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May 2, 2020, 3:50 AM
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memeorandum
WeSmirchTop News
| Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge: |
Automatic Labs, which was recently acquired by SiriusXM, shuts down its vehicle-tracking service, tells users to remove its connected car adapters from vehicles — Automatic has announced that it'll be abruptly shutting down on May 28th because “the COVID-19 pandemic has adversely impacted our business.”
More:
Automatic, MacRumors, iMore, Android Police, SlashGear, Stacey on IoT, TechCrunch, iDownloadBlog.com, 9to5Mac, and Engadget
Tweets: @davedelong, @reckless, and @evandcoleman
| David Heaney / UploadVR: |
Valve ends SteamVR support for macOS, three years after Apple announced it at WWDC; Valve's survey found only 4% of Steam users were using macOS — Valve just ended SteamVR's support for macOS. ‘Legacy builds’ will continue to be available. — SteamVR is Valve's PC-based virtual reality platform, supporting Windows and Linux.| Dell Cameron / Gizmodo: |
Federal judge rules FCC must give access to logs containing IP addresses behind public comments for the 2017 net neutrality vote, after repeated fraud claims — A Manhattan federal judge has ruled the Federal Communications Commission must provide two reporters access to server logs … | Kif Leswing / CNBC: |
CDC issues new criteria for evaluating contact tracing tools to be used by public health authorities, opening the door for Apple-Google approach — - A new document published by the Centers for Disease Control outlines what it sees as the critical features for digital contact tracing apps.
More:
AppleInsider, 9to5Mac, CDC, iMore, Patently Apple, Financial Times, Forbes, and Daring Fireball
Tweets: @tcncoalition and @kifleswing
| Eric Rosenbaum / CNBC: |
Q&A with CEO of Apple subsidiary Claris who says FileMaker, Claris' low-code app development software, has seen a spike in interest amid the pandemic — - Apple owns enterprise software company Claris and its low-code application development software called FileMaker.| Kevin Roose / New York Times: |
While the pandemic has driven sales for VR makers like Oculus, it has yet to give the tech mass-market appeal as a social or collaborative experience — Virtual escapism is perfect for a pandemic, but V.R. still seems far from a mainstream technology. — I have wanted to love virtual reality for a really long time.| Tony Romm / Washington Post: |
House Judiciary Committee demands Jeff Bezos testify at a hearing on Amazon's alleged misuse of third-party seller data or face a potential subpoena — A top House committee investigating the tech industry has asked him to agree to appear or face a potential subpoena if he declines
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Cmte Judiciary (D) …, CNBC, Wall Street Journal, Protocol, Input, TechCrunch, The Guardian, Gizmodo, CNET, Bloomberg, The Verge, Vox, International Business Times, Engadget, PYMNTS.com, Seeking Alpha, and New York Post
Tweets: @davidcicilline, @tonyromm, @saraheneedleman, @karolcummins, @stevekovach, @people4bernie, @stacyfmitchell, @danamattioli, @stevekovach, @kantrowitz, @edmundlee, @stacyfmitchell, @ac4congress2020, @erickfernandez, @marialangholz, @fxmacro, @kantrowitz, @stacyfmitchell, @realrobcopeland, @adammilstein, @jason_kint, and @jacobpramuk
| Bloomberg: |
Sources: Microsoft is in talks to buy UK-based robotic process automation software startup Softomotive — Microsoft Corp. is in talks to buy Softomotive Ltd., a U.K.-based startup that makes software robots to automate tasks, according to people familiar with the matter.| Manish Singh / TechCrunch: |
Sources: Bangalore-based education app Byju's is in talks to raise up to $400M at $10B valuation, up from a valuation of $8B in February — Byju's, an education learning startup in India that has seen a surge in its popularity in recent weeks amid the coronavirus outbreak … | Russell Brandom / The Verge: |
Workers at Amazon, Whole Foods, Instacart, FedEx, Target, and Walmart join together in striking on May 1, demanding better workplace safety conditions — Demands include better cleaning services and 14-day shutdowns at affected locations — On May 1st, workers from Amazon, Whole Foods …
More:
VICE, The Intercept, Mashable, Wired, BuzzFeed News, The Daily Hodl, OneZero , CCN.com, and Data For Progress
| John Pavlus / Quanta Magazine: |
How researchers are working to build AI with common-sense reasoning, such as the COMET system, which combines symbolic reasoning and neural language modeling — The problem of common-sense reasoning has plagued the field of artificial intelligence for over 50 years.
Tweets: @quantamagazine and @mslima
| M.G. Siegler / 500ish: |
Apple has missed an opportunity by not introducing a product like Facebook Portal by combining different aspects of the Apple TV and HomePod with FaceTime — Apple TV should own the living room with FaceTime. And the Facebook Portal market with HomePod. And yet...
Tweets: @mgsiegler, @500ish, and @msliwinski
| The Economic Times: |
India's government has mandated all private sector employees to download its COVID-19 contact tracing app, following its mandate for all the public sector staff — Privacy activists said a diverse group of organisations and individuals had endorsed a representation to the Prime Minister's Office … | Pranav Dixit / BuzzFeed News: |
More:
Schneier on Security, Gizmodo, BuzzFeed News, and VICE
Tweets: @tante, @schneierblog, @wwnorton, @manhack, @marietjeschaake, @pranavdixit, @pranavdixit, @pranavdixit, @pranavdixit, @azeen, @sarahnemerson, @benadida, @stephaniemlee, @tomgara, and @sivavaid
| Hagop Kavafian / Android Police: |
Google's Messages app, which isn't part of Google's apps package often pre-installed on phones by 3rd-party Android OEMs, passes 1B+ installs on the Play Store — Google's Messages app is packed with features, including a built-in markup tool, reminders, context-aware recommendations, a dark mode, RCS support, and a web interface.
More:
Neowin and 9to5Google
| George Chidi / CoinDesk: |
Bitfinex's parent firm has applied for subpoenas in three US states asking federal courts to aid in recovering $800M+ in user funds seized by legal authorities — The Bitfinex crypto exchange is making a new push to find and potentially recover more than $800 million in user funds seized … | Carrie Mihalcik / CNET: |
Xiaomi defends its data practices, says it collects aggregated data that can't be used to identify users and syncs browsing history if data sync is turned on — Xiaomi is defending itself against accusations that it's been collecting private data from people who use its phones and web browser apps.
More:
Mi Blog. Tweets: @cybergibbons, @cybergibbons, @cybergibbons, @cybergibbons, @amitbhawani, @zackwhittaker, @mishaalrahman, @cybergibbons, and @cybergibbons
| Thomas Brewster / Forbes: |
More:
Fossbytes, Firstpost Tech, iPhone in Canada Blog, XDA Developers, Android Central, TechSpot, Wccftech, BGR India, South China Morning Post, The Next Web, Slashdot, and Neowin
Tweets: @iblametom, @campuscodi, @wadhwa, and @iblametom
| Synergy Research Group: |
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, cloud infrastructure spending grew 37% YoY to $29B in Q1, with Amazon at 32% market share followed by Microsoft at 18% — New data from Synergy Research Group shows that Q1 spend on cloud infrastructure services reached $29 billion, up 37% from the first quarter of 2019.
More:
SDxCentral, TechCrunch, and eWeek
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