Techmeme
April 5, 2020, 2:00 PM

Top News

Valerie Strauss / Washington Post:
Zoom is being banned over security concerns by some US school districts, including NYC, which is directing teachers to switch to Microsoft Teams  —  Some school districts around the country have started to ban the use of Zoom for online learning from home during the coronavirus crisis …
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
New York Times:
Harriet Sherwood / The Guardian:
After some cell towers in the UK were set on fire, govt to meet with Facebook, YouTube, Twitter to stop the spread of a conspiracy theory linking 5G to COVID-19  —  After a spate of fires, the government is stepping in to halt the spread of linking coronavirus to the mobile network
Jim Waterson / The Guardian:
Telecom engineers, considered essential workers in the UK, are facing harassment from anti-5G conspiracy mongers, linking the deployment of 5G to coronavirus  —  EE suspects telephone mast engulfed by fire in Birmingham was an arson attack as celebrities claim Covid-19 caused by new network
Filipe Espósito / 9to5Mac:
iOS 14 code indicates that Apple is working on a new feature codenamed “Avocado” to enable real, movable widgets on iPad and iPhone home screens  —  9to5Mac reported last month that Apple is working on a redesigned wallpaper settings panel for iOS, based on an early build of iOS 14 …
Dave Gershgorn / OneZero :
Washington state's facial recognition law, which is championed by Microsoft, was sponsored by State Sen. Joe Nguyen, who also is a program manager at Microsoft  —  Plus, live facial recognition updates and the week's A.I. research  —  Welcome to General Intelligence, your weekly dive into the A.I. news and research that matters.
Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:
Sources: Apple is in the process of acquiring the California-based VR startup NextVR in a deal valued around $100M  —  It's no secret that Apple has ambitious plans for augmented reality and a future AR-focused headset.  Apple is practically building the platform for its future headset out in the open with ARKit.
Rebecca Rubin / Variety:
Some independent movie theaters are launching “virtual cinemas” to let patrons stream first-tier films from home as a temporary revenue source amid the pandemic  —  Greg Laemmle never thought he'd recommend anyone to stream a movie at home.  The best way to watch a film …
J.M. Porup / CSO:
Critics say bug bounty programs buy researcher silence, may violate labor law, and are less effective when they are closed and have NDAs placed on them  —  When Jonathan Leitschuh found a catastrophic security vulnerability in Zoom, the popular videoconferencing platform …
Vox:
In internal email lists Amazon corporate employees express dismay over the firing of Christian Smalls and a report that management discussed a plan to smear him  —  Leaked internal emails show employee dismay over how their company is handling escalating labor disputes during the coronavirus pandemic.

Sponsor Posts

ElevenLabs:
ElevenAgents by ElevenLabs  —  You know us for voice.  Now meet ElevenAgents — featuring Expressive Mode, our most human-sounding AI voice technology in 70+ languages with ultra-low latency.  Hear it for yourself.
Intel:
5G's most deployed platform  —  Powering live networks with built-in Inference across Core and RAN.  That's the power of Intel Inside®
Zoho:
Introducing intelligent document processing with Zoho RPA  —  Documents are a major bottleneck at many organizations.  Invoices, contracts, forms, ID cards, receipts: They all arrive in different shapes and sizes …
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

Grit:
How Kevin Mandia Built the Most Trusted Name in Cybersecurity
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Lenny's Podcast:
Anthropic's $1B to $19B growth run: how Claude became the fastest-growing AI product in history | Amol Avasare
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:
OpenAI buys TBPN, SpaceX's $2 Trillion IPO?, Iran Disables Amazon Infrastructure
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.
Hard Fork:
The Future of Addictive Design + Going Deep at DeepMind + HatGPT
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
Great Chat:
Go touch some grass (but don't tweet about it)
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.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ryan Roslansky: Turning AI Anxiety into Skills for the Future of Work
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:00 PM ET, April 5, 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

Earlier Picks

Aliya Chaudhry / The Verge: