Techmeme
March 20, 2020, 9:30 PM

Top News

Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
Netflix, YouTube, and Amazon Prime Video say they will reduce their streaming quality in EU to reduce traffic on the network, as millions are confined at home  —  BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) YouTube said on Friday it will reduce its streaming quality in the European Union …
Financial Times:
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
After canceling Google I/O's in-person event in early March, Google now says it will “not be holding an I/O event in any capacity this year”  —  Google earlier this month announced that it was not hosting a physical developer conference in light of coronavirus.
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
A day with the new MacBook Air: delightfully close to perfection and settles all the issues with keyboard, price, and performance, but its camera still stinks  —  We waited a long time for a retina MacBook Air.  When we finally got it back in November 2018, it was worth waiting for.
Ryan Mac / BuzzFeed News:
Twitter, which prohibits denials of established science on the virus' transmission, says Elon Musk's tweet that kids are “essentially immune” is not a violation  —  The journalists at BuzzFeed News are proud to bring you trustworthy and relevant reporting about the coronavirus.
Amber Neely / AppleInsider:
Study: using touch on Apple CarPlay or Android Auto impairs driver reaction times by 50%+, vs. 35% for texting-while-driving and 46% for hand-held phone calls  —  U.K. based road safety charity IAM RoadSmart has released a study showing how in-vehicle infotainment systems …
Brandy Betz / Seeking Alpha:
Sources: Airbnb's plans to go public are in disarray after the company racked up hundreds of millions of dollars in losses this year  —  The coronavirus pandemic has led to hundreds of millions in losses for Airbnb (AIRB) and has the company considering a funding round rather than going public, according to WSJ sources.
CNBC:
AWS commits $20M and launches a diagnostics development unit, with 35 partner orgs, to accelerate research to find a faster, more affordable test for COVID-19  —  - Amazon is launching a diagnostics development unit through its cloud unit, AWS.  — The idea is to back researchers with funds …
Strategy Analytics:
Research: global smartphone shipments dropped 38% YoY in February, from 99.2M units in 2019 to 61.8M in 2020  —  According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, global smartphone shipments tumbled 38 percent year-on-year in the month of February, 2020.
Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
WHO debuts Health Alert, a fact-finding tool on WhatsApp that shows up-to-date info like novel COVID-19 infection rates, travel advisories, and debunked misinfo  —  The World Health Organization is partnering with the messaging app to help ensure trustworthy information gets out.

Sponsor Posts

Command Line:
Azure Content Understanding: Building on lessons from a decade of Document Intelligence  —  What a decade of teaching machines to read real-world documents taught us about what LLMs can and can't do.
Will Reed:
The best sales leaders aren't job hunting.  Here's how to reach them without months of cold outreach.  —  Our team came from Box, Square, and Brex, so we already know the GTM leaders worth meeting.
Zoho:
Zoho Books now supports CT600 & Final Accounts Filing as an add-on in the FREE plan  —  Managing end-of-year filing for limited companies in the UK is often expensive and multi-layered.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Lenny's Podcast:
Why every company now needs to think and operate like a lab team | Josh Woodward (Google Labs, Gemini, AI Studio)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Big Technology Podcast:
Meta & Microsoft's Claude Slowdown, His Agent Leaked His Banking Info, Don't Bully Your AI
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Sources:
Qualcomm's CEO on the coming AI phone supercycle
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
Subscribe to Sources.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Bringing Back Mammoths And Building Noah's Ark 2.0 | Colossal's Ben Lamm
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
Great Chat:
The launch industrial complex
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Larry Ellison's Media Ambitions & Kevin Roose on AI's Biggest Gamble
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:30 PM ET, March 20, 2020.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Ryan Gallagher / Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Alex Hern / The Guardian:
Reed Albergotti / Washington Post:
Nick Statt / The Verge: