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The organization that oversees internet domain names has rejected a proposal to transfer management of the .org top-level domain from a nonprofit to a private equity group. ICANN said it wouldn’t approve the sale of .org operator Public Interest Registry because it would create “unacceptable uncertainty” for the domain, citing concerns about debt and the intentions of the for-profit firm Ethos Capital.

In a blog post, ICANN’s board said the sale would have given up the current focus of PIR in favor of “an entity that is bound to serve the interests of its corporate stakeholders, and which has no meaningful plan to protect or serve the .org community.” It also noted that the sale would leave PIR with a $360 million debt that could…

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ICANN votes down controversial .org sale proposal
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ICANN:

ICANN board has voted to reject the sale of the .org registry to private equity firm Ethos Capital  —  Today, the ICANN Board made the decision to reject the proposed change of control and entity conversion request that Public Interest Registry (PIR) submitted to ICANN.

Monica Chin / The Verge:

Reddit has disabled its chat room feature, Start Chatting, a day after launch due to “several errors” in rollout and moderators’ concerns over lack of control  —  The company says the rollout had several errors  —  Remember how Reddit announced just yesterday that it was introducing built-in subreddit chat rooms?

Explore your options for high-quality beef, pork, chicken and seafood all delivered to your door. The best meat delivery services in 2020: Holy Grail Steak Co., Crowd Cow, Thrive Market and more – CNET
Source: CNet

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

The coronavirus pandemic has caused the smartphone market to suffer its fastest ever first-quarter year-on-year decline, according to new data from analyst firms. Counterpoint Research and Canalys both put the overall drop in global shipments at 13 percent, though Counterpoint says the drop in China alone was 27 percent while Canalys calculates it at 18 percent.

Whichever numbers you look at, the situation is clear: it’s the first time shipments have come under 300 million since 2014, with a precipitous collapse in China preceding falling demand around the world. “By the end of the quarter, as COVID-19 started to spread to other regions, and lockdowns of varying severity were imposed, the pendulum of disruption started to swing from…

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Coronavirus causes worst smartphone market contraction in history
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$20 will get you surprisingly far. PlayStation Store sale: 7 discounted PS4 games to buy now – CNET
Source: CNet

Aimee Chanthadavong / ZDNet:

IDC: Global smartphone shipments dropped 11.7% YoY to 276M during Q1 2020, the largest YoY decline ever  —  Shipment volumes suffered its largest year over year decline in the first quarter.  —  The latest data from International Data Corporation (IDC) has revealed that as the world grapples …

Benjamin Romano / The Seattle Times:

Amazon tells its Seattle and Bellevue employees already working from home since early March that they “are welcome to do so until at least October 2”  —  Amazon told its corporate employees working from home since early March that they “are welcome to do so until at least October 2 …

Our list of thoughtful, practical presents carefully curated for these strange times. Mother's Day 2020: These are our 15 favorite gifts for your mom – CNET
Source: CNet

Joseph Cox / VICE:

The UN’s social distancing app, 1point5, is largely ineffective at monitoring distance between people, indiscriminately picking up any Bluetooth signals  —  This week a division of the United Nations announced its new social distancing app designed to help alert people when they get too close …

Intel has spent the past several months updating its processor lineup to the 10th generation, and next up are desktops. The company today unveiled its 10th-gen consumer chips, including the new i9-10900K, capable of reaching up to 5.3Ghz with a base clock of 3.7Ghz. Intel claims the new processor can yield 10 percent more FPS than the already-zippy 9900K in PUBG, and is 18 percent faster at editing 4K video. It’s also 63 and 35 percent faster than the i7 7700K from 2017, respectively (there were no i9’s at the time). Of course, not everyone can afford a $500 processor,…

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Intel unveils 10th-gen desktop CPUs, including 5.3GHz flagship
Source: The Next Web

Walmart store

Walmart is launching a new delivery service, called Express Delivery, that will get purchased items to a customers’ home in less than two hours, the company announced on Thursday. The new service could be helpful if you need to get items in a hurry while respecting shelter-in-place orders during the COVID-19 pandemic.

You’ll be able to use Express Delivery for more 160,000 items, including “groceries, everyday essentials, toys and electronics,” Walmart says. Express Delivery will cost $10 in addition to the regular charge for delivery unless you’re a member of the company’s Delivery Unlimited subscription service, in which case you’ll just pay $10 for Express Delivery. (Similar to Amazon Prime, Delivery Unlimited costs $98 annually or…

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Walmart launches two-hour delivery service for groceries, electronics, and more
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Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Walmart is piloting a 2-hour “Express” grocery delivery service for an extra $10 fee, plans to expand to 1K stores in May, using its 74K+ “personal shoppers”  —  Record usage of grocery delivery services amid the COVID-19 pandemic has led to delayed orders …

Photo by Hu Chengwei/Getty Images

One of the biggest esports events in the world has been indefinitely delayed amidst the coronavirus pandemic. Developer Valve announced on Thursday that the 2020 edition of the Dota 2 tournament, known as The International, that was set to take place at the Ericsson Globe arena in Stockholm this August will no longer happen this summer and may be pushed back until 2021. In fact, Valve says it simply doesn’t know when it can announce concrete dates going forward.

“We have been exploring various date possibilities, but it is likely that the event will need to happen in 2021. Given the highly volatile landscape for local gathering restrictions, virus trajectory, and global travel policies, we don’t expect to have enough confidence to…

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Valve indefinitely delays Dota 2’s The International 2020
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Specialists at the London start-up BenevolentAI helped identify the arthritis drug baricitinib, which is now part of a clinical trial. How A.I. Steered Doctors Toward a Possible Coronavirus Treatment
Source: NY Times Tech

Musk, who has made faulty predictions and trafficked in misinformation on the coronavirus, took aim at society’s shelter-in-place orders in a profanity-laced rant on Tesla’s earnings call Wednesday. Elon Musk mobilizes tech elites behind reopening society
Source: Washington Post Tech

Jeff Bezos, the chief executive, said the company could spend up to $4 billion to handle the effects of Covid-19. Amazon Earnings: Sales Are Up, but Company Warns of Higher Costs Ahead
Source: NY Times Tech

The online retail giant posts massive first-quarter revenue growth with holiday-like buying offsetting challenges it had stocking household staples. Amazon sales soar as coronavirus-worried consumers shop from home, but costs rise
Source: Washington Post Tech

Apple warned investors in February to expect worse than expected numbers in its fiscal second quarter. Since then, the virus spread around the world and tanked the global economy. On Thursday, investors got an opportunity to survey the damage so far. Apple’s iPhone sales fell as the coronavirus struck
Source: Washington Post Tech

The tech giant signaled confidence by announcing another big stock buyback, but it declined to forecast sales for the current quarter. Apple Earnings: First-Quarter Sales Are Up Despite Coronavirus Slowdown
Source: NY Times Tech

Some of the JPL team posing with the VITAL ventilator. | Image: NASA

From spacecraft to medical craft

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How a team of NASA engineers developed a ventilator for COVID-19 patients in just a month
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Facebook Gaming today revealed the latest event in its campaign to be a virtual tennis tournament starring various celebrities and real-life tennis stars. If you’ve ever wanted to see Maria Sharapova try her hand at Mario Tennis (yes, really), well your time has finally come. The biggest names in tennis are grabbing their virtual rackets for the #StayAtHomeSlam, live on Facebook Gaming this Sunday (May 3), in partnership with @IMGTennis. Watch tennis legends like Venus & Serena Williams compete in Mario Tennis Aces for a $1M charity donation! pic.twitter.com/8tVZD4W3cB — Facebook Gaming #playaparttogether (@FacebookGaming) April 29, 2020 The tourney is…

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Venus and Serena Williams take on Mario Tennis for charity
Source: The Next Web

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Apple expects to start reopening more of its stores in May, after shutting down locations outside of China due to the coronavirus pandemic. Stores in Australia and Austria could reopen in the next two weeks, Apple CEO Tim Cook told Bloomberg. “A few” stores could reopen in the US in the first half of May as well, Cook added, but “not a large number.”

The decisions will be made location by location, “depending on the circumstances in that particular place,” Cook said. Apple has 458 stores outside of China, according to Bloomberg.

Apple closed all stores outside of Greater China in March and has since said stores will stay closed “until further…

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Apple says ‘a few’ US retail stores could reopen in May
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OpenAI today introduced ‘Jukebox,’ an open-source AI system for generating novel music complete with lyrics and vocals. Simply put, it’s the most impressive music-writing AI we’ve seen yet. Jukebox was trained on massive datasets of music across nearly every genre so that it can create completely fresh songs that, in many cases, sound very much like the artist(s) it was trained on. Much like other networks learn to transfer the style of a painting or other artwork from one image to another, Jukebox figures out how to imitate the style and genre of music. It also attempts to recreate the…

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This AI creates entire songs complete with music, lyrics, and vocals
Source: The Next Web

Ed tech company ProctorU has created a “student bill of rights” that outlines seven areas of expectations students should be able to count on from their academic institutions. ProctorU Proposes Student Bill of Rights for Remote Learning
Source: Campus Technology