Techmeme
April 9, 2020, 1:15 AM

Top News

Michael McWhertor / Polygon:
Google makes Stadia free to use for anyone with a Gmail address and will give new users two months of Stadia Pro for free  —  Stadia Pro is also free for two months  —  Google's video game streaming platform, Stadia, is now free to anyone with a Gmail address, the company announced on Wednesday.
Jason Gurwin / The Streamable:
Disney says Disney+ has 50M+ paid subscribers globally, and that its April 3 launch in India accounts for 8M Disney+ subscribers; stock is up ~6% after hours  —  Disney announced that the company has surpassed 50 million paid subscribers, following their launch in India and eight Western European countries …
Eric S. Yuan / Zoom Blog:
Zoom gives updates on its progress with privacy and security: appointing a CISO Council and Advisory Board and bringing on Alex Stamos as an outside adviser  —  As I mentioned in my message on April 1, Zoom has seen tremendous growth and new use cases emerge over the past few weeks …
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Twitter removes a tool that let mobile users prevent some data from being shared with advertisers; EU users are exempt and need to opt in to sharing  —  Users in Europe are the exception  —  Twitter has removed a privacy feature that allowed all users to stop sharing some private information with advertisers.
Matt Drange / Protocol:
Online ticketing service Eventbrite says it will lay off 45% of its employees; sources say Eventbrite has over 1,000 staff  —  Eventbrite CEO Julia Hartz announced Wednesday during a companywide meeting that 45% of employees were being laid off, Protocol has learned.
Thomas Brewster / Forbes:
UK's NCSC and US DHS publish a list of 2,500 COVID-19-related threats they are tracking, including malicious websites and email addresses linked to scams  —  If you weren't already taking the rise of coronavirus-based cybercrime seriously, take note.  A rare joint alert has gone out from U.S …
Eva Dou / Washington Post:
A look at COVID-19-related health security measures in places like Foxconn's iPhone-making complex and Huawei's factories in China as they restart production  —  Disinfect hands and shoes at the factory gate.  Bring your own towel.  No sunny-side-up eggs.
Dave Gershgorn / OneZero :
Many US government and banking systems still use a 60-year-old COBOL, which makes it hard to find programmers to fix the systems when they break under pressure  —  Retired engineers are coming to the rescue  —  ver the weekend, New Jersey governor, Phil Murphy, made an unusual public plea during …
Richard Nieva / CNET:
Google says Meet, its teleconferencing tool, is adding 2M new users a day and logged 2B minutes of video calls in March with daily usage up 25x from January  —  As people around the world hunker down in their homes to slow the spread of COVID-19, one technology has emerged as a lifeline to the outside world: video chat.
Andrei Frumusanu / AnandTech:
Evidence of benchmark cheating has been found in MediaTek chipsets used in smartphones from manufacturers including Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi, and Sony  —  Mobile benchmark cheating has a long story that goes far back for the industry (well - at least in smartphone industry years) …
Luke O'Brien / HuffPost:
Investigation details facial recognition company Clearview AI's ties to the alt-right, including hiring employees with deep links to far-right extremists  —  Clearview AI, which has alarmed privacy experts, hired several far-right employees, a HuffPost investigation found.
Adam Cancryn / Politico:
Sources: White House team led by Jared Kushner has reached out to health tech companies about creating a real-time surveillance system for tracking COVID-19  —  White House senior adviser Jared Kushner's task force has reached out to a range of health technology companies about creating …
Talos Blog:
Cisco's Talos security group finds fingerprint scanners from Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, and others can be bypassed by fake fingerprints made with 3D printing  —  Phone, computer fingerprint scanners can be defeated with 3-D printing — By Paul Rascagneres and Vitor Ventura.
Steve Lohr / New York Times:
Human audio transcribers are growing in demand as AI transcription tech still struggles to parse speech from multiple speakers and grasp context  —  Ellie Leonard's transcription business has thrived, despite the arrival of automated services and advancing A.I. technology.
Katie Robertson / New York Times:
Some AI-enabled streaming cameras are using machine learning to help pet owners detect unusual behavior in their pets, alerting them if the behavior is abnormal  —  New technology in streaming cameras can flag unusual behavior or suggest why the dog might be barking.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Try Gemini 3 Pro  —  Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life
Shopify:
Shopify: Revolutionizing Commerce with Winter Edition '26  —  Over 150+ new features transform how merchants build, design, and grow—with technology that amplifies creative vision.
Zoho:
Give your projects a “signature” upgrade with the Zoho Sign extension for Zoho Projects  —  Well-orchestrated project management keeps people, priorities, and processes all working in sync toward a shared goal.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Access:
Why the next AI frontier is phone calls, with Beside CEO Maxime Germain
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Great Chat:
So what happens after AGI?
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:
Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
AI Is Upending Law. Is That A Sign For The Rest Of Us? — With Melia Russell
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.
[trading places]:
Ben Black Akkadian Ventures🏆 | Secondaries Secrets 💎 | RAISE Conf 🎯 | Vercel $9B 🚀
a very bad podcast about broken unicorns & busted carry hosted by dave mcclure and aman verjee
Subscribe to [trading places].
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Lachlan Cartwright Started in Tabloids. Now He's a Must-Read Media Gossip.
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 1:15 AM ET, April 9, 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

Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Tom Warren / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Danny Crichton / TechCrunch:
Bloomberg:
Kyle Orland / Ars Technica: