Techmeme
March 21, 2020, 9:45 AM

Top News

Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Google launches a dedicated COVID-19 website, focused on locally relevant info in the US, as well as enhanced Search results for terms related to the disease  —  After lots of complicated drama, a simple website  —  One week ago, President Donald Trump held a press conference wherein …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
After canceling Google I/O's in-person event in early March, Google now says it will “not be holding an I/O event in any capacity this year”  —  Google earlier this month announced that it was not hosting a physical developer conference in light of coronavirus.
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
A day with the new MacBook Air: delightfully close to perfection and settles all the issues with keyboard, price, and performance, but its camera still stinks  —  We waited a long time for a retina MacBook Air.  When we finally got it back in November 2018, it was worth waiting for.
Ryan Mac / BuzzFeed News:
Twitter, which prohibits denials of established science on the virus' transmission, says Elon Musk's tweet that kids are “essentially immune” is not a violation  —  The journalists at BuzzFeed News are proud to bring you trustworthy and relevant reporting about the coronavirus.
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Russian hacker group called Digital Revolution claims it breached a contractor for FSB and discovered details of a project intended to build an IoT botnet  —  Digital Revolution hacker group leaks details about “Fronton” an IoT botnet a contractor was allegedly building for the FSB, Russia's intelligence agency.
Josh Dzieza / The Verge:
Amazon warehouse workers and drivers fear the impact of COVID-19 as Amazon grows into an essential service, warning of uneven enforcement of safety measures  —  Amazon is positioning itself as an ‘essential’ service during the pandemic — a move that benefits the company and puts its warehouse workers and drivers in danger
Brandy Betz / Seeking Alpha:
Sources: Airbnb's plans to go public are in disarray after the company racked up hundreds of millions of dollars in losses this year  —  The coronavirus pandemic has led to hundreds of millions in losses for Airbnb (AIRB) and has the company considering a funding round rather than going public, according to WSJ sources.
Strategy Analytics:
Research: global smartphone shipments dropped 38% YoY in February, from 99.2M units in 2019 to 61.8M in 2020  —  According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, global smartphone shipments tumbled 38 percent year-on-year in the month of February, 2020.
The Official Microsoft Blog:
Microsoft introduces a Healthcare Bot service using AI to assist frontline organizations, like the CDC, in directing individuals to appropriate medical care  —  In a crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic, it's not only important to deliver medical care but to also provide information to help people …
Bloomberg:
Sources: SoftBank-backed car-rental startup Getaround, once valued at $1B+, is actively seeking a sale as it deals with the impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak  —  The car-sharing company Getaround is actively seeking a sale as the coronavirus outbreak has sent demand plunging and left …
Amber Neely / AppleInsider:
Study: using touch on Apple CarPlay or Android Auto impairs driver reaction times by 50%+, vs. 35% for texting-while-driving and 46% for hand-held phone calls  —  U.K. based road safety charity IAM RoadSmart has released a study showing how in-vehicle infotainment systems …
Hannah Murphy / Financial Times:

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.
Cape:
Most carriers track everything.  Cape doesn't.  —  Unlimited talk, text & data, 24-hr metadata deletion, network ID rotation, SIM-attack defense, and more.  Switch today and get 29% off for life.
Zoho:
The hidden tax of making employees search, switch, and repeat  —  Employees lose more time to digital friction than organizations often realize.  Searching for information, switching between tools …
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

Lenny's Podcast:
AI's third era: the rise of persistent AI coworkers | Tara Seshan (OpenAI's product lead)
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
Software's Epic Comeback, Meta's AI Layoffs Blunder, South Korea Stock Market Chaos
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.
Hard Fork:
Meta Shifts the Blame + Do Data Center Bans Work? + The Final HatGPT
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
The Weird, Big Business of Microdramas
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.
Training Data:
Parallel's Parag Agrawal: Building a New Web for AI Agents
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:45 AM ET, March 21, 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

Brent Lang / Variety:
Lily Hay Newman / Wired:

Earlier Picks

CNBC:
Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
Josh Constine / TechCrunch: