With files from Samira Balsara
Bitcoin jumps after a tweet from Elon Musk, Ontario residents experience major technical difficulties when booking vaccines, and Microsoft executive reveals employees slept in data centres at the start of the pandemic.
It’s all the biz/tech news that’s popular right now. Welcome to Hashtag Trending! It’s Tuesday, June 15 and I’m your host Alex Coop.
Bitcoin climbs near $40,000 after Musk says Tesla could use it again from technology
Bitcoin climbed over $40,000 on Monday following a series of tweets from Tesla CEO Elon Musk who said Tesla sold bitcoin but may begin using it again. Last month, Musk tweeted that Tesla will halt the use of bitcoin due to environmental concerns. But over the weekend, he said Tesla will resume the use of bitcoin once there is confirmation of clean energy usage by miners with a positive trend for the future. This caused bitcoin to jump by 20 per cent on Sunday, and on Monday it had increased even more by four per cent. Musk has a huge influence on bitcoin which has caused some controversy as bitcoin prices seem to fluctuate depending on his stance which he usually shares on Twitter. [Reuters]
Ontario residents looking to book their second dose vaccines Monday morning suffered major frustration after the provincial booking system showed numerous technical issues. Several residents took to Twitter to share their experiences. Many people reported having to wait for over an hour and then being told there were no available appointments in their area. Some experienced the system giving them options to book at locations one to two hours away from their home. Others were told after waiting that the system was down and could not complete the booking process.Â
Microsoft employees slept in data centers during pandemic lockdown, exec says from technology
And lastly, a story about how during the height of the pandemic, Microsoft employees slept in the software’s data company centres has caught fire. The majority of tech employees were told to work from home when the pandemic first hit. But a few of the Microsoft employees who worked at locations containing servers for online services like Teams and public-cloud infrastructures decided to stay and work on site. A spokesperson for Microsoft did not reveal where exactly the employees slept, as data centres can be dangerous to sleep in due to the heat coming off of servers. The company did however offer busses that transported employees to data centres and even allowed some to stay in hotels depending on shifts. [CNBC]
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 inbox every day. Also, catch the next episode of Hashtag Tendances, our weekly Hashtag Trending episode in French, which drops every Friday at 3 pm. Thanks for listening.