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Wed. 05/06 – Disney+ Is Saving Mickey’s Bacon At The Moment May 06, 2020

Show notes

New Surface Gos, New Surface Books, New Surface Headphones and the Surface Buds finally arrive. The rumored layoffs come to Uber and Airbnb. Disney+ is saving Disney’s bacon at the moment. And why Peloton is one of those companies having a positive Corona moment.

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Tibco.com/ride
Caramba.store, code BRIAN50 at checkout

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Microsoft’s new Surface Go 2 has a bigger display and better Intel processor (The Verge)
Microsoft's Surface Book 3 has 10th-gen Intel CPUs and new NVIDIA GPUs (Engadget)
Uber to lay off 3,700 employees, about 14% of workforce (CNBC)
The layoffs at Airbnb cast a dark shadow over Silicon Valley (Recode)
Magic Leap is turning to a major health care company to save its future, potentially raising as much as $100 million (Business Insider)
Disney says it now has 54.5 million Disney+ subscribers (CNBC)
People Are Panic-Buying Meat, Toilet Paper … and Pelotons? (NYTimes)
Bitcoin Is Staging a Comeback Reminiscent of 2017 Bubble Frenzy (Bloomberg)

Tue. 05/05 – UK’s Contact Tracing App Won’t Work In the Background May 05, 2020

Show notes

The virtual WWDC begins June 22! The UK hasn’t played by Google and Apple’s rules and it seems like their contact tracing app is failing because of that. And yet, are Google and Apple making decisions above their station? Uber might be bailing out Lime. Microsoft is reconsidering its Windows X strategy. And Sensor Tower is the interesting raise of the day.

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Apple kicking off week of virtual WWDC on June 22, jackets and pins for Swift Challenge winners (9to5Mac)
UK finds itself almost alone with centralized virus contact-tracing app that probably won't work well, asks for your location, may be illegal (The Register)
The U.K.’s Coronavirus Contact Tracing App Is a Complete Mess (Vice)
Apple, Google ban use of location tracking in contact tracing apps (Reuters)
Uber in Talks to Lead $170 Million Lime Investment at Lower Valuation (The Information)
Confirmed: Intel is buying urban mobility platform Moovit in a $900M deal (TechCrunch)
Microsoft confirms Windows 10X is coming to laptops amid big jump in Windows usage (The Verge)
Facebook’s Oculus Is Developing a New Quest VR Headset (Bloomberg)
Google Meet starts rolling out in Gmail, continuing Google’s quest to unseat Zoom (The Verge)
Sensor Tower raises $45M as demand for app data grows (TechCrunch)

https://www.reddit.com/r/RideHome/comments/gdyyoh/listener_feedback_post/

Mon. 05/04 - Usable Keyboards Return to the 13-inch MacBook Pro May 04, 2020

Show notes

Usable keyboards return to the 13-inch MacBook Pro. What is going on at Amazon? Jio Platforms gets another huge investment. Another potential blockbuster acquisition in the Israeli transport-tech space. And can the Apple watch help with Covid-19? Sort of. Let me explain.

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Apple announces new 13-inch MacBook Pro with Magic Keyboard (The Verge)
Amazon VP Resigns, Calls Company ‘Chickenshit’ for Firing Protesting Workers (Vice)
Bye, Amazon (Tim Bray)
Silver Lake to invest $747M in India's Jio Platforms (TechCrunch)
Exclusive: Uber will soon require drivers and riders to wear face coverings in the US (CNN Business)
Intel set to buy Israeli co Moovit for $1b (Globes)
European Heart Journal: Apple Watch ECG detects signs of coronary ischemia missed by hospital ECG (9to5Mac)
Apple Watch blood oxygen detection feature found in iOS 14 code snippet (9to5Mac)

Fri. 05/01 - Sometime Sanity Wins (ICANN Edition) May 01, 2020

Show notes

ICANN finally does the right thing on the whole .org mess. Earnings from Apple and Amazon. Could Amazon face actual perjury charges? Reddit walks back those chat rooms. And, of course, the weekend longreads suggestions.

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MintMobile.com/ride

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A Private Equity Firm Is Blocked From Buying .Org (NYTimes)
Amazon says it’ll spend $4 billion or more dealing with COVID-19 (The Verge)
House lawmakers demand Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos testify in antitrust probe, threatening potential subpoena (Washington Post)
Reddit removes chat room feature after one day due to site-wide bug (The Verge)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

Common Sense Comes Closer to Computers (Quanta)
The challenges of developing autonomous vehicles during a pandemic (VentureBeat)
This Should Be V.R.’s Moment. Why Is It Still So Niche? (NYTimes)
Apple still depends on traditional American engineers, and is slowly losing them (Apple Insider)
How Well Can Algorithms Recognize Your Masked Face? (Wired)
Inside the MIT spinoff that’s making Inception-style dream manipulation possible (Digital Trends)
You Have a TikTok Hit! Now, Quick — Change the Title (Rolling Stone)

The "Farts and Procreation" Wiki page.

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Thu. 04/30 – Don’t Fight The Tape (Tech Earnings Edition) Apr 30, 2020

Show notes

Four big earnings reports for four big tech companies, but we’ll leave that to the end. Intel launches a new flagship clip line, Andreessen Horowitz launches a new crypto fund, Zoom fesses up on MAUs, and Reddit goes old school with chat rooms.

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Tovala (text TOVALARIDE to 710-23)
Metalab.co

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Intel's 10th Gen Comet Lake for Desktops: Skylake-S Hits 10 Cores and 5.3 GHz (AnAndTech)
Andreessen Horowitz raises $515 million for second crypto fund (Axios)
Zoom admits it doesn’t have 300 million users, corrects misleading claims (The Verge)
Reddit adds chat rooms for subreddits (Engadget)
Smartphone Production to Drop by 16.5% YoY in 2Q20, Setting Historical Record in YoY Decline, Says TrendForce (TrendForce)
Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more (CNBC)
Facebook soars after reporting ‘stability’ in ad revenue after fall in March (CNBC)
Press Release & Webcast (Microsoft Investor Relations)
Twitter Q1: sales up 3% to $808M as it swings to a loss on COVID-19, mDAUS hit record 166M (TechCrunch)
Tesla posts profit despite hit from coronavirus (CNN Business)

Wed. 04/29 – Here Come the Tech Earnings… Apr 29, 2020

Show notes

The biggest tech earnings season in a while kicks off and so far, it’s so good for Alphabet. Spotify says its holding up as well. Though Uber might lay off 20% of its workforce, Ford is delaying its self-driving road map, and that has me asking again, why isn’t this the perfect moment for self-driving tech?

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Tovala (text TOVALARIDE to 710-23)
Metalab.co

Links:

Alphabet earnings hit by ‘significant slowdown’ in ad sales, but revenue boosts stock (Marketwatch)
Google Meet video conferencing is now free for anybody (The Verge)
Spotify Q1 beats on sales of $2B with monthly active users up 31% to 286M (TechCrunch)
Uber Discusses Plan to Lay Off About 20% of Employees (The Information)
Ford postpones autonomous vehicle service until 2022 (TechCrunch)
How a handful of Apple and Google employees came together to help health officials trace coronavirus (CNBC)

Tue. 04/28 – Deepfakes As A Killer (Advertising) App Apr 28, 2020

Show notes

Shopify unveils its own shopping app. DJI unveils the Mavic Air 2. The Pixel Buds 2 finally arrive. Tesla pushes out a new auto driving update. What really accounts for Magic Leap’s crash and burn? And why deepfakes are probably going to be in a bunch of commercials soon.

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Links:

Shopify launches Shop, a new mobile app (TechCrunch)
NHS rejects Apple-Google coronavirus app plan (BBC News)
DJI’s new Mavic Air 2 has an upgraded camera and much longer flying time (The Verge)
GOOGLE PIXEL BUDS REVIEW: SECOND TIME’S THE CHARM (The Verge)
Tesla says cars can automatically stop for traffic lights (Associated Press)
Magic Leap's $2.6 billion bait and switch (TechCrunch)
Magic Leap is a Tragic Heap (The Blog of Palmer Luckey)
An ESPN Commercial Hints at Advertising’s Deepfake Future (NYTimes)

Mon. 04/27 – It’s Always A Good Day When Your Starship Doesn’t Explode Apr 27, 2020

Show notes

iPhone production might be delayed, but the launch might not be, and actually, that might bounce in Apple’s favor. Autocomplete for coding. A little more background on John Stankey. Progress on my robot burrito delivery. And a crucial SpaceX rocket passes a key test by finally not blowing up.

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Links:

Apple Delays Mass Production of 2020 Flagship iPhones (WSJ)
Two Million Australians Download Coronavirus Contact-Tracing App (Bloomberg)
Germany flips to Apple-Google approach on smartphone contact tracing (Reuters)
Codota picks up $12M for an AI platform that auto-completes developers' code (TechCrunch)
Blunt New CEO Inherits Challenge of Turning AT&T Into Media Star (Bloomberg)
John Stankey’s challenge: Making AT&T’s $100 billion bet on Time Warner pay off (CNBC)
The pandemic is bringing us closer to our robot takeout future (Ars Technica)
SpaceX’s future deep-space rocket passes key test, paving the way for short flight (The Verge)

(Bonus Bonus) The Alfred P. Sloan Era of the Internet Era Apr 26, 2020

Show notes

This piece: John Luttig's When Tailwinds Vanish caused me to go on a random jag this afternoon. Since I had nothing better to do than post it to Medium, I read it into the microphone too...

PS: the medium piece I wrote up is here.

(Bonus) Why Shopify Is #Winning With James McLeod Apr 25, 2020

Show notes

As you’re about to hear, I’ve wanted to do a deep dive episode discussion on Shopify and how they’re suddenly the big up and coming, potential tech behemoth… arguably the most successful tech IPO of the last five years; seemingly the only company that can challenge Amazon in ecommerce… so when James McLeod from the Financial Post got in touch wanting to talk about Shopify, it was like someone was reading my mind. You’ll see why I’ve found the Shopify story so interesting because… well, we get right into it…

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James’ recent reporting on Shopify and other tech stories: https://business.financialpost.com/author/jmcleodpostmedia

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