Shifting to a different type of data compiler, Edited has raised $29 million for its archive of product information. It’s not just any archive, mind you: they track promotions and pricing on more than 2.5 billion SKU across 90,000 retailers going back for eight years. It’s more fun than, well, something.
Widespread reports about Zoom security problems https://www.tomsguide.com/news/zoom-security-privacy-woes have given a second chance to competitors. Microsoft and Google are responding with minor tweaks. Google now lets users start a Google Meet session from within Gmail, https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2020/04/meet-in-gmail.html while Microsoft promised (on Twitter) that Teams users will be able to see videos of up to nine chat participants by the end of April. https://twitter.com/MicrosoftTeams/status/1249729067408072704
It’s easy to forget that not everyone is working from home. This Yahoo News/YouGov poll brings the class divide into sharp focus: 66% of people without household income over $100,000 are working from home compared with 18% with incomes under $50,000. The lowest income brackets are half as likely to have paid sick leave (31% vs 68%) and twice as likely to fear they’ll lose their job in the next month (36% vs 18%).
Nearly one-third of major news publishers have blocked generative AI tools from reading their content. But that’s a drastic measure which could also exclude their results from conventional search engines. Microsoft has just given publishers the option to block access by Bing Chat without also removing their content from search results. We’ll see if competitors do the same.