Techmeme
April 22, 2020, 12:25 AM

Top News

Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Facebook invests $5.7B in Jio for a 9.99% stake, making it the largest minority shareholder in the subsidiary of India's most valued firm, Reliance Industries  —  Facebook has enjoyed unparalleled reach in India for more than a decade.  But as China's fast-growing ByteDance emerges …
Lucas Matney / TechCrunch:
Epic Games launches Fortnite on the Play Store, after over a year of offering it only outside the store, noting Google puts sideloaded apps at a disadvantage  —  Epic Games is finally settling its feud — kind of — with Google and putting Fornite onto the Google Play Store, but the studio sounds pretty pissed about it.
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Kuo: Apple postpones iPhone SE Plus release from H1 to H2 2021, seeing a dip in demand for iPhones and production delays across the upcoming iPhone 12 models  —  Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of TF International Securities has shared a new investor note today detailing the ongoing development of Apple's 2020 iPhone 12 models.
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
Netflix reports Q1 revenue of $5.77B, up 27.6% YoY, vs $5.76B est., global streaming paid net additions of 15.77M, now totaling 182.86M accounts, up 22.8% YoY  —  - Netflix reported its Q1 2020 earnings after the bell on Tuesday.  — Netflix has ranked among analysts' favorite “stay at home” …
Jason Schreier / New York Times:
While gaming sales are breaking records, the coronavirus pandemic is impacting the gaming industry with delays, scope cuts, and serious production challenges  —  The coronavirus pandemic is offering mixed news and new challenges for gaming companies, both independent and corporate.
Snap:
Snap reports in Q1 DAUs increased 20% YoY to 229M, revenue increased 44% YoY to $462M, time spent watching Discover content rose 35%+; stock up 18%+ after hours  —  Snap Inc. Announces First Quarter 2020 Financial Results Daily Active Users increased 20% year-over-year to 229 million …
Ginny Marvin / Search Engine Land:
Google will let merchants list their products for free in Shopping search results, as part of an effort to better compete against Amazon in product search  —  After 8 years, Google will bring free listings into its Shopping results as part of an evolution to better compete against Amazon in product search.
Rachel Abrams / New York Times:
New York's AG says it's investigating Charter Communications' handling of COVID-19, requiring thousands to work in offices; source: 230+ workers tested positive  —  More than 230 workers at Charter Communications, the cable and internet giant known as Spectrum, have tested positive for Covid-19 …
Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer:
Security firm buys a database, first seen last month, with info on 267M+ mostly US Facebook users, including full names and phone numbers, for £500 on dark web  —  Threat actors are selling over 267 million Facebook profiles for £500 ($623) on dark web sites and hacker forums.
James Pearson / Reuters:
Sources: Vietnamese state-telcos took Facebook's local servers offline, slowing traffic, until the company agreed to increase censorship of “anti-state” posts  —  HANOI (Reuters) - Facebook's local servers in Vietnam were taken offline early this year, slowing local traffic …
The Daily Beast:
Sources say Palantir's data suites are a primary contributor to HHS Protect Now, a US government tool to track the spread of coronavirus in use since April 10  —  Palantir, a longtime partner of intelligence agencies, co-founded by major Trump backer Peter Thiel, is helping build “the single source for [coronavirus] testing data.”
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Sonos launches Sonos Radio, a free streaming radio service preloaded in the Sonos app, with 60K+ stations from multiple partners alongside original programming  —  Sonos Radio will now be the default service available for the company's speakers  —  Sonos has always been the neutral manager …
Jeff Grubb / VentureBeat:
NPD Group: Nintendo Switch sales doubled YoY in March, while PlayStation 4 and Xbox One sales each grew +25%; March gaming hardware spending rose 63% to $461M  —  Let's say a global pandemic forces you to spend almost all of your time inside at home.  Sure, this means you have a chance to catch up on Netflix and reading.
Taylor Lyles / The Verge:
Google says it is gradually rolling out a “Hey Google” feature that lets users adjust the listening sensitivity of Assistant devices in detecting the command  —  No, Google, I wasn't talking to you  —  Google is starting to “roll out gradually” a feature allowing …
Nick Bilton / Vanity Fair:
A look at Elliott Management and Twitter's deal, which bought Jack Dorsey time as CEO, as activist investors pinned Twitter's stagnation on his 4.5-year tenure  —  Twitter's CEO, last of the Steve Jobs-like tech-founder demigods, was on the verge of being pushed out by private-equity investors.
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
UK-based Blue Prism, a robotic process automation company that helps businesses automate HR, personnel, and more, raises €100M at a valuation of ~€1B  —  In a sign of the robotic process automation market's continued strength in the face of an economic downturn …

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Apple:
Brandy Zadrozny / NBC News:
Dieter Bohn / The Verge: