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March 18, 2020, 9:00 AM
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Top News

Apple:
Apple unveils new iPad Pro with a lidar scanner for depth-sensing, backlit keyboard and trackpad, available to order today for $799 for the 11-inch model  —  New Magic Keyboard Designed for iPad Pro Features a Floating Design, Backlit Keyboard and Trackpad, Delivering the Best Typing Experience Ever on iPad
Apple:
Apple launches a new MacBook Air with a Magic Keyboard with scissor-style keys, 13" Retina display, Touch ID, and 10th-gen Intel Core CPUs, starting at $999  —  The Most Popular Mac Now Has Up to 2x Faster Performance, the New Magic Keyboard and Twice the Storage
Washington Post:
Sources: the US government is in active talks with Facebook, Google, and others to use location data from Americans' smartphones to stem COVID-19's spread  —  The U.S. government is in active talks with Facebook, Google and a wide array of tech companies and health experts …
Joe Tidy / BBC:
Israel approves emergency measures, it says lasting 30 days, for its security agencies to track the mobile phone data of people suspected to have COVID-19  —  The Israeli government has approved emergency measures for its security agencies to track the mobile phone data of people with suspected coronavirus.
Casey Newton / The Interface:
Amid COVID-19 crisis, tech platforms are making a premature bet on AI, as human moderators shift to moderating less sensitive content while working from home  —  Today, let's talk about some of the front-line workers at Facebook and Google working on the pandemic: the content moderators who keep the site running day in and day out.
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube say they're working with each other and healthcare agencies to tackle misinfo about COVID-19
Washington Post:
Coronavirus misinformation, the sources of which elude authorities, spreads rapidly across WhatsApp, TikTok, texts, and emails, mediums lacking oversight
Khari Johnson / VentureBeat:
Google Translate debuts Transcribe for Android, letting users transcribe conversations in real-time across eight languages, with future plans to ship on iOS  —  Google Translate today launched Transcribe for Android, a feature that delivers a continual, real-time translation of a conversation.
The Information:
Sources: Facebook says all employees will get a $1,000 bonus and earn at least their full bonus for their first 6-month review of 2020 amid COVID-19 crisis  —  Facebook will pay a $1,000 bonus to every employee, one of the first big companies to offer workers cash to help them during the coronavirus outbreak.
David Shepardson / Reuters:
Facebook says it plans to award $100M in cash grants and ad credits for up to 30,000 small businesses in 30+ countries to address COVID-19's economic impact  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Facebook Inc said Tuesday it plans to award $100 million in cash grants and ad credits for up to 30,000 small businesses …
Alfred Ng / CNET:
HHS waives penalties for the use of non-HIPAA compliant video chatting services, like FaceTime and Skype, for telehealth during COVID-19 outbreak  —  The coronavirus crisis is pushing the US government to loosen one of its only laws on data privacy.  The Department of Health and Human Services …
Lindsey O'Donnell / Threatpost:
Study: Microsoft Edge sends frequent hashed IDs tied to hardware to its back-end servers, making it one of the least private browsers available  —  Microsoft Edge is one of the least private web browsers — even more so than other popular browsers like Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox — according to academic researchers.
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
GitHub launches Android and iOS apps out of beta, letting developers stay in touch with their team, triage issues, and even merge code from their mobile device  —  Microsoft's GitHub today launched its native Android and iOS app out of beta.  With the app hitting general availability …
Ryan Broderick / BuzzFeed News:
Uber suspends its Uber Pool feature in the US and Canada, and Lyft says it is pausing Shared rides across all its markets to reduce the spread of COVID-19  —  Uber has suspended its Uber Pool feature in the United States and Canada due to the worsening outbreak of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
Dave Clark / The Amazon Blog:
Amazon plans to hire 100K more warehouse and delivery workers in the US and raise their pay by ~$2/hour in some countries, as more turn to online deliveries  —  Company will invest over $350 million globally to increase pay by $2/hour in the U.S., £2/hr in the UK …
BuzzFeed News:
Some warehouse workers say Amazon isn't doing enough to limit the spread of coronavirus within its fulfillment centers and demand additional protections

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Featured Podcasts

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From Mediagazer

Jessica Toonkel / Wall Street Journal:
A look at Comcast co-CEO Brian Roberts' earlier bundling strategy for connectivity and content, and his plan now to unbundle in order to keep growing

Associated Press:
After a short-term hold, SCOTUS denies former Fox News reporter Catherine Herridge's bid to stay an $800-a-day fine if she refuses to reveal a source

Janko Roettgers / The Verge:
A look back at BitTorrent, launched by Bram Cohen 25 years ago, and how media piracy fueled its growth while its architecture shielded it from legal liability

More News

Raymond Zhong / New York Times:
China's COVID-19 outbreak has exposed the country's digital divide in education, as many rural students lack the connections or hardware to learn remotely
Eugene Kim / Business Insider:
Amazon prioritizes shipments of household staples and high-demand products to its warehouses, partially suspending Fulfillment by Amazon program through April 5

Earlier Picks

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Google postpones the rescheduled, online version of its Cloud Next conference until further notice, after canceling the in-person conference a few weeks ago
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