Techmeme
May 19, 2020, 3:40 PM

Top News

Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Microsoft announces Project Reunion, its latest attempt to unify the Windows developer platform by reducing fragmentation between Win32 and UWP APIs  —  At Build 2020 today, Microsoft unveiled Project Reunion, its latest attempt to unify the Windows developer platform by reducing fragmentation …
Mehedi Hassan / Thurrott:
Microsoft unveils Windows Package Manager, native to Windows 10, letting users install software from the command line without visiting vendor sites or the Store  —  Microsoft is adding a built-in package manager to Windows 10.  The company today announced Windows Package Manager at Build 2020 …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft says it is improving its Windows Subsystem for Linux, including adding GUI app support, as its Terminal command line tool reaches version 1.0  —  Linux on Windows 10 gets a big boost and GPU acceleration  —  Microsoft is promising to dramatically improve its Windows Subsystem for Linux …
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
Mark Zuckerberg announces Facebook Shops, a free tool that helps businesses easily list products on their Facebook Page, Instagram profile, Stories, or in ads  —  - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook Shops, a new e-commerce feature that allows businesses to easily list their products on Facebook and Instagram.
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 …
Tom Krazit / Protocol:
Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is buying older movies and shows for Apple TV+ to build a back catalog; as of February it had ~10M subscribers but only half actively used it  —  - Company wants to create back catalog to complement originals  — TV+, launched in November, had 10 million sign-ups by February
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Joe Rogan's podcast, which he said had ~190M downloads/month in 2019, will become a Spotify exclusive this year; his YouTube will no longer have full episodes  —  A massive gain for the platform  —  Joe Rogan, comedian and host of one of the most popular podcasts in the world, is taking his show to Spotify.
The Verge:
Interview with Sundar Pichai on Google's diversity, long-term plans for its hardware division, the pandemic's effect on its ads business, and more  —  Like all big tech companies, Google and Alphabet are playing an outsized role in our lives as the coronavirus pandemic continues.
BBC:
Budget airline EasyJet says email addresses and travel details of 9M passengers were stolen and credit card details of 2,208 customers were accessed  —  EasyJet has admitted that a “highly sophisticated cyber-attack” has affected approximately nine million customers.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft announces the Fluid Framework, a new type of Office document built around collaborative Lego-like blocks on the web, and says it will be open source  —  Microsoft is creating a new kind of Office document.  Instead of Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, the company has created Lego blocks of Office content that live on the web.
Steve Dent / Engadget:
Samsung announces a 50-megapixel smartphone sensor promising faster “DSLR-level auto-focus speeds” and better low-light image quality  —  Samsung has unveiled a new smartphone sensor showing that more megapixels may not always be better.  The ISOCELL GN1 is “only” a 50-megapixel sensor …
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Google launches Chrome 83 with updated safety and privacy settings, third-party cookies blocked in Incognito mode, DNS-over-HTTPS support, and new dev features  —  Google today launched Chrome 83 for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS.  Chrome 83 includes redesigned safety and privacy settings …
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Microsoft says it acquired Windows task automation startup Softomotive for an undisclosed sum, merging its tools with Microsoft's Power Automate  —  Microsoft today announced that it acquired robotic process automation (RPA) startup Softomotive for an undisclosed sum.
Scott Nover / Adweek:
Google Preferred to be replaced by YouTube Select, a global offering for premium advertisers with a package specifically for YouTube content on connected TVs  —  Called YouTube Select, it includes connected TV usage for the first time  —  Key Insight:  — The offering will help Google monetize …
Brian Merchant / OneZero:
Google says it will not “build custom AI/ML algorithms to facilitate upstream extraction in the oil and gas industry”  —  A Greenpeace report details Silicon Valley's ties to Big Oil — and spurs Google to take a step toward opting out  —  After a year of weathering criticism …
EJ Dickson / Rolling Stone:
Some sex workers on OnlyFans say they are being pushed out in favor of mainstream celebrities and influencers, as the site is scrutinized amid SESTA/FOSTA laws  —  As the site's popularity booms during our current health crisis, some worry their NSFW content will be purged
More: Axios
David Meyer / Fortune:
Germany's Federal Constitutional Court rules that spying on the Frankfurt exchange's global internet traffic by the BND, its intelligence agency, is illegal  —  In the world of online spying, great power lies with those who can get their hands on the data flowing through the world's Internet infrastructure.
Karen Weise / New York Times:
Inside Amazon's biggest COVID-19 warehouse outbreak in northeastern Pennsylvania, where local lawmakers believe over 100 workers have contracted the disease  —  A warehouse in the foothills of the Poconos has had more known Covid-19 cases than any of Amazon's others after missing early opportunities to protect workers.
Yogita Khatri / The Block:
Bitfury: share of bitcoin sent to mixers by darknet entities rose to 20% in Q1 2020, up from 1% in Q1 2019  —  The use of bitcoin mixing services by darknet entities is growing, according to a new report by Bitfury's crypto analytics unit Crystal Blockchain.
More: CoinDesk

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Michael Potuck / 9to5Mac: