Techmeme
May 2, 2020, 4:30 PM

Top News

Drew Harwell / Washington Post:
Companies are turning to intrusive monitoring of work-from-home employees, with always-on webcam rules, daily check-ins, and not-so-optional company happy hours  —  Always-on webcams, virtual “water coolers,” constant monitoring: Is the tech industry's new dream for remote work actually a nightmare?
Sirin Kale / WIRED UK:
An inside look at the dropshipping scene in Bali, where expats typically purchase items on AliExpress and have them shipped directly to buyers in the West  —  In Bali, western immigrants are selling products they've never handled, from countries they've never visited, to consumers they've never met
Mark Sweney / The Guardian:
Sources: the owners of Virgin Media and O2 are discussing a merger to create a new TV and mobile company that would challenge BT and Sky in the UK  —  Owners of telecoms giants set to team up and challenge major sector players  —  The owners of Virgin Media and O2 are in talks to create …
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:
New York Times:
How Eric Schmidt is reinventing himself as the prime liaison between Silicon Valley and the US military  —  The former Google C.E.O. has reinvented himself as the prime liaison between Silicon Valley and the military-industrial complex.  —  In July 2016, Raymond Thomas …
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: 9to5Google and Neowin
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Profile of Canada-based Draganfly, which is piloting “pandemic drones” that use machine vision and AI to track social distancing and monitor health vitals  —  Like the rest of the world, Canadian drone maker Draganfly has been anxiously watching the spread of the novel coronavirus.
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.”

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More News

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Earlier Picks

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ICANN: