Amazon employees are staging a massive strike on Black Friday, Tesla ranks bottom in reliability report, and Starlink wants to help track illegal logging in the Amazon rainforest.
 |
 |
 |
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now, welcome to Hashtag Trending! It’s Monday, November 22, and I’m your host, Tom Li.
Amazon employees in more than 20 countries are preparing for a strike on Black Friday to push for better working conditions. Employees from warehouses, IT, and corporate offices are expected to participate. Amazon is no stranger to complaints of poor working conditions, ranging from protracted hours, monitored breaks, and seemingly impossible deadlines. The frustration is especially concentrated in its warehouse and delivery departments. Holding a massive strike on Black Friday could reduce profits during one of the year’s busiest buying seasons and force a response from Amazon.
Up next, the consumer report has put Tesla’s electric vehicles at the bottom of its reliability list. The annual report now places Tesla at 27th out of the 28 car brands, only above Ford Motor’s Lincoln brand. The report specifically raised issues with Tesla’s heat pumps, air conditioning, and misaligned panels, suggesting widespread quality control issues. Additionally, the Tesla Model X ranked dead-last in reliability, scoring just 5 out of 100.
Finally, another story on one of Elon Musk’s many tech empires, Starlink will use its satellite network to monitor illegal deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. The Starlink constellation, which now has 1,800 satellites in space, has been used to track forest fires, thus making it a solid candidate for tracking deforestation as well. Starlink says it’s currently working closely with the Brazilian government to realize the project. And of course, it will be providing internet service in the region as well.
And now for something a bit different. A software engineer has collected a massive trove of Non-fungible token media and distributed them on his new platform, NFT Bay. According to the developer, he created the site as an art piece to alert people of the pitfalls of many NFTs. Non-fungible tokens are certificates on the blockchain to prove the authenticity of digital media. Some have been purchased for millions of dollars. The NFT Bay creator argued that many of these media can be easily downloaded online and their tokens worthless. He cautioned against investors looking to spend their hard-earned crypto gains on this new fad.
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. If you have a suggestion or tip, please drop us a line in the comments or via email. Thanks for listening, I’m Tom Li.