Techmeme
May 12, 2020, 9:50 AM

Top News

Filipe Espósito / 9to5Mac:
Sources: Apple's over-ear headphones, called “AirPods Studio”, will feature head and neck detection sensors, automated audio channel routing, and more  —  We've been hearing about Apple's upcoming over-ear headphones for some time, with evidence from multiple sources pointing to the official launch later this year.
Elizabeth Culliford / Reuters:
Twitter says it will add labels and warning messages to tweets about COVID-19 with misleading or disputed content and plans to expand the labels to other topics  —  (Reuters) - Twitter Inc will add labels and warning messages on some tweets with disputed or misleading information about COVID-19 …
Travis M. Andrews / Washington Post:
Tony Romm / Washington Post:
Sources: Facebook is quietly helping to launch American Edge, a political advocacy group in Washington, to battle regulators trying to rein in the tech industry  —  The organization, called American Edge, arrives at a time when the industry is facing withering antitrust scrutiny in Washington.
Nicole Sperling / New York Times:
Jeffrey Katzenberg blames COVID-19 for Quibi's paltry downloads as execs lower projections from 7M users and $250M subscriber revenue estimated for first year  —  Downloads of the $1.8 billion short-form streaming app, meant for phones, are paltry.  “I attribute everything that has gone wrong to coronavirus,” Mr. Katzenberg said.
Alexander Behrens / Decrypt:
TD Ameritrade-backed ErisX launches the first Ethereum futures trading platform in the US authorized by regulators  —  Ethereum has taken another big step into the regulated financial world.  —  ErisX, a US-based digital asset trading platform backed by TD Ameritrade, today launched trading for Ethereum …
Wolfie Zhao / CoinDesk:
Bitcoin's third “halving”, the programmed event where mining rewards drop, has occurred, lowering the payout to 6.25 BTC per block; the last halving was in 2016  —  Bitcoin's third halving, the network's quadrennial landmark and the most anticipated event this year in the cryptocurrency industry, has finally happened.
Elise Favis / Washington Post:
A look at Nookazon, a fan-made online retailer for trading Animal Crossing in-game items that claims 270K DAUs, over 9M listings, and 7M page views per day  —  Daniel Luu, a 25-year-old software engineer from Maryland, woke up one morning to find hundreds of thousands of people scouring his newly launched website Nookazon.
Bobbie Johnson / MIT Technology Review:
Iceland's contract tracing app has ~38% adoption, the highest in the world, among its population of 364,000, but its impact on containing COVID-19 seems small  —  The country has the highest penetration of any automated contact tracing app in the world, but one senior figure says it “wasn't a game changer.”
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Microsoft's new Family Safety app, for managing kids' screen time and app usage, launches in preview on Android and iOS and syncs with Windows and Xbox devices  —  The app syncs with Windows and Xbox devices  —  Microsoft is launching a dedicated new app, Family Safety, designed for managing kids' screen time and app usage.
Miles Kruppa / Financial Times:
Equity management platform Carta is planning to launch CartaX, a private share trading platform to rival Nasdaq, this summer for companies worth $1B+  —  Silicon Valley start-up poised to launch exchange as tech companies delay IPOs  —  The Silicon Valley start-up Carta is planning to launch …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Spotify begins rolling out a new feature called Group Session, which lets multiple Premium users control a listening session  —  Spotify is today introducing a new feature, Group Session, that will allow two or more of its Premium users in the same space to share control over they music being played.
Franklin Foer / The Atlantic:
US' election security responses against Russian interference in 2016 remain inadequate as Russian tactics continue to evolve in the run up to the 2020 election  —  Jack Cable sat down at the desk in his cramped dorm room to become an adult in the eyes of democracy.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
DispatchTrack, which provides logistics services for last-mile deliveries, raises $144M from Spectrum Equity, in its first-ever funding  —  The current state of our COVID-19 world has underscored more than ever before the need for reliable delivery and e-commerce services …
More: VentureBeat and FinSMEs

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Earlier Picks

Steve Neavling / Detroit Metro Times:
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Jon Fingas / Engadget:
Andy Greenberg / Wired: