Techmeme
March 19, 2020, 10:35 PM

Top News

Financial Times:
EU calls on streaming services such as Netflix and YouTube to limit broadband use and offer programs only in standard, rather than high, definition  —  Brussels tells streaming companies to limit services as Facebook says managing traffic is a “challenge”  —  The EU has called on streaming services …
Reuters:
Netflix says it will reduce its bit rates across all its streams in Europe for 30 days, in effect cutting traffic on its European networks by 25%  —  Netflix said on Thursday it would reduce its bit rates across all its streams in Europe, in effect cutting traffic on its European networks …
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Microsoft says Teams passed 44M DAUs, up from 32M earlier this month, unveils new features like real-time noise suppression that are coming later this year  —  Microsoft Teams, which launched worldwide in March 2017, passed 32 million daily active users (DAUs) this month.
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Microsoft unveils DirectX 12 Ultimate, which promises to better unify the features and capabilities of PC gaming and the Xbox platform, coming later this year  —  Bringing a suite of software advancements in gaming graphics onto a single platform  —  Microsoft has a new version …
Reed Albergotti / Washington Post:
Court filing: Anthony Levandowski, ex-Uber self-driving head, pleads guilty to trade secrets theft from Google in exchange for 32 other charges being dropped  —  The guilty plea, which could lead to a prison sentence, is the latest twist in a years-long saga of conflict and courtroom drama
Patrick Shanley / Hollywood Reporter:
GDC announces a new San Francisco event, GDC Summer, from August 4-6 after initially postponing the March event  —  The three-day event will be held at San Francisco's Moscone Center from August 4-6.  —  Informa Tech, the organizer of the annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook starts rolling out its sweeping desktop redesign, which offers dark mode, tabbed home screen, larger fonts, and a cleaner profile, to all users  —  Facebook today officially rolled out its sweeping desktop redesign that offers dark mode, tabbed homescreen, and a cleaner profile.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Uber says ride volume is down by ~70% in cities like Seattle, it has “ample liquidity” with $10B in cash, and is considering delivering medicine; stock up 35%+  —  Uber — the on-demand transportation and food delivery behemoth — has been hit hard by the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Stefan Seltz-Axmacher / Starsky Robotics 10–4 Labs:
Self-driving truck startup Starsky Robotics is shutting down; CEO cites “unmet promise of AI” and says investors rejected the operator business model  —  In 2015, I got obsessed with the idea of driverless trucks and started Starsky Robotics.  In 2016, we became …
Torsten Ingvaldsen / HYPEBEAST:
Report: total streams for Spotify's top 200 most-streamed songs fell 23% in Italy from March 3 to March 17; US, UK, France, Spain markets have also decreased  —  Data from Spotify may suggest that widespread self-isolation is to blame.  —  Olly Curtis/Getty Images
Bloomberg:
Sources: SoftBank is seeking to raise an additional $10B so its ~$100B first Vision Fund can support portfolio companies battered amid the coronavirus pandemic  —  SoftBank Group Corp. is seeking to raise an additional $10 billion so its first Vision Fund can support portfolio companies battered amid …
Alex Hern / The Guardian:
Twitter broadens its definition of harm to address content with deceptive language around COVID-19, including “denial of established scientific facts”  —  Site changes rules to ban content aimed at making people act against official advice  —  Twitter will remove tweets that run …
Ari Levy / CNBC:
Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft have lost a combined $1.3T in value since the market peak on Feb. 19; Facebook led the decline, dropping ~30%  —  - Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet and Facebook have lost a combined $1.3 in value since the market peaked on Feb. 19.
Olga Khazan / The Atlantic:
An Amazon warehouse worker in Queens, NY tests positive for coronavirus; Amazon says it has temporarily closed the facility and sent workers home with full pay  —  Workers at an Amazon warehouse in Queens, New York, received a text Wednesday evening that they long feared might come …

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cloudflare:
Cloudflare Connect 2026: The Agentic Conference  —  Stop preparing for agents.  Start running them.  100+ sessions, workshops, and speakers from OpenAI, Arm, and Cloudflare across AI, security, and performance.
Zoho:
The 90-day recognition cliff: Why praise programs fade, and what keeps them alive  —  Recognition programs often start with enthusiasm.  Employees participate, managers share shoutouts, and teams have a new way to celebrate achievements.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce 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:
SAP CEO: AI Won't Kill Software, But It Will Change Your Job — With Christian Klein
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
David Ellison's Paramount-Warner Empire & The Fight That Comes Next
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Sources:
Factory CEO on why AGI is already here
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
Subscribe to Sources.
Invest Like the Best:
Noah Shinn - Building Instinct: The Personal Agent
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Lenny's Podcast:
The grief, loneliness, and burnout sweeping through the tech industry right now | Molly Graham
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:
Doomers at Dreamforce
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 10:35 PM ET, March 19, 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

Bijan Stephen / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

Steven Sinofsky / @stevesi:
Emily Bary / MarketWatch:
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Tom Warren / The Verge: