Author: Editor-in-Chief

California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings met with and sent an open letter to OpenAI to express their concerns over the safety of ChatGPT, particularly for children and teens. The warning comes a week after Bonta and 44 other attorneys general sent a letter to 12 of the top AI companies, following reports of sexually inappropriate interactions between AI chatbots and children. “Since the issuance of that letter, we learned of the heartbreaking death by suicide of one young Californian after he had prolonged interactions with an OpenAI chatbot, as well as a similarly disturbing…

Around half a million writers will be eligible for a payday of at least $3,000, thanks to a historic $1.5 billion settlement in a class action lawsuit that a group of authors brought against Anthropic.         This landmark settlement marks the largest payout in the history of U.S. copyright law, but this isn’t a victory for authors — it’s yet another win for tech companies. Tech giants are racing to amass as much written material as possible to train their LLMs, which power groundbreaking AI chat products like ChatGPT and Claude — the same products that are…

Vancouver-based Klue is bolstering its AI capabilities through the acquisition of San Francisco-based go-to-market platform Ignition, just a few months after going “AI-first.” Founded in 2021, Ignition’s AI-powered platform helps companies manage their full product marketing cycle, including customer research, competitive strategy, and roadmapping. Ignition co-founder and CEO Derek Osgood confirmed to BetaKit in an email that the acquisition includes Ignition’s product intellectual property and that none of its employees will join Klue. “Over time, you’ll see [Ignition] technology woven into Klue’s Compete and Win-Loss products.” Osgood did not disclose the purchase price attached to the deal. He said Igniton’s…

Canadian tech and business groups plan to weigh in on a forthcoming Competition Bureau consultation on the competitive landscape of debt financing options for small businesses, including startups. This week, Canada’s Competition Bureau launched consultations on how to best conduct a 12-month study on competition for small and medium-sized business loans. The agency said the research will explore how Canada can improve the lending landscape for small- to mid-size enterprises (SMEs), which is dominated by big banks. At the same time, it plans to look at how non-traditional financial lenders—such as FinTech companies—could benefit from increased competition. The Competition Bureau…

Toronto-based artificial intelligence (AI) scaleup Cohere has promoted staff research scientist Marzieh Fadaee to head of its non-profit research division, Cohere Labs, replacing outgoing leader Sara Hooker. “It’s an honor and a responsibility to lead such an extraordinary group of researchers pushing the boundaries of AI research,” Fadaee wrote in LinkedIn and X posts announcing the news. Fadaee thanked Hooker for shaping Cohere Labs and said she looks forward to working with Joelle Pineau, Cohere’s new chief AI officer, to write the AI research lab’s “next chapter.” “I’m looking forward to this next chapter, and to the discoveries we’ll…

The personal information of some Wealthsimple customers was accessed without authorization following an Aug. 30 security breach, the FinTech company revealed today. Wealthsimple told BetaKit the incident affected “significantly fewer” than one percent of its 3 million customers, which would amount to fewer than 30,000 clients. All impacted accounts have been notified by email. “All accounts remain secure, and no funds were accessed or stolen. We acted quickly and in a few hours the issue was contained,” the company said in a statement. The personal information accessed included contact details, government IDs, financial account numbers, IP addresses, social insurance…

Burnaby, BC-based medical technology company Kardium has received pre-market approval from the United States (US) Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its innovative heart device: the Globe Pulsed Field System (Globe System). The company has also been given 510(k) clearance for both the Globe Introducer sheath and Globe mapping software. “The FDA approval of the Globe System represents the most significant milestone in the life of Kardium.” Kevin Chaplin, Kardium The Globe System is designed to treat a common heart problem called atrial fibrillation (AF). AF is an irregular heartbeat disorder that affects more than 59 million people globally. It…

Two Canadian companies have been selected for the second phase of a NATO defence tech accelerator program that aims to develop dual-use technologies. Outside of Canada, investors have increasingly poured money into defence tech. Longueuil, Que.-based Reaction Dynamics and Ottawa-based Tactiql have advanced to Phase 2 of NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA), and will each receive 300,000 euros ($482,000 CAD). Just 15 companies advanced to Phase 2II of DIANA, narrowed down from 76 finalists and 2,600 proposals from global defence tech companies. DIANA aims to support the development of technologies with military and civilian uses across…

The Government of Ontario has launched a new, streamlined system for reviewing and adopting healthtech solutions. It’s called the Health Innovation Pathway, and it allows vendors to submit proposals for tech that potentially improves patient outcomes and increases efficiency in Ontario’s health system. The Ontario government claims the program, which is already accepting applications, will accelerate the adoption of new tech in the province and prioritize “made-in-Ontario” technologies. “Ultimately, we will judge the success of this innovation pathway based on whether it lets Canadian companies get their foot in the door.” “By providing a pathway for these Ontario-made solutions and…

Ottawa-based defence tech firm Dominion Dynamics is partnering with the Arctic Training Centre (ATC) in Whitehorse to develop and test its systems designed to help defend the Canadian North. “We are ultimately planning on building a sovereign defence prime [contractor] for Canada [that] can compete with the American primes and European primes.” Mitch Carkner, Dominion Dynamics The three-year partnership agreement provides Dominion Dynamics with access to the ATC’s testing facilities in the Yukon, where it will use the “unique northern environment” to test and validate its sensing, autonomy, and communications technologies purpose-built for extreme operations. The partnership is “absolutely critical,”…