It’s all the tech news that’s popular right now. Welcome to Hashtag Trending! It’s Tuesday, March 2, and I’m your host Baneet Braich.
The recent cryptocurrency fever has led the U.S. digital brokerage Coinbase Global to go public. Bitcoin and Ethereum say they has over 43 million investors and $455 billion in trades. It also plans to list its shares on the Nasdaq in a direct listing. This is a milestone as Coinbase becomes the first listed major U.S. crypto exchange. On LinkedIn, it’s been called a profitable tech unicorn sweeping in $322m in profit in 2020 compared to a loss of $30m in 2019. Big moves for Coinbase.
Get ready for a marathon with the tech titans. The Economist reports that the quiet days of tech giants respecting each other’s territories will soon be no more. Rather the “Big Five” tech titans — Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft — are hungry for new sources of revenues. For example, Apple’s tracking-optional mobile operating system update is coming to iPhones in spring. It allows users to opt-out of being followed around the internet from app trackers. Of course, Facebook who makes a majority of its revenue from ads is not so happy about that. This is likely just the tip of the iceberg as competition heats up. It’s a brief reflection of the current state of the technology space as these giants apply greater pressure on each other, and face added scrutiny from security and ethical experts when it comes to data security and privacy. [LinkedIn]
Oh great, another Zoom meeting…tired yet? It’s okay if you are because Zoom fatigue is real. We’ve talked about it before, but Stanford University published the first peer-reviewed study on Zoom fatigue and found that people are constantly looking at each other directly and making it seem too intimate. Also, non-verbal messages are not so easy to send through body language and seeing yourself for a long period of time can also be stressful. So what can we do? Back up…put your screen on gallery view so it feels like you are speaking to others from a distance. Take breaks. Even if it’s five minutes in your meeting. Don’t watch yourself all the time, set it up so you have the right lighting and move away from the view of yourself. Set your camera up so it covers a wider area that way you are not so close to your laptop all the time. Sitting upright all the time can get exhausting. Or … maybe we should just stick to phones again? [LinkedIn]
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash Briefing or your Google Home daily briefing. Make sure to sign up for our Daily IT Wire Newsletter to get all the news that matters directly in your mailbox every day. I’m Baneet Braich, thanks for listening!