Techmeme
April 29, 2020, 1:35 PM

Top News

Jessica Bursztynsky / CNBC:
Filing: Lyft is laying off 17% of its workforce, or 982 staff, and will furlough 288 employees alongside salary cuts ranging from 10% to 30% for all staff  —  Lyft is laying off 982 employees and furloughing an additional 288, the company announced in a regulatory filing on Wednesday.
Christina Farr / CNBC:
How a handful of employees at Apple quickly pushed forward the development of a contract tracing API and collaboration with Google in less than a month  —  - Apple and Google announced a partnership to bring contact tracing to smartphones on April 10th.  Their software toolkit will be released on Friday.
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
Apple and Google release the first version of their contact tracing API, referred to as exposure notification API, in respective developer builds  —  Apple and Google have released the very first version of their exposure notification API, which they previously called the contact tracing API .
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Google Meet is now free for everyone with a Google account, for meetings of up to 100 people, which are not time limited until September 30  —  Can it stem Zoom's meteoric growth?  —  Google is opening up its Google Meet videoconferencing service to anybody who wants to use it …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Spotify beats with Q1 revenue of €1.8B and net income of €1M; MAUs rose 31% YoY to 286M, premium users rose 31% to 130M, and ad-supported MAUs rose 32% to 163M  —  The coronavirus may be decimating some corners of the economy, but the impact on the digital music …
Alphabet:
Alphabet reports revenue of $41.2B, up 13% YoY, net income of $6.8B, up from $6.7B YoY, Other Bets operating loss grew to $1.1B; headcount grew to 123K, up ~20K  —  MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - April 28, 2020 - Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG, GOOGL) today announced financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2020.
Hyunjoo Jin / Reuters:
Samsung reports Q1 earnings with total revenue ~$45.4B, up 5.6% YoY, and operating profit of ~$5.2B, up 3% YoY, as chip demand was solid amid COVID-19 crisis  —  SEOUL (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS) said its operating profit rose 3% in the January to March period …
Washington Post:
Survey of US adults finds skepticism about Apple and Google's COVID-19 contact tracing efforts, with smartphone owners split 50-50 on whether they would use it  —  Nearly 3 in 5 Americans say they are either unable or unwilling to use the infection-alert apps under development by Google and Apple …
Amir Efrati / The Information:
Source: Uber executives discuss cutting ~20% of its 27,000 headcount in the coming weeks; company veteran CTO Thuan Pham has resigned  —  Executives at Uber are discussing plans to cut around 20% of the company's employees, as it copes with a sharp decline in its ride-hailing business due …
Andy Baio / Waxy.org:
Roc Nation files copyright claim over deepfake YouTube videos that use AI to impersonate Jay-Z's voice, raising new copyright and fair use questions  —  On Friday, I linked to several videos by Vocal Synthesis, a new YouTube channel dedicated to audio deepfakes — AI-generated speech …
Nick Corasaniti / New York Times:
Profile of Acronym, a progressive nonprofit that, with the help of ex-Facebook staffer James Barnes, is looking to use Trump's online ad tactics against him  —  A former Facebook employee is using a tool he employed to help President Trump win to conduct tests for a progressive group …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Zuckerberg more actively in charge of Facebook after five departures from board of directors since 2019, as he attempts to consolidate decision-making  —  The 35-year-old tycoon has recast the company's board of directors and sought a high-profile role for the social-media giant in the Covid-19 pandemic

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:
Introducing Zoho connected apps for Google Gemini  —  Note: Now available to organizations in the Indian data center.  Support for other Zoho data centers will be available soon.AI assistants have gotten remarkably …
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

Training Data:
Parallel's Parag Agrawal: Building a New Web for AI Agents
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:
Neil Movva - Making AI 10x Cheaper
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Grit:
Data Centers in Orbit by 2028: Baiju Bhatt on His Plans After Robinhood
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Lenny's Podcast:
How to close $100K+ enterprise deals, step by step | Jen Abel
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
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.
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 1:35 PM ET, April 29, 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

Matthew Moore / The Times:

Earlier Picks

Crofton Black / The Bureau of Investigative Journalism:
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch: