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Fri. 04/24 - Google Battens Down The Hatches Apr 24, 2020

Show notes

AT&T’s CEO rides off into the sunset is both a surprise and not a surprise at all. Whole bunch of interesting Google news all at once. More on that iOS zero-day, more data on tech industry hiring and layoffs, and, of course, the weekend longreads suggestions.

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AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson to step down, COO Stankey to take over (CNBC)
Google to cut marketing budgets by as much as half, directors warned of hiring freezes (CNBC)
Google ditched tipping feature for donating money to sites (TechCrunch)
Google will make all advertisers prove their identities, so people can see who they are and which country they’re in (CNBC)
Apple Finds No Evidence Hackers Exploited iPhone, iPad Mail Flaw (Bloomberg)
Tech companies pull back on hiring, flashing another grim warning sign for the U.S. economy (CNBC)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

Silicon Valley balanced grueling schedules with workplace perks. Coronavirus is forcing change (CNET)
Preppers Are Quite Prepared to Enjoy Some Vindication (NYTimes)
Following the money in a massive “sextortion” spam scheme (Sophos)
How Instagram managed to survive antitrust scrutiny when it was acquired by Facebook (Fast Company)
IN THE CORONAVIRUS ERA, THE FORCE IS STILL WITH JACK DORSEY (Vanity Fair)

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Thu. 04/23 – Privacy Hypocrisy From France? Apr 23, 2020

Show notes

Custom Mac chips by 2021? Robot nurses already in hospitals? Bill Gurley into the sunset? Why some people are accusing France of digital privacy hypocrisy, and an interesting raise in the remote work space. Specifically: remote whiteboarding.

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Apple Aims to Sell Macs With Its Own Chips Starting in 2021 (Bloomberg)
Boston Dynamics’ Spot robot is helping hospitals remotely treat coronavirus patients (The Verge)
Magic Leap Cuts Half of Jobs In Major Restructuring (Bloomberg)
Worldwide Digital Video Game Spending Hits All-Time High of $10B in March (The Hollywood Reporter)
Venture Capitalist Bill Gurley Isn’t Joining Benchmark’s Next Fund (WSJ)
France urges Apple and Google to ease privacy rules on contact tracing (The Guardian)
French Hypocrisy: Fines Google For Being Soft On Privacy; Now Angry That Google Won't Let It Spy On Users (TechDirt)
Mire lands $50M Series B for digital whiteboard as demand surges (TechCrunch)

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Wed. 04/22 – Facebook’s Big Play In India Apr 22, 2020

Show notes

Huge Facebook investment in India. Tech earnings season is back, and this promises to be a super interesting one for all the reasons you can imagine. Two iPhone zero days found out in the wild. Patreon does do layoffs but says creator numbers are holding up. And a roundup of the iPhone SE reviews.

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Facebook invests $5.7B in India's Reliance Jio Partners (TechCrunch)
Facebook Invests $5.7 Billion in Indian Internet Giant Jio (NYTimes)
Netflix blows away new subscriber expectations (CNBC)
Snap has the pieces in place to fight off the coronavirus downturn in advertising better than rivals, and the stock is soaring (CNBC)
Researchers Say They Caught an iPhone Zero-Day Hack in the Wild (Vice)
Patreon lays off 13% of workforce (TechCrunch)
APPLE IPHONE SE REVIEW: EVERYTHING YOU NEED (The Verge)
iPhone SE Review: An iPhone for People Who Don’t Like New iPhones (WSJ)
Review: Apple iPhone SE (2020) (Wired)

Tue. 04/21 – Sonos Radio Apr 21, 2020

Show notes

Sonos launches its own streaming radio service, huge trove of Facebook accounts purchased on the dark web, Google goes with free to compete with Amazon in product search, Kickstarter is seeing a huge drop in project launches and we finally have a date for the HBO Max launch.

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TinyCapital.com
Rhone.com/ridehome promocode ridehome for 20% off

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Sonos launches its own streaming radio service (The Verge)
267 million Facebook profiles sold for $600 on the dark web (BleepingComputer)
Apple launches App Store, Music, Arcade, Podcasts, and iCloud in new countries (9to5Mac)
In major shift, Google Shopping opens up to free product listings (Search Engine Land)
Facebook removes some events calling for protests of stay-at-home orders (NBC News)
Google's Head of Quantum Computing Hardware Resigns (Wired)
WarnerMedia Sets Late May HBO Max Launch (The Hollywood Reporter)
AT&T’s HBO Max Will Dive Into Crowded Streaming Market on May 27 (Bloomberg)
Kickstarter plans layoffs after new projects on the site drop off by 35 percent (The Verge)

Mon. 04/20 – Well, Your iPad IS A Laptop Now, Which Means Bigger And Heavier Apr 20, 2020

Show notes

Paging Farmville: Facebook takes another stab at owning mobile gaming. Rupert Murdoch's longstanding wish is granted. Dropbox had longstanding doubts about its erstwhile partner Zoom. More data on the health of tech investing, and the first reviews of the iPad as laptop are… mixed.

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Facebook to Introduce an App for Gaming (NYTimes)
Facebook and Google to face mandatory code of conduct to 'level playing field' with traditional news media (ABC News Australia)
Zoom’s Security Woes Were No Secret to Business Partners Like Dropbox (NYTimes)
With Shut-In Kids Flocking to Streaming, Disney Channel Retools (Bloomberg)
The Q1 2020 Global VC Report: Funding Slowly Impacted By Coronavirus (Crunchbase News)
Private Equity Sees $20 Billion of Tech Deals Shelved by Virus (Bloomberg)
MAGIC KEYBOARD FOR THE IPAD PRO REVIEW: THE BEST WAY TO TURN AN IPAD INTO A LAPTOP (Bloomberg)

(Bonus) Who's Right About The Economy? Wall Street Or Silcon Valley? With Alex Wilhelm @alex Apr 18, 2020

Show notes

I wasn’t supposed to do a weekend episode this weekend. I’ve got one scheduled for next week that I still need to record. But a few days ago, I saw Alex Wilhelm at TechCrunch tweet that he was doing a piece about why everyone in Silicon Valley and the VC world and the startup world still seem to be preparing for a nuclear winter, while the stock market has been roaring back to life, and I was like YES! I need to talk about that with somebody right now! I’m asking myself that question every day. It’s not that I’m rooting for a crash, it’s not that I want the economy to suffer, but everyone I know in the Tech world thinks we're in for a bad recession and yet… well, we get into all this. I needed to have this discussion with somebody right away, so forgive me if this is a little self indulgent, but join Alex and I as we ask the question: who’s right about the economy right now? Silicon Valley, or Wall Street?

PS: This is Alex's piece I was referring to: As stocks recover, private investors aren't buying the hype

Fri. 04/17 - Y Combinator Gets Picky Apr 17, 2020

Show notes

Microsoft has some AI tech that can catch bugs 99% of the time, Y Combinator is going to be more picky about who it invests in, macOS is getting a smarter battery management system for your laptop, and of course, the weekend longreads suggestions.

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AI spots critical Microsoft security bugs 97% of the time (VentureBeat)
Changing policy, Y Combinator cuts its pro rate stake and makes investments case-by-case (TechCrunch)
Google's fast-growing Meet video tool getting Zoom-like layout, Gmail link (Reuters)
Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health (Six Colors)
Apple CEO Talks Covid-19 Crisis, Return to Work Plan at Company-Wide Meeting (Bloomberg)
'Needle in a haystack': Reborn tech offices may need distance and mass testing (Protocol)
The coronavirus pandemic turned Folding@Home into an exaFLOP supercomputer (Ars Technica)
Can Comic Books Survive the Coronavirus Era? (NYTimes)
LIDAR: Peek Into The Future With iPad Pro (Halide)
The Devastating Decline of a Brilliant Young Coder (Wired)
In Half-Life’s improv scene, anyone can speak for Gordon Freeman (Ars Technica)

Thu. 04/16 - The Video Conferencing Space Is So Hot, We’re Getting Steamy M&A Action Now. Apr 16, 2020

Show notes

The video conferencing space is so hot, we’re getting steamy M&A action now. Apple wants to get stylish with over the ear headphones. Robinhood bucks a couple of trends with a new round. And is Facebook’s Libra just gonna drop like a stone?

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Verizon Buys Zoom Conferencing Rival BlueJeans (The Verge)
Apple Developing High-End Headphones With Interchangeable Parts (Bloomberg)
Sony Plans Limited PlayStation 5 Output in First Year (Bloomberg)
Robinhood Is Raising New Funds at About $8 Billion Value, Sources Say (Bloomberg)
Google to Slow Hiring for Rest of 2020, CEO Tells Staff (Bloomberg)
Facebook-Backed Libra Cryptocurrency Project Is Scaled Back (NYTimes)
Amazon Retools With Unusual Goal: Get Shoppers to Buy Less Amid Coronavirus Pandemic (WSJ)
Amazon to close French warehouses until next week after court order (Reuters)
TikTok now lets parents set restrictions on their kids’ accounts (The Verge)

Lawn love job opening:

https://apply.workable.com/lawn-love/j/A749319261/

Wed. 04/15 – New iPhone SE! Apr 15, 2020

Show notes

Hellooooo new iPhone SE. Airbnb raises another debt round. Amazon kneecaps affiliate marketers. Now it’s Medium’s turn to face fake news (or, at least, fake experts) scrutiny. And why Houseparty is now, officially, another unlikely winner of the Coronavirus moment.

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Podapalooza tickets at: PLZA.org

Links:

Apple announces the new $399 iPhone SE for 2020 (The Verge)
Airbnb raises another $1bn (Financial Times)
Amazon slashes commission rates for program that gives publishers a cut of sales (CNBC)
Github is now free for all teams (TechCrunch)
Washington AG sues Facebook for violating state political ad law (GeekWire)
How Medium became the best and worst place for coronavirus news (The Verge)
Houseparty Vies With Zoom to Be Homebound Chatters’ App of Choice (Bloomberg)

Tue, 04/14 - Seems Like Old Times! An Actual Smartphone Launch Event! Apr 14, 2020

Show notes

We have an actual smartphone launch event to report on! Google is apparently close to powering it’s devices with its own custom-design silicon. Microsoft Teams is getting closer to Zoom in a good, feature-wise way. An update on the venture funding environment and new gaming ratings to alert people to loot boxes.

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OnePlus Announces OnePlus 8 & OnePlus 8 Pro: Step-Up 2020 Flagships (AnAndTech)
ONEPLUS 8 PRO REVIEW: BIG LEAGUE (The Verge)
Q&A: Apple and Google discuss their coronavirus tracing efforts (TechCrunch)
iPhone China Shipments Rebound as Manufacturing Resumes (Bloomberg)
Scoop: Google readies its own chip for future Pixels, Chromebooks (Axios)
Zoom will let paying customers pick which data center their calls are routed from (The Verge)
Over 500,000 Zoom accounts sold on hacker forums, the dark web (BleepingComputer)
New Microsoft Teams features: Video to show 9 people on screen with more coming soon (ZDNet)
Amazon to Expand Shipments of Nonessential Items, Continue Adding Staff (WSJ)
VC Firms Raised $21 Billion Last Quarter Despite Pandemic Chaos (Bloomberg)
ESRB introduces a new label to indicate that a game has loot boxes (The Verge)

Links to job openings:

https://botsociety.io/careers/account-manager or info@botsociety.com
https://zen.ly/jobs

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