Techmeme
May 8, 2020, 10:35 PM

Top News

Michael Steeber / 9to5Mac:
Wired:
States like NY, CA, MA, and cities like Baltimore and SF are skeptical about tech-based contact tracing, instead hiring thousands for manual contact tracing  —  Silicon Valley companies have proposed automating the arduous task of identifying people potentially exposed to Covid-19.  They're finding few takers.
Financial Times:
Sources: UK's NHS has already begun developing a second contact tracing app, using Google and Apple's contact tracing APIs  —  NHS team that built first app is told to build another on Apple-Google system  —  The NHS has already begun building a second smartphone app to trace the spread of the coronavirus …
Igor Bonifacic / Engadget:
Facebook says it plans to complete the rollout of its redesigned desktop website to all users over the “next few weeks”  —  After the better part of a year, Facebook has started rolling out its redesigned desktop website to all of its users.  The company announced today it plans …
Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
Both Defcon and Black Hat, originally scheduled for August, have cancelled in-person events, instead opting to host conferences online  —  For real this time.  Its sister conference, Black Hat, has also been called off.  —  For years, a simple and elegant inside joke has permeated Defcon, the influential hacking conference.
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google adds a kid-friendly “family mode” to Duo and says Duo on the web will soon support group calls, starting as a preview on Chrome  —  Work and personal video calling are surging in light of COVID-19, with Google announcing a handful of new Duo features last month to support that demand.
TechCrunch:
Target to acquire technology and assets of same-day delivery startup Deliv, which has raised a total of $80M in venture capital according to Crunchbase  —  Target, which already owns on-demand delivery service Shipt, is in the process of acquiring technology assets from same-day delivery service Deliv
Ron Miller / TechCrunch:
Microsoft and Amazon exchange acerbic blog posts, accusing each other of underhanded tactics in their fight over the DoD JEDI cloud infrastructure contract  —  Microsoft and Amazon are at it again as the fight for the Defense Department JEDI contract continues.
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
IT services provider Cognizant says it expects to lose between $50M and $70M in Q2 due to a ransomware attack in April, from which it has now fully recovered  —  Cognizant says April ransomware incident will negatively impact Q2 revenue.  —  IT services provider Cognizant said in an earnings call …
More: Slashdot
Bloomberg:
Google says it expects most of its staff to work from home until 2021  —  Elon Musk wants people to return to work.  Google and Facebook Inc. have another message for their staff: get ready to stay home for all of 2020.  —  Sundar Pichai, Google's chief executive officer …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Sources: Microsoft is planning to add cursor support to Office for iPad by the fall  —  Microsoft is already working on latest iPadOS features  —  Microsoft is planning to update Office for iPad with support for Apple's latest iPadOS trackpad and mouse support.
Devindra Hardawar / Engadget:
Surface Go 2 review: small improvements over original with larger screen and faster CPU, but $400 entry model is lacking in power and upgrades are expensive  —  Judging the Surface Go 2 really comes down to your expectations.  Can you live with slow performance to get a well-designed $400 tablet PC (not including a keyboard)?
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.

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Earlier Picks

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Isabelle Kirkwood / BetaKit: