Techmeme
April 22, 2020, 12:55 PM

Top News

Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Facebook invests $5.7B in Jio for a 9.99% stake, making it the largest minority shareholder in the subsidiary of India's most valued firm, Reliance Industries  —  Facebook has enjoyed unparalleled reach in India for more than a decade.  But as China's fast-growing ByteDance emerges …
Nikhil Pahwa / MediaNama:
Facebook's deal with Jio is unlikely to make a dent in India's mobile payments market, where Google Pay, PhonePe, and Paytm have emerged as the big players  —  So it's confirmed: Facebook has bought 9.9% stake in Jio Platforms Limited, the parent company of Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited, for $5.7 billion (Rs 43,574 crore).
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / VICE:
Researchers say they found two iPhone 0-days, exploited in the wild, including a remote zero-click vulnerability; Apple says both will be patched in an update  —  In the summer of 2016, researchers at a digital rights organization and a cybersecurity firm announced they had caught …
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
iPhone SE 2020 review: good battery life but has a tired design and while the camera is good in bright light and great at video, it is noisy in low-light  —  A strong case against $1,000 phones  —  What do you look for in a new iPhone?  The top of the list likely includes battery life and camera quality.
Ed Hammond / Bloomberg:
Sources: Magic Leap is laying off about half its employees, or around 1,000 people, as it winds down its consumer business; Magic Leap has raised over $2B  —  - About 1,000 employees are said to be affected by cuts  — Magic Leap to wind down consumer business in retreat
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Zoom rolls out its 5.0 update, focused exclusively on security and privacy features, including easier call management and upgrading encryption  —  Zoom is moving quickly to address complaints  —  Zoom promised a 90-day feature freeze to fix privacy and security issues, and the company is delivering on some of those promises.
Scott Rosenberg / Axios:
Zoom fatigue is now setting in, as it moves from being a social lifeline to a chore, used for all interactions while aggravating anxieties in an exhausting time  —  The rapid trajectory of videoconferencing service Zoom has entered a new phase: What started as a social lifeline during the pandemic …
New York Times:
US intelligence officials say Chinese operatives are amplifying COVID-19 disinformation in America using text messages and social media posts  —  American officials were alarmed by fake text messages and social media posts that said President Trump was locking down the country.
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
CNBC:
US Small Business Administration notifies ~8,000 business owners seeking federal relief loans that their personal data may have been exposed to other applicants  —  - Some small business owners seeking help via the Small Business Administration's Economic Injury Disaster Loan program …
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Vivaldi browser gets built-in options to block ads and tracking, with a blocklist powered by DuckDuckGo's Tracker Radar, and comes out of beta on Android  —  Vivaldi, the browser launched by former Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner, has long positioned itself as a highly customizable alternative to Chrome and Firefox for power users.
About Facebook:
Facebook rolls out Messenger Kids to 70+ new countries, adding features to make it easier for parents to connect kids with their friends  —  With schools closed and people physically distancing, parents are turning to technology more than ever to help their kids connect with friends and family.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Google launches a Watchlist feature for Search to help users keep track of TV shows and movies  —  Google is adding a new feature to Search that will help you keep track of all the TV shows and movies you want to watch during these long weeks at home.  The company had already …
Jason Schreier / New York Times:
While gaming sales are breaking records, the coronavirus pandemic is impacting the gaming industry with delays, scope cuts, and serious production challenges  —  The coronavirus pandemic is offering mixed news and new challenges for gaming companies, both independent and corporate.
Tom Krazit / Protocol:
Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian says that its open source tool for microservices management, Istio, will be donated to a foundation in the near future  —  Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian has ended years of confusion by telling Protocol that Google will eventually donate its open-source project Istio …
The Daily Beast:
Sources say Palantir's data suites are a primary contributor to HHS Protect Now, a US government tool to track the spread of coronavirus in use since April 10  —  Palantir, a longtime partner of intelligence agencies, co-founded by major Trump backer Peter Thiel, is helping build “the single source for [coronavirus] testing data.”
James Pearson / Reuters:
Sources: Vietnamese state-telcos took Facebook's local servers offline, slowing traffic, until the company agreed to increase censorship of “anti-state” posts  —  HANOI (Reuters) - Facebook's local servers in Vietnam were taken offline early this year, slowing local traffic …
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
Q1 lobbying filings: Facebook's spend rose 19% QoQ to $5.3M, Apple rose by 18% QoQ to $2.2M, Amazon was up 3% QoQ to $4.3M, and Google dropped 34% QoQ to $1.8M  —  - Facebook and Amazon led the Big Tech companies in lobbying spend in the first quarter of 2020, according to documents filed with the federal government this week.

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