Techmeme
May 7, 2020, 11:20 PM

Top News

Ari Levy / CNBC:
Zoom is acquiring Keybase, a 25-person startup, to add end-to-end encryption to video calls, the first acquisition in the company's nine-year history  —  - Zoom is acquiring Keybase, a 25-person start-up in New York, to add end-to-end encryption to video calls.
Isabelle Kirkwood / BetaKit:
Alphabet's Sidewalk Labs says it will no longer pursue its smart city project at Quayside in Toronto due to “unprecedented economic uncertainty”  —  Sidewalk Labs has announced it will no longer pursue its project at Quayside in Toronto.  The company noted the decision was due to the current …
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Google brings all of its messaging and communication apps under a single team to be led by Javier Soltero, who is VP and GM of G Suite  —  Integration isn't on the roadmap, but coherency may be  —  In October of last year, Google hired Javier Soltero to be the VP and GM of G Suite …
Babu Mohan / Android Central:
Samsung says it will launch a debit card in partnership with fintech startup SoFi, this summer  —  Samsung Pay will help you do more with your money this year.  —  Source: Android Central  —  What you need to know  — To elevate the Samsung Pay experience, Samsung is partnering with SoFi to launch an “innovative” debit card.
James Vincent / The Verge:
Google updates its Lens app for iOS and Android to let users copy and paste some handwritten text to Chrome, read text aloud, and provide information on words  —  If you handwriting is neat enough  —  Google has added a very useful feature to Google Lens, its multipurpose object recognition tool.
BuzzFeed News:
In filing, Clearview AI says it is canceling client accounts not associated with law enforcement or other government entity, amid mounting scrutiny  —  Clearview AI — the controversial face-tracking company known for scraping more than 3 billion photos from social media sites including Facebook …
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Google expands Read Along, its Android app that uses AI to help children read via verbal and visual feedback in nine languages, from India to 180+ countries  —  Google today launched Read Along, an Android app that taps AI and machine learning to help children learn to read by providing verbal and visual feedback.
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
Facebook will begin to open most of its offices on July 6 but says most employees will be given the choice to continue to work from home through the end of 2020  —  - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday will announce that most of the company's employees will be given the choice to continue …
Abby Ohlheiser / MIT Technology Review:
A look at the symbiotic ties of anti-vaxxers and COVID-19 conspiracy theorists with mainstream YouTubers, as the platform tries to regulate misinformation  —  Covid-19 conspiracy theorists are still getting millions of views on YouTube, even as the platform cracks down on health misinformation.
Nick Statt / The Verge:
A Facebook SDK crash caused iOS apps like TikTok and Venmo to crash on Wednesday, showing the need for Apple to sandbox third-party SDKs from an app's own code  —  Facebook's near-ubiquitous SDK broke yesterday, taking major mobile apps with it  —  Sometime around 6:30PM ET on May 6th …
Dana Wollman / Engadget:
Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch review: nice display, lovely keyboard, and great performance, but models with 10th-gen Intel CPUs are pricey and it can get hot  —  I had a feeling I'd be reviewing a new 13-inch MacBook Pro sooner rather than later.  When Apple refreshed the MacBook Air back in March …
Owen Churchill / South China Morning Post:
Citizen Lab: WeChat screens overseas users for sensitive content, which it then bars from being viewed by Chinese accounts  —  Research group Citizen Lab finds WeChat screens overseas users for sensitive content, which it then bars from being received by Chinese accounts Findings are likely …
Charlie Wood / Business Insider:
Sonos cofounder calls out Spotify CEO's criticism of Apple, says it's “significantly more difficult to work within Spotify's ‘closed’ ecosystem than Apple's”  —  - The cofounder of smart speaker firm Sonos called out Spotify CEO Daniel Ek for his remarks on Apple's closed ecosystem.
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
Uber leads a $170M investment in Lime, with Bain Capital Ventures, Alphabet, and GV participating, and will transfer its Jump scooter division to Lime  —  - Uber is leading a $170 million investment round in Lime, the companies announced Thursday.  — Uber will transfer its own electric bike …
Lora Kolodny / CNBC:
Uber reports Q1 revenue of $3.54B, up 14% YoY, gross bookings of $15.8B, up 8%, net loss of $2.9B; rides gross bookings fell 5%, Eats bookings were up 52% YoY  —  - Ride-hailing giant Uber reports first-quarter results Thursday after the bell.  — This week, Uber laid off about 14% …
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
A researcher found NSO Group's contact tracing system, codenamed “Fleming”, unprotected on the Internet, NSO says system was a demo, hence not a security lapse  —  As countries work to reopen after weeks of lockdown, contact-tracing apps help to understand the spread of the deadly coronavirus strain, COVID-19.
More: BeInCrypto
Brittany A. Roston / SlashGear:
Smart home company Wink to require users pay a $4.99 monthly subscription fee starting May 13, or device automations and accessibility via app will be disabled  —  Smart home company Wink has made a surprising and heavily criticized announcement: it will soon charge a monthly subscription fee.
New York Times:
Israeli security company says hackers linked to the Chinese military have used Aria-body, a cyberattack tool, on governments and firms in Australia and SE Asia  —  An Israeli security company said the hacking software, called Aria-body, had been deployed against governments and state-owned companies in Australia and Southeast Asia.

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More News

Kevin Collier / NBC News:
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
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Earlier Picks

Apple:
Matt Brian / Engadget: