Techmeme
April 28, 2020, 3:45 PM

Top News

Matt Stroud / OneZero:
The CEO of Banjo, a SoftBank-backed surveillance firm that's raised nearly $223M, was once a neo-Nazi and was involved in the drive-by shooting of a synagogue  —  magazine profiles and on conference stages, Damien Patton, the 47-year-old co-founder and CEO of the surveillance startup Banjo, often recounts a colorful autobiography.
Natalie Gagliordi / ZDNet:
Oracle announces Zoom has picked it as the meeting service's core cloud infrastructure provider and is already moving seven petabytes through its cloud daily  —  The deal is a major win for Oracle's cloud computing business, especially considering Zoom's newfound ubiquity.
Casey Newton / The Verge:
YouTube adds fact-check info boxes to some searches, above the search results, in the US, after launching in Brazil and India last year  —  The program launched in Brazil and India last year  —  YouTube will begin adding informational panels containing information from its network …
Taylor Lorenz / New York Times:
Instagram has been overrun with cash giveaways, which are often framed as charity, but are part of growth schemes run by social media marketing firms  —  As the coronavirus continues to disrupt lives and livelihoods, influencers are offering free money to followers — and gaining a lot more in return.
Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:
Shopify launches Shop, a consumer shopping app that allows users to browse recommended and local products and buy using the one-click Shop Pay checkout process  —  While Shopify is best-known for powering the online stores of more than 1 million businesses, the company is launching …
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
British payments firm Checkout.com joins the Libra Association, the first payments processor to do so since Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe pulled out in October  —  - Checkout.com is the first payments firm to join the Libra Association after Visa, Mastercard and Stripe pulled out over regulatory concerns.
Gizmodo:
Parolees say technical issues of Guardian, an app that uses GPS and biometric data for tracking, are causing problems like losing jobs and reincarceration  —  On the day Layla got out of prison and back to her home in Georgia, she was told she would need to purchase a smartphone …
James Cook / Telegraph:
Deliveroo, which employs over 2,500 people, is laying off 367 and furloughing 50 employees as it struggles amid low demand  —  50 employees have also been furloughed as the business prepares for an economic downturn  —  Deliveroo is letting go of 367 of its employees as it struggles with demand amid coronavirus lockdown.
Bloomberg:
Sources: TripAdvisor will cut ~300 global and ~600 US positions, shutting San Francisco and downtown Boston offices; most remaining employees to take 20% cut  —  TripAdvisor Inc. is cutting about a quarter of its workforce in a bid to shrink costs as the global coronavirus pandemic decimates travel.
Marne Levine / About Facebook:
Facebook says it will stream a virtual graduation ceremony on May 15, with a commencement speech from Oprah Winfrey; highlights will be shared on Instagram  —  This is a bittersweet time for the Class of 2020.  As students head toward graduation, it's not the day they might have imagined …
Paresh Dave / Reuters:
Interviews show some companies and retail stores are equipping existing security cameras with AI software to track social distancing and mask-wearing  —  OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) - Stores and workplaces eager to avoid spreading the novel coronavirus are equipping existing security cameras …
Washington Post:
Stanford Internet Observatory researchers say Facebook and YouTube should not allow paid political ads from state-controlled media outlets  —  Vanessa Molter is a graduate research assistant at the Stanford Internet Observatory.  Renée DiResta is the research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory.
New York Times:
Sources: Facebook restructured its security teams last week, in a move affecting detection-engineering and alert-response teams and more than two dozen staff  —  The social network displaced more than two dozen employees who work on security, as the company fights threats such as foreign meddling.
David Gelles / New York Times:
A look at efforts by the tech industry to procure PPE for frontline workers, including one led by Salesforce's Marc Benioff to secure 50M pieces of PPE for $25M  —  A call from a university chancellor set in motion a private sector effort to procure 50 million masks, gowns and swabs for American medical facilities.
David Shepardson / Reuters:
Verizon and Comcast both say they will extend a commitment through June 30 to not cancel service or charge late fees because of the coronavirus pandemic  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N), the largest U.S. wireless carrier, said Monday it will extend …
Matt Day / Bloomberg:
As Amazon's no-questions-asked paid leave policy ends on May 1, warehouses are safer but interviews show many workers are not turning up and remain scared  —  In the breakroom at an Amazon.com Inc. warehouse in Hazle Township, Pennsylvania, a PowerPoint presentation playing on repeat shows people …

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