A U.S.-based internet service provider suffers a major outage over the weekend and it can be traced back to Mississauga, everyone is going bananas after Apple and Tesla stocks split, and LinkedIn gets chatty about algorithms.
It’s all the tech news that’s popular right now. Welcome to Hashtag Trending! It’s Tuesday, Sept. 1, and I’m your host Alex Coop.
It turns out that US internet service provider CenturyLink’s troubles over the weekend could be traced back to Mississauga, Ont.. CenturyLink suffered a major outage Sunday, and according to a CenturyLink status page, the issue originated from the company’s data centre in Mississauga. The problem according to ZDNet was an improperly configured firewall filter, or more specifically, an incorrect Flowspec announcement. Flowspec announcements are usually used when dealing with security incidents, such as BGP hijacks or DDoS attacks. It allows companies to change their entire network to react and mitigate attacks within seconds.
The price of shares for Apple and Tesla has decreased after the companies’ stock split, prompting many to take the plunge and invest. Apple’s previous stock split was 7-for-1 in 2014 and its fifth since going public in 1980. Splitting stocks is basically a way for companies to make it less expensive to buy individual shares. The electric carmaker followed suit earlier this month by announcing a 5-for-1 split to portion its richly valued stock into smaller chunks.
And lastly, what happens when an algorithm becomes your boss? That’s one of the trending topics on LinkedIn right now. As companies increasingly turn their management tools over to AI, allowing algorithms to dole out work assignments, evaluate an employee’s performance and screen job applicants. This is especially prevalent in the gig economy, but according to experts, workers are often left in the dark on how these systems make decisions. That makes it tough for workers to contest decisions or change their behaviour to do better. Some groups, like Oxford’s Fairwork initiative, are now calling for new work standards that would require transparency in how such algorithmic management tools work. (LinkedIn thread)
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. I’m Alex Coop, thanks for listening.