10 things in tech you need to know today
Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this Wednesday.
- Google has canceled its biggest event of the year because of coronavirus concerns. It's the latest major conference to be canceled.
- Airbnb may delay its public float to 2021 as coronavirus sends shivers through the market. The firm has been working toward a stock market debut and was reportedly looking to start the process around March or April.
- An Amazon employee in Seattle tested positive for coronavirus, the company said in an email to employees. The company confirmed the case on Tuesday and said the individual was now under quarantine.
- Huawei could be in big trouble as new documents suggest it broke sanctions on Iran by shipping it US equipment from HP and Microsoft. The equipment included hardware and software from companies including Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft.
- Apple's major supplier says normal production will resume in China by the end of March. Foxconn said more than half its seasonal workforce in the country had restarted work following the coronavirus outbreak.
- WeWork just gave its US tenants guidance on coronavirus outbreak - weeks after the outbreak started. The company closed over 100 buildings in China because of the threat of the virus, but US members say they received little information before Tuesday.
- Robinhood's cofounders have blamed 'stress to its infrastructure' from an 'unprecedented load' for outages during huge market gyrations. Baiju Bhatt and Vlad Tenev have explained what caused outages that plagued the stock-trading app over the past two days.
- Startups and investors are at war with the UK's competition regulator over its aggressive approach to deals like the Amazon-led $575 million investment in Deliveroo. Tech lobby group COADEC wrote to UK chancellor Rishi Sunak on Tuesday stating that delays caused by regulatory probes risk killing off British startups.
- Facebook is finally giving WhatsApp users a dark mode option - months after other apps made the switch. WhatsApp may be late to the dark mode game, but now iPhone and Android users can start saving their eyes - and batteries.
- Chinese smartphone maker Oppo is set to release its first smartwatch - and it looks exactly like an Apple Watch. The two watches have the same case shape and a similar-looking rubbery band, and come in almost identical colorways.
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