Apple puts a pause on return to office plans, WhatsApp blocks 2 million accounts to combat spam messages and Jeff Bezos successfully makes a journey to space.
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It’s all the tech news that’s trending right now, welcome to Hashtag Trending! It’s Wednesday, July 21, and I’m your host, Tom Li.
Apple is delaying the return of employees to offices as COVID-19 cases begin to rise. The company had initially intended for workers to return to the office for three days of the week in September, but is now pushing the return to October. The return to office plans sparked some controversy as some employees felt the plans affected their family life and well-being. However, employees will be given one month’s notice to prepare before having to return according to Bloomberg. Other big tech companies like Google and Amazon are hopping on a similar hybrid plan of three in-office days a week.
Messaging app WhatsApp blocked 2 million accounts in India to help combat spam. Of the 2 million accounts blocked, 95 per cent of them were banned due to bulk messaging. This news was revealed in the company’s first compliance report. Under new rules from India, social media companies have to publish a compliance report every month detailing complaints they received from Indian users and what actions the company has taken. While WhatsApp has complied with most of the rules, it has sued the Indian government over one of the orders. Authorities want to be able to trace the messages’ origins when asked, but WhatsApp sees this as a privacy breach. The app has over 400 million users in India, making the country its biggest market.
And lastly, Jeff Bezos headed into space yesterday in Blue Origin’s first manned rocket flight. The spacecraft successfully completed its 10 minute flight soaring from remote West Texas. Bezos was accompanied by his brother and two other members. Bezos’s capsule was completely automated and required no staff on board for the flight. Blue Origin reached an altitude of 106 kilometres. This journey makes Bezos the second billionaire to head to space recently, following Richard Branson who took his flight just over a week ago. Bezos recently stepped down as CEO of Amazon to pursue his space company among other projects.
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. Thanks for listening, I’m Tom Li.
