Techmeme
March 12, 2020, 11:50 PM

Top News

CNN:
CNN investigation finds troll farms in Ghana and Nigeria exploited US racial tensions and have ties to Russia's IRA; Facebook and Twitter have removed accounts  —  Accra, Ghana (CNN)The Russian trolls are back — and once again trying to poison the political atmosphere in the United States ahead of this year's elections.
Karl Bode / VICE:
AT&T suspends broadband data caps for home internet customers in response to increased data needs during outbreak, 17 US senators ask large ISPs to follow suit  —  AT&T is the first major ISP to confirm that it will be suspending all broadband usage caps as millions of Americans bunker …
Catherine Shu / TechCrunch:
Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:
Kuo: Apple plans to release new MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models with scissor keyboards in the second quarter of 2020  —  Apple plans to release new MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models with scissor keyboards in the second quarter of 2020, according to a new research note today from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, obtained by MacRumors.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft says its Build 2020 developer conference, planned for May 19 through May 21, will be a digital event due to COVID-19 concerns  —  Microsoft's Build developer event is no longer taking place in Seattle  —  Microsoft's Build developer conference is the latest tech event to be affected by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Bloomberg:
Source: Airbnb reported a loss of $276.4M in Q4 before COVID-19 hit, nearly doubling YoY from $143.7M; revenue was up 32% to $1.1B, and it has $2B+ in the bank  —  - Revenue rose 32% in the period, according to a person familiar  — Startup's plans to list on stock market could be at risk
Will Oremus / OneZero :
As COVID-19 hastens the adoption of remote work tools, it deepens the divide between those who can and can't work remotely, and normalizes social distancing  —  How working from home could reshape society  —  8:45 each weekday morning, I drop off my 4-year-old at preschool, hug him goodbye, and drive back home.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Reuters:
Terry Gou, founder of Foxconn, said the resumption of production at its factories in China had “exceeded expectations” after a prolonged halt due to coronavirus  —  Terry Gou, founder of Apple's major manufacturing partner Foxconn, said on Thursday the resumption of production …
Dave Lee / Financial Times:
IBM sues Airbnb over what it claims is the illegal use of four patents, including one about “improved navigation using bookmarks”  —  Move threatens to cast shadow over short-term rental company's road to IPO  —  IBM is taking Airbnb to court over what it claims is the illegal use …
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and others sign an open letter opposing more than dozen bills across the US that target LGBTQ citizens  —  Apple is among 40 companies voicing opposition to recent bills introduced across the United States that target LGBTQ citizens.
Bloomberg:
Telecom Italia says its internet traffic surged 70%+, mostly due to games such as Fortnite, after reports of lost connections during Italy's school shutdown  —  - It's not just home-working adults who are hogging bandwidth  — International network operator sees big increase in traffic
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Microsoft releases a patch for the wormable flaw in Windows 10 and Windows Server 2019 that leaked this week  —  Fix for CVE-2020-0796 is now rolling out to Windows 10 and Windows Serve 2019 systems worldwide.  —  Microsoft has released today a patch for a vulnerability in the SMBv3 protocol …

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Tim Berners-Lee / World Wide Web Foundation:
Craig Silverman / BuzzFeed News:
Julia Alexander / The Verge: