Techmeme
April 12, 2020, 11:40 AM

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.
The Verge:
Apple and Google announce a joint effort to introduce iOS and Android APIs in mid-May for opt-in Bluetooth-based COVID-19 contact tracing  —  A huge step forward in the fight against COVID-19  —  Apple and Google announced a system for tracking the spread of the new coronavirus …
More: Ars Technica, Jaap-Henk Hoepman, International Business Times, Forbes, iLounge, Axios, joekent.nyc, Social Media Today, TechCrunch, New York Times, Guerre di Rete, Apple, Inc42 Media, Towards Data Science, International Business Times, TechCrunch, Washington Post, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Wall Street Journal, coinspeaker.com, MediaNama, The Hacker News, Seeking Alpha, Aldo's Notes, Philip Elmer‑DeWitt, Reuters, Wired, Nikkei Asian Review, Ubergizmo, TidBITS, New York Times, NBC News, BBC, PYMNTS.com, Newser, Variety, Techdirt, AppleInsider, ACLU, ZDNet, The New Consumer, New York Post, Bloomberg, Pocketnow, NBC News, ProgrammableWeb.com, TalkAndroid.com, TechSpot, Digital Trends, FierceWireless, Six Colors, The Daily Hodl, Michael Tsai, Axios, ExtremeTech, BetaNews, Fortune, Macworld, Mashable, SiliconANGLE, Quartz, Stacey on IoT, MIT Technology Review, AppAdvice.com, MacStories, BuzzFeed News, Gizmodo, Droid Life, IDG Insider Pro, 9to5Mac, Thurrott, Pocket-lint, Liliputing, The Next Web, Daring Fireball, Daring Fireball, Wccftech, Reuters, NPR, Politico, iPhone Hacks, Android Police, MacRumors, Apple Must, BGR, The Irish Times, The Mac Observer, Appleosophy, Technology Personalized, Android Authority, Yahoo Finance, VentureBeat, iMore, Input, iPhone in Canada Blog, Neowin, CNET, CNBC, CNN, and Engadget
Casey Newton / The Verge:
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.
Washington Post:
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced experts to reframe the debate about screen time, at least temporarily, as devices become portals to employment and education  —  Go ahead, look at your phone and tablet.  Much of it is necessary.  Even the frivolous stuff.  —  We're on Zoom calls six hours per day.
New York Times:
Experts say social distancing directives, likely to continue in some form after the COVID-19 crisis, could prompt various industries to accelerate automation  —  Broad unease about losing jobs to machines could dissipate as people focus on the benefits of minimizing close human contact.

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 11:40 AM 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

Earlier Picks

Justin Phillips / San Francisco Chronicle:
Jay Peters / The Verge: