Google wins in the copyright fight against Oracle, tension among Amazon workers is growing, and goodbye Yahoo Answers.
It’s all the tech news that’s popular right now. Welcome to Hashtag Trending! It’s Thursday, April 6 and I’m your host Baneet Braich.
Google wins fair use case vs Oracle at US Supreme Court from technology
Google has won a multibillion-dollar copyright fight with Oracle in the Supreme Court. Oracle, which acquired Java in 2010 accused Google of illegally copying over 11,000 lines of Java API code to develop Android. But Justice Stephen Breyer dismissed a lower-court ruling for Oracle that said Android infringed its copyrights on the Java software platform. The high court said Google’s copying of some Java API code was fair. “Google’s copying did not violate the copyright law,” Justice Breyer wrote. APIs, or application programming interfaces, are prewritten packages of computer code that allow programs, websites or apps to talk to one another. According to the Wall Street Journal, Oracle was seeking up to $9 billion worth in damages from Google.
Tensions among Amazon workers are growing. The National Labor Relations Board says Amazon illegally fired two activist workers, both of whom had publicly spoken about Amazon’s climate impact and warehouse safety, according to the New York Times. They also organized efforts for other workers to support. However, an Amazon spokesperson told the Times that they “repeatedly violated internal policies.” If Amazon does not settle, the NLRB says it would accuse Amazon of unfair labour practices. This also comes as the labour board is counting votes for unionization in one of Amazon’s Alabama warehouses.
Yahoo Answers will be shutting down on May 4. The Q&A site was around since 2005 and was one of the longest-running Q&A platforms on the internet. I remember trying to get help on Algebra questions. Yahoo Answers never let me down. Unfortunately for Yahoo Answers, it has become less popular over the years, partially due to Google’s own Q&A features and widgets. On April 20th, the company will no longer accept submissions. After May 4th, people have until June 30th to download an archive of content they have posted.
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