• How fiction can help us imagine the future
• Amazon Q2 Results…$88.9 billion in sales
• Shopify Q2 Results
• NASA has launched the most ambitious Mars rover ever built
• 17 ways technology could change the world by 2025
• Microsoft analyzed data on its newly remote workforce
• Netflix breaks record with 160 Emmy nominations
• Machine learning has been used to automatically translate long-lost languages
• Grubhub Generates Sales, Not Profit, During Pandemic (Paywall: WSJ)
• For Videogame Giants, Pandemic Lockdowns Fuel Gamers’ Spending…Electronic Arts posts strongest June quarter sales in its 38-year history (Paywall: WSJ)
• “…In 1950, each woman gave birth on average to 4.7 children. By 2017 the figure had dropped to 2.37. Populations start to shrink when the average birth rate falls below 2.1. By 2100 the average number of births per woman will have fallen to 1.7…”
• Trained dogs were able to sniff out Covid-19 infections with 94% accuracy: study
• Burberry and Tencent team up for concept stores
• Five key moments from the big tech hearing
• Amazon bought Ring for market position, not technology, emails suggest
• Read Steve Jobs’ emails about why you can’t buy digital books in Amazon’s apps
• Emails show Mark Zuckerberg feared app startups were building faster than Facebook in 2012
• Peacock has added 10 million customers since April
• Atlassian acquires asset management company Mindville

• HBO Max reached 4.1M subscribers in first month, despite lack of distribution on Roku and Fire TV
• Intel’s next-generation 7nm chips delayed until 2022
• Pandora launches interactive voice ads into beta testing
• Amazon reportedly in talks to buy a 9.9% stake in India’s Reliance Retail
• What comes after Zoom fatigue…the technology overtaxes your brain…
• Giant waves of sand are moving on Mars
• Robot usage is soaring during pandemic
• Robots Are Having a Good Pandemic
• China launches space rocket in ambitious Mars landing mission
• Who still needs the office? U.S. companies start cutting space.“..A Reuters analysis of quarterly earnings calls over the past week revealed more than 25 large companies plan to reduce their office space in the year ahead, a move designed to reduce the second-largest expense after payrolls at corporations…”
• 30% of all office space will be consumed flexibly by 2030
• CS50

• The Next Phase of the Retail Apocalypse: Stores Reborn as E-Commerce Warehouses (WSJ, paywall)
• Researchers develop laser-based underwater WiFi system for sub-sea data networks
• Zoom introduces all-in-one home communications appliance for $599
• Jack Ma’s fintech giant tops 1.3 billion users globally
• Fertility rate: ‘Jaw-dropping’ global crash in children being born… Researchers at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation showed the global fertility rate nearly halved to 2.4 in 2017 – and their study, published in the Lancet, projects it will fall below 1.7 by 2100.
• SpaceX’s Starlink asks potential service testers for addresses, says private beta starts this summer
• Twitter introduces a new, fully rebuilt developer API, launching next week
• Uber acquires Routematch as it drives deeper into public transit in hunt for SaaS revenue
• Searching for Video? Google Pushes YouTube Over Rivals
• Waldo is a ‘no code’ automated mobile testing service that anyone can use
• Monzo launches new Monzo Plus with software features it hopes users will want to pay for…Costing £5 per month, rather than bundle a host of perks that might otherwise be up-sold individually, such as travel or gadget insurance or additional cash-back and merchant discounts, as many other banks and fintechs do, this third Monzo Plus attempt is more akin to a paid-for software upgrade.
• It costs the U.S. government about 2 cents to produce every penny
• CERN: Physicists Report the Discovery of Unique New Particle
• WebGazer.js
• Digital Transformation: Powering the Great Reset (World Economic Forum)
  • 1. Transform into a digital business across seven dimensions: new value creation; digital-at-the-core business models; intelligent and agile operating models; localized and resilient supply chains; real-time decisions at the edge; data-driven investment decisions; and augmented talent
  • 2. Empower all stakeholders: employees, consumers, suppliers, partners, government and society
  • 3. Effect systems change through digitally-enabled collaboration models that correct market failures

• China Internet Trends 2020
• Sony keeps you cool on the move with a wearable air conditioner
• Amazon U.S. sellers will have to display their name and address starting Sept. 1, 2020
• Microsoft makes Teams video meetings less tiring with its new Together mode
• A Facebook SDK issue caused Spotify and other popular iOS apps to crash
• New report outlines a potential roadmap for Apple’s ARM-based MacBooks
• iOS 14 gets rid of the app grid to help you find the app you’re looking for
• Worldwide PC shipments grew due to work-from-home arrangements
• Nvidia eclipses Intel as most valuable U.S. chipmaker
• Benedict Evans: Tech and the new normal
• Our Ghost-Kitchen Future
• BMW is going all-in on in-car microtransactions
• WhatsApp’s Business-User Base Grew Tenfold From 2019…The messaging platform said it has more than 50 million users of its business app worldwide each month (WSJ)
• Uber agrees to buy food-delivery service Postmates for $2.65 billion in stock
• Salesforce has eclipsed Larry Ellison’s Oracle in market cap
• Sony invests $250 million in ‘Fortnite’ maker Epic Games
• Buy now pay later is having a moment as pandemic changes shopping habits. Australian instalment-payment company Afterpay has signed up more than 1.6 million US users since March (WSJ)

• DNA Linked to Covid-19 Was Inherited From Neanderthals, Study Finds…The stretch of six genes seems to increase the risk of severe illness from the coronavirus.
• Tesla is taking reservations for its Cybertruck in China
• ‘Westworld’ creators are developing a ‘Fallout’ TV series for Amazon
• $1 billion-plus made-in-Japan machine called Fugaku, whose brisk operating speed of 416 quadrillion calculations per second officially makes it the world’s fastest supercomputer.
• New mathematical principle used to prevent AI from making unethical decisions
• Hydrogen storage solutions
• Walmart is converting its parking lots into pop-up drive-in theaters for the summer
• Hackers Use Java to Hide Malware on the Data Center Network
• Germany is first major economy to phase out coal and nuclear
• Coronavirus: Why Singapore turned to wearable contact-tracing tech
• Core of a gas planet seen for the first time

• Stanford research provides a snapshot of a new working-from-home economy

“...Growth of city centers are going to stall. During the pandemic, the overwhelming share of employees who shifted to telecommuting previously worked in offices in cities. I estimate that the loss of their physical presence slashed total daily spending at city center restaurants, bars and shops by more than half…This upsurge in working from home is largely here to stay, and I see a longer-run decline in city centers. The largest U.S. cities have seen incredible growth since the 1980s as younger, educated Americans have flocked into revitalized downtowns. But it looks like that trend will reverse in 2020 – with a flight of economic activity out of city centers…”

• Here’s everything Apple announced in the WWDC 2020 keynote today
• Rosetta 2 is Apple’s key to making the ARM transition less painful
• The inside story of Netflix, the tiny tech company that took over Hollywood
• Amazon to acquire autonomous driving startup Zoox
• Amazon Honeycode is a no-programming-needed app builder for businesses
• Waymo, Volvo partner to develop electric robotaxis
• YouTube’s latest experiment is a TikTok rival focused on 15-second videos
• Mars Is About to Have Its ‘Wright Brothers Moment
• China launches final Beidou satellite to complete the navigation system
• John J. Mooney, an Inventor of the Catalytic Converter, Dies at 90
• 100 million people watch YouTube on TVs each month
• Elon Musk invites users to test Starlink space internet
• How the Coronavirus Recovery Is Changing Cities

• Goldman Sachs Sees $16 Trillion Investment In Renewables By 2030
• Autonomous Vehicles in Covid Economy
• A Silicon Valley fundraiser for Joe Biden raised $4 million in one Zoom call
• Scientists find way to pollinate plants with soap bubbles as bees decline
• AWS said it mitigated a 2.3 Tbps DDoS attack, the largest ever
• From thinking about the next normal to making it work: What to stop, start, and accelerate
• Boston Dynamics starts selling its Spot robot — for $74,500
• COVID-19 tracing apps now live in Germany, France, and Italy; U.K. rethinks its plans
• CERN makes bold push to build €21-billion super-collider
• What to expect from WWDC 2020: OS updates, ARM Macs, and more
• Experiments show hummingbirds see colors you’ve never dreamed of

• Volkswagen launches home EV charging system sales ahead of ID.3 vehicle deliveries
• WarnerMedia tries to simplify HBO branding by sunsetting HBO Go and renaming HBO Now
• Spies Can Eavesdrop by Watching a Light Bulb’s Vibrations…The so-called lamphone technique allows for real-time listening in on a room that’s hundreds of feet away.
• Scientists Have Discovered Vast Unidentified Structures Deep Inside the Earth
• Their dining rooms are closed, their margins have evaporated, and their industry is in turmoil. But a handful of restaurateurs are rebuilding their operations around takeout—without paying sky-high delivery fees. (WSJ) “…Among these survivors are restaurants that behave more like direct-to-consumer brands selling cosmetics, mattresses and bidets on the internet. The platforms they’re using to help them succeed—which include Tock, Toast, Your Fare, BentoBox and others—are to their online sales and delivery operations what Shopify is to a half million sellers of consumer goods on the internet…”
• Americans spend billions to look good in lockdown…”…Overall US health and beauty sales in the period rose by $3.74bn, or 13 per cent, from a year ago to $32.2bn. Ecommerce led the increase, up 31 per cent to $9.28bn, encouraged by social media influencers who have been providing self-care tips…” (FT)
• People Aren’t Visiting Branches. Banks Are Wondering How Many They Actually Need. (WSJ)
• Included with your next apartment: VR pods and esports arenas
• The Coming Disruption – Scott Galloway predicts a handful of elite cyborg universities will soon monopolize higher education

• Wuhan Tests Nine Million People for Coronavirus in 10 Days…”…Using sample pooling, Wuhan authorities collected samples one by one from citizens, and then processed five to 10 of them at once in a single nucleic-acid test. By bundling multiple samples, Wuhan was able to immediately clear all of the citizens included in one test—as long as the test came out as negative—thereby significantly cutting the number of total nucleic-acid tests required…” WSJ (Paywall)
• Facebook rebrands Libra wallet Calibra to Novi
• Spotify removes the cap from users’ libraries, letting you save unlimited songs, albums and podcasts
• Microsoft Teams DAU: 75 million, Office Paid Seats 258 million
• Robot barista helps South Korean cafe with social distancing
•  TV ad impressions drop nearly 27% for gaming brands
• Cybersecurity Leadership Principles: Lessons learnt during the COVID-19 pandemic to prepare for the new normal (World Economic Forum)
• China Social Credit System Infographic
• Google testing a new feature that enables you to pay the bill by your own voice
• Amazon in advanced talks to buy self-driving startup Zoox
• The most powerful Raspberry Pi now has 8GB of RAM

• Sony confirms PS5 will have exclusive games playable only on next-gen hardware
• Investment in global energy to drop by $400bn

• World Economic Forum: Challenges and Opportunities in the Post-COVID-19 World [PDF]
• World Economic Forum: COVID-19 Risks Outlook A Preliminary Mapping and Its Implications [PDF]
• What restaurants will actually be like in a post-COVID-19 world, according to CEOs and food experts
• The Post-Pandemic Style: After deadly outbreaks, architects transform the places we live and work. This time won’t be different.
• Xiaomi’s investment house of IoT surpasses 300 companies
• Automattic pumps $4.6M into New Vector to help grow Matrix, an open, decentralized comms ecosystem
• U.S. secures 300 million doses, almost a third, of potential AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine
• Facebook takes on Amazon with online shopping venture
• University of California Will Stop Using SAT, ACT…will be phased out over five years (WSJ: Paywall)
• A Stanford dean on adult skills every 18-year-old should have
• ‘Apple Glass’ Rumored to Start at $499, Support Prescription Lenses, and More
• Energy Transition Index 2020: from crisis to rebound
• Burger King uses extra onions to equip The Whopper for social distancing
• Google Chrome gets major privacy boost: Here’s how to enable DNS-over-HTTPS

If you want to re-watch one of the most impressive AI demos, fast forward to 29:00 of this video where the thing writes code based on your natural language comment of what the code should do: https://t.co/wgrIKq35Rq#MSBuild

— Mat Velloso (@matvelloso) May 20, 2020

• Wunderman Thompson: The Future 100 2.0.20 Report
• Adobe 2020 Digital Economy Index
• This breakdown of retail sales data shows why Amazon is leading the stock market
• Twitter Will Allow Employees To Work At Home Forever
• Amazon built a roving robot covered in UV light bulbs that could kill the coronavirus in warehouses and Whole Foods stores
• The twist on the four-day workweek could get people back to work without causing new outbreaks
• The future of fine dining? An exclusive biodome for you and your date
• As a result of these demographic factors, the average human will experience a temperature increase of 7.5C when global temperatures reach 3C, which is forecast towards the end of this century.
• 3D Printing Has Entered The Nuclear Realm
•  How Covid-19 Is Changing the Language in Emails (WSJ: paywall)
• Bill Gates: Scanning for answers to a pandemic
• Facebook to buy Giphy for $400 million
• U.S. moves to cut Huawei off from global chip suppliers
• Sony Says It Created World’s First Image Sensor With Built-in AI
• VR misses its pandemic moment
• Apple buys virtual reality company NextVR
• Apple’s computerized glasses won’t be ready until 2022 ‘at the earliest,’ top analyst says
• The pandemic is killing the attraction of megacities (FT: Paywall)
• China Tries to Revive Economy With $205 Billion of Projects in 2020: Report
• Monzo faces near 40% valuation drop in latest fundraising (FT: Paywall)
• Digital Driver’s License: a step on the road map to online identity
• Quizlet valued at $1 billion as it raises millions during a global pandemic