It’s earnings season and The Verge has been paying close attention to the impact of COVID-19 on the tech world. This week on The Vergecast, co-hosts Nilay, Dieter, and Paul discuss the takeaways from earnings reports by Twitter, Tesla, Facebook, and other big tech companies.
In the second half of the show, the big topic is the recent shift in CEOs at the three big mobile carriers in the United States: AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon. How will things change under a new oligopoly and the launch of new streaming services they own?
There’s a whole lot more in between all of that — like Zoom’s awkward correction to its user count, Paul’s weekly segment “Display port alt mode 2.0: a memoir,” and the influence of Trolls World Tour on the movie theater industry — so listen here or in your favorite podcast player to hear it all.
Stories discussed this week:
- More than 1 million people in the US have tested positive for COVID-19
- No one knows when the COVID-19 pandemic will end
- It’s impossible to count everyone with COVID-19
- Elon Musk is dangerously wrong about the novel coronavirus
- Elon Musk says shelter-in-place orders during COVID-19 are ‘fascist’
- Americans are surprisingly open to letting their phones be used for coronavirus tracking
- Apple and Google have begun testing their COVID-19 exposure notification API
- How a team of NASA engineers developed a ventilator for COVID-19 patients in just a month
- Apple’s latest iOS beta makes it easier to unlock an iPhone while wearing a face mask
- Zoom admits it doesn’t have 300 million users, corrects misleading claims
- Google Meet video conferencing is now free for anybody
- Messenger Rooms are Facebook’s answer to Zoom and Houseparty for the pandemic
- Microsoft Teams jumps 70 percent to 75 million daily active users
- Google Duo video calls are about to look a whole lot better
- Facebook usage is surging, but the company warns it may be temporary
- New DisplayPort spec enables 16K video over USB-C
- AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson is stepping down, John Stankey to serve as new CEO
- John Legere abruptly resigns from T-Mobile board of directors ‘to pursue other options’
- Trolls World Tour made nearly $100 million without theaters, but theaters aren’t obsolete
- AMC Theaters will no longer play Universal movies after Trolls World Tour’s on-demand Next year’s Oscars will allow streaming-only movies to qualify, but with heavy restrictionssuccess
- Regal Cinemas warns Universal over Trolls World Tour skipping theaters
- WarnerMedia expands free HBO Max deal to HBO subscribers who pay through Apple’s services
- Oppo Find X2 Pro review: supercar smartphone
- Intel NUC 9 Extreme review: small size, big potential
- Google Pixel Buds review: second time’s the charm
- DJI’s new Mavic Air 2 has an upgraded camera and much longer flying time
The Vergecast /
Weekly tech roundup and interviews with major figures from the tech world.