Techmeme
May 9, 2020, 11:10 AM

Top News

Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
Both Defcon and Black Hat, originally scheduled for August, have cancelled in-person events, instead opting to host conferences online  —  For real this time.  Its sister conference, Black Hat, has also been called off.  —  For years, a simple and elegant inside joke has permeated Defcon, the influential hacking conference.
Michael Steeber / 9to5Mac:
Biz Carson / Protocol:
Lime's new CEO Wayne Ting, who replaces co-founder Brad Bao, talks about Uber-led $170M investment, consolidating assets from Jump, and weathering the pandemic  —  The funding deal announced Thursday “reaffirms that not only Uber but major investors believe in this industry and believe in Lime,” Wayne Ting said.
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google adds a kid-friendly “family mode” to Duo and says Duo on the web will soon support group calls, starting as a preview on Chrome  —  Work and personal video calling are surging in light of COVID-19, with Google announcing a handful of new Duo features last month to support that demand.
Igor Bonifacic / Engadget:
Facebook says it plans to complete the rollout of its redesigned desktop website to all users over the “next few weeks”  —  After the better part of a year, Facebook has started rolling out its redesigned desktop website to all of its users.  The company announced today it plans …
Wired:
States like NY, CA, MA, and cities like Baltimore and SF are skeptical about tech-based contact tracing, instead hiring thousands for manual contact tracing  —  Silicon Valley companies have proposed automating the arduous task of identifying people potentially exposed to Covid-19.  They're finding few takers.
Financial Times:
Bloomberg:
Google says it expects most of its staff to work from home until 2021  —  Elon Musk wants people to return to work.  Google and Facebook Inc. have another message for their staff: get ready to stay home for all of 2020.  —  Sundar Pichai, Google's chief executive officer …
Taylor Lorenz / New York Times:
A look at TikTok's emerging meme culture, as multi-platform meme brands and independent Instagram meme influencers begin investing heavily in the platform  —  Bombarding a platform known for dance crazes and skits is strategic, and potentially very lucrative.
Devindra Hardawar / Engadget:
Surface Go 2 review: small improvements over original with larger screen and faster CPU, but $400 entry model is lacking in power and upgrades are expensive  —  Judging the Surface Go 2 really comes down to your expectations.  Can you live with slow performance to get a well-designed $400 tablet PC (not including a keyboard)?

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Earlier Picks

Ron Miller / TechCrunch:
TechCrunch:
Dina Bass / Bloomberg:
Abby Ohlheiser / MIT Technology Review:
Megan Rose Dickey / TechCrunch: