Techmeme
April 14, 2020, 8:40 PM

Top News

Jay Greene / Washington Post:
Amazon fires two tech workers who'd been warned for publicly criticizing its warehouse workplace conditions and were outspoken critics of its climate stance  —  The workers had been outspoken critics of the e-commerce giant's climate policies and were previously warned about making public comments about its business
Ina Fried / Axios:
Sources: Google has made significant progress toward developing its own processor that will power Pixel smartphones as soon as next year and future Chromebooks  —  Google has made significant progress toward developing its own processor to power future versions of its Pixel smartphone as soon as next year …
Jon Porter / The Verge:
OnePlus 8 review: has great battery life and solid performance with a 90Hz display, but camera could be better and it lacks wireless charging and an IP rating  —  The traditional strengths, plus the traditional omissions  —  Video by Alix Diaconis and Vjeran Pavic
Andrei Frumusanu / AnandTech:
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
CNBC:
Apple launches a tool that shows how well people are social distancing, using anonymized data from Apple Maps, similar to efforts from Google  —  - Apple on Tuesday launched a new tool that shows how well people are following social distancing guidelines.  — It gathers anonymous data …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
YouTube launches Video Builder, a simple, free DIY tool to help SMBs create short videos  —  YouTube today is launching a new tool aimed at small businesses who need a simple, low-cost way to create videos, but may not have the creative experience or technical know-how required to do so.
Nat Friedman / The GitHub Blog:
GitHub announces private repositories with unlimited collaborators are now free and reduces the price of the existing paid Team plan from $9 to $4 per month  —  All of the core GitHub features are now free for everyone.  🎉  —  Until now, if your organization wanted to use GitHub …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Facebook debuts Kit, an Apple Watch app, for one-tap communication with close friends via audio recording, emoji, location sharing, scribble, more  —  Facebook's internal R&D group has today launched a new app that lets you keep up with your close friends via your Apple Watch.
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Amazon will cut commission rates for its affiliate program starting April 21; amount of drop dependent on category, rates for grocery products dropping 5% to 1%  —  - Amazon on Tuesday told members of its affiliates program that it will cut commission rates beginning April 21.
Paresh Dave / Reuters:
Cisco says it is launching a $2.5B financing program to let customers defer 95% of payments until 2021, as business operations move online during the pandemic  —  OAKLAND, California (Reuters) - Cisco Systems Inc (CSCO.O) on Tuesday launched a $2.5 billion financing program that lets …
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Two dozen US state AGs sent a letter to the White House requesting the administration pull blueprints for Defense Distributed's 3D-printed guns offline  —  Warns of ‘grave consequences’ for plastic firearms  —  Two dozen state attorneys general are asking the Trump administration to crack …
Bloomberg:
Amazon says it's appealing a French court order to limit its customers' orders to “essential” items or face fines of €1M/day, a move that suspends the ruling  —  - Company ordered by court to conduct evaluation of virus risks  — Appeal would suspend order to sell only key items in France
Andy Patrizio / Ars Technica:
Folding@Home, a ~20 year-old distributed computing project aiding scientific research, has seen a surge in users, breaking an exaFLOP of compute amid COVID-19  —  Folding@Home had settled into a low-profile niche.  Then came COVID-19.  —  Almost 20 years ago, faculty in the chemistry department …
Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
GAO report highlights shortcomings in the Pentagon's ongoing cybersecurity efforts, with DOD's initiatives rarely completing goals and lacking status updates  —  Five years ago, the Department of Defense set dozens of security hygiene goals.  A new report finds that it has abandoned or lost track of most of them.

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Earlier Picks

Cory Weinberg / The Information:
Tessa Love / OneZero :
TechCrunch:
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Bloomberg: