Techmeme
April 7, 2020, 3:10 PM

Top News

Alex Hern / The Guardian:
WhatsApp now limits forwarding of viral messages, forwarded five or more times, to one group at a time, to fight the spread of misinformation  —  Restrictions on frequently forwarded messages intended to disrupt false Covid-19 claims  —  WhatsApp is to impose a strict new limit …
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Facebook's experimental product unit debuts Tuned, an iOS app creating a “private space” for couples, letting them keep a photo diary, exchange notes, and more  —  Keep a photo diary and check in on each other's moods  —  First, Facebook launched a dating feature, and now …
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Firefox 75 comes with a revamped address bar designed to make searches faster and a few performance tweaks  —  Mozilla today launched Firefox 75 for Windows, Mac, and Linux.  Firefox 75 includes a revamped address bar with significant search improvements, a few performance tweaks, and a handful of developer features.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Sensor Tower: Quibi had more than 300,000 downloads on its launch day; heavily promoted in Apple's App Store, it reached #3 but just #29 on Google Play  —  Quibi, the oddly-named mobile streaming service founded by Jeffrey Katzenberg, was downloaded over 300,000 times on launch day …
Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:
Microsoft buys corp.com, a domain that receives sensitive info from misconfigured Windows PCs, for an undisclosed sum to keep it out of the hands of bad actors  —  In February, KrebsOnSecurity told the story of a private citizen auctioning off the dangerous domain corp.com for the starting price of $1.7 million.
Alex Kantrowitz / BuzzFeed News:
Book excerpt: Apple's Information Systems & Technology group, which makes internal tools, operates in tumult, hampering its output and alienating contractors  —  Life in Apple's Information Systems & Technology division reminds some of a sweatshop.  An exclusive excerpt from Always Day One …
Sarah Frier / Bloomberg:
Book excerpt from Sarah Frier's No Filter covers how Mark Zuckerberg's jealousy held back Instagram and drove off founders, who gradually lost independence  —  Over the past decade, Instagram has become an engine of commerce and cultural influence with few peers—aside from its parent company …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft expands xCloud beta registration to 11 European countries, rolling out the preview gradually to avoid overloading the internet  —  Microsoft is rolling out the preview gradually due to coronavirus internet impact concerns  —  Microsoft is starting to open up its xCloud game streaming beta to countries across Europe.
The Guardian:
Facebook says it will start actively removing false claims that link Covid-19 to 5G, which have started entering the mainstream  —  Perfect storm of conditions helped nonsense theories about 5G and coronavirus to take hold  —  A year ago, hoax theories about the dangers of 5G had barely pierced …
Alex Konrad / Forbes:
Interview with Masayoshi Son on WeWork and the role of the Vision Fund within SoftBank; he expects 15 companies in the Vision Fund portfolio to go bankrupt  —  Covering venture capital, software and startups  —  Between the WeWork debacle and the coronavirus, the markets …
Saheli Roy Choudhury / CNBC:
Samsung forecasts Q1 2020 operating profit of $5.2B, up 2.7% YoY, beating analyst estimates, and consolidated sales of ~$44B; stock is up 3%+  —  - Samsung said it expects 6.4 trillion Korean won ($5.23 billion) in first-quarter operating profit for 2020, up 2.7% from the 6.23 trillion won it posted for the same period a year earlier.
Feargus O'Sullivan / CityLab:
A look at Airbnb's challenges amid the pandemic crisis, as global bookings fall and prospects for the travel accommodation industry turn murky  —  The short-term rental market is reeling from the coronavirus-driven tourism collapse.  Can the industry's dominant player stage a comeback after lockdowns lift?
New York Times:
Some teachers in the US say under 50% of their pupils participate in online learning; absence rate seems higher in low-income households, marking digital divide  —  Teachers at some schools across the country report that less than half of their students are participating in online learning.
Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:
Shippo, a shipping software and services startup, raises $30M Series C led by D1 Capital Partners, bringing its total raised to ~$60M  —  Early this afternoon Shippo, a shipping software and services company, announced that it has closed a $30 million Series C. The funding round roughly doubles …
Taylor Lyles / The Verge:
Google updates Pixel 4 to require open eyes to use the phone's face unlock feature by default, with the option to disable it  —  Apple's had a similar feature since 2017  —  Google released an update for the Pixel 4 today requiring users to have their eyes open when using face unlock to open the phone.

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Christina Farr / CNBC:
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