Techmeme
May 21, 2020, 1:40 PM

Top News

Casey Newton / The Verge:
Facebook says it will allow most of its employees to permanently work remotely and will make most of its US job openings eligible for remote hires  —  In a move that illustrates how swiftly the COVID-19 pandemic is reshaping the global economy, Facebook said today that it would begin allowing …
Dana Mattioli / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Amazon has decided to move its annual Prime Day event to September and has started allowing unlimited nonessential goods shipments to warehouses  —  E-commerce giant also allows nonessential goods shipments, indication of wider variety of products  —  Amazon.com Inc. AMZN -.25% …
Jessica Bursztynsky / CNBC:
Netflix says it will ask customers who have been inactive for a year or more if they want to keep their subscriptions, canceling accounts that take no action  —  - Netflix will start asking customers who haven't used its platform in the past year if they want to keep their subscriptions.
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Facebook unveils a new Messenger feature to alert users about malicious activity, aimed at preventing scams and unwanted interactions with those under 18  —  In an effort to beat back a rise in scams and other unwanted interactions during the pandemic, Facebook today unveiled …
Ian Fogg / Opensignal:
Analysis of ten 5G operators across US, S. Korea, UK, and Australia finds that while Verizon has the fastest 5G speeds, its users see 5G just 0.5% of the time  —  Understanding the extent to which 5G improves the mobile experience is critical both for consumers considering upgrading to 5G …
Russell Brandom / The Verge:
Aditi Shrivastava / The Economic Times:
Amazon India launches a food delivery service called Amazon Food in select areas of Bengaluru and says it will expand to other cities in a few weeks  —  Amazon has been luring eateries with competitive commissions as a part of its larger plan to build a comprehensive product portfolio
Candy Cheng / Bloomberg:
Shopify says it will allow its 5,000 employees to work from home indefinitely  —  - Canadian e-commerce company switching to ‘digital by default’  — Offices will be closed until end of year and redesigned  —  Shopify Inc. will allow its 5,000 employees to work from home indefinitely …
Larry Dignan / ZDNet:
Samsung unveils the Galaxy S20 Tactical Edition with custom features for terrain navigation and data encryption, made for rugged use cases like law enforcement  —  The move highlights how Samsung is pushing its devices into more industry use cases.  —  Samsung is continuing its push …
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Google rolls out new accessibility features for Android, including Assistant-powered, customized buttons called Action Blocks for tasks like playing music  —  Live Transcribe, Sound Amplifier, and Google Maps also get new updates  —  For Global Accessibility Awareness Day …
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
NoSQL cloud database service Couchbase raises $105M Series G led by GPI Capital, bringing its total raised to $251M per Crunchbase  —  Couchbase. the Santa Clara-based company behind the eponymous NoSQL cloud database service, today announced that it has raised a $105 million all-equity Series G round …
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Facebook introduces a tool in India that locks an account, preventing strangers from viewing and downloading pictures, primarily for women  —  Facebook has rolled out a new safety feature in India that will enable users to easily lock their account so that people they are not friends …
Rey Mashayekhi / Fortune:
Neo-bank Aspiration, which positions itself as socially-conscious and sustainable, raises $135M Series C led by Alpha Edison, bringing total funding to $200M+  —  Aspiration, the fintech startup that's brought a socially- and environmentally-conscious twist to the burgeoning realm of digital banking …
More: TechCrunch
Mark Hachman / PCWorld:
Intel says it's acquiring Rivet Networks, makers of the Killer range of networking products, and will integrate it into its Wireless Solutions Group  —  Intel said Wednesday that it has acquired Rivet Networks, and will integrate the company's Killer Networking line of Wi-Fi networking products into its own wireless portfolio.
Elizabeth A. Harris / New York Times:
How the remote school experience, with fewer distractions and less social pressure from peers, makes learning easier for some students  —  “At home, it seems to be a bit easier to focus on all the work,” said one eighth grader who was struggling in school.  “Everything in general is easier.”
Ron Miller / TechCrunch:
Google Cloud says it's made a deal with the DoD's Defense Innovation Unit, which will use Google Cloud's Anthos for its multi-cloud management solution  —  Google dropped out of the Pentagon's JEDI cloud contract battle fairly early in the game, citing it was in conflict with its “AI principals.”

Sponsor Posts

Airtable:
Meet Airtable ProductCentral  —  The unified solution for managing your entire product development process in the AI era.
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:
Zoho SalesIQ turns 10: Transforming customer experiences since 2014  —  October marked a remarkable milestone for Zoho SalesIQ—our 10th anniversary.  What began in 2014 as a simple live chat tool has evolved …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Fri. 11/01 - ChatGPT Search
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 1:40 PM ET, May 21, 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

Zach Edwards:

Earlier Picks

M.G. Siegler / 500ish:
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Brian Heater / TechCrunch: