Techmeme
May 21, 2020, 3:05 PM

Top News

Casey Newton / The Verge:
Zuckerberg: Facebook could get to about half of staff working remotely permanently in 5-10 years and will be the “most forward-leaning company on remote work”  —  In January, as reports about the spread of a novel coronavirus emerged from China, Mark Zuckerberg began to prepare for a potential pandemic.
Dylan Byers / NBC News:
Facebook says it will start allowing many of its 50,000 employees and new recruits to work from home permanently  —  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday that the social media giant will start allowing many of its 50,000 employees and new recruits to work from home on a permanent basis …
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% …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Facebook announces new features for Workplace, including a drop-in video call feature that mirrors Rooms, enhanced tools for Portal, and more  —  One of the biggest technology takeaways of the last couple of months has been that organizations need confident, wide-ranging digital strategies to stay afloat …
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.
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 …
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 …
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 …
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
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 …
BBC:
Court in Netherlands rules that, under GDPR, a woman must delete photos of her grandchildren that she posted on Facebook without their parents' permission  —  A woman must delete photographs of her grandchildren that she posted on Facebook and Pinterest without their parents' permission, a court in the Netherlands has ruled.
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 …
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.”
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Clara Analytics raises $25M Series B led by Aspen Capital Group for its AI-powered tools that expedite worker compensation claims  —  Clara Analytics, a predictive analytics company for workers' compensation claims, today announced that it has raised $25 million.
More: FinSMEs
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

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