Techmeme
April 12, 2020, 8:50 PM

Top News

The Sunday Times:
Sources: NHSX, UK health service's technology arm, is working on a Bluetooth-based contact tracing app with Google and Apple at a “breakneck speed”  —  Ministers have ordered the creation of an NHS mobile phone app the government hopes will help end the coronavirus lockdown.
Casey Newton / The Verge:
Apple says COVID-19 contact tracing apps can include duration of proximity when deciding what is a proximity event, potentially limiting false positive pings  —  Adoption is the hard part of contact tracing apps so far — but if it's baked into the operating system, it gets a lot easier
Leo Kelion / BBC:
NHSX to test an app for users to send a “yellow alert” if they self-diagnose with COVID-19 symptoms and a “red alert” if they test positive, to recent contacts  —  The UK has confirmed plans for an app that will warn users if they have recently been in close proximity …
Ross Anderson / Light Blue Touchpaper:
A list of issues that make contact tracing an impractical solution in the real world, from trolling others to cheating to insufficient adoption  —  There have recently been several proposals for pseudonymous contact tracing, including from Apple and Google.
Moxie Marlinspike / @moxie:
The Guardian:
Leaked docs reveal the extent of UK's cooperation with Faculty and Palantir on a “Covid-19 datastore” to power the previously announced NHS pandemic dashboard  —  Technology firms are processing large volumes of confidential UK patient information in a data-mining operation …
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Cloudflare says it will drop Google's reCAPTCHA bot detection service, as Google plans to charge for its use, and replace it with Intuition Machines' hCAPTCHA  —  Cloudflare says its moving to hCaptcha, an alternative CAPTCHA service, more private than reCAPTCHA.
Garrett Bridges / Android Police:
Instagram has now added support for watching Live streams on the web for some users  —  Instagram Live has become one of the largest platforms for personal streaming, but broadcasts were only viewable from the mobile app, which can be a drag for longer streams.
More: Engadget
Josh Dzieza / The Verge:
A look at the evolving safety precautions at Amazon's JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island, New York, and how changes are driven primarily by worker pressure  —  Early Tuesday, March 24th, Barbara Chandler drove from her home in Queens to the Staten Island Amazon warehouse where she'd worked for three years.
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Apple launches a site for COVID-19 testing providers to submit info on their testing locations, which, once reviewed, will be displayed on Apple Maps  —  Continuing Apple's efforts in helping fight the coronavirus, Apple Maps will soon display testing sites directly on the map.

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:
The best time to become a Zoho Partner  —  The business world is not only changing but it is being rebuilt.  Customers want connected ecosystems that will help them automate, unify their data, and do more with less.
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

Big Technology Podcast:
OpenAI's 2026 Priority, Disney's AI Play, Datacenter Buildout Trouble
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:
Australia Kicks Kids Off Social Media + Is the A.I. Water Issue Fake? + Hard Fork Wrapped
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.
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.
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 8:50 PM ET, April 12, 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

Duncan Fyfe / VICE:
Washington Post:

Earlier Picks

New York Times:
Canalys:
Taylor Lorenz / New York Times:
Justin Phillips / San Francisco Chronicle: