San Francisco police could now use potentially lethal robots, DoorDash laid off 1,250 employees, and a Missouri senator accused Apple of supporting China’s speech suppression policies.
For all these tech news trending right now, welcome to Trending Hashtags. Today is Thursday, December 1st and I am your host, Sameera Balsara.
San Francisco police have been granted the ability to use potentially lethal, remote-controlled robots in emergency situations, after a debate on Tuesday that concluded with an 8-3 vote, with a majority of supervisors favoring this measure of the police force. agreed to further militarization. The two-hour debate was emotionally charged. ap news Reportedly, each party accused the other of being ‘afraid of recklessness’. The proposal was amended to allow the use of these robots only after alternative force or de-escalation tactics have been deployed and it has been concluded that none will work to subdue the suspect.
Delivery service DoorDash has laid off 1,250 employees as part of the company’s cost-cutting plan, CEO Tony Xu said in a message to employees yesterday. Shares of the company, which are down 60 percent year to date, jumped five percent following the news. DoorDash joins Amazon, Twitter, Meta and many other tech companies that slowed hiring earlier this year and are now furloughing employees as consumers and investors grapple with inflation and interest rates. Investor confidence has gone mute after the hike. DoorDash will offer affected employees 17 weeks of severance and health care will continue through March 2023. CNBC reported, For foreign and visa-sponsored workers, the termination date will be March 1, which will give workers “as much time as possible to find a new job,” according to Xu.
Missouri Senator Josh Hawley wrote a Open letter to Apple’s Tim Cook, accused the company of helping China to suppress free speech. He insisted that Apple should reduce its reliance on China, bring jobs back to America and not ban Twitter, following Elon Musk’s allegation that Apple wanted to ban Twitter’s mobile app from its App Store . The senator gave Cook a list of questions and a deadline of December 6 to respond. Questions cover the treatment of workers in Apple’s factories in China, China’s increasing aggression on Taiwan, Apple’s dependence on China, and Apple limiting airdrops to China. Hawley had previously said that Cook and Google’s Sundar Pichai should be held personally accountable over privacy issues related to coronavirus contact tracing.
Montreal based Avi, called Healthcare Uber, is the first mobile healthcare platform to connect registered physicians with patients, providing healthcare services at the most convenient time for them, from the safety of their homes and workplaces. Patients can order home healthcare services through the company’s app. The company seeks to leverage technology to reduce the burden on the health care system as we enter a season rife with respiratory illnesses and eliminate challenges in accessing care, including long wait times. The Avvy app is available on Google Play and the App Store.
This is all the tech news that is 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. Be sure to sign up for our Daily IT Wire Newsletter to get important news straight to your inbox every day. Plus, check out the next episode of Hashtag Tendence, our weekly hashtag trending episode in French, which drops every Thursday morning. If you have any suggestion or tip, drop us a line in the comments or via email. Thanks for listening, I’m Sameera Balsara.
