Amazon opens a state-of-the-art warehouse in Mexico, Twitter tests out an Instagram-like feature, and PayPal implements a fee for inactive accounts.
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It’s all the tech news that’s trending right now, welcome to Hashtag Trending! It’s Thursday, September 9, and I’m your host, Jori Negin-Shecter.
Amazon is set to open a $21 million highscale warehouse in Tijuana, Mexico. Recently released progress photos reveal a remarkable building, however, the images have gone viral on social media for the wrong reasons. Amazon is catching heat for the warehouse being built just across an impoverished area filled with houses made of cardboard, wood scraps and tarp. Social media users have called the images “dystopian”, and compared the viral photo to a work of science fiction. An Amazon spokesperson defended the warehouse, saying that since the company’s arrival in Mexico, it has created 15,000 jobs. In the future, the new warehouse will create 250 additional jobs for local residents, something Amazon hopes will benefit the local community. Vice also reports that none of Mexico’s nine Amazon warehouses are unionized. [Reddit]
Twitter is testing out a new feature for its platform that will give photos “more room to shine.” The company is experimenting with edge-to-edge media in Tweets on iOS. This feature creates an instagram-like way to display photos and videos on Twitter user’s timelines. The Verge reports that Twitter is experimenting with this change to enhance visual and text-based conversations. The proposed change would also resolve the image cropping concerns that Twitter has been dealing with in recent years. [Reddit]
And lastly, PayPal is about to start charging Canadian users a fee for accounts that haven’t been used within a 12-month period. The policy will be implemented November 20, 2021, after which PayPal will begin charging accounts that have been inactive for a year. CTV News reported that the fee will only be charged for accounts that have not been logged in to or used to send money during that period. PayPal has also made it clear that the fee will not be applied to accounts that have zero balance or a negative balance. For example, if a user has not accessed their account for a year and has a balance of $5, they will be charged a $5 fee, with the maximum fee that may be applied reaching up to $20. To avoid the fee, users just need to log in to their account by November 20. [LinkedIn]
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 Jori Negin-Shecter.
