Techmeme
May 6, 2020, 9:25 AM

Top News

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft unveils Surface Go 2 with a bigger 10.5-inch display and better Intel processors, available on May 12, starting at $399  —  The smaller Surface gets a big hardware bump  —  Microsoft's smallest Surface tablet is getting some important hardware upgrades today in the form of the Surface Go 2.
Theodore Schleifer / Vox:
Letter from Brian Chesky to Airbnb employees says the company is laying off 1,900, or ~25% of its workforce, and expects a 2020 revenue decline of 50% YoY  —  Airbnb is laying off a quarter of its staff.  —  Airbnb, seen until recently as one of Silicon Valley's most financially secure unicorns, is laying off a quarter of its staff.
Harry McCracken / Fast Company:
Q&A with Steven Sinofsky on his upcoming memoir that chronicles his time at Microsoft, as he reflects on how the company fought the ILOVEYOU virus 20 years ago  —  On the 20th anniversary of the unleashing of the ILOVEYOU virus—which infected millions of PCs worldwide …
Hugh Langley / Business Insider:
Sources: Magic Leap is in talks to raise $100M in funding from a major health company after laying off around half of its workforce  —  - Magic Leap is turning to a “major” health care company to raise money, according to an internal memo obtained by The Information.
Bloomberg:
Spotify CEO expects Apple to “open up” its platform more to 3rd-party apps, after Spotify's antitrust complaint with the EU, but sees it as a long-term process  —  - Apple plans to let other music services integrate with HomePod  — Ek says ‘steps to go before’ Apple is open and fair platform
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Shannon Liao / CNN:
Activision Blizzard CEO says people may turn to free mobile games during the pandemic, after the company beat Q1 expectations with sales of $1.52B, up 21% YoY  —  New York (CNN Business)While much of the economy is hurting during the pandemic, video games are thriving.
Brooke Auxier / Pew Research Center:
Survey: Americans are split on the acceptability of tracing people's movements with phone data, and 60% believe contact tracing tech won't make much difference  —  The ongoing coronavirus outbreak has brought privacy and surveillance concerns to the forefront - from hacked video conferencing sessions …
Kieren McCarthy / The Register:
Alex Davies / Wired:
Profile of Ford-backed Argo AI and its CEO Bryan Salesky, who previously worked at CMU's Robotics Institute and as a Google hardware lead for self-driving cars  —  Meet Brian Salesky and the team of resourceful engineers at Argo, the little company trying to crack a big problem: safe autonomous driving.
Apple:
Apple will host a virtual WWDC starting on June 22 in the Apple Developer app and website, free for all developers  —  Submissions for the Swift Student Challenge Are Now Open Through May 17  —  Cupertino, California — Apple today announced it will host its annual Worldwide Developers …
Angela Lashbrook / OneZero :
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
Uber says it will lay off 3,700 employees, or about 14% of its workforce as it has been hit hard by the pandemic  —  Uber announced Wednesday that it will lay off 3,700 employees.  The cuts to its customer support and recruiting teams represent about 14% of its 26,900 employees, based on Uber's most recent headcount.

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:
Do you need a Zoho Partner?  Here's why working with one can benefit you.  —  Zoho offers over 60 applications, each one built for a unique use case.  From sales and marketing to finance, HR, and customer support …
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 Talk Show With John Gruber:
'What's in Louie's Wallet', With Louie Mantia
The director's commentary track for Daring Fireball. Long digressions on Apple, technology, design, movies, and more.
Subscribe to The Talk Show With John Gruber.
Big Technology Podcast:
Leopold Blows Up, OpenAI Drastically Cuts Prices, Microsoft's Best Day
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:
Open Model Wars + Claire Stapleton's Dishy Google Memoir + Substack's Slop Fight
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.
Great Chat:
Tech's short-term era
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Access:
Meet the most AI-pilled CEO on Earth
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
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 9:25 AM ET, May 6, 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

Cecilia Kang / New York Times:
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:

Earlier Picks

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / VICE:
Megan Rose Dickey / TechCrunch:
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Tom Warren / The Verge: