Today’s Hashtag Trending script was prepared by Samira Balsara.
Tech talent in Canada is in high demand, Amazon has been charged with illegally confiscating pro-union pamphlets, and Apple’s new tool could scan iPhones for child abuse photos.
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It’s all the tech news that’s trending right now, welcome to Hashtag Trending! It’s Friday, August 6, and I’m your host, Tom Li.
Tech talent is in high demand in Canada as businesses are hiring to prepare for an expected economic boom this fall. As a result, those qualified have numerous options while employers compete with each other by offering the job perks people want. Vidyard, a video platform for businesses, is a small business that’s looking to hire. This year, the company increased to 300 employees across six countries, with plans to open a new collaboration centre in Ontario. With such a competitive industry, many small businesses have also opted to hire younger talent and new grads rather than more experienced workers.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has charged Amazon with illegally stopping an employee in its Staten Island warehouse from passing out pro-union pamphlets. The Amazon workers told news publication Vice, that he was handing out pamphlets in the breakroom in May when security told him he wasn’t allowed to. According to the U.S. National Labor Relations Act, employers are not allowed to interfere with union organizing. On top of that, the employee said that pro-union organizers would hold barbecues near the warehouse and a security guard was seen photographing the people at the barbecue. This news comes just days after the NLRB said Amazon interfered in a union vote at a warehouse in Alabama.
Apple is set to announce a photo identification tool that will use hashing algorithms to match the content of users’ photo libraries with known child abuse materials. The “client-side tool” will run on the users’ devices and scan for images of abuse. The iPhone would download a set of fingerprints representing illegal content and then check each photo in the camera roll against that list. If any matches are found, they would be reported for human review. If the tool is successful and Apple allows governments to control the fingerprint database, the system could be used to find images of things other than illegal child content. Apple has not officially announced this new feature.
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
