Hashtag Trending – Amazon flooded with virus fakes; Musk’s battery farm; Edge concerns

Amazon says it has removed millions of products from its platform because of price gouging and counterfeit claims related to the coronavirus, Musk’s battery farm gets a lot of attention on Reddit, and a new study says Microsoft Edge has more privacy-invading telemetry than other browsers

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The Wall Street Journal is reporting that more than 100 masks and respirators are still for sale on Amazon’s marketplace, despite Amazon’s latest efforts to remove the fake items off its digital shelves. The e-commerce giant often gets bombarded by third-party sellers offering fake products in response to major events with a wide-impact on the general public. As of this recording, the number of global coronavirus cases has exceeded 125,000 and the number of deaths is at more than 4,600.

Elon Musk’s Battery Farm Is an Undeniable Success from r/technology

Trending on Reddit is an article from Popular Mechanics about Elon Musk’s battery farm in Australia that’s helped the country save millions of dollars. The facility powers rural South Australia, and can power 30,000 homes for up to an hour, relieving the stress on the grid during potential failures on hot summer days. The story goes on to say how South Australians saved a ton of money, much more than the $50 million costs that Tesla passed on to its Australian investor. The battery farm reportedly reduced network costs by about US$76 million

Microsoft Edge has more privacy-invading telemetry than other browsers from r/technology

And lastly, a recent study has found that the Microsoft Edge browser is one of the least private ones out there. An Irish researcher tested six web browsers to determine how often they phoned home, and what data they were sharing. It turns out that all URLs typed into Edge are shared with multiple Microsoft sites, in addition to unique hardware identifiers, allowing for the possibility of history tracking. Some Redditors were surprised by the results, assuming Chrome would perform the worst when it came to privacy. Others were less surprised, as one Redditor noted “Microsoft has dipped to a new low.”

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. I’m Alex Coop, thanks for listening.

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Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

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