A live blog from FT.com

Number of global cases of Covid-19 nears 2.5m, international oil prices tumble to lowest levels since the 1990s, Heineken hit as pandemic cuts into beer drinking globally.

Deaths in England and Wales are highest on record in mid-April while cases in the US surpass 1m

Spain allows outside exercise for the first time in weeks while Russia’s daily case count rises by a fifth

BT halts dividend for first time since dot com bubble two decades ago, BA parent IAG warns of further cuts as recovery set to take three years and shoemaker Puma warns worse to come as profits halve in first quarter

At the start of the year, it looked like Europe would be in for a “Summer E-Scooters / E-Bike War,” as both regional startups and U.S.-backed unicorns vied for the pockets of city commuters. Consolidation came when German startup Circ was taken over by U.S. competitor Bird at the start of the year. Still on […]

The Europas Awards — which have been recognising the hottest European tech startups in since 2009 — are now open for the public voting stage, prior to the formal judging process. The entries have been sorted and sifted by journalists to compile an editorially-driven ‘long list’ of some of Europe’s most exciting startups and investors. […]

Your guide to the investment and business revolution you can’t afford to ignore

Gillian Tett on how to assess risk in the age of coronavirus

TikTok, the widely popular video sharing app developed by one of the world’s most valued startups (ByteDance), continues to grow rapidly despite suspicion from the U.S. as more people look for ways to keep themselves entertained amid the coronavirus pandemic. The global app and its Chinese version, called Douyin, have amassed over 2 billion downloads […]

This week we continue to look at how the coronavirus outbreak is impacting the world of apps, plus the use of live-streaming apps as fundraising tools and more.

A number of popular apps including Spotify, GroupMe, Pinterest and TikTok were fielding user iOS crash reports Wednesday evening, the result of an apparent issues with Facebook’s SDK according to a lengthy GitHub thread on the topic. Downdetector logged tens of thousands of user crash reports on Spotify between 3:30 and 5:30 pm PT, the […]

Google is reportedly on the verge of stepping up their hardware game in a way that follows the example set by Apple, with custom-designed silicon powering future smartphones. Axios reports that Google is readying its own in-house processors for use in future Pixel devices, including both phones and eventually Chromebooks, too. Google’s efforts around its […]

Glance, which serves media content, news and casual games on the lock screen of Android -powered smartphones, has amassed 100 million daily active users, it said today. The subsidiary of ad-firm InMobi Group reached the milestone in 21 months in what appears to be the shortest duration for any popular internet service to gain their […]

Pressure mounts on carmaker and alliance with Renault and Mitsubishi as groups burn through cash

Chief executive criticised over move to offer liability cover following premium increase

Good morning and welcome back to TechCrunch’s Equity Monday, a jumpstart for your week. Regular Equity episodes still drop each and every Friday morning, so if you’ve listened to the show over the years, don’t worry — we’re only adding to the mix. You can catch last week’s show with Danny Crichton and Natasha Mascarenhas right here if […]

2020 and 2021 will be one of the periodic transitional eras in gaming as Sony and Microsoft debut their shiny new consoles, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. To ease the process (and spur adoption of the next generation), EA may make its upcoming titles free to “upgrade” to your chosen console. On an […]

This week we continue to look at how the coronavirus outbreak is impacting the world of apps, plus the use of live-streaming apps as fundraising tools and more.

Google today is launching a new app, Read Along, that aims to help elementary school students practice their reading skills and stay educationally engaged amid school closures due to coronavirus. The new Android app is based on Google’s existing application, Bolo, which launched in India last year with a catalog of read-along stories in both […]

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Valve is calling it quits on macOS support for its virtual reality platform. A Valve employee posted an update to the company’s SteamVR forums, noting that “SteamVR has ended macOS support so our team can focus on Windows and Linux.” Apple introduced “Metal for VR” back in June 2017 and highlighted a partnership with Valve. […]

This week we continue to look at how the coronavirus outbreak is impacting the world of apps, plus the use of live-streaming apps as fundraising tools and more.

Apple and Google are providing additional resources for developers working with the first version of their Exposure Notification API, the development tools the companies have created and are working on in order to provide a cross-platform way for public health agencies to notify individuals of a potential exposure to a person with a confirmed case […]

Autotech Ventures popped on the scene three years ago with a $120 million debut fund and a plan to invest in early-stage ground transportation startups. Now, with investments in 26 startups and a handful of exits, including Xnor.ai, DeepScale and Frontier Car Group, the venture firm is back with a new, bigger fund and the […]

With police enforcing the lockdown, it may mean new roles for some old telly favourites

Post-lockdown, technology could help us contain Covid-19. But why stop there?

Apple’s long-rumored Mac ARM chip transition could happen as early as next year, according to a new report from Bloomberg. The report says that Apple is currently working on three Mac processors based on the design of the A14 system-on-a-chip that will power the next-generation iPhone. The first of the Mac versions will greatly exceed […]

The coronavirus pandemic’s global presence and ubiquity in everyday life is a perfect storm for misinformation, as conspiracy theorists from different corners of the web converge on a shared news topic—the only topic, at the moment. From the earliest days of the crisis, everyone from pro-Trump QAnon conspiracists to left-leaning purveyors of dubious home remedies […]

The lockdowns are necessary to get the disease under control — but they must be brief

A microbe has overthrown our arrogance and sent global output into a tailspin

There is a major change ahead for LinkedIn, the social network for the working world, now with 675 million members. Jeff Weiner, who has been leading the company as CEO for the past 11 years, is stepping down on June 1, 2020. His new role will be executive chairman. Ryan Roslansky, who is currently head […]

The right candidate to fill your job may not actually be looking for a job right now. HireSweet, which is part of Y Combinator’s current class of startups, is trying to help companies find exactly these candidates that are perfect for a job but not actively looking. Like so many other recruiting platforms, the HireSweet […]

Apple’s long-rumored Mac ARM chip transition could happen as early as next year, according to a new report from Bloomberg. The report says that Apple is currently working on three Mac processors based on the design of the A14 system-on-a-chip that will power the next-generation iPhone. The first of the Mac versions will greatly exceed […]

Nvidia Chief Scientist Bill Dally has released an open-source ventilator hardware design he developed in order to address the shortage resulting from the global coronavirus pandemic. The mechanical ventilator design developed by Dally can be assembled quickly, using off-the-shelf parts with a total cost of around $400 — making it an accessible and affordable alternative […]

Apple’s long-rumored Mac ARM chip transition could happen as early as next year, according to a new report from Bloomberg. The report says that Apple is currently working on three Mac processors based on the design of the A14 system-on-a-chip that will power the next-generation iPhone. The first of the Mac versions will greatly exceed […]

This week we continue to look at how the coronavirus outbreak is impacting the world of apps, plus the use of live-streaming apps as fundraising tools and more.

Apple and Google are providing additional resources for developers working with the first version of their Exposure Notification API, the development tools the companies have created and are working on in order to provide a cross-platform way for public health agencies to notify individuals of a potential exposure to a person with a confirmed case […]

Google today is launching a new app, Read Along, that aims to help elementary school students practice their reading skills and stay educationally engaged amid school closures due to coronavirus. The new Android app is based on Google’s existing application, Bolo, which launched in India last year with a catalog of read-along stories in both […]

Bank alleges collapsed Singaporean company raised money through duplicate invoices

Machine learning ops focuses on the ML model and datasets, as opposed to code. Data engineers run MLOps, but it’s likely that the specialized role of MLOps engineer will come about soon.

Founders hunting down capital in the middle of this pandemic may feel like they’re on a fool’s errand, but some investors are still offering financing, even if the terms might not be as good as they once were. One avenue that appears to remain open: corporate venture capital. The corporate route offers its own set […]

After years of working in mobile advertising, founder Niles Lichtenstein discovered a box of records from his late father. That compelled him to start putting together memories and online histories earlier, by documenting his mother’s life history and how he first met his wife. That developed into an interactive timeline where he collected songs from […]

AngelList, the online platform that had made itself indispensable to early-stage startups for fundraising and recruiting, said it closed out last year having raised $163 million online on behalf of 441 companies. That’s about 56 percent higher than the year before in 2014. About 40 percent of the deals were private rounds and institutional funds were in about 40 […]

Founders hunting down capital in the middle of this pandemic may feel like they’re on a fool’s errand, but some investors are still offering financing, even if the terms might not be as good as they once were. One avenue that appears to remain open: corporate venture capital. The corporate route offers its own set […]

As the infrastructure for developing games becomes more advanced, studios have turned to buying best-in-class technology from others instead of building everything from scratch (often with inferior quality). This shift underpinned Unity’s rise as the most popular game engine. The current focus on games as ever-evolving social hubs that can remain popular for a decade […]

Fifth-biggest lessor approaches Bank of China to snare greater share of sector

Building industry hit harder than other sectors by Covid-19 lockdown measures

TikTok, the widely popular video sharing app developed by one of the world’s most valued startups (ByteDance), continues to grow rapidly despite suspicion from the U.S. as more people look for ways to keep themselves entertained amid the coronavirus pandemic. The global app and its Chinese version, called Douyin, have amassed over 2 billion downloads […]