Today’s Hashtag Trending script was prepared by Samira Balsara.
Amazon is alleged to copy products and manipulate search results, Nvidia’s plan to buy Arm hits a snag, and Google is planning an app design change for iOS.
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It’s all the tech news that’s trending right now, welcome to Hashtag Trending! It’s Thursday, October 14, and I’m your host, Tom Li.
A special report by Reuters has revealed that Amazon copies merchandise and rigs search results to boost its own products. Internal documents examined by Reuters show that the e-commerce company ran a systematic campaign to create knockoffs and manipulate search results to enhance its products in India. For example, Amazon replicated the measurements of a popular shirt brand in India called John Miller. According to the article, Amazon’s version followed the measurements of the neck circumference and sleeve length to mimic the fit of John Miller shirts. Amazon’s tactic seems to impact smaller businesses. One retailer who sells computer accessories said that about two years ago he noticed his mousepad sales were dropping. He soon discovered that customers were being directed to Amazon’s version which was 60 per cent cheaper. He said his product also appeared significantly lower in the search results.
Nvidia’s plan to buy Arm is hitting a setback after the European Union launched an extended investigation. According to an article from Hot Hardware, regulators worldwide are inspecting the deal due to its potential wide-sweeping effects in the semiconductor industry. The EU Commission is supposed to end preliminary reviews at the end of October. After that, a four-month investigation will follow. Based on the timeline of the investigation, it is unlikely that Nvidia will be able to close out the deal by March 2022 as it had originally planned.
Lastly, Google’s iOS design chief announced on Twitter that the company will phase out Material Design elements for Google apps on iOS in favour of Apple’s own UIKit. According to an article from Engadget, Material Design is Google’s in-house design language. Google uses it to unify the look of its apps across different platforms. The shift to UIKit will save developers time when it comes to app development. Google’s iOS design chief said he thinks this move will let his team spend less time building custom code which will lead to faster and more frequent releases.
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. 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.