Techmeme: Profile of Rebecca Campbell, Disney's new direct-to-consumer and international chairperson in charge of streaming, including the global expansion of Disney+ (Dade Hayes/Deadline)

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May 19, 2020, 8:40 AM

Top News

New York Times:

Disney's top streaming exec, Kevin Mayer, resigns to become CEO of TikTok and COO of parent company ByteDance; Disney names Rebecca Campbell as his successor — Kevin Mayer will lead the Chinese-owned app for making and sharing short videos, which has exploded in popularity during the pandemic.

Dade Hayes / Deadline:

Profile of Rebecca Campbell, Disney's new direct-to-consumer and international chairperson in charge of streaming, including the global expansion of Disney+ — Rebecca Campbell, whose promotion to Disney's Chairman of Direct-to-Consumer & International on Monday put her in charge of Disney+ …

See also Mediagazer

Michael Potuck / 9to5Mac:

AG Barr says that, “no thanks to Apple”, the FBI succeeded in unlocking the “phones” of the Pensacola gunman, who they found had significant links to Al Qaeda — It looks like the most recent contention between the FBI and Apple over device encryption has come to an end …

Richard Speed / The Register:

At an MIT event, Microsoft president Brad Smith says the company was “on the wrong side of history” with open source — Tell-all with president Brad Smith reveals Obama warned tech giants that a privacy reckoning was coming — Microsoft president Brad Smith (pictured) …

More: The Verge, ZDNet, ExtremeTech, TechRadar.com, PC Games Insider, and WinBuzzer

Tweets: @skinnylatte, @jwolpert, @amandaksilver, @dirkriehle, @alrubinger, @kevinokeefe, and @backlon

Campbell Kwan / ZDNet:

Sony and Microsoft announce partnership to embed Microsoft Azure AI capabilities onto Sony's new image sensor with built-in AI that was announced last week — Sony's image sensor will have Microsoft Azure artificial intelligence capabilities. — Sony and Microsoft have joined together …

More: Microsoft, BetaNews, Engadget, Bloomberg, OnMSFT.com, Neowin, GeekWire, Windows Central, SlashGear, and MSPoweruser. Tweets: @zhugeex

Mara Hvistendahl / Wired:

Profile of Chinese voice computing company iFlytek, which makes AI-based apps for consumers and the Chinese government that critics say aid surveillance efforts — Alexa can tell you the weather. Siri knows a few jokes. In China, voice-computing company iFlytek built similar smart assistants beloved by users.

Tweets: @wired and @wadhwa

Oculus:

Oculus says it will start accepting Quest titles that support hand tracking this month and details two new collaboration and productivity apps coming this year — We're about to celebrate an exciting milestone: the one-year anniversary of Oculus Quest and Rift S!

More: UploadVR, Oculus-blog voor ontwikkelaars, VentureBeat, The Verge, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, PC Games Insider, Pocket-lint, GameSpot, Road to VR, Oculus-blog, VRScout, Gamasutra, and Social Media Today

Tweets: @oculus_dev, @mrdoob, @immersedvr, and @deantak

Janko Roettgers / Protocol:

Facebook's VP of consumer hardware Andrew Bosworth says users have spent over $100M on Quest VR content and Portal sales are up 10x compared to mid-March

More: TechCrunch and The Information

Tweets: @protocol, @slpng_giants, @alexeheath, @vr_sam, @benjisales, @boztank, @gavinsbaker, @l4stewar, @wbmason, and @pierce. Thanks:@jank0

David Cohen / Adweek:

Instagram introduces Guides, a feature letting creators curate content on a specific subject, debuting with select accounts focusing on wellness — Creators, public figures, organizations and publishers can curate content on a specific subject — Instagram introduced a new Guides feature Monday …

More: Instagram, The Verge, Firstpost Tech, Neowin, Input, Social Media Today, CNET, Engadget, SlashGear, and 9to5Mac

Tweets: @mosseri, @instagram, @taylrn, @joshconstine, @adweek, @bluechoochoo, and @besvinick

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From Mediagazer

Reuters:

Sources: Nick Bilton hired TV production consultant Kelly Funke, to help manage his 60 Minutes transition, and a 24-year-old operations manager, Nick De Lucca

Ted Johnson / Deadline:

WSJ asks a judge to toss out Trump's revised defamation lawsuit over its Jeffrey Epstein letter story, saying it is a “re-package” of claims already dismissed

Lucas Manfredi / The Wrap:

Fubo and NBCUniversal reach a deal ending a months-long blackout, with NBCU's Spanish-language networks available Wednesday, English-language networks later

More News

Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:

Researchers found a bug in the Bluetooth pairing process that allows attackers to spoof the identify of a previously paired device to gain access of another

Khari Johnson / VentureBeat:

A look at Congress' approach to data privacy during the pandemic, including the COVID-19 Consumer Data Protection Act, a bill introduced by Republican Senators

Tweets: @math_rachel

Alison DeNisco Rayome / CNET:

How the Xbox adaptive controller and similar tools are helping the estimated 33M gamers with disabilities play games and become part of the gaming community

Tweets: @jeskillings, @cnet, @brycej, @wfengaged, and @rogerwcheng

Echo Wang / Reuters:

Sources: Nasdaq to unveil new rules requiring companies from some countries, including China, to raise $25M+ or 25%+ of post-listing market cap in their IPOs

More: Cointelegraph and TechNode

Tweets: @howardlindzon, @majgeoinvesting, and @hardmaru

Han Wei / Caixin Global:

Baidu reports Q1 revenue of $3.18B, down 7% YoY, and iQIYI revenue of $1.08B, up 9% YoY; iQIYI subscribers grew to 118.9M and membership revenue grew 35% YoY

More: ZDNet, South China Morning Post, and PR Newswire

Bloomberg:

A Facebook conducted survey of 86K small business owners and employees shows 31% of SMBs have stopped operating and 11% more expect to fail in next 3 months

More: About Facebook and CNBC

Tweets: @mattc_fcs and @brianroemmele

Zoe Schiffer / The Verge:

Jack Dorsey has told Square employees they can work from home even after the COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders end, following a similar move at Twitter

More: ZDNet, NBC News, Business Insider Nederland, CNET, Mercury News, Slashdot, WinBuzzer, and The Irish Times

Tweets: @zoeschiffer, @jkap, @cyberomin, @lawoftd, @bigblackjacobin, and @taralach

Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:

Source code for “smart car” components in Mercedez-Benz vans was leaked online after a Swiss engineer found Daimler AG was hosting an unsecured GitLab server

More: SiliconANGLE. Tweets: @campuscodi

Earlier Picks

Adi Robertson / The Verge:

In a win for Facebook, SCOTUS has declined to hear a lawsuit claiming the social network provided “material support” to terrorists by hosting their content

More: Supreme Court of the United States and ZDNet. Tweets: @gabrielmalor

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

GO1, an online service for professional training courses with over 3,000 enterprise customers, raises $40M Series C from Microsoft, Salesforce, and others

More: Business Wire, GeekWire, SiliconANGLE, and FinSMEs

Jonathan Vanian / Fortune:

Microsoft and FedEx partner to help companies ship products more efficiently, including a tool that aggregates information to predict potential issues

More: Microsoft, Neowin, Enterprise Times, CNBC, TechSpot, Bloomberg, ZDNet, PYMNTS.com, SiliconANGLE, Barron's Online, and OnMSFT.com. Tweets: @jamestitcomb

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Microsoft says Minecraft has now topped 200M sales, up from 100M in 2016, with 126M monthly players; Minecraft saw a 25% increase in new players last month

More: Xbox Wire, GeekWire, CNET, Kotaku, Wccftech, Polygon, Bloomberg, and MSPoweruser

Tweets: @tomwarren, @benjisales, @zhugeex, and @jordannovet

Cheng Ting-Fang / Nikkei Asian Review:

Sources: TSMC, the biggest contract chipmaker, has halted new orders from Huawei in response to new US export controls; orders placed before are not impacted

Sachin Ravikumar / Reuters:

Indian food delivery startup Swiggy says it will lay off 1,100 employees, or nearly 14% of its workforce, to cut costs amid the pandemic

More: The Swiggy blog, KrASIA, PYMNTS.com, Crunchbase News, TechCrunch, MediaNama, Entrackr, The Economic Times, Ventureburn, and TechCrunch

Tweets: @okassim, @madhavchanchani, and @chandrarsrikant

Sam Nussey / Reuters:

Alibaba's Jack Ma resigns from SoftBank board, as he pulls back from formal business roles to focus on philanthropy; SoftBank to propose three new appointments