The Uber and Waymo trial ends with a settlement. Amazon goes after FedEx and UPS with its new delivery service. And Facebook is finally testing a dislike button – sort of.
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From LinkedIn: Less than a week after it began, the game-changing civil trial between Uber and Waymo, Google’s self-driving division, ended with a settlement on Friday. Under the settlement’s terms, Uber has promised not to incorporate Waymo’s trade secrets into its own self-driving technology, and agreed to pay Google $244.8 million USD in Uber stock. That’s considerably less than the $1.9 billion in damages Google asked for, indicating that the search giant’s legal team did not sufficiently demonstrate economic harm. For its part, Uber and former CEO Travis Kalanick insist that none of Waymo’s trade secrets were ever delivered to Uber.
On Facebook: After killing bookstores, shopping malls and, as of last week, grocery stores, Amazon is taking aim at the shipping industry. According to the Wall Street Journal, the e-commerce giant plans on testing a new parcel delivery service called “Shipping With Amazon” that will compete directly with FedEx and UPS by undercutting their prices. While Amazon is scheduled to begin testing the service in Los Angeles in the coming weeks, according to the Journal’s sources it could be offered in multiple cities before the end of the year. There is no mention of whether or when the service would be expanded to Canada, though Amazon had previously tested and rolled out “Shipping With Amazon” in London, England.
Finally, on Reddit users are discussing the new “downvote” button that Facebook is testing on a select number of public pages. While not quite the “dislike” button that users have long requested, the downvote option, which is literally the word “Downvote” and appears to the right of “Like” and “Reply,” will allow users to flag comments they don’t like and remove them from their feed, while also telling Facebook if they found the comment “Offensive”, “Misleading”, or “Off Topic.”
If the phrase “Downvote” sounds familiar, well, Alexi Ohanian beat you to it, joking on Twitter that perhaps he should have trademarked “downvote” and “upvote” when he co-created Reddit.
Sincerest form of flattery! Wish I'd trademarked it and “upvote” when came up with it. 😂😂 https://t.co/wJMxILChCV
— Alexis Ohanian Sr. (@alexisohanian) February 8, 2018
That’s what’s trending today. Hashtag Trending is produced by IT World Canada. Today’s episode is brought to you by SAS, the world leader in advanced analytics and Official Analytics Partner of the Canadian Olympic Team.
