Hashtag trends Sept. 9 – Free tax returns. Remote supervisor fails.facebook button disappeared

The IRS aims to build a free tax filing system, remote monitoring doesn’t seem to work, and major brands are ditching Facebook buttons.

Welcome to hashtag trending. It’s Tom Li, your host, on Friday, September 9th.

The Internal Revenue Service is considering establishing a free electronic tax filing system. To make this happen, the agency wants to use $15 million from the $80 billion allocated for the Inflation Reduction Act. As reported by the Washington Post, IRS officials say the biggest obstacle to establishing a free filing system is lack of funding. With that now out of the way, Americans may finally have an alternative to paid tax filing services like TurboTax. Nothing has been announced as to when it will start.

sauce: yahoo news, washington post

Despite their best efforts, remote supervision doesn’t seem to work. Research shows that Proctorio, a popular anti-cheating software used in schools, failed to catch all cheaters in a test environment. Researchers in this study, first reported by Motherboard, concluded that it was as effective as a placebo and reduced cheating not because it worked, but because people believed it worked. The students were able to easily beat the system using virtual machines. I was literally just calling my friends.

sauce: Vise

As social platforms decline in popularity, big brands seem to be abandoning Facebook sign-in. Dell, Best Buy, Ford Motor, and even Twitch have removed the ability to sign in with your Facebook account. Facebook is seeing a decline in users due to increased competition from other platforms, new privacy changes, and a plethora of legal and privacy issues. Without consumer trust, businesses are hesitant to forge partnerships with Facebook. Yet Meta’s other platforms, such as Instagram and WhatsApp, still enjoy an active user base and are thriving.

sauce: CNBC

Heat pumps, devices that compress heat from one source and supply it to another, are becoming a hot topic. Already used in cooling systems such as refrigerators, it can also be used for home heating, reducing natural gas use and helping to combat climate change. It also saves a ton of money compared to gas-based heating systems, cutting operating costs in half. The system has already been massively deployed in countries such as the UK, and is considered an integral part of the national defense by US President Joe Biden.

sauce: conversation

That’s all the tech news 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 to 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.