The FTC has voted unanimously to enforce Right to Repair laws, Twitter is testing out new voting features and Apple’s largest iPhone production site has been affected by flooding in Central China.
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It’s all the tech news that’s trending right now, welcome to Hashtag Trending! It’s Friday, July 23, and I’m your host, Tom Li.
During an open commission meeting, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voted unanimously to enforce Right to Repair laws. This means U.S. buyers will be able to repair their own electronic devices. The Right to Repair laws have been in the news for months now since the FTC issued a report in May that targeted manufacturers for limiting repairs. The vote was led by FTC chair and tech critic Lina Khan. It comes 12 days after President Joe Biden signed an executive order to promote competition in the U.S. economy. The order addressed tech, bank and airline sectors. The Right To Repair discussion has helped show the imbalance between workers, consumers, small businesses and larger entities like big tech companies.
Twitter is testing out a new voting feature. On Wednesday the company announced that it’s testing a new system for upvoting and downvoting replies. The goal is to help identify the kind of content users want. Twitter has revealed that downvotes are not public and upvotes will show as likes. Twitter has also said that the new voting feature will not impact the ranking of replies. The company is only testing the feature on iOS at the moment. Some people have compared the feature to Reddit’s voting system and Reddit itself chimed in via Twitter noting the similarities.
And lastly, major flooding in central China cut power at Apple’s largest iPhone manufacturing site. Water has affected the site but the damage is limited according to employees. The three factories, located in the province of Henan produce more than half of the world iPhone’s. This minor production disruption arrives just when Apple suppliers are preparing for the new iPhone models anticipated to launch this fall. Apple CEO Tim Cook has said the company will be donating to flood relief efforts but has not specified the amount.
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.