Hashtag Trends August 8 – Amazon Acquires Roomba Maker. Federal employees want to work from home.Flight trackers piss off public figures

Amazon bought iRobot, federal workers resent the idea of ​​going back to the office, and celebrities aren’t happy with flight trackers.

Welcome to hashtag trending. Monday, August 8th, this is Tom Li, your host.

Amazon bought iRobot, the maker of Roomba vacuum cleaners, for $1.7 billion. Of course, iRobot doesn’t just make vacuum cleaners. It also includes a wide range of smart home appliances. Amazon’s aim is to expand its repertoire of smart homes, but some privacy advocates have expressed concerns that by reaching out to more appliances, Amazon wants to know more about its users. It claims to be able to collect data. For example, Amazon will be able to access room mapping data collected by Roomba vacuums. However, from a business perspective, the deal is a win-win. Amazon can help expand Roomba beyond just a niche product while driving value in the smart home segment.

sauce: ABC News, bloomberg

Canadian federal government employees deny the possibility of returning to office. In one survey, 25% of his employees said they would be open to a hybrid structure, but 60% said they preferred working from home permanently. Only 10% want to go back to the office full-time. One health manager in Canada said a return to office work would also provide more time for employees at her local Subway restaurant. As expected, the idea immediately met with satirical backlash.

sauce: CBC

Flight tracking misleads many public figures. There are several of his websites and his Twitter accounts dedicated to tracking real-time flight data for key figures. The operators of these websites say they have received numerous requests to stop posting the whereabouts of these aircraft, but the data they collect is legally available and not open to anyone. One reason celebrities and others track flights is to hold them accountable for environmental damage. His one such case was in July when his flight tracker revealed that Kylie’s Jenner plane had only flown for 17 minutes.

sauce: tech explorer

Delaware plans to launch a pilot program to install solar panels for free to low-income residents. The plan allows low-income residents to install up to 4 kilowatts of solar power for free. This program also applies to middle-income earners. According to Good News Network, the program covers 70% of his cost up to 6 kilowatts. The goal is to increase access to renewable energy for low-income people and combat worsening climate change.

sauce: good news network

That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash Briefing or Google Home Daily Briefing. Sign up for the Daily IT Wire newsletter and get all the important news straight to your inbox every day. Also, check out the next episode of Hashtag Tendances, our weekly Hashtag Trending episode in French, which airs every Thursday morning. If you have any suggestions or tips, let us know in the comments or email us. Thanks for listening, I’m Tom Lee.