sidewalk thinks of smart cities as being rather like smartphones. It sees itself as a platform provider responsible for offering basic tools (from software that identifies available parking spots to location-based services monitoring the exact position of delivery robots), much as Google does with its smartphone operating system, Android. Details are still under discussion, but Sidewalk plans to let third parties access the data and technologies, just as developers can use Google's and Apple's software tools to craft apps.

In fact, Sidewalk anticipates that 80 percent of the work on Quayside will involve these third parties. Some are likely to be other Alphabet companies, such as the autonomous-vehicle maker Waymo, but Sidewalk has said that competitors such as the ride-hailing provider Lyft would be able to operate in Quayside, too.

That will help Sidewalk tailor its products to cities around the world. "If you think of the city as a platform and design in the ability for people to change it as quickly as you and I can customize our iPhones, you make it authentic because it doesn't just reflect a central plan," Aggarwala says. "It also reflects the people who live and work there."

Ubiquitous sensors

One way Sidewalk Labs differs from Google and Android is the way it plans to make money. The startup is still figuring out its business model, but it has said it expects to license the technology it produces for Quayside to other cities, rather than compile consumer data and use it to sell ads. Still, many people are worried about privacy given the data Quayside plans to harvest. In recent months, Canadian newspapers and blogs have published a number of skeptical articles, including a list of more than 35 probing questions about Sidewalk Labs' business model and data governance methods.

"If Quayside is successful, cities in Canada and elsewhere won't have any choice but to emulate it."

Most of the scrutiny relates to the company's plan to install sensors across Quayside to measure everything from building occupancy to sewage flow rates to how often a public waste bin is used. The company is also devising a system that would give Quayside residents and workers a quick way to pay for things and gain access to services, similar to the way people can buy products off Amazon with a single click or get billed for Uber rides through an app.

Though Sidewalk Labs says the data would be used for a community purpose, such as giving transit discounts to low-income residents, regulating building temperatures, and keeping trash cans from overflowing, not everyone is convinced. "There are definitely questions about whether Sidewalk Labs will try to make money by tracking people's daily interactions," says David Roberts, who studies cities at the University of Toronto. "What data will be collected, how personal will it be, how will it be used, and who will have access to it?"

Aggarwala says Sidewalk will gather only the data needed to solve the problem at hand. If the company wanted to analyze pedestrian patterns in Quayside, it could employ a lidar device, which uses light from a laser to detect objects; or a camera with very low resolution; or one that counts people who walk by but doesn't store the images. "That way you can capture the information you need but not anything that can be traced back to an individual," he says. "I think if we can do that and demonstrate how that can improve urban life, then people will be comfortable and give us the license to do it."

TRASH ROBOTS
Sidewalk Labs proposes transporting garbage in underground tunnels to reduce street traffic and greenhouse-gas emissions. Robots would sort and haul the waste and could also deliver mail and packages.

Waterfront Toronto says it will hold Sidewalk accountable for explaining to the public what personal data it collects and why, and how it keeps the information secure. It will require that the data be stored in Canada. The agency also says that Sidewalk Labs won't share Quayside data with Google automatically, even though Google may contribute technology to the project through its maps or cloud computing services.

To win residents over, Sidewalk Labs and Waterfront Toronto held a town hall meeting in November and will have neighborhood discussions, expert roundtables, and design competitions in the coming months. The project will succeed only if it convinces Torontonians that it offers solutions to urban problems, especially since the city's downtown population is expected to almost double, to nearly half a million people, over the next 20 years.

"Quayside can't be a rich person's enclave or a detached tech corridor," says Will Fleissig, the head of Waterfront Toronto. "It should be a place where anyone would want to work, hang out, and raise a family."

Sidewalk Labs clearly has some skepticism to overcome. But if it can demonstrate that intense data-gathering really does enhance urban living, it could provide a model for smart cities around the world. Says Matti Siemiatycki, an expert on geography and planning at the University of Toronto, "With these folks, what's intriguing is the sky's the limit in terms of their imagination, the scale they dream at, and the resources they have at their fingertips."

Credit

Illustrations by Martina Paukova

Elizabeth Woyke Senior Editor, Business

What is the future of work when AI, automation, and on-demand services are altering how we define what a job is and who qualifies as an employee? As the senior editor for business, I'm focused on writing stories that explore this important question.... Other areas of interest include new models for workforce training and education, how companies are increasing employee diversity and inclusion, and startups that are developing innovative workplace tools and technologies. I began my career at More Time Asia, followed by staff jobs at BusinessWeek and Forbes. More recently, I co-authored an e-book for O'Reilly Media about the gig economy and wrote a book called The Smartphone: Anatomy of an Industry, which was published in 2014.

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On Toronto's waterfront, where the eastern part of the city meets Lake Ontario, is a patchwork of cement and dirt. It's home to plumbing and electrical supply shops, parking lots, winter boat storage, and a hulking silo built in 1943 to store soybeans-a relic of the area's history as a shipping port.

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Wearable technology.
https://www.wareable.com/wearable-tech/tap-strap-keyboard-3866
https://www.wareable.com/news/jawbone-health-and-apple-watch-support-6557

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A new online tool puts everything Edmonton has to offer right at your fingertips.

Edmonton Tourism partnered with Utrip, an artificial intelligence recommendation engine for travel, which allows users to tailor a dream vacation within minutes.

The technology uses traveller's interests and budget to sort through options including arts and culture, food and drink and "must-see" local spots.

Edmonton Tourism's Renée Williams told 630 CHED's The Ryan Jespersen Show it doesn't get much more personal than Utrip.

"It tailors the itinerary to the user," Williams said. "If arts and culture is your thing and that's all you want to do when you get [to Edmonton] you rank that super high and then you're going to be served up all of those opportunities."

READ MORE: Edmonton Tourism looking for 'YEG Experts' to personalize visitor experiences

The technology, which launched on Tuesday, is just as much for local and regional visitors as it is for people from around the world.

"They visit for the weekend, spend some time and check out the attractions and local hotspots and head back home when they're done," Williams said.

Founder and CEO of Utrip Gilad Berenstein said the technology is constantly evolving.

"Every single day a traveller uses the platform it understands them better and becomes more personal. If you go back tomorrow or next week, you will see the experience becoming even more accurate."

You don't need an account to get started, but there is a benefit.

"Once you've [created an account] it will start to serve up new itineraries and new options for you every single time you log in based on what you put in before," Williams said.

READ MORE: Edmonton makes Travel + Leisure's international list of 50 places to travel in 2018

According to Berenstein, it seems weekend travellers are more focused on nature, food and drink-centered trips, while those staying longer are more interested in history and art.

"Traveller engagement is quite high. They dream and discover - what's available, does it fit with my budget? Then travellers become more detailed and...they think about what type of trip they want to have," Berenstein said.

This is the Seattle-based company's first partnership with a Canadian city.

"The Canadian market has always been really exciting to us. Canada is a really desirable place to travel," Berenstein said. "Edmonton is forward-thinking and innovative and decided to be our first Canadian partner, we're very excited about it."

READ MORE: Edmonton partners with Chinese tech incubator on program to expand business opportunities

You may be seeing the technology available for other Canadian cities soon. Berenstein said his company is in talks with Calgary and Vancouver.

You can plan your Edmonton adventure here.

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Edmonton becomes 1st Canadian city to use artificial intelligence travel tool

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A new online tool puts everything Edmonton has to offer right at your fingertips. Edmonton Tourism partnered with Utrip, an artificial intelligence recommendation engine for travel, which allows users to tailor a dream vacation within minutes. The technology uses traveller's interests and budget to sort through options including arts and culture, food and drink and "must-see" local spots.

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Group mate: Sara
Topic: What's pro and cons of owning pets for children.

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Why Pets Help Kids

Children love their pets-and for good reason. Creatures large and small teach, delight, and offer a special kind of companionship.

Everyone knows that kids love animals. A quick safari through your child's bedroom will remind you just how densely imaginary critters populate the storybooks, movies, music, toys, decor, and clothes of childhood. In real life, the amount of money we spend on our pets has nearly doubled in the past 10 years, rising to more than $38 billion, according to the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association. That figure dwarfs the toy business ($23 billion) and candy industry ($24 billion).

Overall, an estimated 4 in 10 children begin life in a family with domestic animals, and as many as 90 percent of all kids live with a pet at some point during their childhood, says Gail F. Melson, PhD, professor emeritus of developmental studies at Purdue University, in Indiana, and the author of Why the Wild Things Are: Animals in the Lives of Children.

When I was growing up, I always had at least one dog padding beside me on every adventure, and my wife was raised on a farm. So we planned all along to make animals a part of our child's life, and we are delighted by how enthusiastically our daughter, Natalie, has embraced pets. Her natural zeal and passion for critters of all kinds has led to our current menagerie of one German shepherd, three cats, a freshwater aquarium, a confoundingly long-lived tank of mail order Sea-Monkeys, and, because we live on 4 1/2 acres of Pennsylvania woods, an endless series of cameo appearances by turtles, mice, moles, frogs, toads, tadpoles, ducks, geese, and slugs-to name just a few of the creatures that have come to visit.

All these beasts have been beneficial to Natalie's development, but we've been surprised by how wide-ranging those benefits have been. Like most parents, my wife and I counted on the commonsense idea that having pets around would help teach our daughter responsibility, and maybe empathy. But we've also learned that the presence of animals in our house helps foster her emotional, cognitive, social, and physical development. And I've discovered there's plenty of solid evidence to back that up.

Here are five reasons to let the fur fly in your home.

How Pets Help with Learning

While book groups are the rage among her mother's friends, Natalie has her own reading tribe: We often find her curled up in her bed or lying in a den of blankets in a quiet nook of the house, reading to one or more of her cats. She pets them as she reads, stops to show them pictures and ask them questions. She even reassures them during scary parts of the story.

That's no surprise, says Mary Renck Jalongo, PhD, education professor at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and author of The World of Children and Their Companion Animals. Educators have long known that bringing therapy animals (mostly dogs) into schools helps developmentally challenged kids learn. Now they are finding that all children can benefit from the presence of a nonjudgmental pal with paws. In one study, children were asked to read in front of a peer, an adult, and a dog. Researchers monitored their stress levels, and found that kids were most relaxed around the animal, not the humans. "If you're struggling to read and someone says, 'Time to pick up your book and work,' that's not a very attractive offer," Dr. Jalongo says. "Curling up with a dog or cat, on the other hand, is a lot more appealing."

How Pets Provide Comfort

In another study, children were asked what advice they would give less-popular kids for making friends. The top answer didn't focus on a cool toy or must-have sneakers. It was: Get a pet. Whether a hamster or a horse, Dr. Jalongo says, an animal gives a child something to talk about and a shared interest with other kids.

Animals are also a great source of comfort. Dr. Melson asked a group of 5-year-old pet owners what they did when they felt sad, angry, afraid, or when they had a secret to share. More than 40 percent spontaneously mentioned turning to their pets. "Kids who get support from their animal companions were rated by their parents as less anxious and withdrawn," she says.

How Pets Encourage Nurturing

Dr. Melson began studying the impact of pets in order to learn how human beings develop the ability to care for others. "Nurturing isn't a quality that suddenly appears in adulthood when we need it," she says. "And you don't learn to nurture because you were nurtured as a child. People need a way to practice being caregivers when they're young."

In our modern world, there's little opportunity for kids to provide for other living things aside from pets. "In many other countries, siblings look after one another, but in the U.S. that's not culturally acceptable," Dr. Melson says. "It's actually illegal in many states to leave kids in the care of anyone who is under 16 years of age."

So how are the seeds of good parenting skills planted during childhood? Dr. Melson believes one way is through pets. In her research, she tracked how much time kids over age 3 spent actively caring for their pets versus caring for or even playing with younger siblings. Over a 24-hour period, pet-owning kids spent 10.3 minutes in caregiving; those with younger sibs spent only 2.4 minutes.

"Nurturing animals is especially important for boys because taking care of an animal isn't seen as a 'girl' thing like babysitting, playing house, or playing with dolls," Dr. Melson says. By age 8, girls are more likely to be involved than boys in baby care both inside and outside their homes, but when it comes to pet care, both genders remain equally involved.

How Pets Keep Kids Healthy

No expert on earth-not even the perky owner of the Happy Tails Grooming Salon a few blocks from my home-will go along with my theory that there's a direct link between Natalie's relatively small number of ear infections (two) and the number of cats in our home (three). So, okay, I'm probably wrong in thinking that felines lower a child's risk of otitis media. But there is reason to believe that animals can help protect kids from at least some illnesses.

According to a study by Dennis Ownby, MD, a pediatrician and head of the allergy and immunology department of the Medical College of Georgia, in Augusta, having multiple pets actually decreases a child's risk of developing certain allergies. His research tracked a group of 474 babies from birth to about age 7. He found that the children who were exposed to two or more dogs or cats as babies were less than half as likely to develop common allergies as kids who had no pets in the home. Children who had animals had fewer positive skin tests to indoor allergens-like pet and dust-mite allergens-and also to outdoor allergens such as ragweed and grass. Other studies have suggested that an early exposure to pets may decrease a child's risk of developing asthma.

No one knows for sure why this is the case, but Dr. Ownby has a theory: "When a child plays with a dog or a cat, the animals usually lick him," he says. "That lick transfers bacteria that live in animals' mouths, and the exposure to the bacteria may change the way the child's immune system responds to other allergens."

How Pets Build Family Bonds

One of the biggest benefits of having pets is often unexpected, even for parents who grew up around animals: They can help families grow stronger and closer. "Whenever I ask children and parents if their pets are truly part of the family, most of them seem surprised-and almost offended-at the question," Dr. Melson says. The most common response: "Of course they are!"

A pet is often the focus of activities that families do together. Everyone takes the dog for a walk, or shares in grooming and feeding him, or gets down on the floor and plays with him. There are even benefits from simply watching a cat chase his tail or a fish swim in his tank. Spending time like this offers the wonderful potential of slowing down the hectic pace of modern life. If someone asks what you've been doing, you might respond "nothing." And in this era of overscheduled children and parents who are constantly on the go, "nothing" can be an important thing to do.

More info:

All content on this Web site, including medical opinion and any other health-related information, is for informational purposes only and should not be considered to be a specific diagnosis or treatment plan for any individual situation. Use of this site and the information contained herein does not create a doctor-patient relationship. Always seek the direct advice of your own doctor in connection with any questions or issues you may have regarding your own health or the health of others.

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Children love their pets-and for good reason. Creatures large and small teach, delight, and offer a special kind of companionship. Everyone knows that kids love animals. A quick safari through your child's bedroom will remind you just how densely imaginary critters populate the storybooks, movies, music, toys, decor, and clothes of childhood.

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A new survey released by Tinder suggests that being single has never been cooler! It's so cool that it's , even, like the bottle of pinot grigio in your fridge that you don't have to share with bae now, because there's no such thing as bae. Except possibly the pinot is bae? IDK! Anyway, the point is that if a dating app is telling you that flying solo is the way to go, you know it's legit.

The survey in question, conducted by consulting firm Morar HPI, asked over 1,000 single 18-25 year olds about their attitudes on singledom and dating. The results are fascinating-so much so that they inspired Tinder's new "Single Is a Terrible Thing to Waste" campaign, promoting the single life as aspirational and adventurous in its own right.

Seventy-two percent of those surveyed said they'd made a conscious decision to be single "for a period of time." So much for the shameful loner stereotype, TBH! Not only that, but 81% of respondents also agreed that being single benefitted them "beyond their romantic lives." More room for growth at work, platonic friendships, and personal wellness were all cited as upsides to being un-cuffed.

The survey also revealed interesting data about single women in particular. Results showed that around 25% of women say they feel empowered about not being in a relationship, whereas that number is only 17% for men. It appears that single millennial women are increasingly more willing to prioritize their own needs ahead of dating, when compared to men. Sixty-two percent of women surveyed said they'd made a conscious decision to be single to prioritize their own needs (compared to 47% of men), and 47% of women specifically said they'd chosen to be single to focus on studying (compared to 34% of men.)

And when it comes to actually settling down, young millennials have THOUGHTS. In fact, 55% of those surveyed thought that other fellow singles were more fun and open to experiences than those in relationships. The fear of becoming boring in a relationship was A Very Real Thing for 39% of respondents in particular.

The fear of being with the wrong person was also front and center. According to the survey, 61% of women who felt uneasy about long-term relationships said they were worried they'd be settling with someone for the wrong reason-something only 46% of men agreed with. While 50% of women not hot on LTRs also said that they didn't want to lose their independence, only 46% of men suggested that for a reason to stay single.

As someone who very much thinks they're at their best when they're single, these numbers definitely track. I'm willing to bet my dog's life on the fact that I get way more social invites when I'm, you know, actively bitching about being alone versus when I'm dating someone consistently (and actively bitching about them). And I'm just sparklier when I feel untethered to a partner! Or maybe that's just what I tell myself to fall asleep at night alone- who knows???
Follow Carina on Twitter.

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According to Tinder, Millennials Actually Like Being Single

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A new survey released by Tinder suggests that being single has never been cooler! It's so cool that it's , even, like the bottle of pinot grigio in your fridge that you don't have to share with bae now, because there's no such thing as bae. Except possibly the pinot is bae?

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Kirin Rong

Fellow Presenter: Yongmin Lee & Brain
Topic: Cannabis in Canada

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Legal cannabis is upon us and the nation's parents are paranoid.

More accurately, they are concerned, according to a survey commissioned by OrganiGram Inc., a Canadian medical marijuana producer, that they lack the resources necessary to educate their kids about the risks involved in lighting up, getting high, or as we said in my day, "blazing."

According to the Canadian Science Policy Centre, "the percentage of Ontarians over 50 who used cannabis in the past year nearly tripled over the last 10 years, and rose fivefold since 1977." (Richard Vogel / AP)

Three out of five parents surveyed by OrganiGram are "concerned about legalization," and 54 per cent "say there is not enough information available about risks."

Risks involved in cannabis consumption include but are not limited to mood changes, impaired memory, impaired driving, delusions, eating everything in the fridge (expiration dates be damned) and, if you're a teen who lives in the suburbs, spending way too much time hanging out in Tim Hortons parking lots - take it from someone who spent the greater part of her adolescence in one, these fears are understandable. But they may also be misplaced.

They may be misplaced because it's hard to believe that teens (many of whom have been smoking pot illegally for years) will be in significant danger come legalization day in October - or that they will be significantly more stoned.

In fact, the opposite may be true. According to federal government research in the U.S., regular marijuana use among teens in Colorado actually declined after the state legalized cannabis sales.

Canadian parents then may want to shift some of their concern away from their adolescent progeny and lay it on a different set of family members: their aging parents.
Read more: Survey finds 24% of millennials would consider getting high with their mom once pot is legal Auto association launches campaign to warn young people against driving stoned Emma Teitel | Opinion: Why parents dreading legal weed should consider chilling out
According to another study, this one published in 2016 by the Society for the Study of Addiction, "the prevalence of cannabis use has increased significantly in recent years" among, guess who, U.S. adults 50 years and older. And according to the Canadian Science Policy Centre, "the percentage of Ontarians over 50 who used cannabis in the past year nearly tripled over the last 10 years, and rose fivefold since 1977."

When you think about it, this makes perfect sense.

Teens don't care and never did care that smoking weed is socially acceptable. The prospect of legalization isn't likely a huge incentive for adolescents who are attracted to drug use in part because it's frowned upon.

But respectability is a major incentive for older people who want to use cannabis but who aren't rule-breaking types.

It may follow that unlike teenagers who already use cannabis frequently, older people who haven't used it in decades but who want to smoke up in their golden years are potentially at a higher risk of abusing the substance. (It's also worth noting that baby boomers are used to the less potent pot of their youth, and have been known to exclaim upon inhaling modern day marijuana "geez, that's strong!")

However, this problem doesn't just occur around smoking strong weed, but eating it too.

According to the CBC, which published an investigation on cannabis overdose this month, a man in his late 50s recently collapsed at a Toronto jazz bar after ingesting a cannabis edible. In the words of the bar supervisor who witnessed the incident (which he originally assumed was the result of a heart attack or stroke), the collapsed bar patron "had eaten a (cannabis) edible and just couldn't handle it."

At the risk of being labelled ageist, I predict that if legalization harms any one demographic it won't be rebellious teens, but older Canadians who buy their first gram in 35 years and discover the stuff packs a punch stronger than they had anticipated and heavier than they can handle.

Perhaps a series of government PSAs is in order that specifically target seniors who want to get stoned, but who fancy themselves too experienced to abuse marijuana. Be advised: you're never too old to have a bad trip.

Emma Teitel is a columnist based in Toronto covering current affairs. Follow her on Twitter: @emmaroseteitel

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With cannabis legalization, it's not the teens we have to worry about. It's seniors | The Star

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Legal cannabis is upon us and the nation's parents are paranoid. More accurately, they are concerned, according to a survey commissioned by OrganiGram Inc., a Canadian medical marijuana producer, that they lack the resources necessary to educate their kids about the risks involved in lighting up, getting high, or as we said in my day, "blazing."

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Fellow Presenter: Yuichi

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NEW YORK - Therapy dogs can bring more than joy and comfort to hospitalized kids. They can also bring stubborn germs.

Doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore were suspicious that the dogs might pose an infection risk to patients with weakened immune systems. So they conducted some tests when Pippi, Poppy, Badger and Winnie visited 45 children getting cancer treatment.

They discovered that kids who spent more time with the dogs had a 6 times greater chance of coming away with superbug bacteria than kids who spent less time with the animals. But the study also found that washing the dogs before visits and using special wipes while they're in the hospital took away the risk of spreading that bacteria.

The results of the unpublished study were released Friday at a scientific meeting in San Francisco.

One U.S. health official said the findings add to the growing understanding that while interactions with pets and therapy animals can be beneficial, they can also carry risk.

"Whether covered in fur, feathers or scales, animals have the potential to carry germs that make people sick," said Casey Barton Behravesh of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Pet therapy can help people recover from a range of health problems. Past studies have shown dogs or other animals can ease anxiety and sadness, lower blood pressure and even reduce the amount of medications some patients need.

But there have been episodes of the superbug MRSA riding around on healthy-looking therapy dogs.

MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria, often live on the skin without causing symptoms. But they can become more dangerous if they enter the bloodstream, destroying heart valves or causing other damage. Health officials have tied MRSA to as many as 11,000 U.S. deaths a year.

The bacteria can spread in daycares, locker rooms and military barracks, but public health efforts have focused on hospitals and nursing homes.

The Baltimore study looked at 45 children who interacted with the four dogs - petting, hugging, feeding or playing with them - over 13 visits in 2016 and 2017.

Among kids who had no MRSA, the researchers found the superbug on about 10 percent of the samples taken from those kids after the dog visits. They also found MRSA on nearly 40 percent of the samples from the dogs. The researchers also determined that the more time someone spent with the animals, the greater the chance of ending up with the bacteria.

The researchers think the dogs were generally clean of MRSA when they first came to the hospital, but picked it up from patients or others while they were there, said one of the authors, Meghan Davis.

"Our hypothesis is it's really person-to-person transmission, but it happened through contact with the fur," said Davis, a Johns Hopkins public health researcher and veterinarian.

Under hospital protocols, therapy dogs must be bathed within a day of a visit and are checked for wounds or other health problems. Children who see them are supposed to use hand sanitizer "but that wasn't strictly enforced," said Kathryn Dalton, another one of the researchers.

Later in the study, the researchers asked the dogs' owners to bathe the animals with a special shampoo before the visits. They also had the dogs patted down every five to 10 minutes with disinfecting wipes at the hospital.

Those steps dramatically decreased the bacteria level on the dogs, Dalton said.

She hopes further study will show that such cleanings can reduce any risk of superbug infection.

"I really had the opportunity to see how important these dogs were to the patients," Dalton said. After the sessions with the dogs, the kids "would say how much this made their day."

___

The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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Therapy Dogs Can Spread Superbugs to Kids, Hospital Finds

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NEW YORK - Therapy dogs can bring more than joy and comfort to hospitalized kids. They can also bring stubborn germs. Doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore were suspicious that the dogs might pose an infection risk to patients with weakened immune systems. So they conducted some tests when Pippi, Poppy, Badger and Winnie visited 45 children getting cancer treatment.

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Facebook is launching the first electronic device to bear its brand, a screen and camera-equipped gadget intended to make video calls easier and more intuitive.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Facebook is launching the first electronic device to bear its brand, a screen and camera-equipped gadget intended to make video calls easier and more intuitive.

But it's unclear if people will open their homes to an internet-connected camera sold by a company with a questionable track record on protecting user privacy.

Facebook is marketing the device, called Portal, as a way for its more than 2 billion users to chat with one another without having to fuss with positioning and other controls. The device features a camera that uses artificial intelligence to automatically zoom as people move around during calls.

Since Echo's release nearly four years ago, both Google and Apple have followed Amazon in releasing smart speakers designed for use with their other digital services -- some of them, at least. These speakers can serve as hub-like controllers for "smart" homes as people install appliances, lighting and security systems that can be controlled over the internet.

Portal represents Facebook's entry into that fray. But pointing an artificially intelligent camera into peoples' homes could well raise other privacy questions.

"The first thing consumers are going to wonder is 'how much sensitive data is this collecting about me?"' said John Breyault, vice-president of public policy of telecommunications and fraud at the National Consumers League, a Washington-based consumer advocacy group that has received donations from Facebook and other tech companies.

On Monday, Twitter users were quick to point to Facebook's privacy fallacies and what they saw as the company's impudence in asking people to trust it with a camera called Portal inside their homes. Some compared it to the always-on, always-watching telescreens in George Orwell's dystopian novel "1984." Others saw the gadget's appeal -- but not if it comes from Facebook.

It's a particularly trying time for Facebook to release a home camera. Earlier this year, the company had to acknowledge that as many as 87 million people may have had their data accessed by Cambridge Analytica, a data mining firm that worked for the Trump campaign and aimed to use the data to influence elections. More recently, Facebook revealed that hackers managed to pierce its security to break into 50 million accounts .

Facebook says it won't "listen to, view or keep the contents " of video calls, adding that the Portal camera won't use facial recognition or identify people in the video calls. The device will allow users to disable the camera and microphone with a single tap and to lock it with a numerical passcode. There's also a physical camera cover to prevent recording.

Portal will not display Facebook ads "at this time," the company said, although it noted that third-party services such as music streaming might embed their own ads the same way they do on other devices.

The company says Facebook's privacy policy applies to Portal, since it uses Messenger for voice and video calls. Facebook executives have repeatedly said that the company does not use the contents of messages or calls for advertising purposes and will not do so in the future. Still, there are other, less direct possibilities for the future.

"This is going to gain (Facebook) not only a place in the smart home, but also data they may not have been able to collect before or understand before," said ABI Research analyst Jonathan Collins. This includes people's location, activities and interests -- "all the reasons companies want to get into the home."

That said, Facebook says Portal does not collect any information about people's home, listening only for voice commands. The camera, when enabled, detects people as they walk into the room but does not identify specific people or record anything about people's homes, according to Facebook.

Facebook will offer Portal in two sizes -- a $199 model with a 10-inch horizontal screen and a $349 "Plus" version with a 15.6-inch screen that can switch between vertical or horizontal orientations.

Both models also include an internet-connected speaker that features Amazon's voice-activated digital assistant, Alexa. Portal connects calls through Messenger, meaning that it can reach people who don't have a Portal themselves. And since Messenger can be used without a Facebook account, Portal users won't need a Facebook account to use it -- only Messenger.

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Ortutay reported from New York.

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With new device, Facebook wants people to invite its cameras into their homes

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Facebook is launching the first electronic device to bear its brand, a screen and camera-equipped gadget intended to make video calls easier and more intuitive. SAN FRANCISCO -- Facebook is launching the first electronic device to bear its brand, a screen and camera-equipped gadget intended to make video calls easier and more intuitive.

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Fellow Presenter: Yongmin Lee & Kirin Rong
Topic: Cannabis Legalization

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After the last week or so of avoiding questions about whether marijuana would indeed be legalized by summer as planned, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed last Thursday that the process will not be delayed. Some senators have called for a one-year deferment to allow for further consultation with Indigenous groups, but the government's plan - at least for now - is of full steam ahead.

The recent confusion and ambiguity is only the latest confusion and ambiguity from the Liberals on the marijuana file. From the beginning it was apparent that the move was mendaciously promoted as a means to circumvent organized crime and to protect children. But it should be obvious to everyone that selling legal weed is not going to prevent people from selling illegal weed at slightly below the fixed government price. That contraband marijuana will also be available for sale to children, just as it is now and has been for decades on Canadian streets.

Then there's the process of how the pot legislation made its way through the House of Commons. According to the anti-marijuana group Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), which worked practically alone in opposing the legislation, certain witnesses were prevented from addressing the health committee.

Australian scientist Dr. Stuart Reece was invited to address the group of elected representatives, for example, until he was uninvited - likely after the Liberal majority on the committee discovered that Reece had published a paper on how marijuana has been linked to gene mutation. (They initially said it was a timetabling conflict, according to Reece, but never followed up when he offered an alternate slot.) His paper is not exactly an anomaly: there are reams of studies linking marijuana to a host of medical conditions and health problems from gene mutation, to possible infertility in men to schizophrenia. But the health committee mostly just heard the sanguine story of how marijuana was really just a miracle drug.

Assessing impairment

But perhaps most concerning is that the Liberal government and law enforcement cannot say how much marijuana consumed would make someone too stoned to drive. The legal limit for impairment will be over five nanograms of THC in the blood, but to the average person, that means nothing in terms of judging how much they can safely consume before driving.

Draft regulations released by Health Canada last year stated that "the science is unable to provide general guidance to drivers about how much cannabis can be consumed before it is unsafe to drive or before the proposed levels would be exceeded." As such, the government recommends that "the safest approach for anyone who chooses to consume cannabis is to not mix their consumption with driving."

But this is total wishful thinking. What's more, there are some research papers, such as Dr. Rebecca Hartman's research paper "Cannabis Effects on Driving Skills," which clearly define how much marijuana can cause impairment. Indeed, in Colorado, state guidelines suggest that 10 mg of marijuana consumed can lead to impairment. Yet in terms of measuring that impairment during roadside tests in Canada, we will have to rely mostly on impressions by and judgment from police officers, which we all know is hardly infallible.

The government's rollout of legalized recreational marijuana also ignores the idea that in some jurisdictions or small towns, the presence of state-sanctioned weed might not be welcome.

In Colorado, many towns have passed municipal bylaws that restrict the sale of marijuana, despite the state's legalization. Part of the reason is that legalization has coincided with a spike in impaired driving and traffic fatalities linked to marijuana. In Canada, municipal governments will have to deal with many of the front-line concerns - zoning, local law enforcement, monitoring of home growers and so forth - all while having had little say in the process and rollout.

And just last month, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, noting that crime has risen in his state since the legalization of marijuana at a rate that outpaces the national trend, said he wouldn't rule out re-criminalizing marijuana.

Like much of the political inventory in Trudeau's world, this marijuana legislation is a policy based on highly dubious claims and grossly optimistic expectations. The debate continues over whether pot is a gateway drug to other, more lethal substance abuse, but there is sufficient evidence to suggest that probability. With so many serious concerns still unaddressed, it could be a grave error for the Liberals to proceed with legalization as planned.
This column is part of CBC's Opinion section. For more information about this section, please read this editor's blog and our FAQ.

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Canada should not proceed with the legalization of marijuana as planned: Opinion | CBC News

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After the last week or so of avoiding questions about whether marijuana would indeed be legalized by summer as planned, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed last Thursday that the process will not be delayed. Some senators have called for a one-year deferment to allow for further consultation with Indigenous groups, but the government's plan - at least for now - is of full steam ahead.