Slack goes down, Google Home doesn’t work either, and Uber expands to London.
First up from Twitter is news that popular work chat app Slack went down yesterday for several hours, sending its users into a frenzy. The platform apparently experienced “connectivity issues” for around four hours, according to the company, but was back online in the early afternoon for those on the east coast. The issue affected workers across the globe, who made sure their outrage was heard by using other popular social media sites to voice their frustrations and share suggestions for other ways to distract oneself. Many declared the working day over because they couldn’t fathom getting up to talk with their coworkers in real life. God forbid.
And Slack wasn’t the only platform down yesterday. From LinkedIn, apparently Google Home and Chromecast also went down globally yesterday and as of recording this, it still hasn’t been fixed. Google declined to share information about the nature of the outage or how many customers it affected, but it said it was investigating the problem and working on a solution, according to TechCrunch. Some people are reporting that the issue is related to a broken software patch, but that hasn’t been confirmed. There is currently no timeline on when Google Home or Chromecast will be back up and running.
And last but not least from LinkedIn again, Uber can resume its operations in London, UK, after winning a legal battle. The city chose not to renew the ridesharing company’s license to operate in the city in 2017 but after appealing the decision, a judge granted Uber a probationary license that will need to be reviewed every 15 months. The decision also lays out specific rules that Uber must follow when it comes to reporting criminal activity by its drivers, complaints from users, and changes to the way it handles data of drivers and passengers. The company will also need to provide London with an independently-verified audit of its operations every six months. London originally cited 25 concerns in its decision to ban Uber, mostly involving safety and regulations. Uber continued to operate in London even after being banned, but this decision makes it official.