Techmeme
April 23, 2020, 5:50 PM

Top News

Dana Mattioli / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Amazon employees often consulted sales info on third-party vendors when developing private-label merchandise, contrary to assertions to Congress  —  Contrary to assertions to Congress, employees often consulted sales information on third-party vendors when developing private-label merchandise
Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple aims to sell Macs with its own chips by 2021 and is working on three Mac processors based on the 5nm A14 chip in the next iPhone  —  - New processors to be based on iPhone designs, replacing Intel  — Transition will be gradual, start with less-powerful computers
Megan Graham / CNBC:
Google to require all advertisers to verify their identities, starting in the US; existing advertisers will have 30 days to complete the verification process  —  - Google began requiring political advertisers wanting to run election ads on its platform to verify their identity back in 2018.
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
Report: EU commissioner says Tim Cook told him Apple and Google's contact tracing API will be available to developers from April 28  —  The first version of Apple and Google's jointly developed, cross-platform contact tracing API should be available to developers as of next week …
Ry Crist / CNET:
FCC adopts a proposal that opens the 6GHz band for unlicensed Wi-Fi use, freeing up more than 1,200MHz of additional bandwidth for next-gen Wi-Fi 6E devices  —  The unanimous decision opens 1,200MHz of new bandwidth for Wi-Fi 6E devices that are expected to begin arriving this year.
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Apple Music app is now available on Samsung's smart TV models from 2018 onwards  —  Another Apple service comes to Samsung's sets, available now  —  Apple Music is getting an app on Samsung's most recent smart TVs, the two companies announced today.  It's the latest expansion …
Aaron Sankin / The Markup:
Facebook removes “pseudoscience” from the list of categories advertisers can use to target people after report that the category contained more than 78M people  —  While vowing to police COVID-19 misinformation on its platform, Facebook let advertisers target users interested in"pseudoscience"
Julia Black / The Verge:
Following layoffs at Bird, interviews with 16 former employees paint a picture of a workplace with high-turnover and an erratic, careless leadership  —  Inside the electric scooter startup with big workplace problems  —  Emma* was up late working on a complex analysis from her laptop in bed for Bird.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Mary Ann Azevedo / Crunchbase News:
Research tracking tech company layoffs finds 29,463 employees were laid off from 292 companies between March 11 and April 21 due to the COVID-19 pandemic  —  Today, the U.S. Labor Department reported some sobering figures: The number of unemployment claims filed over the past five weeks surged to 26.4 million.
More: CNBC
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
AWS launches Amazon AppFlow, an integration service for developers to easily transfer data between AWS and SaaS applications  —  AWS today launched Amazon AppFlow, a new integration service that makes it easier for developers to transfer data between AWS and SaaS applications like Google Analytics …
Karen Weise / New York Times:
Jeff Bezos, who sources say only worked on projects that posed a major risk to the company, has taken an active leadership role at Amazon amid COVID-19  —  The chief executive, who had distanced himself from day-to-day management, is closely involved in the company's response to the pandemic.
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Boston Dynamics says its quadruped Spot robot is in use at one Boston hospital for remote triage of patients suspected of having COVID-19  —  The company has ambitious plans for using robots to assist COVID-19 treatment  —  Robot maker Boston Dynamics announced on Thursday that its quadruped Spot robot …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Digits comes out of stealth with a $22M Series B led by GV and launches a free AI-powered expense monitoring dashboard for small businesses  —  Digits, a fintech startup hailing from the same team that built and sold Crashlytics to Twitter, is officially launching today after two years of development.
Tweets: @levynews
Ron Miller / TechCrunch:
Digital whiteboard maker Miro raises $50M Series B led by Iconiq Capital, bringing its total raised to around $75M  —  Miro is a company in the right place at the right time.  The makers of a digital whiteboard are seeing usage surge right now as businesses move from the workplace and physical whiteboards.
More: FinSMEs
Patrick Shanley / Hollywood Reporter:
SuperData: worldwide digital video game spending reached a record $10B total in March, up 11% YoY, with $5.7B for mobile games, up 15% YoY  —  Console, PC and mobile games also saw significant revenue bumps amid the coronavirus lockdown.  —  Digital video game spending hit a record high …

Sponsor Posts

Soxton:
Fast, affordable law for startups  —  Soxton automates startup legal so founders can move faster and sleep better.  We handle incorporation, advisor, employment and commercial contracts.  Join the waitlist for early access!
F5:
Accelerate AI Adoption at F5's AI Virtual Summit  —  Learn how to architect, secure, and scale AI for production with real-world insights from industry leaders on June 23.  Register now to save your spot.
Zoho:
3 lessons from 1,000+ teams running sales on WhatsApp  —  This is a guest post by Orkhan Jafarli, Growth PM at TimelinesAI.Sales teams of businesses across the world have one thing in common: a meaningful chunk of their pipeline now happens on WhatsApp.
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

The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:
Is AI Conscious?
Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.
Subscribe to The Nick, Dick and Paul Show.
Big Technology Podcast:
AI Pioneer Geoffrey Hinton: AI Is Conscious, Superintelligence is Coming, And We Should Be Worried
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:
How Dhar Mann Turned After-School Specials Into A Billion-View Business
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.
Invest Like the Best:
Dara Khosrowshahi - Uber's Bet on AVs, AI, and Building a Super-App
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Training Data:
Knowing What Your Customers Want, All the Time: Listen Labs' Alfred Wahlforss
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:
AI's Mythos Moment: Rishi Sunak on preparing governments for AI
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 5:50 PM ET, April 23, 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

Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Adi Robertson / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / VICE: