Techmeme: As Amazon prioritizes household staples and other high-demand items, some non-essential items are now showing April 21 delivery dates even with Amazon Prime (Jason Del Rey/Vox)

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March 23, 2020, 2:05 PM

Top News

New York Times:

Civil liberties experts argue that governments turning to electronic surveillance to track COVID-19 opens the door to future abuses, as happened after 9/11 — Tracking entire populations to combat the pandemic now could open the doors to more invasive forms of government snooping later.

More: Wired, Decrypt, Science, and Slashdot

Tweets: @lam_barrett, @antoniogm, @torproject, @ragnarsmate, @evanselinger, @mims, @sidneyfussell, @aprilaser, @nytimes, @math_rachel, @fightfortheftr, and @foxcahn

Reuters:

Mobile operators in Italy, Germany, and Austria are now sharing anonymized aggregated data with health authorities, to map people's concentrations and movements — MILAN/BERLIN (Reuters) - Mobile carriers are sharing data with the health authorities in Italy, Germany and Austria …

More: Rachel Coldicutt, Business Insider, and BBC

Yimou Lee / Reuters:

Taiwan rolls out a mobile phone-based “electronic fence” that uses location-tracking to ensure people who are quarantined stay in their homes

More: Business Insider and Fossbytes

Tweets: @milohsieh, @yuanfenyang, @mediocrickey, @aliceysu, @arrington, @arrington, @shamikaravi, and @davedufournba

Jason Del Rey / Vox:

As Amazon prioritizes household staples and other high-demand items, some non-essential items are now showing April 21 delivery dates even with Amazon Prime — An Amazon delivery man in Paris, France, on March 19, 2020. Getty Images — The e-commerce giant is prioritizing household staples …

Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:

Kuo: Apple is planning a high-end 6.7-inch iPhone in 2020 with sensor-shift image stabilization, expanding to two or three new iPhone models in 2021 — Apple is rumored to be planning a high-end 6.7-inch iPhone model for release in 2020, and multiple reports have indicated that the device …

More: AppleInsider, 9to5Mac, Business Insider, Thurrott, iMore, TechRadar.com, Redmond Pie, ZDNet, iPhone in Canada Blog, BGR, Tom's Guide, iDownloadBlog.com, iPhone Hacks, MacDailyNews, Input, and MACお宝 …

Tweets: @macrumors and @benlovejoy

Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:

iOS 14 code reveals new features in Find My, including an AR mode and new notification options, like being alerted if someone does not arrive at a place on time — Apple's Find My app will include useful new features in iOS 14, 9to5Mac has learned, including augmented reality mode and new location triggers.

More: International Business Times, AppleInsider, iMore, Appleosophy, iPhone Hacks, iDownloadBlog.com, and Wccftech. Tweets: @apollozac

Nikkei Asian Review:

Foxconn says it has secured enough workers to meet “seasonal demand” at all major Chinese plants ahead of schedule — Recruitment goals ahead of schedule, as Apple prepares for new model releases — TAIPEI — Taiwan's Foxconn, the top assembler of Apple's iPhones …

More: iMore, MacRumors, AppleInsider, 9to5Mac, Patently Apple, and Seeking Alpha

Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:

Google unveils new tools for game developers including Android Performance Tuner, Android GPU Inspector, and a NoSQL cloud database called Cloud Firestore — Google today announced a bunch of new tools for game developers: Google Play Asset Delivery, Android Performance Tuner, Android GPU Inspector, and Cloud Firestore, among others.

More: ZDNet, Android Developers, Thurrott, Android Developers Blog, and 9to5Google

Gilad Edelman / Wired:

Ban on targeted behavioral advertising may be the single best way to fix the internet, from protecting privacy and sanitizing social media, to saving journalism — From protecting privacy to saving the free press, it may be the single best way to fix the internet.

More: The Overspill. Tweets: @dhh, @mustapipa, @antoniocasilli, @ilvestoomas, @megangra, @wired, @airavn, @caitlin__kelly, and @antoniogm

Stan Chudnovsky / Messenger News:

Facebook launches a program to partner with developers to use Messenger to support government health agencies with timely and reliable info about coronavirus — Today, we're announcing two initiatives to support government health organizations in combating the coronavirus pandemic.

More: Politico, International Business Times, Engadget, TechCrunch, CNET, We Are Social UK, VentureBeat, and Silicon Valley Business …. Tweets: @messenger

Jenny Leonard / Bloomberg:

Apple's request for Apple Watches to be excluded from a 7.5% US tariff on Chinese imports has been approved — - USTR notifies company of decision in letter dated Friday — Watches were subject to 7.5% tariff from U.S.-China trade war — Apple Inc.'s request for its popular watches …

More: MacDailyNews

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

The New York Times Company acquires Audm, a subscription-based audio app offering listeners longform articles read by actors and celebrities for $8.99 per month — Audm, a startup that turns longform journalism into audio content, has been acquired by The New York Times Company, it announced this morning.

More: VentureBeat and RAIN News

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From Mediagazer

Max Tani / @maxwelltani:

Memo: Notus plans to “dramatically expand” its coverage of national politics with a “new version of NOTUS under a new name” and will double staff from 50 to 100

Catherine Shoard / The Guardian:

Warner Bros. won a record-tying 11 awards at the 98th Oscars, followed by Netflix with 7 and Apple, Disney, Focus, and Neon with 1 each; Paramount had none

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Filing: David Zaslav is set to receive at least $550M in compensation related to the Paramount-WBD deal, including $517.2M in equity in the combined company

More News

David Jagneaux / UploadVR:

The Director of Content Ecosystem at Oculus, Chris Pruett, says 90% of users who got an Oculus Quest for Christmas never owned an Oculus headset before

More: VentureBeat

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Cazoo, a UK-based portal for buying used cars, raises £100M led by DMG Ventures, bringing its total raised to £180M over the last 18 months

More: FinSMEs, EU-Startups, Silicon Canals, and Tech.eu. Tweets: @ingridlunden. Thanks:@ingridlunden

Manish Singh / TechCrunch:

Uber and Ola will suspend ride-hailing services in Delhi until March 31 to help contain coronavirus following a government order for city lockdown

More: Neowin, NDTV.com, News18, WeeTracker, The Economic Times, and Quartz

Donie O'Sullivan / CNN:

After banning ads for medical face masks over a week ago, ads served by Google for masks have shown alongside COVID-19 news on sites like CNN, NYT, CNBC, WaPo

Tweets: @slpng_giants, @chelseaclinton, @tonyromm, @hshaban, and @donie

Earlier Picks

Bloomberg:

Source: on March 14 Lime recorded 147K trips globally with $617K in revenue, which dropped to ~52K trips and ~$192K revenue on March 17; rides in Paris fell 98%

More: The Information. Tweets: @coryweinberg, @bloombergasia, @business, and @mdudas

Jon Porter / The Verge:

Nextdoor launches Help Map, a new interactive tool that lets neighbors offer help to one another with tasks like grocery shopping

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Ampere Analysis study of Disney+ US subscriptions finds 50% of households with kids under 10, 42% with kids under 18, and 41% of 18-24-year-olds are subscribers

Gian Volpicelli / WIRED UK:

How data sources like satellite images and internet traffic are helping researchers track the impact of COVID-19 outbreaks better than official government data

More: Wired. Tweets: @wireduk, @ursbolt, @wired, @vernieman, and @gabe_klein

Geoff Baker / The Seattle Times:

Satya Nadella details Microsoft's response to COVID-19 as he writes a memo to employees worldwide: “We are in uncharted territory”

CNBC:

Apple has updated Siri to help US users asking if they have COVID-19, with answers coming from the US Department of Health and Human Services and the CDC