Elon Musk scraps his tunnel project under the 405 freeway, New Zealand turns its nose up to Huawei, and Amazon wants to sell medical software.
 |
 |
 |
Maybe it was a pipe dream after all. Trending on Twitter is Elon Musk’s decision to scrap the Boring Company’s planned transportation tunnel under the traffic-plagued 405 freeway. The decision came after, according to a statement the Boring Company, a settlement with community groups, which sued Los Angeles over its plan to exempt the tunnel project from environmental review requirements. But, another tunnel might still see the light of day. The Boring Company has now shifted its attention elsewhere, and reports suggest they will build a similar tunnel at Dodger Stadium that will ferry game day fans from the subway lines of Vermont Ave. to the stadium three miles away.
Trending on LinkedIn – New Zealand’s intelligence agency has responded with a resounding no in response to one of the country’s biggest telecom carriers, Spark, requesting to use Huawei gear in its 5G mobile network. The rejection letter from the government cites “significant national security risks.” Several reports say Huawei is looking to address the matter, and that the Chinese telecommunications equipment maker is repeatedly emphasizing that it’s a private company, and not controlled by Beijing. Huawei’s affordable equipment has turned heads in several countries, but others, including the U.S., have described Huawei and other Chinese hardware makers as risks to citizens’ security and privacy.
And lastly, also on Linkedin – Amazon is diving into the healthcare market. According to reports, the company is starting to sell software that mines patient records which doctors and hospitals can use to improve treatment and cut costs. The move doesn’t come as much of a surprise – wherever there’s a growing market, you’ll be sure to find Amazon there. The market for storing and analyzing health information, according to Grand View Research, is worth more than $7 billion a year, and earlier this year, Amazon bought an online pharmacy, PillPack Inc., for $1 billion to acquire its prescription shipping capabilities.
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network.