Techmeme
May 19, 2020, 8:40 AM

Top News

New York Times:
Disney's top streaming exec, Kevin Mayer, resigns to become CEO of TikTok and COO of parent company ByteDance; Disney names Rebecca Campbell as his successor  —  Kevin Mayer will lead the Chinese-owned app for making and sharing short videos, which has exploded in popularity during the pandemic.
Dade Hayes / Deadline:
Profile of Rebecca Campbell, Disney's new direct-to-consumer and international chairperson in charge of streaming, including the global expansion of Disney+  —  Rebecca Campbell, whose promotion to Disney's Chairman of Direct-to-Consumer & International on Monday put her in charge of Disney+ …
Michael Potuck / 9to5Mac:
AG Barr says that, “no thanks to Apple”, the FBI succeeded in unlocking the “phones” of the Pensacola gunman, who they found had significant links to Al Qaeda  —  It looks like the most recent contention between the FBI and Apple over device encryption has come to an end …
Richard Speed / The Register:
At an MIT event, Microsoft president Brad Smith says the company was “on the wrong side of history” with open source  —  Tell-all with president Brad Smith reveals Obama warned tech giants that a privacy reckoning was coming  —  Microsoft president Brad Smith (pictured) …
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 …
Oculus:
Oculus says it will start accepting Quest titles that support hand tracking this month and details two new collaboration and productivity apps coming this year  —  We're about to celebrate an exciting milestone: the one-year anniversary of Oculus Quest and Rift S!
Janko Roettgers / Protocol:
David Cohen / Adweek:
Instagram introduces Guides, a feature letting creators curate content on a specific subject, debuting with select accounts focusing on wellness  —  Creators, public figures, organizations and publishers can curate content on a specific subject  —  Instagram introduced a new Guides feature Monday …
Preetika Rana / Wall Street Journal:
In email to staff, Dara Khosrowshahi says Uber will cut 3,000 more jobs, in addition to the 3,700 that were let go earlier this month, and will close 45 offices  —  The ride-hailing giant also is exploring the sale of noncore businesses  —  Uber Technologies Inc. is cutting several thousand …
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Google suspended a popular Android podcast app, Podcast Addict, from the Play Store and removed ads from existing installs, because it lists COVID-19 content  —  Part of a new Google policy  —  Podcast Addict, an Android podcast app with millions of users, was suspended over the weekend because it lists COVID-19 content.
Larry Dignan / ZDNet:
Walmart says it will discontinue Jet.com, which it acquired for $3.3B in 2016, even as Q1 e-commerce sales were up 74%  —  Jet.com was critical to Walmart's e-commerce strategy and omnichannel efforts, but is no longer necessary.  —  Walmart said that its first quarter e-commerce sales …
More: TechCrunch and Business WireTweets: @davezatz

Sponsor Posts

Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Zoho:
5 common accounting mistakes  —  This is a guest post by Yaali Bizappln Solutions.  A lot of businesses manage their customers and finances on separate platforms.  This disconnect often leads to missed invoices …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Fri. 11/22 - An LLM Siri But... Only The Year AFTER Next?
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:40 AM ET, May 19, 2020.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Zoe Schiffer / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

Jonathan Vanian / Fortune:
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Cheng Ting-Fang / Nikkei Asian Review:
Sachin Ravikumar / Reuters:
Sam Nussey / Reuters:
Bloomberg: