April 21, 2020
Amazon-owned Whole Foods is tracking its employees with a heat map tool to track potential unionizing, Huawei’s in the news again, and no, it’s not because of 5G, and Google wants to launch a debit card.
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A story from Business Insider about how Amazon-owned Whole Foods is tracking and scoring stores it deems at risk of unionizing has caught fire on social media. According to the Business Insider, the scores are based on more than two dozen metrics, including racial diversity, employee loyalty, “tipline calls” and violations recorded by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The story has drawn a firestorm of criticism online, to which Whole Foods has responded saying “Whole Foods Market recognizes the rights of our Team Members to decide whether union representation is right for them. We agree with the overwhelming majority of our Team Members that a direct relationship with Whole Foods Market and its leadership, where Team Members have open lines of communication and every individual is empowered to share feedback directly with their team leaders, is best.”
Huawei has once again “accidentally” used an image taken by a professional camera as image sample for its smartphone camera. In a promotional page on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform, Huawei posted a video containing a gorgeous sunset shot that it claimed was taken on a Huawei phone. After some digging, a sharp-eyed Weibo user was able to trace the image back to 500px, a photography platform, which showed that the image was taken by a $3,000 Nikon D850. Huawei has apologized for the supposed mishap and removed the image from the video.
TechCrunch is reporting that Google is looking to release a debit card to be used for online and retail purchases. The card will link to a checking account at a major financial institution like CITI band and Stanford Federal Credit Union. While it hasn’t been publicly confirmed by Google, the potential is very high, as Google could leverage the financial data to offer new services. TechCrunch said that in the long term, Google could evolve into offering stock brokerage, financial advice, and accounting.
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.