Hashtag Trending – Norway’s electric car craze; Walmart partners with Google; Amazon under fire

Norway is the king of electric cars, Walmart is teaming up with Google, and Amazon is under fire again after a story about its injured workers goes viral.

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Norway has set a global record, and LinkedIn is talking all about it. The Norwegian Road Federation (NRF) has announced that almost 60 per cent of all new cars sold in the country last month were electric vehicles. Norway has long-led the world in adoption of zero-emission vehicles, and the recent string of strong sales can be traced back to Tesla’s new Model 3, which accounted for more than 5,000 of the approximately 18,000 vehicles sold in the country last month, according to reports. The Model S and Model X sold another 500 vehicles combined. Last year, Norway’s fully electric car sales rose to a record 31.2 per cent market share from 20.8 per cent in 2017. Go Norway.

In a pretty obvious declaration of war against its rival Amazon, Walmart says it’s partnering with Google in order to take advantage of Google Assistant. LinkedIn has been buzzing about the reporting from TechCrunch that says the company is rolling out a new voice-ordering capability called Walmart Voice Order, which works across Google Assistant-powered platforms, including Google’s smart speakers and displays, smartphones, smartwatches, and more. This isn’t the first time Walmart and Google decided to team up – the two partnered on voice-based shopping through Google Home devices two years ago. Walmart however disappeared from Google Express’ marketplace in January. Walmart says the new voice-shopping feature will launch to all Google Assistant-powered devices this month, including Google Home, Android and iPhones, smartwatches and other third-party platforms.

Revealed: Amazon employees are left to suffer after workplace injuries – Amazon made its CEO is the wealthiest person in the world. So why can’t the company care for those injured while working there? from r/technology

And our third trending story of the day is trending everywhere, but it quickly hit 10,000 up-votes on Reddit. Amazon is in the news once again, and it’s about its workers – again. A scathing article by the Guardian has made its rounds, highlighting not only the poor and at times dangerous working conditions Amazon workers face, but also the lack of compensation and care they receive after sustaining an injury. The publication’s investigation reveals several cases where Amazon workers are left to their own devices after sustaining workplace injuries. It’s left workers unable to work, and often, forced them to fight for months to receive basic benefits and health care. It’s no surprise that last year Amazon was listed on the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health’s “dirty dozen” list of the most dangerous places to work in the U.S.

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.

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Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

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Alex Coop
Alex Coophttp://www.itwc.ca
Former Editorial Director for IT World Canada and its sister publications.

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