Techmeme
April 9, 2020, 12:30 PM

Top News

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Sources: Microsoft won't be delivering its Windows 10X-powered Surface Neo dual-screen devices this year, nor will it ship Windows 10X to third-party OEMs  —  Microsoft is shifting its Windows focus to reflect the new world where virtualization and single-screen devices are more of a priority than brand-new form factors.
Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer:
A new Zoom update hides meeting ID numbers in videoconference call title bars by default, preventing accidental dissemination of meeting IDs with screenshots  —  A new update to the Zoom client has been released that removes the meeting ID from the title bar when conducting meetings …
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
The Unicode Consortium says it's delaying emoji planned for 2021 but the emoji announced earlier this year will still be available in the fall  —  An emoji delay  —  The pandemic is even affecting emoji.  The Unicode Consortium, the group behind emoji releases, announced today that it's delaying …
Veronica Combs / TechRepublic:
Researchers detail how five China-linked hacking groups targeting high-value Linux servers have managed to stay relatively undetected for almost a decade  —  Five APT groups have been using remote access trojans to take advantage of a network component that doesn't get much attention from security teams.
Will Heaven / MIT Technology Review:
The pandemic has companies like Netflix and Equinix expediting network and server upgrades, driving the biggest expansion of internet infrastructure in years  —  Just like that, our internet connection has become an umbilical to the outside world.  We now depend on it to do our jobs, to go to school, and to see other people.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft has seen a new daily record of 2.7B meeting minutes in Teams, up 200% from 900M minutes in mid-March, and video call usage grew by 1,000%+ in March  —  Microsoft is revealing more about how people are using its Teams app, and it predicts the novel coronavirus pandemic will be a turning point …
Ina Fried / Axios:
Yelp says it is cutting 1,000 jobs and furloughing another 1,100 workers amid the COVID-19 pandemic  —  Yelp told employees Thursday that it is cutting 1,000 jobs and furloughing another 1,100 workers amid a massive  —  Why it matters: It's just the latest company that caters to small businesses …
More: Yelp, TechCrunch, and CNBC
Tweets: @mahirzeynalov and @thekenyeungThanks:@inafried
Jason Gurwin / The Streamable:
Disney says Disney+ has 50M+ paid subscribers globally, and that its April 3 launch in India accounts for 8M Disney+ subscribers; stock rises 6%+  —  Disney announced that the company has surpassed 50 million paid subscribers, following their launch in India and eight Western European countries …
Cecilia Kang / New York Times:
Verizon says it is now handling ~800M wireless calls on weekdays, more than double Mother's Day, while AT&T says calls are up 35%; internet usage is up 20-25%  —  The volume of phone calls has surged more than internet use as people want to hear each other's voices in the pandemic.
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Google's confirms it expanded Duplex, its AI chat agent, to the UK, Australia, and Canada  —  Google today quietly updated a support page to indicate that Google Duplex, its AI chat agent that can arrange appointments over the phone, is now being used in the U.K., Australia, and Canada in a limited capacity.
Reuters:
FCC grants Google permission to operate a portion of the 8,000-mile Pacific Light Cable Network System between the US and Taiwan, but not Hong Kong  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Wednesday approved Alphabet Inc unit Google's (GOOGL.O) …
Robin Klein / Sifted:
UK startups have received ample government support already and while COVID-19-related relief might be tempting, the money could be better spent elsewhere  —  The UK government shouldn't set up a bailout fund for startups.  That's their investors' job.  —  NEWS |  COMMUNITIES |  9 Apr
Dave Gershgorn / OneZero:
Many US government and banking systems still use a 60-year-old COBOL, which makes it hard to find programmers to fix the systems when they break under pressure  —  Retired engineers are coming to the rescue  —  ver the weekend, New Jersey governor, Phil Murphy, made an unusual public plea during …
Michael McWhertor / Polygon:
Google makes Stadia free to use for anyone with a Gmail address and will give new users two months of Stadia Pro for free  —  Stadia Pro is also free for two months  —  Google's video game streaming platform, Stadia, is now free to anyone with a Gmail address, the company announced on Wednesday.
Dave Lee / Financial Times:
CloudKitchens blames rogue staffer for “Internet Food Court” PR campaign, after it created an impression that Kalanick was launching it during COVID-19 crisis  —  The Hollywood kitchen facility seemed perfect for the coronavirus crisis — but then suddenly vanished from the internet
Gaspard Sebag / Bloomberg:
France orders Google to pay publishers to display article snippets, starting from October of 2019, after Google initially refused to do so  —  - Watchdog says Google may have caused ‘serious’ harm to press  — Antitrust agency issues interim measures after press complaint
Eva Dou / Washington Post:
A look at COVID-19-related health security measures in places like Foxconn's iPhone-making complex and Huawei's factories in China as they restart production  —  Disinfect hands and shoes at the factory gate.  Bring your own towel.  No sunny-side-up eggs.
Catherine Shu / TechCrunch:
Japan-based Paidy, which offers customers instant credit for online purchases, raises a $48M Series C extension from ITOCHU, bringing its total raised to $281M  —  Paidy, a Japanese fintech startup that allows customers to make online purchases without credit cards, announced today …

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:
Generate Sample Data the Way You Want It Using AI, for Free  —  Finding good sample data is harder than it should be.If you've ever tried to test a dashboard, build a demo, or train a team on an analytics tool, you know the drill.
IDrive:
IDrive Autonomy: low-cost L2+ driver assistance with AI  —  L2+ driver assistance with a scalable AI stack built for automotive companies and laying the foundation for the autonomous future.

Featured Podcasts

Hard Fork:
The A.I. Mob That Attacked Hugging Face + METR's Ajeya Cotra
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
Cloudflare CEO: We're Ready To Block Millions of Websites From 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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Data Centers, Elon Musk, and the New Politics of Tech, with David Weigel
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:
Sam Altman on OpenAI's next model and the AI backlash
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.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Brian Singerman from GPx
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
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 12:30 PM ET, April 9, 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

Earlier Picks

Matt Drange / Protocol:
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Andrei Frumusanu / AnandTech:
Thomas Brewster / Forbes:
Richard Nieva / CNET: