Techmeme
April 13, 2020, 1:15 PM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is planning an iPad Pro-like design with flat edges and a smaller notch for iPhones, a smaller, cheaper HomePod, and Apple Tags for the fall  —  - iPhone's fall refresh to add 5G on as many as four new models  — Smaller HomePod speaker, location tags for keys in development
Krystal Hu / Reuters:
Amazon says it will put new online grocery delivery customers on a waitlist and prioritize existing customers amid surging demand  —  (Reuters) - Amazon will begin to put new grocery delivery customers on a wait list and curtail shopping hours at some Whole Foods stores to prioritize orders …
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Amazon says it will hire an additional 75,000 workers, on top of the 100,000 new positions it created last month, to deal with increased demand during COVID-19  —  - Amazon is hiring 75,000 additional workers after it filled more than 100,000 positions in the last month.
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 will 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:
The Guardian:
Chris Stokel-Walker / OneZero:
As some YouTube advertising rates drop by as much as 50% while viewership rates are up, YouTubers say their pay has dropped dramatically  —  Advertising rates on the platform have dropped significantly during the coronavirus pandemic  —  Newspapers, websites, and TV channels have all been decimated by the coronavirus.
AFP:
SoftBank forecasts a $7B net loss for the year ending in March, due to coronavirus and losses related to WeWork, and expects an operating loss of $12.5B  —  Struggling Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group on Monday forecast a $7-billion net loss for the year ended March due to the negative impact …
Ben Smith / New York Times:
Sources: after handing over to the new CEO, Bob Iger effectively returned to run Disney in March, as the pandemic decimated its most profitable businesses  —  The former C.E.O. thought he was riding into the sunset.  Now he's reasserting control and reimagining Disney as a company with fewer employees and more thermometers.
William J. Broad / New York Times:
Investigation finds a decade-long health disinformation campaign by Russia, using social media and news outlets like RT, to sow confusion and hurt institutions  —  A decade of health disinformation promoted by President Vladimir Putin of Russia has sown wide confusion, hurt major institutions …
Seb Joseph / Digiday:
Esport sites are struggling to monetize the huge rise in viewership due to the drastically slowed ad market; Twitch had a record 1.1B viewing hours in March  —  Viewership of esports may be booming right now, but the drastically slowed ad market has made capitalizing on that audience difficult.
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