Techmeme
April 12, 2020, 10:30 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.
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.
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 …
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
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 …
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
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.
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.

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cape:
Most carriers track everything.  Cape doesn't.  —  Unlimited talk, text & data, 24-hr metadata deletion, network ID rotation, SIM-attack defense, and more.  Switch today and get 29% off for life.
Zoho:
App Spotlight: MessageWhiz SMS for Zoho CRM  —  App Spotlight brings you hand-picked solutions that enhance your Zoho apps and tools.  Visit Zoho Marketplace to explore all of our apps, integrations …
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

Big Technology Podcast:
Big Tech's Insane Hidden AI Spending, Ranking Anthropic vs. OpenAI, AI For Travel Debate
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:
OpenAI's Two-Week Pause + Jill Lepore on the Threat of the "Artificial State" + Train of Thought
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
The $12.5 Billion Lakers, the NFL's TV Fight, and Sports Media's Big Split
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.
Training Data:
Rich Sutton and Khurram Javed: Why AI Models Stop Learning, and How to Start It Again
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
Invest Like the Best:
Ben Thompson on Big Tech, China, and the AI Boom Running Out of Money
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
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 10:30 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: