GPS tracks sea turtle traffickers; Netflix Canada is hiking its prices, and IBM says goodbye to its managed infrastructure services
It’s all the tech news that’s popular right now. Welcome to Hashtag Trending! It’s Friday, October 9, and I’m your host Alex Coop.
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Fake eggs fitted with GPS track sea turtle traffickers in Central America – The eggs uncovered a 137-kilometer long illegal trade chain. from technology
Turtle eggs in Costa Rica, are considered a delicacy, even an aphrodisiac. Poachers sell the eggs for about $1 each to restaurants and bars, and with each nest having as many as one hundred eggs per nest, selling these gems is big business. Despite the collection of endangered sea turtle eggs being illegal, poaching is rampant across the region. That’s why conservation biologist Helen Pheasey from the U.K., and her team, put a tracking device in sea turtle nests to see if it was possible to see where the eggs were going once they were taken. The decoys, aptly named InvestEGGators, were placed in 101 turtle nests on four beaches in Costa Rica, according to reporting from ZME Science. Pheasey says that nobody was arrested, nor any legal repercussions resulted from this field trial. “It was very much about learning what the eggs were capable of,” she told the publication.
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Netflix Canada is raising its subscription costs again. The streaming giant says basic plans for subscribers remains unchanged at $10 bucks a month, but the standard monthly plan is going up by one dollar to $15, and the premium by two dollars to $19. Netflix says it’s implementing the price increase so it “can invest more in films and shows as well as the quality of members’ product experience.” Needless to say, Twitter went berserk over the news. [Twitter thread]
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And lastly, IBM says it has spun off its managed infrastructure services into its own separate business to focus on cloud computing and AI. The move comes two years after the largest software acquisition to date, which saw IBM scoop up Red Hat for a whopping $34 billion, and is meant to trim any parts of the business that are irrelevant to its two core focuses: cloud and hybrid infrastructure. The new company, currently using NewCo as a placeholder name, generates around US$19 billion in revenue. Investors will be granted shares of the new company tax-free. The separation is undergoing regulatory review.
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 Baneet Braich, thanks for listening.
