Note: Techmeme is hiring part-time editors. Apply here or tell a friend!
Techmeme
May 20, 2020, 10:55 AM

Top News

Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
Mark Zuckerberg announces Facebook Shops, a free tool that helps businesses easily list products on their Facebook Page, Instagram profile, Stories, or in ads  —  - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook Shops, a new e-commerce feature that allows businesses to easily list their products on Facebook and Instagram.
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Facebook details the AI behind its shopping experiences, accounting for consumer traits like body type, skin tone, location, socioeconomic class, age, and poses  —  Facebook today announced improvements to the shopping experiences across its platform, including Facebook Shops …
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Indian ride-hailing company Ola says it is cutting 1,400 jobs, or 35% of its workforce in the country, as revenue dropped by 95% in the last two months  —  Ola said on Wednesday it is cutting 1,400 jobs in India, or 35% of its workforce in the home market, as the ride-hailing firm works …
Taylor Lyles / The Verge:
Sony says PlayStation Now has 2.2M subscribers and PlayStation Plus has 41M+ subs; Xbox Game Pass had 10M subs and Xbox Live had 90M active users in April  —  PlayStation Plus has amassed over 41 million subscribers, too  —  Sony says 2.2 million people are subscribed to PlayStation Now …
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Google launches Chrome 83 with updated safety and privacy settings, third-party cookies blocked in Incognito mode, DNS-over-HTTPS support, and new dev features  —  Google today launched Chrome 83 for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS.  Chrome 83 includes redesigned safety and privacy settings …
Brian Merchant / OneZero:
Google says it won't “build custom AI/ML algorithms to facilitate upstream extraction in the oil and gas industry”, after new Greenpeace report on Big Oil ties  —  A Greenpeace report details Silicon Valley's ties to Big Oil — and spurs Google to take a step toward opting out
Casey Newton / The Verge:
Productivity tool Notion's free tier gets unlimited notes and blocks  —  There's never been a better time to check out the collaborative note-taking app  —  Notion, the workspace and note-taking app, just became much more appealing to individual users.  The company said today that people …
Nick Corasaniti / New York Times:
Profile of the founders of Occupy Democrats, who run a Facebook page employing meme tactics for the left, regularly outperforming pages for Trump and Fox News  —  Occupy Democrats, a Facebook page that Rafael and Omar Rivero started eight years ago, has emerged as a counterweight to right-wing meme machines.
Charlotte Tucker / EU-Startups:
Helsinki-based Happeo, which offers intranet, enterprise social network, and collaboration software to companies, raises €10.9M Series A led by INKEF Capital  —  Today Finnish startup Happeo, an employee communications platform, announces having raised approximately €10.9 million …
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Microsoft announces Project Reunion, its latest attempt to unify the Windows developer platform by reducing fragmentation between Win32 and UWP APIs  —  At Build 2020 today, Microsoft unveiled Project Reunion, its latest attempt to unify the Windows developer platform by reducing fragmentation …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Sara Fischer / Axios:
NYT says it will stop using third-party data to target ads in 2021, building a first-party data platform instead, starting with 45 proprietary audience segments  —  The New York Times will no longer use 3rd-party data to target ads come 2021, executives tell Axios, and it is building out a proprietary first-party data platform.
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Microsoft says it acquired Windows task automation startup Softomotive for an undisclosed sum, merging its tools with Microsoft's Power Automate  —  Microsoft today announced that it acquired robotic process automation (RPA) startup Softomotive for an undisclosed sum.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Generate videos with Veo 3 in Google Gemini  —  Create high-quality, 8-second videos with Veo 3, our state-of-the-art AI video generator.  Try it with a Google AI Pro plan or get the highest access with the Ultra plan.
Warp:
The #1 Coding Agent  —  #1 on Terminal-Bench.  71% on SWE-bench Verified.  Trusted by 600K+ devs.  Try the top agentic dev tool for $1 for 1st month with code TECHMEME.
Zoho:
Boost technician productivity on the go with the Zoho FSM mobile app  —  Life on the move: Inside a technician's daily workflowIn field service, unpredictability is part of the job.  One moment, a technician is on schedule.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
Can The Web Survive Generative AI? -- With Matthew Prince
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Tech Brew Ride Home:
AI Business Bigger Than The Smartphone Business?
Tech news headlines every day. 15 minutes and you're up to date. From Tech Brew, Morning Brew's tech hub.
Subscribe to Tech Brew Ride Home.
Hard Fork:
GPT-5 Backlash + Perplexity C.E.O. Aravind Srinivas on the Browser Wars + Hot Mess Express
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
The head of ChatGPT on AI attachment, ads, and what's next
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Lenny's Podcast:
The one question that saves product careers | Matt LeMay
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Great Chat:
Warm intros and hot takes: It's time to get ready for fundraising season
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:55 AM ET, May 20, 2020.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Ashley Carman / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

EJ Dickson / Rolling Stone:
Karen Weise / New York Times:
Munsif Vengattil / Reuters:
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
The Verge:
David Meyer / Fortune: