Techmeme
April 29, 2020, 4:45 PM

Top News

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
Apple and Google release the first version of their contact tracing API, referred to as exposure notification API, in respective developer builds  —  Apple and Google have released the very first version of their exposure notification API, which they previously called the contact tracing API .
Washington Post:
Survey of US adults finds skepticism about Apple and Google's COVID-19 contact tracing efforts, with smartphone owners split 50-50 on whether they would use it  —  Nearly 3 in 5 Americans say they are either unable or unwilling to use the infection-alert apps under development by Google and Apple …
Christina Farr / CNBC:
Facebook:
Facebook Q1: $17.7B revenue, up 18% YoY, as DAUs rise 11% YoY to 1.73B, MAUs rise 10% YoY to 2.6B; COVID-19 will likely flatten Q2 revenue growth; stock up 8%+  —  Facebook, Inc. (Nasdaq: FB) today reported financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2020.
Microsoft:
Microsoft Q3: revenue up 15% YoY to $35B, net income of $10.8B, up 22% YoY, Intelligent Cloud revenue of $12.3B, up 27%, LinkedIn revenue up 21%, Azure's up 59%  —  EDMOND, Wash. — April 29, 2020 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the following results for the quarter ended March 31, 2020 …
Jessica Bursztynsky / CNBC:
Filing: Lyft is laying off 17% of its workforce, or 982 staff, and will furlough 288 employees alongside salary cuts ranging from 10% to 30% for all staff  —  Lyft is laying off 982 employees and furloughing an additional 288, the company announced in a regulatory filing on Wednesday.
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Google Meet is now free for everyone with a Google account, for meetings of up to 100 people, which are not time limited until September 30  —  Can it stem Zoom's meteoric growth?  —  Google is opening up its Google Meet videoconferencing service to anybody who wants to use it …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Spotify beats with Q1 revenue of €1.8B and net income of €1M; MAUs rose 31% YoY to 286M, premium users rose 31% to 130M, and ad-supported MAUs rose 32% to 163M  —  The coronavirus may be decimating some corners of the economy, but the impact on the digital music …
Andrew Tarantola / Engadget:
Facebook announces Blender, an open source chatbot aimed at AI research that it says has been trained on 9.4B parameters  —  It could help tomorrow's AI converse more naturally with people  —  The virtual assistants that inhabit our smartphones are helpful, sure, but they're not going to pass the Turing test any time soon.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Twitter updates its API platform to make it easier for developers and researchers to study the public conversation around COVID-19  —  Twitter is making it possible for developers and researchers to study the public conversation around COVID-19 in real time with an update to its API platform.
Vox:
Sources: Amazon has begun cracking down on communication across its widely-read email listservs after employees used them to protest and organize  —  The company says it's more widely enforcing rules around mass emails as part of a routine audit.  Some employees see it as an attack on worker organizing.
Hyunjoo Jin / Reuters:
Samsung reports Q1 earnings with total revenue ~$45.4B, up 5.6% YoY, and operating profit of ~$5.2B, up 3% YoY, as chip demand was solid amid COVID-19 crisis  —  SEOUL (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS) said its operating profit rose 3% in the January to March period …
Mary Ann Azevedo / Crunchbase News:
Pittsburgh-based Niche, a school search service for prospective US students, raises $35M Series C led by Radian Capital, bringing total raised to ~$44M  —  Niche, a school search platform, announced this morning it has raised a $35 million Series C round of funding led by Radian Capital.
More: TechCrunchThanks:@lisam_horton
Andy Baio / Waxy.org:
Roc Nation files copyright claim over deepfake YouTube videos that use AI to impersonate Jay-Z's voice, raising new copyright and fair use questions  —  On Friday, I linked to several videos by Vocal Synthesis, a new YouTube channel dedicated to audio deepfakes — AI-generated speech …
Nick Corasaniti / New York Times:
Profile of Acronym, a progressive nonprofit that, with the help of ex-Facebook staffer James Barnes, is looking to use Trump's online ad tactics against him  —  A former Facebook employee is using a tool he employed to help President Trump win to conduct tests for a progressive group …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
eBay reports Q1 revenue of $2.37B, down 2% YoY, active buyers up 2% to 174M but GMV fell 1% to $21.3B, and it returned $4.0B to shareholders via stock buybacks  —  After a quarter in which eBay, tussling with an activist investor, completed the sell-off of its ticketing business StubHub …

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