Loblaw and OpenAI partner to integrate PC Express into ChatGPT

Loblaw Cos. Ltd. is integrating its grocery delivery app into OpenAI's chatbot ChatGPT, the grocer announced on Thursday.

The partnership means consumers can explore menu ideas and curate a list of ingredients in the chatbot, and then buy the suggested products on Loblaw's PC Express app, the company said.

"Conversational AI is becoming a new interface layer for how people plan and search and make decisions," said Loblaw chief digital officer Lauren Steinberg in an interview.

Canadians are already using tools like ChatGPT to answer everyday questions such as what to make for dinner, how to make a high-protein meal plan or how to prep for a birthday party, she said.

Manitoba chambers rolls out AI adoption training assessment tool

A new online tool aims to help Manitoba businesses in their move to adopt artificial intelligence.

The AI Readiness Assessment evaluates organizations on their familiarity with, and current use of, AI. The voice-led assessment takes 10 to 15 minutes to complete and provides personalized suggestions for businesses to map their AI adoption.

Manitoba AI Pathways, the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce’s new AI training initiative, developed the assessment in partnership with the Manitoba Association of AI Professionals.

Kay Gardiner, a chambers program director, announced the tool on Wednesday at a small-business forum organized by the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce. The forum, held at the Delta Hotel, focused on what AI means for Manitoba businesses today.

Focus on local ‘fertile ground’ at 3rd annual MbTech Week

A weeklong tech “festival” is ready to celebrate made-in-Manitoba innovation later this month.

Plight of imprisoned Hong Kong ex-publisher Jimmy Lai evokes grief over loss of press freedoms

HONG KONG (AP) — About five years after Hong Kong’s pro-democracy Apple Daily shut down and its founder was jailed, the newspaper’s former staff and readers are lamenting the loss of the city’s press freedoms.

Founder Jimmy Lai, 78, was sentenced Monday under a Beijing-imposed national security law to 20 years in prison, the longest such sentence so far. His co-defendants, six other former Apple Daily journalists, received jail terms ranging between six years and nine months and 10 years.

Officials in both Hong Kong and Beijing defended the case against Lai, with the city's leader John Lee accusing the newspaper of inciting violence and poisoning young minds. The government insisted his case had nothing to do with press freedom, saying the defendants used journalism as a guise to commit acts that harmed Hong Kong and China.

There's no question that things are different in Hong Kong without the Apple Daily. Since it folded, the city’s once freewheeling press scene has changed drastically. Its voice was one of many that have been silenced in the former British colony.

Winnipeg-based tech firm Taiv closes US$13M growth round

Taiv Inc. may rely on AI, but there’s nothing artificial about the Winnipeg company’s progression. The tech company has closed a US$13 million growth round fewer than nine months after raising US$10.5 million in series A financing.

Google, Meta, push back on addiction claims in landmark social media trial

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Jurors in a landmark social media case that seeks to hold tech companies responsible for harms to children got their first glimpse into what will be a lengthy trial characterized by dueling narratives from the plaintiffs and the two remaining defendants, Meta and YouTube.

At the core of the Los Angeles case is a 20-year-old identified only by the initials “KGM,” whose case could determine how thousands of similar lawsuits will play out. KGM and the cases of two other plaintiffs have been selected to be bellwether trials — essentially test cases for both sides to see how their arguments play out before a jury.

Comparing social media platforms to casinos and addictive drugs, lawyer Mark Lanier delivered opening statements Monday in the Los Angeles Superior Court trial that seeks to hold Instagram owner Meta and Google's YouTube responsible for addictive features and harms to children who use their products. Two other defendants, TikTok and Snap, have settled the case.

Meta lawyer Paul Schmidt spoke of the disagreement within the scientific community over social media addiction, with some researchers believing it doesn’t exist, or that addiction is not the most appropriate way to describe heavy social media use.

Manitobans shine on DARE Innovation Awards shortlist

A Winnipeg-based incubator, accelerator and fabrication lab is marking a decade in business by celebrating the dreamers, achievers, risk-takers and entrepreneurs shaping Manitoba’s future.

On Monday, North Forge announced the shortlisted nominees for the inaugural DARE Innovation Awards. The awards will be handed out during a gala at the Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada on Feb. 24 — 10 years to the day North Forge was incorporated.

“We thought that we should honour a number of people, many of whom have never received awards or many of whom some people may not even know about,” said Joelle Foster, president and CEO. “As Manitobans, we’re all very humble and we don’t tell these stories enough.”

The non-profit received more than 160 nominations for the awards. There are 27 shortlisted nominees across nine categories that recognize a variety of industries.

Washington Post cuts a third of its staff in a blow to a legendary news brand

The Washington Post laid off one-third of its staff Wednesday, eliminating its sports section, several foreign bureaus and its books coverage in a widespread purge that represented a brutal blow to journalism and one of its most legendary brands.

The Post's executive editor, Matt Murray, called the move painful but necessary to put the outlet on stronger footing and to weather changes in technology and user habits. “We can't be everything to everyone,” Murray said in a note to staff members.

He outlined the changes in a companywide online meeting, and staff members then began getting emails with one of two subject lines — telling them their role was or was not eliminated.

Rumors of layoffs had circulated for weeks, ever since word leaked that sports reporters who had expected to travel to Italy for the Winter Olympics would not be going. But when official word came down, the size and scale of the cuts were shocking, affecting virtually every department in the newsroom.

New senior manager of AI at New Media Manitoba seeks to build business connections

On the left is an image of a cat in a spacesuit. On the right is the original photo, which shows a woman in the spacesuit.

In the past, it would have taken a graphic artist a week to manipulate the photo and replace the woman with a feline. In the case of this image, however, it took an artist using an artificial intelligence replacement tool two hours.

For Les Klassen, it’s a fun example of the possibilities creators can explore thanks to AI. At the same time, New Media Manitoba’s newly minted senior manager of AI initiatives and services understands not everyone in the province’s interactive digital media (IDM) industry is excited about the emerging technology.

“A lot of artists are angry about how AI started,” Klassen said. “It was a really kind of skeezy way to start an entire sector: scrape the entire world’s content and not tell anybody … And I think that’s where the frustration really, really is.”

Some blind fans to experience Super Bowl with tactile device that tracks ball

Some blind and low-vision fans will have unprecedented access to the Super Bowl thanks to a tactile device that tracks the ball, vibrates on key plays and provides real-time audio.

The NFL teamed up with OneCourt and Ticketmaster to pilot the game-enhancing experience 15 times during the regular-season during games hosted by the Seattle Seahawks, Jacksonville Jaguars, San Francisco 49ers, Atlanta Falcons and Minnesota Vikings.

About 10 blind and low-vision fans will have an opportunity to use the same technology at the Super Bowl in Santa Clara, California, where Seattle will play the New England Patriots on Feb. 8. With hands on the device, they will feel the location of the ball and hear what's happening throughout the game.

Scott Thornhill can't wait.

Egypt to adopt restrictions on children’s social media use to fight ‘digital chaos’

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's Parliament is looking into ways to regulate children’s use of social media platforms to combat what lawmakers called “digital choas,” following some western countries that are considering banning young teenagers from social media.

The House of Representatives said in a statement late Sunday that it will work on a legislation to regulate children’s use of social media and “put an end to the digital chaos our children are facing, and which negatively impacts their future.”

Legislators will consult with the government and expert bodies to draft a law to “protect Egyptian children from any risks that threaten its thoughts and behavior," the statement said.

The statement came after President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi on Saturday urged his government and lawmakers to consider adopting legislation restricting children’s use of social media, “until they reach an age when they can handle it properly.”

Predator used Snapchat to lure children for sexual abuse; girls struggling now, court told

A Winnipeg man who used the social media app Snapchat to lure his young victims into having unprotected sex with him filmed some of the encounters.

Dan David, Mohawk journalist and Indigenous news trailblazer, dies at 73

Dan David, a renowned Mohawk journalist who helped establish the news department of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, has died.

His sister Marie David said he died Jan. 12 after a long struggle with cancer.

He was 73.

Karyn Pugliese, an APTN host and producer and David's friend and colleague, said his death is a huge loss for the dozens of Indigenous journalists he mentored and whose careers he helped launch.

Vancouver conference aims to unite Indigenous tech community

VANCOUVER - For Shauna McAllister, working at Canadian technology companies as a Cree and Métis woman meant she was often the only Indigenous person in the room. 

"When it comes to being an individual who is proud of their identity and wants to incorporate that into their work, that can be very lonely," McAllister, a sales lead for Indigenous majority-owned company R8dius told The Canadian Press. 

But she and others are hoping to change that by participating in an inaugural conference bringing together hundreds of Indigenous technology professionals in Vancouver in the coming week.

The Indigenous Tech Conference, organized by the Indigenous Tech Circle, is set to take place on Tuesday and Wednesday.

New Music Festival explores theme of technology amid global rise of AI

This year’s New Music Festival runs Jan. 21-29 and includes six events.

Future students will be wired differently, thanks to AI

Teachers were urged to stop asking children what they want to be when they grow up and focus on building creative, self-directed and critical thinkers at Manitoba’s AI in Education Summit.

“How do we prepare kids for a future we can’t yet see, but we know it’s going to be radically transformed by technology?” futurist Sinead Bovell asked a crowd of educators at a first-of-its-kind conference Friday.

“That is the moment that we are in.”

The province invited Bovell, founder of tech education company WAYE, to share her predictions about artificial intelligence and related advice for schools.

First Nation’s power-outage misery ‘frozen like a rock’

An army of plumbers, engineers and members of the Canadian Armed Forces are continuing to assess damages after a lengthy power outage at Pimicikamak Cree Nation froze water and sewage pipes.

Chief David Monias said it is going to take months to repair damage to homes and years to install new water and sewage treatment plants and systems.

“They have frozen pipes — the sewage plant is completely frozen,” Monias said Wednesday. “The raw sewage has frozen like rock, it is as hard as rock. There is enough (methane) gas in there that we can’t even enter the building. So they are trying to figure out a way how to air out that building so that they can assess the sewage problem.”

Monias said the experts are going to try to get the water and sewage systems up and running while the community works with government on a longer term solution. He said the plants will eventually need to be decommissioned.

Attention-grabbing screens demean us, bit by bit

The first time I read Oryx and Crake, Canadian author Margaret Atwood’s haunting dystopic novel, I couldn’t put it down. I devoured it in just days, engrossed by the fictional world Atwood wove from the most discomfiting new threads of our own.

Over the years, I returned to the book many times, always finding new depth in its pages. Each time, I finished it at the same brisk pace. I was a fast reader as a child, and for most of my life, that didn’t change.

Until now. In November, as part of an effort to calm my restless mind, I put Oryx and Crake on my nightstand, and made a pledge to myself to read a little bit every night. This time, it’s been over two months, and I’ve made it through only 92 pages.

It would be easy to say I’ve been too busy, but that would be a lie. I’ve had time to read. The problem is now, unlike when the book came out in 2003, I struggle to read more than a page without checking my phone quickly; and checking it once means falling into the chasm of raw content the internet has become.

Province hunting for web-based system to better assess and help youth with mental-health, addiction issues

As a drug crisis rages in Manitoba, the province is looking for a better web-based mental-health and addictions assessment tool for youth to help connect them to the services they need.

Shared Health said it’s seeking an evidence-based assessment system that focuses on mental health and substance use challenges in youth. On Monday, it posted on the public-sector tendering site MERX that it’s looking for systems and tools that are secure and ready to go.

A spokesperson for Shared Health said the authority is trying to determine whether there are any stronger screening tools and digital platforms than what is currently in use. The Manitoba Advocate for Children and Youth has sounded the alarm over substance use among children and youth, and the need for the province to do more and better.

Shared Health currently has a screening tool and digital platform — the Child Behavior Checklist and the Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment (ASEBA-Web), the spokesperson said.

Fewer than one in five Manitobans are sure they know fabricated online content when they see it: survey

When Weekly World News stories about a half-boy, half-bat lined supermarket checkout lanes in the 1990s, most consumers — including Probe Research partner Curtis Brown — could readily, easily and confidently identify the eye-grabbing tabloid reports as false.

“When it comes to (content generated by) AI, people have a bit less confidence,” says Brown. “Sometimes it’s very obviously so-called AI slop — like a historical figure talking about something contemporary. The last couple of months I’ve seen a lot of videos of JFK talking about what a fool his nephew is.”

Even if a quick Google search to note RFK Jr. was nine when his uncle was assassinated in 1963 — marking such videos as debris in an artificial intelligence mudslide — new media literacy polling conducted by Probe for the Free Press reveals that only 18 per cent of Manitobans feel very confident that they can identify whether video footage is “fake or AI-generated.”

Of the 1,000 Manitobans randomly surveyed by Probe between Nov. 25 and Dec. 10, 13 per cent believed that they’d personally shared video, images or text on social media that they didn’t realize was fake.

Talking cows? N.S. researchers think they are getting closer to understanding moos

HALIFAX - If a cow moos in a barn and no one is around to hear it, could you still understand what it’s trying to say?

Researchers at Dalhousie University are hoping to answer that question.

Led by Dr. Ghader Manafiazar, the team at Dalhousie’s agricultural campus in Truro, N.S., has been recording and analyzing cow noises to see whether the animals have different vocal patterns.

Humans can utter words using various inflections and meanings, said Manafiazar, a professor in the faculty of agriculture. His research is trying to determine whether the same holds true for animals. “When they say ‘moo,’ is it different from saying ‘moooooo’?”

Why I expelled AI from the classroom

Artificial intelligence (AI) is certainly in vogue these days. Within post-secondary institutions, it is rapidly reshaping the pedagogical landscape. Some academics maintain that AI enriches the student learning experience, whereas others believe it enhances critical thinking.