• 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

• New Google Lens features to help you be more productive at home
• How Lyft intends to navigate and survive COVID-19
• Your iPhone will soon be able to tell 911 about your medical conditions and allergies
• Remote work is a huge opportunity for high-impact climate policy
• Intel Is Acting Like Only the Paranoid Survive. The CEO Wants It to Stay That Way…Bob Swan sees a future company of more empowered managers: ‘If you know the right thing to do, just go do it… For instance, as the pandemic spread, many customers ordered more chips for PCs that were in high demand as employees shifted to working from home. Cloud-computing giants, including Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp., also wanted more chips to cater to growing demand in the work-from-home economy…”(Paywall)
• Zoom acquires Keybase to get end-to-end encryption expertise
• Dropbox has 14.6 million paid subscribers
• Walmart is piloting a pricier 2-hour Express grocery delivery service
• Ocado said that retail sales were up by 40 per cent in the second quarter (paywall)
• GitHub Codespaces lets you code in your browser without any setup

COVID-19

• “…The changes in our traffic light system to assist pedestrians and avoid build-ups of pedestrians at crossings actually preclude a return to previous high levels of private car use…”
• Property Investors See Fiber-Optic Cables as ‘Railroads of the Future’ (paywall)
• NHS reveals source code behind the contact-tracing app
• Roaming ‘robodog’ politely tells Singapore park-goers to keep apart
• Facebook to allow employees to work remotely until year-end
• Google will let most employees work remotely until the end of 2020
• Microsoft updates WFH policy, lets employees work remotely through October
• Zoom Bachelorette, Minimum Viable Shows, and the nature of celebrity in quarantine

Wow! Noise is a secret killer of performance. A 10db noise increase (from a dishwasher to a vacuum) drops productivity by 5% – but most people don't notice since it impacts cognition, not effort. Also, note that noise is greater in poorer neighborhoods… https://t.co/RaIAsSudyY pic.twitter.com/ROejxzbJcP

— Ethan Mollick (@emollick) May 6, 2020

• All the things COVID-19 will change forever, according to 30 top experts / Fast Company
• DW Interview: Yuval Noah Harari on COVID-19: ‘The biggest danger is not the virus itself‘
• Tübisad E-ticaret 2019 Raporu [ PDF ] (in Turkish)
• WEF Strategic Intelligence
• Amazon Q1 beats on net sales of $75.5B but posts net income of $2.5B
• Apple will make it easier to unlock your iPhone while wearing a face mask
• Google Meet one-ups Zoom with free 60-minute meetings for consumers
• U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession
• Bond: Our New World
•  NASA Picks Three Contractors, Including SpaceX and Blue Origin, to Lead Lunar Lander Teams (paywall)
• Apple’s Q2 2020 revenue hits $58.3 billion despite retail shutdown
• Apple Delays Mass Production of 2020 Flagship iPhones (paywall)
• Shopify Now Has an End-to-End Platform For Merchants, Logistics, and Consumers
• U.S. Space Force’s First Offensive Weapon Is a Satellite Jammer
• Verizon says network usage is up 1,200% during coronavirus
• Bill Gates: What you need to know about the COVID-19 vaccine
• Oliver Wymann: Responding to COVID-19

• “…SARS-CoV-2 has a mutation rate of less than 25 mutations per year, compared with influenza’s mutation rate of almost 50 mutations per year, according to an analysis by computational biologists of the Nextstrain consortium…” (WSJ)
• EU data portal launches to support COVID-19 research
• Apple Mobility Trends Reports
• Google Mobility Reports
• “…In general, emerging use-cases for 5G can be classed into two groups: those requiring a low latency round-trip time between device and application service (e.g. cloud gaming, server-side video rendering and deep learning) and those characterized by localized/site-bound application deployment (e.g. Industry 4.0, controller software for machines, sensors and actuators in factories)…”
• It’s time to build by Marc Andreessen
• 15.77 million paid net additions. That brings Netflix’s total paid subscriber count to 182.86 million
• AWS and Facebook launch an open-source model server for PyTorch
• How Covid-19 is making millions of Americans Healthier
• Air quality is way better in nine major cities after coronavirus confinement
• What future do airlines have? Three experts discuss
• Five EU countries call for 100% renewable energy by 2050
• Peloton May Feel the Recessionary Burn (WSJ)
• Bill Gates: The first modern pandemic & the scientific advances we need to stop COVID-19.
• Germany’s COVID-19 contacts tracing app to link to labs for test result notification
• First version of Apple and Google’s contact tracing API should be available to developers next week
• AWS launches Amazon AppFlow, its new SaaS integration service
• “...Airbnb’s home page is suddenly very focused on three things — online experiences, monthly stays and what you’re calling “frontline,” which is an area for hosts to offer housing to healthcare staff and first responders…“
• Telegram hits 400M monthly active users
• “…Amazon’s private-label business encompasses more than 45 brands with some 243,000 products, from AmazonBasics batteries to Stone & Beam furniture… …39% of U.S. online shopping occurs on Amazon, according to research firm eMarketer……The majority of Amazon’s sales—58%—come through third-party sellers, primarily small and medium-size firms that list their items for sale on Amazon’s Marketplace platform.”WSJ (Paywall)
• The World Bank predicts global remittances will fall by 20% this year
• Google’s Flutter: 2 million developers
• Boston Dynamics open-sources health care robotics toolkit for telemedicine, vitals inspection, and disinfection