With files from Jori Negin-Shecter
Facebook rebrands, Snapchat’s CEO calls out Facebook, and Amazon delivery companies have sued the tech giant.
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It’s all the tech news that’s trending right now, welcome to Hashtag Trending! It’s Friday October 29, and I’m your host, Samira Balsara
Facebook announced on Thursday that it would be changing the name of its parent company to Meta. According to an article from CNBC, the name change was announced during the company’s Facebook Connect augmented and virtual reality conference. The announcement promised a future of flashy VR integration across day to day life, with grand ambitions for Zuckerberg and his team to build the “metaverse.” Facebook has invested heavily over the past year into the undertaking, with the formation of a team responsible for building the “metaverse” earlier this year, as well as breaking its hardware division Reality Labs into its own reporting segment. The name change is set to become official on December 1.
Snapchat’s CEO said in a statement on Thursday that Facebook has “found out time and again that it has a negative impact on society,” according to an article from The Independent. The statement comes in the wake of a period of prolonged turmoil for the company, with recent scandals including whistleblower Frances Haugen speaking out, and a report that Instagram was detrimental to teen girl’s mental health. Snapchat’s CEO also disputed the notion that the negativity was inherent to Big Tech, pointing specifically to Facebook’s issues given its enormous scope and user base.
Finally, Amazon’s delivery partners have filed a lawsuit against the company. According to an article from Vice, the suit is being levied on the basis that Amazon overstepped their boundaries and they control “nearly every aspect of their business and penalizes them for circumstances beyond their control.” The two Portland based companies are suing Amazon for $15 million for damages for fraud, as well as the violation of a Washington state law that protects consumers and franchises. Among the allegations include punishing the company for “packages that could not be delivered because of bad cell reception in rural areas, penalizing the company for routes that Amazon cancelled at the last minute, and packages that weren’t delivered because businesses were closed on the weekends.”
And now, for something a little bit different. An investigation from PC Mag has located the fastest Tim Horton’s Wi-Fi available across nearly 1500 locations nationwide. The investigation found that Timmies Wi-Fi is, on the whole, a little bit on the slow slide unfortunately, with average download speeds of roughly 22.7 Megabits per seconds (Mbps) and upload speeds of 6.5Mbps. Tim’s locations were also found to run on a number of different providers, however, the three fastest locations, all located in Ontario, used IP ranges assigned to Bell. Ultimately, the fastest Tim Horton’s in all of Canada was found near Guelph, ON at a spot inside a mall. Within Toronto, the fastest Timmies, coming in at over 300 mbps is located just off of Bathurst St in Downtown Toronto, while Montreal’s fastest came in at a slightly lower 112 mbps just outside of the city.
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 Samira Balsara