Techmeme
May 19, 2020, 7:00 AM

Top News

New York Times:
Disney's top streaming exec, Kevin Mayer, resigns to become CEO of TikTok and COO of parent company ByteDance; Disney names Rebecca Campbell as his successor  —  Kevin Mayer will lead the Chinese-owned app for making and sharing short videos, which has exploded in popularity during the pandemic.
Dade Hayes / Deadline:
Profile of Rebecca Campbell, Disney's new direct-to-consumer and international chairperson in charge of streaming, including the global expansion of Disney+  —  Rebecca Campbell, whose promotion to Disney's Chairman of Direct-to-Consumer & International on Monday put her in charge of Disney+ …
Michael Potuck / 9to5Mac:
AG Barr says that, “no thanks to Apple”, the FBI succeeded in unlocking the “phones” of the Pensacola gunman, who they found had significant links to Al Qaeda  —  It looks like the most recent contention between the FBI and Apple over device encryption has come to an end …
Richard Speed / The Register:
At an MIT event, Microsoft president Brad Smith says the company was “on the wrong side of history” with open source  —  Tell-all with president Brad Smith reveals Obama warned tech giants that a privacy reckoning was coming  —  Microsoft president Brad Smith (pictured) …
Campbell Kwan / ZDNet:
Sony and Microsoft announce partnership to embed Microsoft Azure AI capabilities onto Sony's new image sensor with built-in AI that was announced last week  —  Sony's image sensor will have Microsoft Azure artificial intelligence capabilities.  —  Sony and Microsoft have joined together …
Preetika Rana / Wall Street Journal:
In email to staff, Dara Khosrowshahi says Uber will cut 3,000 more jobs, in addition to the 3,700 that were let go earlier this month, and will close 45 offices  —  The ride-hailing giant also is exploring the sale of noncore businesses  —  Uber Technologies Inc. is cutting several thousand …
Oculus:
Oculus says it will start accepting Quest titles that support hand tracking this month and details two new collaboration and productivity apps coming this year  —  We're about to celebrate an exciting milestone: the one-year anniversary of Oculus Quest and Rift S!
Janko Roettgers / Protocol:
David Cohen / Adweek:
Instagram introduces Guides, a feature letting creators curate content on a specific subject, debuting with select accounts focusing on wellness  —  Creators, public figures, organizations and publishers can curate content on a specific subject  —  Instagram introduced a new Guides feature Monday …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft says Minecraft has now topped 200M sales, up from 100M in 2016, with 126M monthly players; Minecraft saw a 25% increase in new players last month  —  Minecraft continues to grow despite being 11 years old  —  Minecraft sales have officially topped 200 million, with 126 million people playing the game monthly.
Zoe Schiffer / The Verge:
Jack Dorsey has told Square employees they can work from home even after the COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders end, following a similar move at Twitter  —  Employees can work remotely even after the COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders end  —  Square employees will be able to work from home …

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Earlier Picks

Cheng Ting-Fang / Nikkei Asian Review:
Sachin Ravikumar / Reuters:
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Bloomberg: