Apple has some great deals on discounted MacBook Air laptops and accessories through Amazon Canada. If you buy today it seems the massive online retailer can ship to you before the 25th.

Check out the deals below.

Apple Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad for $124 (save 17%)
Magic Keyboard – French for $94 (save 21%)
Magic Keyboard – US English for $94 (Save 21%)
Apple Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad for $124 (Save 17%)
Apple Magic Mouse (Wireless, Rechargable) for $79.99 (save 10%)
2020 Apple MacBook Air Laptop for $1,149 (Save 12%)
2020 Apple MacBook Air: Apple M1 Chip, 13″ Retina Display, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD Storage for $1,149 (save 12%)
2020 Apple MacBook Air: Apple M1 Chip, 13″ Retina Display, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD Storage for $1,149 (save 12%)
Silver 2020 Apple MacBook Air: Apple M1 Chip, 13” Retina Display, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD Storage for $1,149 (save 12%)
Gold 2020 Apple MacBook Air Laptop: Apple M1 Chip, 13″ Retina Display, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD Storage for $1,149 (save 12%)

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Source: Amazon Canada

The IRS accidentally releases private data, Amazon and Reddit hit the list for companies with the lowest retention rates, and South Australia powers the state for a week with green energy. 

 

That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Welcome to Hashtag Trending. It’s Tuesday December 20 and I am your host, Ashee Pamma.

Confidential data of over 100,000 taxpayers inadvertently published by the IRS over the summer was accidentally republished in late November and remained online til this month. According to the IRS, data from Form 990-Ts that was supposed to stay private had been taken offline but made its way back to the IRS site when a contractor uploaded an old file which included most of the private information, The agency had to make Form 990-Ts filed by nonprofit groups available online but is supposed to keep the form filed by individuals private. According to Bloomberg, an internal programming error caused the September release of private forms along with the ones filed by non profit groups. In a letter written to congressional leaders last week, this time, the contractor tasked with managing the database reuploaded the older file with the original data instead of a new file that filtered out the forms that were supposed to stay private.

 

A report from Work and Money reveals the tech companies with the lowest retention rates. Out of 19 companies, Shopify and ByteDance tied at 14th place citing long hours and overworking for the low score. Meta was ranked at 12th place with employees claiming that the workplace is not a positive environment. Other notable tech companies on the list include Alphabet, Zoom, Reddit and Amazon. Amazon made the list for employee burnout and extremely low pay. 

 

South Australia has been effectively powered by green energy for a week and one expert is predicting that it could extend to a month by 2023. From December 12 to 19, National Energy Market data showed wind and solar contributed on average 103.5 per cent towards the state’s energy demand. Coal energy was not used at all during the period and gas accounted for 5.9 per cent of electricity when renewable sources were not enough to power the state throughout the night. The average cost of a megawatt hour dropped to -$26.35. In addition, ABC News reported that the Head of the Victoria Energy Policy Centre at Victoria University, Bruce Mountain, said this milestone is another step on the renewable energy journey. He added that South Australia could potentially see the state powered using green energy for a month by early next year.

 

A new artificial intelligence tool called ChatGPT has the ability to solve math problems, write college essays and write research papers. However, following the release of the text-based system to the public last month, some educators have noted that  these AI systems have the ability to transform academia in good and bad ways. According to NPR, one professor named Ethan Mollick from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, said the tool has become a popular way to help students cheat by plagiarizing the AI-written work. But there are benefits to it as well. Mollick has used it as his own teacher’s assistant, for help with crafting a syllabus, lecture, an assignment and a grading rubric for MBA students. 

 

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 briefings 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 Thursday morning. If you have a suggestion or a tip, drop us a line in the comments or via email. Thank you for listening, I’m Ashee Pamma.

 

The post Hashtag Trending Dec 20 – IRS releases private data; Big tech tops list for companies with low retention rates; South Australia powers with green energy first appeared on IT World Canada.

News that Avaya Holdings Corp. could imminently file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection means that both channel partners and corporate clients are watching anxiously to see what will happen next.

Should a filing end up happening, “part of Avaya’s Chapter 11 filing requires a simplification of their product lines,” Thomas Randall, advisory director with London, Ont.-based Info-Tech Research Group, said today. “Both channel partners and clients are watching for whether parts of Avaya will be sold off (e.g., their contact centre solution) to meet financial objectives, or whether certain products will just reach end of life from lack of R&D investment.”

News of the pending bankruptcy protection plan first broke on Thursday when the Wall Street Journal reported that the “company is reaching a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing to restructure its balance sheet, in a bid to turn around its business and move past accounting problems.”

Company shares at the end of trading today plunged to US$0.15, from a high share price earlier this year of US$21.65.

According to Randall, “plenty will be attractive to potential buyers of Avaya product lines – Avaya still retains an extremely large customer base. The question will be whether Avaya just remains the paint on a solution powered by another provider, or if the Avaya brand will disappear altogether from a sell-off. RingCentral already powers Avaya’s UCaaS solution – will another vendor (like Microsoft) decide to acquire Avaya’s contact centre solution for ease to market?”

At the end of the day, he added, another concern to be considered is customer experience: “With so many layoffs and an inability to meet certain cloud deployment deadlines, Avaya customers and channel partners may be reaching the point of jumping ship.

“It is a difficult process to modernize from on-premises legacy communications to cloud-based solutions. But, if that move has taken place, the infrastructure now exists for clients to perform a cloud-to-cloud migration. Cloud-to-cloud migration services also present a market opportunity for channel partners to move into.”

Another stumbling block revolves around the fact that confidence among partners will not be high, Randall said: “Having already been through a Chapter 11 journey just five years ago, Avaya had to rally its partners at their 2018 Engage conference.

“Channel partners will now likely be asking, ‘What is different this time? What confidence can I be given that the product lines I am selling will still be here next year? What communication should I be giving my clients?’ At the moment, communication still remains vague and likely will remain so until the filing takes place.”

A Reuters article that followed the Wall Street Journal reporting  stated that the company “was in talks with its financial stakeholders regarding a comprehensive resolution to strengthen its balance sheet.”

In a statement issued on Dec. 13, Alan Masarek, Avaya’s chief executive officer (CEO), said discussions with all of the company’s financial stakeholders are taking place, “to enhance our capital structure, increase liquidity and accelerate our investment in innovative products and solutions.”

The post Sell-off of Avaya product lines a real possibility if Chapter 11 filing occurs, says analyst first appeared on IT World Canada.

Tbaytel will use Ericsson’s network to launch 5G services in 60 sites in Thunder Bay in January 2023.

The company says it will expand the service to other markets by the end of 2023.

“5G networks will enhance our mobile experience providing us opportunities to reimagine how we use our smartphones and connected devices,”  said company president and CEO Dan Topatig said.

“It will bring faster data speeds for downloads and streaming, larger network capacities to support more connected customers and continuous network reliability to enrich Tbaytel’s overall mobile experience.”

The company is also partnering with Rogers to launch the service.

Tbaytel is initially planning on using a combination of network spectrums for a “superior combination of coverage area and capacity.” Low band spectrum will provide coverage for long distances and desirable service in rural areas. Mid-band, on the other hand, will boost speed and provide ultra-low latency.

Image credit: Tbaytel

Source: Tbaytel

A pair of former Tesla employees have filed formal complaints against their former employer after they were illegally fired for taking part in an organized effort that publicly criticized Tesla CEO Elon Musk, as reported by Bloomberg.

The employees, who are based in California, have both filed formal complaints with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), citing that the firing violated federal laws regarding employee freedom of speech related to working conditions.

Both of the fired employees were reportedly involved in drafting two letters, one of which prompted Tesla to re-consider its return-to-office policy, while the other talked about a Tweet by Musk that reportedly violates the company’s anti-harassment policies.

The case is similar to the SpaceX firing incident, where a group of former employees were illegally fired after they wrote a letter that suggested the company strengthen its “zero-tolerance policies” after sexual harassment allegations against Musk came out. The fired SpaceX employees filed a complaint with the NLRB and hired a San Francisco-based law-firm to represent them. Reportedly, the recently fired Tesla employees have hired the same firm.

It’s worth noting that U.S. law bars companies from firing or taking action against its employees for taking collective action related to their working conditions, making the firing outright illegal.

Source: Bloomberg Via: The Verge

Instagram has launched a new Recap Reel to let people create a custom video to commemorate the end of 2022.

First, you’ll choose a narrated template featuring either Bad Bunny, DJ Khaled, Indian rapper Badshah or Stranger Things‘ Priah Ferguson. From there, you can select up to 14 photos for Instagram to automatically edit into a sharable Reel.

To access this, click the new ‘create your 2022 recap reel’ prompt on the Instagram app’s homepage or locate it in the Reels tab.

Historically, Instagram has lacked any in-app recap feature, leading users to use third-party apps like ‘Best Nine’ to round up their most-liked posts. However, the social media giant introduced ‘Year in Review’ in 2021, allowing users to select up to 10 stories to share with followers.

Now, the company is shifting to Reels for its 2022 recap, which falls in line with its larger push for the TikTok-esque short-form video format.

Via: Engadget

Starting 2023, Nvidia Shield TV users will lose access to a feature that allowed them to stream the games they run on their PC directly to their TVs.

The feature, called Gamestream, allows users to access their favourite games from a GeForce GTX-powered PC directly on a Shield TV or Shield Tablet at 60FPS at up to 4K HDR. Starting mid-February, however, a planned update will begin rolling out to Shield owners that will permanently disable remove the Gamestream feature from Shield devices.

As an alternative, Nvidia is recommending users to migrate over to using Steam Link to stream games from their PC to Shield devices. “Steam Link supports 4K streaming and allows streaming to many devices, including PCs, phones, and tablets. Gamers can also stream PC games from the cloud to their SHIELD TV using NVIDIA’s GeForce NOW service,” wrote Nvidia in a support document. 

You’ll need the SteamLink app on your Shield TV and Steam on your PC to stream games.

Mid-February is when the update will reportedly drop. However, if you want to use Gamestream for a little bit longer, you can choose to not update your device. According to Nvidia, if you don’t update, “Gamestream may continue to work for a time, but will no longer be supported and eventually will stop working.”

It is currently unknown why Nvidia decided to end support for Gamestream. Learn more here.

Image credit: Nvidia

Source: Nvidia

Microsoft has floated the idea of introducing a lower-cost, ad-supported membership for Xbox Game Pass.

In a new survey sent to some Spanish Xbox players, per Windows Central, the tech giant looked to gauge interest in a number of hypothetical less expensive Game Pass subscriptions.

One of the proposed memberships would be to pay a lower fee to get first-party Xbox games as much as six months later, a significant change from Game Pass’ current promise of day-one exclusives. An even cheaper tier could also introduce ads into the service, which would presumably play when a game is launched.

Interestingly, Windows Central notes that Microsoft recently patented a method to show personalized ads in games, which is curious timing considering the new survey.

It’s also worth noting that many streaming services have been introducing lower-cost, ad-supported memberships as a way to drive growth. In November, Netflix launched the $5.99 CAD/month ‘Basic with Ads’ subscription in Canada and other markets, while U.S. services like Disney’s Hulu, Warner’s HBO Max and NBC Universal’s Peacock also offering similar ad-enabled alternatives. Disney+ even just got an ad-supported option in the U.S. earlier this month, although it’s unclear if and when it will expand to Canada.

Given how Game Pass already draws inspiration from the on-demand nature of these streaming services, it’s easy to see how Microsoft might also be looking at how they’ve been handling ads. Of course, it’s important to stress that surveys and patents are not the same as an actual confirmation, so it remains to be seen whether Microsoft will go down this route.

For now, Xbox boss Phil Spencer has said the price of Game Pass will inevitably go up, but not until next year at the earliest. The company has confirmed that the cost of first-party Xbox Series X/S games will also increase next year ahead of Starfield.

Source: Windows Central

Google’s upcoming Pixel Tablet and ‘Charging Speaker Dock’ showed up for sale on Facebook Marketplace with several pictures showing off the device.

The search giant has given us a few glimpses of the tablet already, but aside from a vague 2023 release timeframe and some other basic details, we still don’t know a ton about the tablet. However, the Pixel Tablet for sale on Facebook Marketplace gives us some more information.

Spotted by leaker’ShrimpApplePro’ on Twitter, images in the Marketplace listing show the Pixel Tablet’s home screen (which looks a lot like the Pixel Launcher with a tablet-friend layout), the settings app with a two-column layout, how the Pixel Tablet looks sitting on the charging dock (like a thick Nest Hub Max) and a close-up of the charging dock itself.

🤨 pic.twitter.com/2T7xQdpgTU

— ShrimpApplePro 🍤 (@VNchocoTaco) December 19, 2022

We can see from the image of the Settings screen that the tablet has 256GB of storage and 70 percent battery with an estimated 15 hours and 54 minutes of remaining life. Moreover, 9to5Google was able to make out a USB-C port on the left edge of the tablet in one shot.

As for the charging dock, you can see four metal contacts on it — there are likely four metal contacts on the back of the Pixel Tablet too for connecting it to the dock. 9to5 notes that the charging dock’s port looks similar to the port on the Nest Hub Max, and the pictured power adapter also looks a lot like the one for the Nest Hub Max. It’s possible it could be the same 30W adapter with a barrel connector.

We’ll likely learn more about the Pixel Tablet in the coming weeks, either from continued leaks or possibly a full reveal from Google in the new year. My guess is someone will purchase the tablet from Facebook Marketplace and post more details online, but we’ll see what happens.

Images credit: ShrimpApplePro

Source: @ShrimpApplePro Via: 9to5Google

Adult entertainment website Pornhub’s official YouTube channel has been taken down.

Pornhub’s official YouTube channel, which had almost 900,000 subscribers, dates back to December 2014, but it was banned last week for reportedly violating YouTube’s policy regarding linking to external websites that host content not allowed on YouTube itself, as reported by Variety.

Searching for the channel now shows no results, while its URL shows a 404 error.

“Upon review, we terminated the channel Pornhub Official following multiple violations of our Community Guidelines,” YouTube spokesperson Jack Malon said in a statement given to Variety. “We enforce our policies equally for everyone, and channels that repeatedly violate or are dedicated to violative content are terminated.”

On the other hand, according to a spokesperson from Montreal-based MindGeek, the adults website’s parent company, “Pornhub maintains the absolute best trust and safety measures on the internet and takes special care to ensure it does not violate any of YouTube’s Community Guidelines.” The spokesperson added, “Unfortunately, this is just the latest example of discrimination against those in the adult industry, a trend seen across social media and all other facets of life, especially as groups disingenuously conflate consensual adult content with exploitation.”

Following the ban, on Friday, anti-pornography group National Center on Sexual Exploitation published a new blog post, where it stated that it had initially flagged some content on Pornhub’s YouTube page that it believed was in direct violation of YouTube’s policies. “After review, YouTube alerted NCOSE that they had terminated the channel for violations of their Community Guidelines.”

This comes soon after TikTok and Instagram banned Pornhub’s accounts citing repeated violations of community guidelines. Learn more here.

Source: Variety