Techmeme
April 29, 2020, 4:35 PM

Top News

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
Apple and Google release the first version of their contact tracing API, referred to as exposure notification API, in respective developer builds  —  Apple and Google have released the very first version of their exposure notification API, which they previously called the contact tracing API .
Washington Post:
Survey of US adults finds skepticism about Apple and Google's COVID-19 contact tracing efforts, with smartphone owners split 50-50 on whether they would use it  —  Nearly 3 in 5 Americans say they are either unable or unwilling to use the infection-alert apps under development by Google and Apple …
Christina Farr / CNBC:
Facebook:
Facebook Q1: $17.7B revenue, up 18% YoY, as DAUs rise 11% YoY to 1.73B, MAUs rise 10% YoY to 2.6B; COVID-19 will likely flatten Q2 revenue growth; stock up 8%+  —  Facebook, Inc. (Nasdaq: FB) today reported financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2020.
Jessica Bursztynsky / CNBC:
Filing: Lyft is laying off 17% of its workforce, or 982 staff, and will furlough 288 employees alongside salary cuts ranging from 10% to 30% for all staff  —  Lyft is laying off 982 employees and furloughing an additional 288, the company announced in a regulatory filing on Wednesday.
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Google Meet is now free for everyone with a Google account, for meetings of up to 100 people, which are not time limited until September 30  —  Can it stem Zoom's meteoric growth?  —  Google is opening up its Google Meet videoconferencing service to anybody who wants to use it …
Microsoft:
Microsoft Q3: revenue up 15% YoY to $35B, net income of $10.8B, up 22% YoY, Intelligent Cloud revenue of $12.3B, up 27%, LinkedIn revenue up 21%, Azure's up 59%  —  EDMOND, Wash. — April 29, 2020 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the following results for the quarter ended March 31, 2020 …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Spotify beats with Q1 revenue of €1.8B and net income of €1M; MAUs rose 31% YoY to 286M, premium users rose 31% to 130M, and ad-supported MAUs rose 32% to 163M  —  The coronavirus may be decimating some corners of the economy, but the impact on the digital music …
Andrew Tarantola / Engadget:
Facebook announces Blender, an open source chatbot aimed at AI research that it says has been trained on 9.4B parameters  —  It could help tomorrow's AI converse more naturally with people  —  The virtual assistants that inhabit our smartphones are helpful, sure, but they're not going to pass the Turing test any time soon.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Twitter updates its API platform to make it easier for developers and researchers to study the public conversation around COVID-19  —  Twitter is making it possible for developers and researchers to study the public conversation around COVID-19 in real time with an update to its API platform.
Vox:
Sources: Amazon has begun cracking down on communication across its widely-read email listservs after employees used them to protest and organize  —  The company says it's more widely enforcing rules around mass emails as part of a routine audit.  Some employees see it as an attack on worker organizing.
Mary Ann Azevedo / Crunchbase News:
Pittsburgh-based Niche, a school search service for prospective US students, raises $35M Series C led by Radian Capital, bringing total raised to ~$44M  —  Niche, a school search platform, announced this morning it has raised a $35 million Series C round of funding led by Radian Capital.
More: TechCrunchThanks:@lisam_horton
Hyunjoo Jin / Reuters:
Samsung reports Q1 earnings with total revenue ~$45.4B, up 5.6% YoY, and operating profit of ~$5.2B, up 3% YoY, as chip demand was solid amid COVID-19 crisis  —  SEOUL (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS) said its operating profit rose 3% in the January to March period …
Andy Baio / Waxy.org:
Roc Nation files copyright claim over deepfake YouTube videos that use AI to impersonate Jay-Z's voice, raising new copyright and fair use questions  —  On Friday, I linked to several videos by Vocal Synthesis, a new YouTube channel dedicated to audio deepfakes — AI-generated speech …
Nick Corasaniti / New York Times:
Profile of Acronym, a progressive nonprofit that, with the help of ex-Facebook staffer James Barnes, is looking to use Trump's online ad tactics against him  —  A former Facebook employee is using a tool he employed to help President Trump win to conduct tests for a progressive group …

Sponsor Posts

Airtable:
Deep analysis for deep questions  —  Introducing Superagent.  A new research product from Airtable: Subagents deeply interrogate your topic and turn it into boardroom-ready reports, slides, docs, or websites.
Intel:
5G's most deployed platform  —  Powering live networks with built-in Inference across Core and RAN.  That's the power of Intel Inside®
Zoho:
Why navigation breaks down in unified software—and how QuickNav fixes it  —  In unified software environments, navigation stops being a convenience issue and becomes a structural one.When work spans CRM records …
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

Channels with Peter Kafka:
Netflix Walks, Paramount Wins, and the Ellisons Take Hollywood
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.
Hard Fork:
Is A.I. Eating the Labor Market? + The Latest on the Pentagon, OpenClaw and Alpha School
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.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Valar Atomics' Isaiah Taylor: Solving AI's Energy Crisis With Nuclear 'Gigasites'
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
Access:
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on surviving the AI slop-pocalypse
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Lenny's Podcast:
AI is critical for humanity's survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel
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.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
His Excellency Khaldoon Al Mubarak: Investing in an AI-Driven World
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 4:35 PM ET, April 29, 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

Matthew Moore / The Times:

Earlier Picks

Crofton Black / The Bureau of Investigative Journalism: