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2020-03-25 00:00:00

2020

3.0

25

Ashley Carman

Spotify will let artists link out to personal donation pages

Spotify’s always billed itself as a platform for creators, so today, it announced that it’s going to help artists in need. The company will allow creators to link out to donation pages, whether it’s their own, a friend’s, or just an organization’s. Spotify won’t take a cut of the proceeds, and artists can opt into the feature when it eventually launches, which the company says will be “soon.” Interested artists can preemptively sign up here. The company’s also partnering with various organizations that raise money for musicians, including MusiCares, PRS Foundation, and Help Musicians. (It’s looking for additional partners around the world, too.) The partnership entails a dedicated Spotify landing page for donations with the company matching all donations up to $10 million. Donations have to be made through Spotify’s page for the matching to happen. Finally, the streaming service is making a variety of its creator tool features free. SoundBetter is waiving its revenue share; the cloud-based audio recording platform Soundtrap is offering extended free trials for educators; and Anchor is waiving fees on its Listener Support feature. The COVID-19 pandemic has hit independent creators especially hard. Even big-name musicians have had to cancel tours and shows while entire venues have shut down because of government restrictions on big crowds. Many have looked to live-streaming as an alternate moneymaking option. Additionally, other tech companies have stepped up to help artists earn cash. Bandsintown partnered with Twitch, for example, as did SoundCloud.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21193724/spotify-coronavirus-relief-musician-artist-donations-covid19

Entertainment

The Verge

2020-03-25 00:00:00

2020

3.0

25

Jon Porter

Samsung’s S10 and Note 10 are getting updated with the S20’s best camera features

Samsung is bringing a host of the Galaxy S20’s new camera and software features to last year’s Galaxy S10 and Note 10 lineups in a software update, the company announced today. The new features include camera functionality like Single Take and Night Hyperlapse, as well as new gallery and sharing features. Samsung didn’t provide an exact date for the update’s release, but said that it would be rolling out to select markets, including the US, “in the coming weeks.” We were particularly impressed with Single Take when we tried it out on the Galaxy S20 Ultra. The feature lets you hit the shutter button once and let the phone automatically capture a bunch of different camera effects at once. Single Take might not produce the best quality photos, but you get a fun selection without too much effort. There’s also Custom Filter, which automatically generates a photo filter from a pre-existing photograph, while a more advanced pro video mode gives you more granular control over your filming settings. The forthcoming update will also include some low-light photography improvements. The S20’s Night Hyperlapse mode, as its name suggests, is designed to offer better hyperlapse videos in low-light conditions. The Galaxy S10’s regular Night Mode will also see improvements as part of the update, to bring it more in line with the Galaxy S20 series. When we reviewed the S20 Ultra we found that its low-light photography software couldn’t quite match the likes of Google’s Pixel 4, but S10 users should still see an improvement compared to what they had before. Finally, there are a couple of more general software updates. The gallery app across the S10 and Note 10 lineups will get a new Clean View mode that groups together similar shots under one thumbnail to keep your photos looking more organized, and there’s also a new Quick Crop mode. Quick Share and Music Share features are also coming to the older devices. We complained that Samsung’s software is starting to feel a little bloated in our reviews of its 2020 devices, but in many cases you can customize the phones’ UI to your liking. The features will be a welcome addition for any existing or prospective owners of last year’s Samsung devices. We generally liked the new features when we used them on the Galaxy S20 lineup, and now they’re available on older hardware that’s often available at a fraction of the cost of this year’s phones.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21193619/samsungs-s10-note-10-s20-camera-gallery-sharing-update-night-hyperlapse-quick-share-single-take

Mobile

The Verge

2020-03-25 00:00:00

2020

3.0

25

Andrew J. Hawkins

Lyft is offering free and discounted bike-share passes for workers fighting the coronavirus

Lyft is offering free or discounted bike-share trips to workers fighting the coronavirus. The ride-hail company is inviting certain workers in New York City, Boston, and Chicago to sign up for free, one-month memberships or discounted trips. Lyft says it’s also stepping up its cleaning procedures to ensure its bikes are appropriately sanitized between trips. Cheaper bike-share could become especially useful as public transportation ridership continues to plummet in most cities and ride-sharing is not seen as a safe alternative. With a growing number of people seeking to avoid mass transit during the pandemic, there has been a surge in cycling in New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago. Lyft, which is the largest bike-share operator in North America, is now looking to step up and help those who have been on the front lines of the outbreak. In New York, Citi Bike is offering free 30-day memberships for people who work in health care, public transportation, or as first responders, including city employees. Health care employers like hospitals and clinics are being instructed to email Lyft to obtain enrollment information that they can distribute to staff. The deal includes unlimited 45-minute trips on traditional bikes and e-bikes for up to 30 days, but the free membership will not automatically renew into an annual membership. In Chicago, health care workers can take free rides on the city’s Divvy bike-share system through April 30th. For other riders, Lyft will be discounting the price of single rides from $3 to $1, and the price of a new annual membership will be cut in half from $99 to $49.50. And in Boston, hospital workers can get a free 30-day membership to the public bike-share system, Bluebikes. Eligible employees will receive a $20 discount code to get a regular 30-day pass for free.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21194184/lyft-bike-share-coronavirus-discount-free-nyc-chicago-boston

Tech

The Verge

2020-03-25 00:00:00

2020

3.0

25

Loren Grush

SpaceX is making hand sanitizer and building face shields to fight coronavirus

SpaceX is manufacturing its own hand sanitizer and face shields with plans to donate the materials to hospitals and places in need to help fight the novel coronavirus pandemic, according to an internal memo first reported by CNBC and seen by The Verge. The company also plans to host a voluntary blood drive at its headquarters in Hawthorne, California, and is looking into setting up drives at other SpaceX locations. The email, sent to SpaceX employees, claims that the home-brewed hand sanitizer made by the facilities, materials engineering, and health and safety teams “complies with CDC guidelines and is effective at killing COVID-19.” The face shields are being manufactured by the same team that builds space suits and crew equipment. So far, engineers made up to 75 masks over the weekend and donated them to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, according to the email. The team also donated 100 Tyvek coverall suits to medical staff there. Neither Cedars-Sinai Medical Center nor SpaceX immediately responded to a request for comment about the donations. The memo also addresses ways that the company is helping out its employees during the pandemic. For example, all food outlets at SpaceX sites are cutting their food prices in half, and the company is now letting hourly employees scan their badges to clock their hours rather than use a fingerprint scanner. The memo, which shows support for health care workers and others in the midst of the crisis, comes just a few weeks after the company’s CEO Elon Musk made light of the pandemic. Originally, Musk said the panic surrounding COVID-19 was dumb and repeatedly tried to downplay the seriousness of the disease, telling employees in an email that they were more likely to die in a car crash than from the virus. Now, two SpaceX workers have tested positive for COVID-19, while another dozen are in quarantine. Employees at the company’s in-house school have expressed concern for their safety as they’ve been required to come into work during the pandemic, according to a report from BuzzFeed. In the weeks since, Musk has offered to use his companies to help support patients and those fighting the pandemic. His other company, Tesla, recently bought 1,000 surplus ventilators from China and donated them to the state of California. Tesla also sent up to 50,000 N95 surgical masks to the University of Washington’s Medical Center. Meanwhile, Tesla is working with the medical device company Medtronic to start producing ventilators to help hospitals facing potential shortages as more COVID-19 patients require oxygen. Musk noted on Twitter that Tesla’s Gigafactory in New York would open “as soon as humanly possible” to start ventilator production to help the state. Other companies, like Ford, GM, Apple, and Facebook, have also been trying to help the country’s strained health care system by donating or making desperately needed medical supplies as the pandemic worsens throughout the US.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21194400/spacex-coronavirus-hand-sanitizer-face-shields-donation-hospital

Science

The Verge

2020-03-25 00:00:00

2020

3.0

25

Barbara Krasnoff

How to find keyboard shortcuts for Zoom

When you’re in the middle of a Zoom video meeting at home and your cat suddenly decides to start bawling for its dinner, you’ll want to mute your audio in a hurry. In that case, you have a choice: you can either reach for your mouse or touchpad and start searching for the “Mute” button or you can use a quick keyboard shortcut to cut off that noise immediately. Zoom has a long list of keyboard shortcuts that you can use before or during a videoconference. By using these shortcuts, you can quickly join a meeting; mute and unmute the audio; start, pause, and stop recording; switch views from Speaker (a large image of the person speaking) to Gallery (several equally sized images, no matter who is speaking); and perform a variety of other tasks. You can easily find a list of those tasks, and the shortcuts that you can use, in your Zoom app: Of course, the keys you press on a Mac or a Windows PC will be different, but no matter which platform you use, those shortcuts can be really useful when you’re on a laptop Zoom call. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. For more information, see our ethics policy.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21194324/zoom-keyboard-shortcuts-mac-pc-video-conference-call-how-to

How-to

The Verge

2020-03-25 00:00:00

2020

3.0

25

Natt Garun

ClassPass brings back live-streamed workout classes to help you get fit at home

ClassPass is bringing back its previously discontinued ClassPass Live offering to allow fitness studios to stream workouts and other wellness sessions to members through Facebook Live, Twitch, Instagram Live, and YouTube, reports TechCrunch. The service initially launched back in March 2018, but it shut down late last year. ClassPass users will not need an additional subscription to access ClassPass Live. Instead, they can use credits to buy classes, like they would an in-studio session, and stream them straight from the mobile app. ClassPass also says it will not be taking any commission from live classes sold from now until June 1st, so businesses worldwide will receive the full value of each purchase. At least 500 studios have signed up to offer live-streamed classes so far, including popular chains like Physique 57, YogaWorks, and PureBarre. For those who aren’t ClassPass users, the company is also offering select videos from previously streamed classes for free to anyone who signs up for an account and watches the videos from the ClassPass app. ClassPass joins several other fitness apps that have begun offering live and on-demand workout videos for free as multiple businesses have temporarily closed and people stay indoors due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. Peloton and Fitbit extended their free digital trials to offer access for free for 90 days, Tonal made its yoga class available to stream for free on YouTube, and Barry’s Bootcamp has begun hosting free classes on its IGTV account twice daily.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21193799/classpass-live-resumes-classes-at-home-workout-fitness-social-distancing

Apps

The Verge

2020-03-25 00:00:00

2020

3.0

25

Taylor Lyles

DoNotPay’s new service will try to help you get bill extensions due to coronavirus

DoNotPay is ready to help you out if you need to delay your rent, credit card, or utility bill payments as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. The company, known for its legal aid chatbot, is launching a new service that requests waivers and payment extensions from companies and landlords. The new product allows the service to identify any bills such as utilities and rent that are eligible for an extension or a late fee waiver. DoNotPay will then reach out to the company to make a “compassionate and polite request.” If the request is denied, the service will send out a second letter citing relevant local and state laws. Right now, this service is only available in the US, but DoNotPay founder Joshua Browder told The Verge that the company is looking to bring the service to other countries, such as the UK. Although not all 50 US states have coronavirus-related laws or orders in effect, some states, including California and New York, have measures in place forbidding landlords from using unreasonable late fees on housing matters or evicting tenants at this time. DoNotPay says it will use the “full force of the local and state laws” for states with no related coronavirus laws or orders in effect. When it comes to credit card bills, Browder told The Verge that extensions or waivers for these matters are a “negotiation process.” Some companies, such as Apple, are allowing card holders to skip their March payment, but Browder said a majority of businesses are treating business “as usual,” requesting customers pay their statements on time with no extensions or waivers. The pandemic has put a harsh financial burden on many Americans as businesses shut down and many lose their source of income. Although some companies are waiving or extending payments, many companies are furthering the financial burden by sticking to strict deadlines and late fees. This new DoNotPay service is meant to allow Americans to focus less on finances and more on staying healthy and taking care of their loved ones. DoNotPay originally launched back in 2018, allowing individuals to receive legal advice through an AI-powered legal counsel. The app provides numerous legal aid services and will draft documents to pursue legal action against an individual or company.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21192765/donotpay-rent-bill-delay-chatbot-coronavirus-extension-laws-pandemic

Web

The Verge

2020-03-25 00:00:00

2020

3.0

25

Monica Chin

Samsung’s new Galaxy Tab A offers LTE connectivity

Samsung has just refreshed the Galaxy Tab A , and the new model costs just $279.. It features an 8.4-inch screen, a 5,000mAh battery, and LTE connectivity. The tablet is available now for $279. Samsung is currently shipping the Verizon model, but it says the tablet will be available through AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and US Cellular in the coming weeks. Samsung has made a few other updates from last year’s 8-inch Galaxy Tab A: the new tablet includes a 5MP front camera (the 8-inch model had a 2MP shooter), a main display resolution of 1920 x 1080 (last year’s had 1280 x 800) and an octa-core processor. (The previous tablet had the quad-core Snapdragon 429.) You’re making a couple of trade-offs for the new model, though. Mainly, the battery is a bit smaller: 5,000mAh compared to last year’s 5,100mAh. The new device also runs Android Pie, despite the fact that Android 10 has been out since September 2019. Samsung is pushing the tablet as an entry-level entertainment device for families. The company is also offering a discount of $7.50 off for new subscribers to its Samsung Kids Plus app, which provides educational games and videos for kids. The deal applies to the first month following a one-month free trial.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21194078/samsung-galaxy-tab-1-lte-connectivity-battery-life-price

Tech

The Verge

2020-03-25 00:00:00

2020

3.0

25

Jay Peters

Nook Miles is my favorite addition to Animal Crossing: New Horizons

In my first weekend playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons, I had grand designs to pay off my initial mortgage and plant a robust orchard of fruit — but I didn’t expect my proudest accomplishment to be picking more than 6,250 weeds. I was driven to complete that herculean feat because I was rewarded with Nook Miles, a new currency in the series that I’ve become obsessed with collecting. In New Horizons, you earn Nook Miles for doing just about anything on your island, such as traveling to other islands, talking to villagers, plucking weeds, or fishing. If, for example, you catch 100 fish, you’ll get a stamp on your fishing card, a few hundred Nook Miles, and a new fish-catching goal to shoot for. New Horizons also offers Nook Miles Plus, a rotating set of five mini-tasks like catching five bugs or talking to three villagers. So if I don’t feel like tackling a big challenge, like paying off my huge mortgage or trying to catch a rare fish, I can spend a few minutes chatting with some of my island’s residents to get miles instead. Nook Miles can be turned into great in-game rewards, like an expanded inventory or a way to quickly select tools. I also find I’m a lot more willing to spend Nook Miles because they can’t be used for bell-based goals like my home’s mortgage. Nook Miles may seem like micro-progression systems you might have encountered in mobile or free-to-play games like Fortnite — and that’s intentional, according to New Horizons’ director Aya Kyogoku. Nook Miles were designed in part to help ease players from the smartphone spinoff Pocket Camp into the new game. “We did realize that a lot of the fans who started playing Animal Crossing for the first time with Pocket Camp may have difficulties jumping into titles like New Horizons,” Kyogoku told The Verge. But even if Nook Miles give some structure to a series that’s sometimes better known for giving you a blank canvas to make your own fun, I like how they offer tiny goals I can tackle at any time. The system really comes together when you use Nook Miles to buy Nook Miles Tickets, which let you go on a trip to a special island you can only visit one time. That island is typically filled with fish, bugs, fruit, and other resources to gather, which you can sell or use in some other way to improve your island. The whole time I’m making the trip, gathering resources, and bringing things back, I’m earning more Nook Miles that I can put toward my next ticket or one of the many other rewards offered. There are dozens of Nook Miles stamp cards, so I’m guessing that even when I’ve paid off every house mortgage and decked out my island to look exactly the way I want, I’ll still have goals that will take me weeks to work through. I’m really looking forward to tackling them — though I’m glad I’ve already pulled every weed I need for the “Greedy Weeder” stamp card.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21192570/animal-crossing-new-horizons-nook-miles-addition

Gaming

The Verge

2020-03-25 00:00:00

2020

3.0

25

Ewan Wilson

Why Half-Life’s City 17 was pivotal to gaming’s post-Soviet obsession

Half-Life 2 didn’t just give us an original setting; it introduced many in the West to a whole new style of landscape, geography, and architecture. City 17 may have been fictional, but the influences were plain to see. Set somewhere in Eastern Europe, the metropolis drew clearly from real post-Soviet spaces. Art director Viktor Antonov has previously talked about how his childhood hometown of Sofia and how his formative urban explorations there inspired the creation of City 17. Other places like Belgrade and St. Petersburg were also used as reference. Even without its monolithic Citadel and sci-fi trappings, City 17 was an immensely explorable place. From its grand train terminal — a reformulation of Budapest’s Western station — to its post-industrial edgelands and grotty courtyards and apartment blocks, the city felt familiar, while simultaneously appearing fresh and even exotic to players who are unfamiliar with post-Soviet particularities. City 17 would go on to act as a kind of prototype for a whole swathe of games featuring these kinds of settings. Valve was a giant America corporation, so its success emboldened both Western developers and smaller studios working out of Russia and Eastern Europe who now knew their localities could export well. There’s also growing interest in post-Soviet settings outside of games. The mood of these places seems to strike a chord with thousands of Instagram accounts and almost as many coffee table tomes, all documenting ruins of the USSR. Like these photographic accounts, video games re-create images of hostile landscapes and ravaged cities, and slowly but surely, post-Soviet environments have become ubiquitous. This modern interest in everything post-Soviet is unusual. “It’s weird after this amount of time that it should still be such a thing. The Soviet Union fell apart in 1991, so it’s been gone for a very long time,” Owen Hatherley, journalist and author of Landscapes of Communism and The Adventures of Owen Hatherley in the Post-Soviet Space, tells me. “You wouldn’t see people in the 40s describing Eastern Europe as post-Habsburg, it’s just not how it was interpreted.” For Hatherley, our somewhat puzzling obsession with post-Sovietness raises two questions: “Why is this still the lens through which the area is interpreted? And why is it interesting to people that have absolutely nothing to do with it?” “There’s an element of exotica, of it being a terrifying evil alternative world,” Hatherley explains. “But I think actually the allure comes from the art world, and then percolated outwards from there. Firstly, there are the ruins and the kind of landscapes you get in [Andrei] Tarkovsky films, particularly in Stalker. But there are also the obsessions with Chernobyl and the kind of ghost towns left there. It sort of became an alternative way of telling a horror story. This idea of a gigantic, horrifying zone.” A few years after the release of Half-Life 2 came the Ukrainian-developed S.T.A.L.K.E.R., an open-world game that played out in a fictional version of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster site called The Zone. It was loosely based on Tarkovsky’s film, itself an adaptation of the Strugatsky brothers’ Roadside Picnic novel. S.T.A.L.K.E.R., with its post-industrial ruins and ghostly Pripyat, represents an adjacent obsession. It’s become popular to want to visit the area, both virtually and in reality, where for a mere $100, you can book a tour around the affected area, Geiger counter in hand. Chernobyl and its abandoned towns continually pop up in games. That includes American blockbusters like Call of Duty but also the many games that have attempted to recapture S.T.A.L.K.E.R.’s dreary wasteland in the intervening years. Likewise, the survival genre is also steeped in a post-Soviet aesthetic — PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, Rust, Escape from Tarkov — all following in the wake of Day Z, which originally melded popular zombie survival fantasies with the fictional Soviet “Chernarus” map from ARMA2. Even the latest in gaming’s battle royal craze, Call of Duty: Warzone, is set in a post-Soviet style region called “Verdansk.” Beyond a romanticized lust for ruins and an obsession with Chernobyl, post-Soviet settings can also be, as Hatherley explains, an “alternative way of looking at an existing society. You have most of the things that we have except it’s assembled in the wrong order.” One example of this is the upcoming Atom RPG, a post-apocalyptic game inspired by older RPGs like Fallout and Wasteland. While the Fallout series is famously set in the nuclear-ravaged wastelands of America, Atom RPG draws from the late Soviet Union. Its developers, Atom Team, are a multinational studio based in Poland, Ukraine, Russia, and Latvia. Anton Krasilnikov, one of Atom Team’s writers, tells me about the infamous “utilitarian block of flats” that served as inspiration for areas of the game. “We integrated a lot of government produced household products that most people from post-Soviet countries will recognise. This includes edibles like condensed milk, canned meat, biscuits, Pyraniks, and vodka. We also included familiar items like duct tape, glue, posters, books, toys, etc. as well as automobiles like the GAZ-20 and GAZ-66.” For many, the appeal of something like Atom RPG will be the reconfigured nature of its world. While all of the individual elements are commonplace, the whole feels alternative-world, at least to those living outside the post-Soviet sphere. Krasilnikov tells me that the majority of the development team witnessed the late ‘80s and ‘90s first-hand. “We remember the movies, music, atmosphere, crime waves, socio-economic and political unevenness, and unrest. Despite the hardships we remember these times fondly, since we matured alongside them.” Many of the game’s characters — “hard-headed, idealistic communists that refuse to accept the apocalypse … corrupt and lazy officials … simple folk who are just living day to day, struggling with the little money they have” — are based on fiction from the period as well as real people and situations the development team lived through. “Cultures and ways of life that no longer exist always fascinate people. The Soviet period is no exception. The way of life and culture that took place there is now perceived, especially in the West, with a special kind of allure. It seems exotic, even alien,” says Krasilnikov. Another significant element that seems to captivate us has to do with the anxieties we feel around the fact that our days are numbered. “For various reasons, climate change among them, society gets obsessed with visions of a modern industrial society that has collapsed and become a series of ghost towns,” says Hatherley. This is why post-Soviet landscapes and obsessions around Chernobyl seem to so closely overlap. Our fascination with Chernobyl continues as we become more ecologically anxious than ever. While we often gravitate toward dead and decaying worlds, it’s important to remember that, as Hatherley mentions, many of these post-Soviet places are actually inhabited. “There’s a temptation to go around pointing at Soviet housing estates and shouting about what awfully bleak and ruined they are. But they aren’t ruins, there are thousands of people living in them.” The games of Alexander Ignatov are far more personal than apocalyptic. It’s Winter, with its “panel houses, snow, overcast sky, tiny kitchen, and shabby staircase,” lets you wander a small Russian apartment complex. A collaboration with poet Ilya Mazo, the game garnered a surprising amount of attention, despite the slowness and mundanity. “Perhaps players wanted, subconsciously even, to feel what Russian winter sadness was like. How it feels to be left alone with their thoughts in an empty and unfriendly world,” Ignatov explains. While the It’s Winter store page talks about how there’s “no room for adventures and breathtaking plot,” players seemed to be engaged just by exploring the austere environment and were pulled in by the somber mood and atmosphere. Ignatov tells me that he finds it difficult to think of the game as being attractive to anyone. “Russian players were very focused on the game’s flaws, and often commented that it was too similar to reality — why pay for the game when you can just look out of the window? — which made it feel repulsive. For Eastern European expatriates, perhaps the game was nostalgic, but it’s difficult for me to imagine what attracted other non-Russian players other than exoticism.” Ignatov’s follow-up game, Routine Feat, is closer to capturing his own personal mood. While the development of It’s Winter took an emotional toll on Ignatov, Routine Feat was a more life-affirming experience that helped him recover. “Routine Feat is my everyday life, but exaggerated in terms of loneliness and monotony. I drew inspiration from the hot and sweltering summers of my hometown, as well as Viktor Pivovarov’s ‘Projects for a Lonely Person,’ and the music of Russian underground bands like Talnik and Curd Lake.” Both of Ignatov’s games present places that feel authentic and appear to have real historical weight to them. “I lived in a one-room apartment with my parents in a house similar to the one in the game. It was the happiest time of my life, and I tried to convey this carefree attitude through the bright and sunny environment. I also tried to hone in all the tiny details from my life in those years — an old radio and TV, the birds singing outside the window, a refrigerator without a light.” Hatherley believes that a lot of the recent interest in post-Soviet settings is being driven by work done in those countries themselves. “A lot of it is just people documenting the recent past and trying to understand the society that’s been left to them, especially on their own terms rather than simply through received opinion. It was an evil totalitarian state, it was wonderful, it was a great empire — there’s all sorts of interpretations. There’s a lot of young people in these countries asking what it was all about, and one of the ways in which they’re trying to do that is by exploring it.” Ignatov was born after the collapse of the USSR in 1996. “I don’t know any other world except post-Soviet Russia. I know it from the idealized tales of the older generation, and from works of art. For me, post-Soviet is living in the remains of something more ancient and powerful, some kind of perished civilization, from which there are only the broken pipes of factories and the ruins of cultural centres and palaces remaining,” he says. “But post-Soviet also means complete dullness and stillness of life on the periphery — the concentration of minds and creative forces in the big cities. It is a lack of jobs, no hope for a decent future, homophobia instilled by the state, poverty and abandonment.” Post-Soviet means many things to many different people. There are universal elements, things that appear familiar no matter which part of the former USSR you visit, but there are also huge divergences. “The idea of bleak and monolithic landscapes has been around for as long as the Cold War,” says Hatherley. But there are also things like the awesome cosmic ruins highlighted in Frédéric Chaubin’s CCCP photography book. “I think that book really changed how people looked at these landscapes. People went from looking for grey and nondescript to looking for gigantic, sci-fi, space age structures.” We see a little of both when returning to City 17. The Combine’s futuristic alien structures echo the Soviet Union’s massive brutalist buildings, while elsewhere, there’s a mix of more earthly architecture like the rows of “khrushchyovka” in the background. It’s in City 17’s public housing, industry, and infrastructure that we get this sense of nostalgia for childhood memories and what’s been lost. These ghostly elements are what makes post-Soviet settings so powerful: you can almost feel the past’s spectral presence. City 17’s architect, Viktor Antonov, once said that the reason they chose an Eastern European setting was “that it represents the collision of the old and the new in a way that is difficult to capture in the United States… there’s this sense of a strongly-grounded historical place.” When I ask Ignatov whether he sees a connection between his games and Half-Life, he begins by comparing the buildings. The panel houses on the horizon bringing back a flood of memories. “They’re the same houses that me and most of my friends live in,” he says. “When I was fairly young, I only really knew the big blockbuster games where the world was either in outer space or in America. With City 17 I suddenly saw all this familiar architecture, Cyrillic text and advertisements in the streets — it was a magical feeling, and made it feel like those events could all be playing out somewhere here in Russia,” says Ignatov. “I wish more games explored similar settings, but without simply exploiting the themes of the Cold War and the Chernobly disaster.”

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21190794/half-life-alyx-city-17-post-soviet-architecture-gaming

Gaming

The Verge

2020-03-25 00:00:00

2020

3.0

25

Cameron Faulkner

Sony’s WH-1000XM3 wireless headphones are nearly $100 off at Amazon

Only the best deals on Verge-approved gadgets get the Verge Deals stamp of approval, so if you're looking for a deal on your next gadget or gift from major retailers like Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, Target, and more, this is the place to be. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. For more information, see our ethics policy. It’s possible that noise-canceling headphones suddenly ended up on your wishlist due to the extended self-quarantine period many of us are experiencing around the world. If that’s the case for you, we’re finding good deals every day on some of our favorite models. Today’s deal is on the Sony WH-1000XM3, which are easily among the best headphones you can currently purchase. Instead of their usual $350 price, Amazon is selling them for $255. These rank highly in our buying guide that focuses on the best wireless headphones. They have excellent sound, efficient noise cancellation, long battery life, and they charge via USB-C. However, their touch controls can be finicky if you’re out in extreme cold temperatures. Also, they can’t pair simultaneously to two Bluetooth sources; it’s one or the other. If that’s no bother, then you won’t mind these flaws. Sony WH-1000XM3 headphones If you haven’t yet played Doom (2016) and your PC meets the recommended specs, I highly suggest you pick it up at Newegg today. It’s just $6 for a digital code that includes the base game and all of the downloadable content. This code can be redeemed on Steam, and if you want to see what the hype is about before picking up Doom: Eternal, this is an easy, affordable purchase to recommend. Doom (2016) Target is running a special buy one, get one for less deal on digital gift cards for the major console gaming platforms, including the Nintendo eShop, Microsoft Store for Xbox and PC, and PlayStation Store. It’s buy one at full price, get a second one at 10 percent off. This deal works with any price amount that it offers, and you can mix and match cards in case you have two different consoles. All offer digital delivery, so you won’t have to wait for them to arrive in the mail. Nintendo eShop gift card Xbox gift card PlayStation Store gift card Today, the Microsoft Surface Pro 7 with a Type Cover included costs $600 at Best Buy. This deal is on the base model with a 10th Gen Intel Core i3 processor, 4GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage. Suffice it to say, it’s not the most powerful configuration, but it’s a good deal if you want a versatile tablet-meets-laptop without breaking the bank. The Type Cover usually costs a little over $100, and Microsoft currently sells this model without one for $749. Microsoft Surface Pro 7 with Type Cover One of the best deals this week has been on the Samsung Galaxy S20, which is seeing a steep $200 discount. You can find that at Amazon and Best Buy, but there’s an even more attractive offer happening at B&H Photo. The phone is $200 off, and you’ll get a 128GB microSD card and a set of Samsung Galaxy Buds truly wireless earphones for free with purchase. Samsung Galaxy S20

https://www.theverge.com/good-deals/2020/3/25/21193768/sony-headphones-games-amazon-deals-gift-cards-sale-newegg

Good Deals

The Verge

2020-03-25 00:00:00

2020

3.0

25

Monica Chin

Go read this essay by a woman whose husband has COVID-19

Even as COVID-19 numbers explode around the country, many Americans are still experiencing the pandemic from afar. But when a family member is infected with the virus, that can change in a matter of hours. In a new essay, New York Times Magazine deputy editor Jessica Lustig describes the impact her husband’s diagnosis has had on her family’s life. At the time of writing, Lustig’s husband (referred to as “T”) had been experiencing symptoms of the virus for 12 days, including chills, aches, a fever, and a bloody cough. T is 56 with an underlying health condition (severe asthma), and he has been confined to the couple’s bedroom. Lustig outlines the logistics of caring for T while quarantining herself; she describes sending friends to scour nearby stores for Tylenol, keeping family and friends updated in group chats, and disinfecting every surface in her home. But throughout, Lustig also describes the virus’s emotional toll. She worries about who would care for her 16-year-old daughter if she fell ill. On a phone call with a doctor about whether to bring T to the hospital, she bursts into tears, saying she’s afraid to make the wrong call. The essay a poignant picture of how differently an afflicted family can experience the pandemic: It’s as if we are in a time warp in which we have accelerated at 1½ time speed, while everyone around us remains in the present — already the past to us — and they, blissfully, unconsciously, go about their ordinary lives, experiencing the growing news, the more urgent advisories and directives, as a vast communal experience, sharing posts and memes about cabin fever, about home-schooling, about social distancing, about how hard it all is, while we’re living in our makeshift sick ward, living in what will soon be the present for more and more of them. For those of us who are still healthy, who are watching the outbreaks through graphs and tweets, it’s important to remember that the numbers we see are more than numbers. They are human lives, with their friends and families and everything else they contain.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21193857/coronavirus-pandemimc-covid-19-new-york-times-essay

Science

The Verge

2020-03-25 00:00:00

2020

3.0

25

Adi Robertson

Twitter locks The Federalist’s account over coronavirus ‘chickenpox parties’ tweet

On Wednesday, Twitter briefly locked conservative site The Federalist’s account for suggesting people deliberately expose themselves to the novel coronavirus. The Federalist promoted the medically unsound idea of “medical ‘chickenpox parties’” to infect young, healthy people with the virus under controlled quarantine. The tweet was removed for violating the social media platform’s policies, and a Twitter spokesperson tells The Verge that “the account was temporarily locked for violating the Twitter Rules regarding COVID-19.” Twitter bans coronavirus-related content that “goes directly against guidance from authoritative sources of global and local public health information.” That includes tweets promoting ineffective or counterproductive treatments, denying the effectiveness of measures like social distancing, or contradicting known public health facts. The Federalist was tweeting an article where an Oregon physician urged readers to “seriously consider a somewhat unconventional approach” to the pandemic. But “unconventional” is a bit of a euphemism. The hospital system is overloaded even without deliberate infections, and unlike with chickenpox, we don’t know how long COVID-19 immunity lasts. In other words, hosting a coronavirus “chickenpox party” is a very bad idea. The new coronavirus is spreading through the US, and several states have made emergency declarations. The World Health Organization has declared it a pandemic. Here are the basics: The coronavirus pandemic has led to a global lockdown and thousands of deaths, as well as economic chaos. America has the third-highest number of confirmed cases, after China and Italy. Congress is attempting to mitigate the economic harm with a stimulus package. President Donald Trump has chronically minimized the risk of coronavirus infection and made falsely rosy claims about new treatments and vaccines, recently alarming experts by suggesting social distancing restrictions end by Easter Sunday. Other Republicans have either downplayed the threat or argued that some Americans should accept a heightened risk of death to let the country leave lockdown. Social media platforms have to decide when these statements could have a negative effect on the larger pandemic response, sometimes drawing ire in the process. Earlier this week, blogging platform Medium removed an article from technologist and former Mitt Romney campaign team member Aaron Ginn. Ginn claimed that the COVID-19 response was being driven by “hysteria” or a “mob-like fear.” A Medium spokesperson told The Verge that Ginn’s essay violated rules against “controversial, suspect, and extreme content,” which cover distorted or pseudoscientific arguments that could have serious social repercussions. “Every day, we are removing coronavirus-related posts that violate our rules,” the spokesperson said. Twitter also slapped a warning on the article when it was later reposted elsewhere, telling readers who clicked the link that it was “potentially harmful or associated with a violation of Twitter’s Terms of Service.” Ginn’s Medium article didn’t fit the stereotype of social media misinformation posts, which often incorporate alarmist exaggerations, blatantly made-up facts, or miracle cure scams. But critics like University of Washington biology professor Carl Bergstrom cited logical leaps that painted a misleading — yet widely cited — portrait of the pandemic. The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, however, slammed Medium’s decision and urged platforms not to “require conformity with the judgment of expert institutions, even as many of those institutions themselves woefully misjudged the situation months or weeks ago.” Facebook also recently published guidance for COVID-19 hoaxes and misinformation, drawing a line around content that could “contribute to imminent physical harm.” That includes statements like saying that social distancing doesn’t work — something Facebook says it recently started taking down. It doesn’t include more abstract claims like “conspiracy theories about the origin of the virus,” which aren’t considered immediately harmful, but can be de-ranked and flagged with a warning label, like other false information on the platform.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21190928/twitter-locks-account-encouraging-coronavirus-chickenpox-parties

Policy

The Verge

2020-03-25 00:00:00

2020

3.0

25

Dieter Bohn

The new iPad Pro is excellent today, but can it deliver augmented reality tomorrow?

The headline on this story — never buy hardware today based on a promise of software tomorrow — doesn’t really apply to the new iPad Pro, which I reviewed yesterday. But I’ve been thinking about it ever since I hit the publish button. The phrase is a mantra we repeat over and over here at The Verge when there’s a promise that a future software update will fix a bug on a device we’re reviewing. It’s the default advice we give out when such a promise has been made, borne out of years of experience with these things. These “bugfixes and improvements” rarely eliminate the original problem entirely, but sometimes you get surprised. We’re about to find out if Samsung can buck that trend with the focus hunting issues on the Galaxy S20 Ultra, which is getting an update globally right now. You’re reading Processor, a newsletter about computers by Dieter Bohn. Dieter writes about consumer tech, software, and the most important news of the day from The Verge. This newsletter delivers “mostly daily,” which nets out three to four times a week, some of which include longer columns. You can subscribe to Processor and learn more about it here. Processor is also a YouTube series with the same goal: providing smart and surprising analysis with a bit of humor. Subscribe to all of The Verge’s great videos here! Unfortunately, I haven’t found definitive evidence it does, but signs seem to look good based on some early user reports. Even more unfortunately, I have to admit that my review unit is locked up tight at my office where I absolutely can’t get it — so I may not be able to test the update myself for some time. Anyway, the advice is on my mind after reviewing the iPad Pro even though — again — it only really tangentially relates. It’s because so much of the iPad is about its potential, which for years was always just one update away. First it was waiting for better multitasking, then a better web browser and USB device support, and now we’re waiting to see if that Magic Keyboard with its trackpad can unlock more capabilities on this thing. I unfortunately haven’t had a chance to try out the new Magic Keyboard yet, though I did do some trackpad testing. Stay tuned for more on the trackpad next week — or just go on and try it yourself, as iOS and iPadOS 13.4 are out now with mouse and keyboard support for iPads, iCloud Drive folder sharing, and more. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it, shoot me an email. The standout new hardware feature this year, LIDAR, simply doesn’t have direct support from AR apps to justify itself yet. It makes you wonder if the next flagship iPhone will have LIDAR too. Its inclusion on the iPad Pro seems like a signal that Apple thinks truly good AR requires LIDAR, as Nilay Patel pointed out in the Vergecast last week. Despite some recent travails with Catalyst apps on the Mac, Apple is generally really good at getting developers on board with its new capabilities, so I have a high level of faith that those LIDAR-enhanced AR apps will come. (Disclosure: my wife works for Oculus, which works on VR.) There are fun things to do in AR today, but in the popular imagination it’s definitely one of the many “in five years it’ll be huge” technologies — alongside self-driving cars and robot butlers. Perhaps the timeline to widespread AR is considerably shorter, but it’s certainly not imminent. I think Apple deserves more credit than it usually gets for taking big bets on its products. Usually, it has a reputation for being more conservative than other companies — it was late to 3G and wireless charging. But just as often, Apple risks unproven tech on important products. Not all of them pan out, of course (looking at you MacBook keyboard and Touch Bar), but just as often they do: truly wireless headphones were kind of meh before the AirPods, consumers didn’t rise up and reject headphone jack-less phones, and even the iPad Pro itself was a risk. When it was first introduced, there was no guarantee that it could turn into what it’s become today. Sometimes Apple’s bets are about pushing the entire market forward, intentionally seeding ideas that aren’t quite ready now in order to force the future it believes should come. That’s absolutely the story with USB originally and with the Great Port Cull on phones and laptops over the past few years. I think it’s likely a similar story with LIDAR and AR. I have no idea if LIDAR and the idea of pervasive AR that people access by holding up big tablets will become bets that pan out or not. Unlike some of Apple’s other bets, though, the only hassle the LIDAR causes is the size of the camera bump and the cost of the part. Which means that while I don’t think Apple’s big AR push is a reason for anybody to go buy the new iPad Pro (unless you’re an AR developer, I guess), I also don’t think it’s a reason to avoid it. So: buy the iPad Pro for the screen, the speed, the microphones, or because you really do think it can replace your laptop. Those are all good reasons. Just don’t buy it for the LIDAR — never buy hardware today based on a promise of software tomorrow. For $30, you can support organizations that are helping to supply those fighting on the front lines against the novel coronavirus. That $30 gets you a bunch of good games, including Into The Breach, Hollow Knight, Undertale, Totally Accurate Battle Simulator, The Witness, Superhot, and several other titles. The ebooks cover a range of topics like mindfulness and coping, as well as Saga Volume 1, The Boys Volume 1, along with a few more digital comics. The pack even includes crosswords and Music Maker EDM Edition, so you can make some beats while you’re at home. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. For more information, see our ethics policy. Prices displayed are based on the MSRP at time of posting. ┏ The Redmi K30 Pro is Xiaomi’s new price-performance champion. If you wanted proof that what you’re paying for on a Galaxy S20 flagship isn’t the specs, the K30 Pro makes a very solid case for that. ┏ Wyze’s new Band wearable and smart scale are available today. Both of these seem much nicer than I would have guessed — though of course we’ll need to try them out directly to say for sure. I still think it’s a little odd to get these categories of devices from Wyze, but maybe you don’t. ┏ Impossible CEO says it can make a meat ‘unlike anything that you’ve had before’. I love this idea. Trying to make something that mimics beef means you’ll get judged by that standard — and there are some very good burgers out there, you know? But if the company can just lean into the strengths of its plants and not try to aim to mimic something, that could turn into something really special. ┏ Spotify is revoking support for all third-party DJ apps. You know, Spotify, not every company needs to make every single product. Sometimes being the base for an ecosystem of third party apps lets you become this little thing that people call a “platform,” and it helps you become the standard. Just a thought! ┏ Apple updates Safari’s anti-tracking tech with full third-party cookie blocking. Far ahead of Chrome, and honestly, much less breaks than you might expect. ┏ Firefox is launching a new test pilot with Scroll to pay web publishers. The Verge is part of the Scroll network. I still have some reservations about how much data Scroll is collecting (though I understand why it’s necessary, given how the web works) — but the CEO promises that options for deleting and anonymizing are on the way. I’m a subscriber, for what it’s worth. And it may be self-serving to point this out, but paying directly for journalism is likely to become more important in the coming months as the ad market contracts. ┏ Europe turns off instruments on some of its deep-space probes during coronavirus pandemic. You can’t get much further away from the coronavirus than this, yet it still has a big effect. ┏ The true impact of SpaceX’s Starlink constellation on astronomy is coming into focus. Loren Grush gets deep into all the issues, but I found this part in particular particularly alarming: As for what that means for these astronomy fields, one obvious concern is that a potentially hazardous asteroid could go unnoticed until it’s too late to act appropriately. It’s also possible observers will have to take expensive countermeasures to get the kinds of images they want. “It may mean you have to observe twice as long, if you have to throw away half your data,” says McDowell. “So that’s expensive. Or you may need to make changes to your telescope design, to stop reflections from a satellite.” Two trends to keep an eye on. The first is continued reduction in bandwidth usage for video to help balance the internet’s overall load. The second sort of runs counter to that: more ways to be social with video or chat while consuming content. ┏ YouTube is reducing its default video quality to standard definition for the next month. I don’t know how much it will help, but I think I’m going to just let this default stand rather than manually switch it up to the higher resolution, just in case it’s a help to my neighbors. By default, videos will start playing in standard definition (480p) quality, according to Bloomberg. People who want to watch videos in high definition can still do so, but they must manually select that option. ┏ Sony will slow down PlayStation downloads in Europe, but says multiplayer will remain ‘robust’. ┏ Instagram will let you browse posts with friends over video chat to promote social distancing. This is honestly very clever: Part of this new effort includes a new feature Instagram is calling Co-Watching, which will let you browse posts with your friends over in-app video chat. The feature can be accessed by starting a video chat through the Instagram Direct messaging tab and tapping the photo icon in the bottom left of the video chat screen. It lets you look at saved, liked, and recommended posts together as a group. ┏ How to use Netflix Party to stream movies with your friends. ┏ How Half-Life: Alyx’s designers built an escapist dystopia with a spot of hope. There are a lot of contradictions in this game, and especially in this moment — Adi Robertson gracefully navigates them in this piece.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21193076/ipad-pro-lidar-software-upates-promises-augmented-reality

Apple

The Verge

2020-03-25 00:00:00

2020

3.0

25

Barbara Krasnoff

How to choose a free videoconference app

Most people are currently relying on videoconferencing to keep in touch with work colleagues, family, and friends — and if they’re facing financial difficulties, free is best. While Zoom seems to be the most popular videoconferencing app currently, there are several applications out there that will allow people to meet online for free. We’ve listed here a few of the best known videoconferencing apps, along with a couple of popular text chat apps that include videoconferencing features. It’s worth noting that while most of these already have free versions, some are offering access to additional features for all those who are currently working from home or who want to check up on friends and relatives online. There are a number of apps we have not included, such as Facebook, WhatsApp, and FaceTime, that allow you to do video chats; however, they either require that all participants be members (Facebook, WhatsApp) or that you use a specific type of device (FaceTime). The following list includes more generalized applications that should allow you to participate without having to download the app (unless you’re the host). A good idea is to try one or two out for yourself to see how well they fit in with your style and those of your friends. This list, however, is a good place to start. Zoom has become one of the most well-known videoconferencing apps, largely because of its easy-to-use interface. The company has pushed Zoom mostly for corporate use, but it has also provided a free basic version for individuals. This version allows up to 100 users to meet, but there is a 40-minute limit on meetings of more than two people, which is, for many of us, pretty limiting. As of this writing, Zoom was not offering any special deals for those now working at home, but it does have a page offering help and advice to new users. Skype has been the go-to platform for one-on-one conversations since the beta was released in 2003. Its Meet Now feature (which is accessed by choosing the “Meet Now” button on the left side of the app) allows videoconferencing; according to the website, the maximum number of participants can vary, depending on your platform and device. There is actually a separate page that purports to let you create a free video meeting without having to actually sign up for the service, but when we tried it, both I and another staff members kept getting an error message. So if you’re using Skype to host a meeting, you’re best off downloading the app. Webex is a videoconferencing app that has been around since the ‘90s; it was acquired by Cisco in 2007. While it’s been mainly known as a business application and continues to concentrate on companies, it does have a fairly generous free version that’s worth checking out. For the current emergency, it has widened the features of the freemium version from 50 to 100 participants, gotten rid of the 40-minute limit on meetings, and added call-in abilities. If you’re not a company, you may not have heard of StarLeaf; it’s a platform for large companies — the kind where they don’t quote a price on their website; you have to call a salesperson. But it is now offering its basic video and messaging product free of charge for those trying to keep in touch during the pandemic. Another “you probably haven’t heard of it” videoconference app, Jitsi Meet is an open-source platform that lets you easily meet online by simply navigating to the site and clicking on “Go.” If you’re more technically inclined, you can build your own via Jitsu Videobridge, but most people will be happy with the quick web version, which offers many features found in more well-known apps, such as chat, session recording (to Dropbox), and the ability to “kick out” unruly participants. A lot of us are already using Slack and / or Microsoft Teams, which do have a limited number of video meeting features. If you’re wondering whether you can use a free version of Slack or Teams to do video meetings, here’s some info: Slack is mainly set up for text chat (and is in the process of rolling out a new design), but it does give you the ability to make voice and video calls as well. If you’re on the free version of Slack, you can make a video call to an individual. But if you want to host a meeting between several people, as opposed to a one-on-one conversation, and want to do it for free, you’ll need to look for an alternative. Microsoft Teams was obviously built as a competitor to Slack; because it is part of the Microsoft ecosystem of applications, it’s a good idea if you want to, say, collaborate on various Office documents, and it offers videoconferencing features. Currently, Microsoft is offering educators and those paying for G Suite the chance to use Office 365 E1 free for six months. Individuals who just use Gmail or other free apps are routed to Skype. Update March 26th, 3:20PM ET: This article has been updated to include information about Jitsi Meet. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. For more information, see our ethics policy.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21188571/free-videoconference-app-how-to-choose-zoom-skype-slack

How-to

The Verge

2020-03-25 00:00:00

2020

3.0

25

Jay Peters

Apple says customers must wait to pick up repairs locked inside its retail stores

Apple customers who didn’t pick up devices dropped off for repairs within two days of the company closing all of its retail stores will have to wait to pick them up until the stores reopen, an Apple spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider. When Apple announced on March 14th that it would be closing all retail stores outside China due to the coronavirus pandemic, the company said customers had a two-day window to retrieve any repairs. Apple tried to contact customers via phone and email to tell them they needed to pick up their devices, but any products that didn’t get retrieved in that window can’t be picked up until the stores reopen, the spokesperson told Business Insider. Apple originally said it would reopen its stores on March 27th. But on March 17th, just three days after the initial announcement, Apple decided it would keep all of its retail stores closed “until further notice.” The company has already reopened all 42 of its locations in China. Apple hasn’t shared any additional information about when it might reopen the locations. The company was not immediately available for comment. Apple may begin reopening some stores in the first half of April, according to a memo written by Deirdre O’Brien, Apple’s head of HR and its retail stores, that was obtained by Bloomberg.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21194712/apple-coronavirus-retail-store-repair-pick-up

Apple

The Verge

2020-03-25 00:00:00

2020

3.0

25

Chaim Gartenberg

CBS All Access is offering a free one-month trial, just in time to binge Star Trek: Picard

The first season of Star Trek: Picard is coming to an end on March 26th, and to celebrate, CBS is offering a free month-long trial (instead of the usual seven days) of CBS All Access to allow viewers to watch the whole season. The month-long trial doesn’t just give access to Picard, though; it’ll give viewers free access to the entire CBS All Access catalog, which includes every Star Trek show ever made (including CBS All Access exclusive Star Trek: Discovery), Cheers, CSI, CSI: Miami, Frasier, The Good Wife, The Good Fight, all of the NCIS shows, Survivor, The Twilight Zone, Twin Peaks, and more. You’ll also get access to live CBS broadcasts from your local station. Our #StarTrekPicard season finale is Thursday, and starting today until 4/23, you can watch for free on @CBSAllAccess in the US with the code: GIFT. https://t.co/i2IfFQN3I8It's felt good to bring Picard back. I can't wait to reunite with our cast and crew for Season 2. pic.twitter.com/lSmtMxgrN8 To take advantage of the deal, sign up for CBS All Access using the code GIFT anytime before April 23rd. As part of that process, you’ll need to create an account and give CBS a credit card to charge when the month is up; the monthly payment will automatically renew once the free trial is up. CBS also allows you to cancel the plan immediately and still use the entire month — so you can sign up, cancel the plan immediately, and still enjoy the full free month without having to worry about remembering to cancel at the end of the trial. To do that, head over to the CBS All Access account page, scroll down to the “Subscription” line of the “Subscription & Billing” section, and hit “Cancel Subscription.” Your account will still work for the remainder of the 30-day trial, and it will shut down at the end (unless, of course, you enjoy the content so much that you decide to pay for another month, which is likely the whole point). Any way you slice it, it’s a huge library of content and live TV for free for a month, and it’s perfect for anyone looking for a new show to binge in the current era of social distancing.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21194378/cbs-all-access-free-one-month-trial-binge-star-trek-picard

Good Deals

The Verge

2020-03-25 00:00:00

2020

3.0

25

Erin Taylor

This coronavirus anxiety subreddit addresses the emotional toll of COVID-19

COVID-19 is all anyone can talk about in real life, which means it’s all anyone can talk about on the internet, which means it’s all anyone is discussing on Reddit. There’s r/Coronavirus (1.4 million members), r/Covid19 (101,000 members), and the racist-ly named r/China_flu (101,000 members, disappointingly). These subreddits have quickly been overflowed with people seeking news about how the pandemic has thrown world economies and health care systems into collapse. They exist to disseminate information — and of course, are victim to misinformation. But there’s one much smaller, more intimate COVID-19 subreddit — Covid19_support, which boasts only 11,900 members — that is doing something different. The service it provides Reddit users is not one of news and information, but emotional support. One post in the r/Covid19_support group asked if anyone else had trouble going grocery shopping for fear of being sick, with one user responding, “I’m not so worried I’ll get the virus, I think just seeing shelves empty or a ton of people buying it will stress me out.” Others replied with worries for workers who have been deemed “essential.” Many of the posts focus on a topic that concerns many people. What about our parents and grandparents? People are having to make the difficult decision to isolate from family during a period that you want to be with them more than ever. Luckily, on r/Covid19_support, members are not alone in this struggle. Governments around the world have laid out varying instructions on how to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 which, for many people, has meant staying at home. But there’s been little direction on how to actually live through a pandemic. How does one reckon with quarantine life? What about those with mental health issues strained by isolation? How about the self-quarantining individuals who are navigating symptoms but are not in need of immediate hospitalization — who is speaking to them? As people spend more time inside the house globally, those with the privilege of having access to a phone or a computer with a clear Wi-Fi signal can try to find support for the varied problems that inevitably come with staying put, avoiding illness, or simply attempting to navigate the financial hardship that has already hit many working class people. r/Covid19_support also offers a space for those who have been let down the most by our systems — those who may not be guaranteed sick leave and can’t work from home — to seek some sort of advice on how to handle the realities they face. One member with asthma (and elderly parents) posted about having to leave work early because co-workers were joking about “survival of the fittest” and they couldn’t take it anymore. “I do think people need online forums more as the outbreak goes on, though,” moderator u/JenniferColeRhuk tells The Verge. “They want to ask questions that are very specific to them and to their situation, which aren’t going to be easily answered by FAQs or government advice. Or they see something they don’t quite understand and want someone to clarify it for them.” Unlike most subreddits, which are a free-for-all, r/Covid19_support has strict rules about who can post. It’s not that they want to censor the way people cope with the crisis, but moderators are attempting to make the community “troll-proof.” u/JenniferColeRhuk considers this paramount when “you’ve got people who are looking for reassurance and support” in creating a space for people to feel their emotions freely about a grim reality. The subreddit requires only a little moderation for misinformation, since most users are sharing their personal stories, not news. Naturally, the moderators come down the hardest on things that are emotional. u/JenniferColeRhuk explains there is zero tolerance for redditors who don’t show other users support, especially if they’re provoking others. People can get banned for telling someone to “get a grip.” r/Covid19_support originated out of a post in r/Coronavirus by u/thatreddittherapist inquiring what everyone was doing for their mental health. That idea got picked up by u/JenniferColeRhuk, so the two of them created r/Covid19_support. “[The] main difference from the other COVID-19 subs is that it’s mainly self-posts from people who are struggling with various aspects of the outbreak — worried about their friends and family, or their own health, or what will happen to their jobs,” u/JenniferColeRhuk says. Those realities are existential. Members of the subreddit, like the rest of the world, brace for the “new normal” as we look onward at a pandemic that has yet to be contained, an economy collapsing, and a global workforce no longer able to work. Internet access has become an indisputable necessity as many people socially distance in their homes or nervously await news of what is to come as they journey to their jobs, risking illness to be able to pay their rent. Subreddits such as r/Covid19_support will continue to be more important as this pandemic tolls on. As the world awaits what is to come, there is some solace to be found in anonymous strangers on the internet sharing that they too miss their parents, that they also can’t handle the boredom with their ADHD, and that they as well have struggled with layoffs due to the virus. There is an understanding hand of humanity reaching out in a latex glove to give you a pat on the back. Having been in my own house for eight days, I’ve often visited r/Covid19_support to find some sort of relief for the various stresses that this has brought on. I scroll the subreddit as I stress about whether there will actually be a rent freeze, as I wait for phone calls from home about my family members getting sick because they’re in jobs deemed “essential,” as the boredom only heightens all of my anxieties. Until the pandemic is over, whenever that is, r/Covid19_support may be one of the many ways that people are trying to cope with the crisis, together and alone in our bedrooms.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21193950/covid-19-coronavirus-anxiety-subreddit-community-support-group

Featured Stories

The Verge

2020-03-25 00:00:00

2020

3.0

25

Chris Welch

Royole claims the FlexPai 2 fixes the problems of its rough first foldable

Royole beat the Samsungs, Huaweis, and Motorolas of the world to producing a smartphone with a folding screen. I suppose the company gets some credit for being first, but the resulting product wasn’t a very good one and felt more prototype than consumer device — both in terms of hardware and software. Now, Royole has returned with the FlexPai 2 and claims it has corrected some of the design flaws of the original. The company’s second foldable phone, due sometime in the second quarter, features a 7.8-inch flexible display like the original. But this time around, Royole says it’s using a “third-generation Cicada Wing fully-flexible display” and has switched to a new, more robust hinge design “with no gap” in between the hinge and rest of the phone. The display gets 50 percent brighter than the one on the original FlexPai, and Royole promises “the smoothest folding experience in the industry even after more than 200,000 bends.” It can reach a minimum bend radius of 1mm, so you won’t have the gap of the Galaxy Z Flip or Fold. Durability remains a genuine concern in this category (especially considering the sky-high prices of foldable phones so far), with some Motorola Razr reviews mentioning unpleasant creaking sounds from its hinge mechanism. Samsung has continued improving in this area with the Galaxy Z Flip, but it’s still a very delicate device. Just by virtue of the display size, Royole claims the FlexPai 2 has the “highest movie playing area” of foldable competitors — even with its 4:3 aspect ratio, which isn’t an ideal match for movies and cinematic content. Internal upgrades include a Snapdragon 865 processor (and “global” 5G compatibility), UFS 3.0 flash storage, and LPDDR5 RAM. Perhaps more important for Royole than the FlexPai 2 is the news that the company will source its Cicada Wing display to other phone makers including ZTE for their upcoming products. Royole has shown a big interest in being a component maker for other companies and has tried to demonstrate all sorts of use cases for its flexible screens. Obviously, these boasts of improved hardware should be taken with a grain of salt; remember, the first FlexPai left a lot to be desired, and Royole has a lot to prove if it wants to be in the same conversation as Samsung and Huawei. It might’ve been first, but that came at the cost of quickly being surpassed.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21193813/royole-flexpai-2-foldable-phone-announcement

Mobile

The Verge

2020-03-25 00:00:00

2020

3.0

25

Bijan Stephen

Go read this Vice piece about the history of toxic marketing in video games

As an entertainment industry, gaming isn’t that old — it’s been around since the ‘70s, which makes it a baby compared to radio, film, and maybe even television. The story of most of that history has been one of technological progress; games today look very different than they did in the days of Pong. Since Gamergate, however, the narrative has changed: there’s a new and growing awareness of a toxicity that’s been embedded seemingly in gaming itself. That has occasioned a reckoning of sorts, with people who care about games — playing them, making them — now thinking critically about the foibles of the industry that made them. Writing in Vice today, Jess Morrissette, a professor at Marshall University, chronicled one of those industry-wide lapses: the weirdly toxic marketing from industry giants like Sega, which Morrissette concludes might have itself given rise to the latent toxicity in online gaming. (It’s an excellent companion piece to reporter Tracey Lien’s 2013 feature in Polygon on how gendered marketing created the stereotype that gaming was for boys.) Here’s Morrissette: Companies like Microsoft and Sony frequently marketed toxicity as a key selling point for their new online gaming platforms. This is a puzzling strategy from the vantage point of 2020, a time when toxicity is practically synonymous with online gaming and too often spills over into real-world harassment. Morrissette gives a ton of examples in his piece — it’s full of lightly horrifying ad copy (which of course includes that one Daikatana ad) and the weird assumptions game companies made about their consumers. Of course, like any bit of collectively forgotten history, it wasn’t all toxic; there were pockets of light. “Ads for online platforms that predated the modern internet — services like CompuServe and Prodigy — emphasized the potential of these technologies to bring people together as opposed to presenting them as platforms to trash talk strangers anonymously,” Morrissette writes. For me, the strangest thing about reading Morrissette’s piece was realizing I was squarely in the demographic these ads were targeting as they came out, and realizing that I, too, had mostly forgotten them. They went down the memory hole. I can’t help but wonder how they might have shaped my own assumptions about what was possible in games, a medium I love — it’s hard to account for how much of your perception of the way things are is shaped by the overarching culture of a time and its marketing. As Morrissette points out near the end, things eventually changed. The new millennium brought new consoles — namely the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3 — and the companies that promoted being an asshole in their ads changed their strategy for reaching potential players. “Of course, by that point, ill-mannered 12-year-olds yelling sexist, racist, and homophobic threats at rivals during online play had already attained meme status,” Morrissette writes. “In turn, when the Xbox 360 launched, Xbox Live ads were reminiscent of a bygone era: ‘Distance tears friends apart. Xbox Live brings them together.’ Similarly, marketing for the PlayStation Network would eventually focus on themes of bringing gamers together, downplaying trash talk and harassment as value propositions.” Now that we’re all quarantined together it’s hard not to think about what might have been had the gaming industry thought a little bit more about its games’ audiences. Because even though everyone’s playing them now, I think we could have gotten there a little sooner.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21194232/toxic-marketing-sega-sony-microsoft-gamergate-vice

Gaming

The Verge

2020-03-25 00:00:00

2020

3.0

25

Adi Robertson

The best games of 2020: PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC

The Verge’s favorite games on console, mobile, and PC Thankfully, 2020 is also a year full of great interactive experiences. That could mean the return of beloved franchises like Animal Crossing on the Switch or Half-Life in virtual reality, or inventive indie titles like Murder by Numbers or the final act of Kentucky Route Zero. Even Call of Duty has seen a resurgence, thanks to the free and accessible Warzone spinoff. As with last year, we’re going to be keeping tabs on all of the best games throughout the year. If we play something and recommend it, you’ll find it right here on this landing page, which will be updated regularly, so be sure to check back. And if you see the little “best games of 2020” badge on a review, know that it’s a title we truly love.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21126558/best-games-2020-ps4-ps5-xbox-nintendo-switch-pc

The Verge

2020-03-25 00:00:00

2020

3.0

25

Nicole Wetsman

Doulas in New York City are preparing to go digital

Two New York City hospital systems are barring anyone except the person in labor from the delivery room, including spouses, partners, and family members. People giving birth will have to go at it alone, which the hospitals say is necessary to protect patient safety during the COIVD-19 pandemic. The rules were instituted by New York-Presbyterian and Mount Sinai Health System, which have dozens of facilities in the New York area and together deliver nearly 20,000 babies a year. Neither hospital system is allowing visitors for adult patients, in general, which they say is to lower the risk of COIVD-19 spread in the facilities. “We encourage visitors to remain closely connected to their loved ones through virtual means,” the New York-Presbyterian policy reads. The rules are controversial; a petition against their use during delivery already has nearly 400,000 signatures. “It’s heartbreaking to hear people can’t be supported, even by partners,” says Elizabeth Mekuria, a New York City-based doula. Doulas aren’t medical professionals, but they provide support and guidance to people during pregnancy and delivery. Faced with the reality that access to delivery rooms will be limited for the foreseeable future, doulas like Mekuria are figuring out ways to support people giving birth when they can’t be physically in the room. Some, like Karla Pippa, co-founder at NYC Birth Village, already offer virtual services. “We have families across the country who may not have access to doulas, who are interested,” she says. “I do feel that, now that we’re being pushed to really figure out the online support, we can still be effective.” Pippa says she uses video chat and phone check-in calls with families who are remote. “Often families will bring in a laptop or iPad, or will get something that can hook onto the hospital bed.” The scale of the outbreak in New York and the new hospital policies mean shifting everyone into that system. “We have people due in the next week or two, and we’ll have to deal with this. They’re very overwhelmed,” she says. “Under the circumstances, the medical system says it’s warranted. We need to be prepared for it to last a while.” Mekuria’s current clients don’t have due dates until May, but she is preparing to use video chat and phone for those deliveries if she needs to. It’s not something she’s done before. “We’ve started to do all prenatal meetings virtually,” she says. “The idea is to be flexible: to use Zoom, FaceTime, and Skype. We could have some check in calls to help with positioning and pain management.” Some people may want to stay on a video call through the entire labor and delivery process, while others might just call as needed. Working through logistics of that remote support before labor and delivery begin is important. As a remote doula, Pippa says she’s learned that it’s important to check in with doctors or patient care professionals at the hospital. “Some have policies where people aren’t allowed a video call during the actual birth itself,” she says. “My understanding is that hospitals are starting to waive that.” But if a family really wants that support and wants the partner or doula there by video, she says, it’s best to check in advance. The Mt. Sinai policy explicitly states that they will help virtually connect people with family and friends. Having someone there by phone or video chat isn’t the same as having them there in-person, though. “You can’t lock eyes, you can’t hold their hand, which means so much — which is why so many people are really fighting back against these rules,” Pippa says. But in light of the circumstances, she says, having someone on-screen or over the phone is the next best option. Mekuria says she’s concerned for people who have to deliver alone. Support from someone during the labor and birthing process is associated with better outcomes, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and if something goes wrong, it’s important to have someone to advocate for the patient. She also worries there might be more interventions that aren’t medically necessary, like inductions, to help move the labor and birth process along more quickly. “It’d be harder for birthing families to really get the space and time to really think through decisions they’re making,” she says. In that case, one important role of virtual support may be helping people know how long they can labor at home and when they should go into the hospital. That can help limit the amount of time they spend there. “It’s even more important at this particular time in order to meet birth goals, to be able to get to the hospital further along,” Mekuria says. It’s hard, she says, because she understands why the hospitals feel they need to institute these policies and why it’s important to minimize the amount of time people spend in an overburdened hospital. “I’m not someone who will say there’s a clear right or wrong,” Mekuria says. In a crisis situation like this one, she says, it’s challenging to figure out the right balance between broad public health goals and the individual goals of a person who is pregnant. Families are going through a process of grief and mourning as they adjust to the new circumstances they’ll have during the birth of a child, Pippa says, and doulas are as well. “There’s mourning and loss on our end.” But she says the ongoing pandemic is changing every profession, and doulas are no different. For now, they’re working to adjust to a new normal. “We don’t know how long it’ll be before doulas are let back in the delivery room.”

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21193764/doulas-hospitals-birth-new-york-coronavirus-pandemic-digital

Science

The Verge

2020-03-25 00:00:00

2020

3.0

25

Nick Statt

Namecheap blocks registration of domains with ‘coronavirus’ and ‘vaccine’ in the name

Domain registrar Namecheap on Wednesday said it would no longer be accepting any new domain applications including the words “coronavirus,” “covid,” and “vaccine,” among other versions of words and phrases alluding to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The Los Angeles-based company says the measure is to prevent abuse and fraud from sites trying to hawk fake products and misinformation and otherwise capitalize on the ongoing global health crisis. “There are always those who try to take advantage of crisis situations by carrying out acts of fraud. In response, we are actively working with authorities to both proactively prevent, and take down, any fraudulent or abusive domains or websites related to COVID-19,” the company writes in its statement, which it emailed to customers earlier today. “This includes banning certain terms such as ‘coronavirus,’ ‘covid,’ and ‘vaccine’ from our domain search tool so they cannot be purchased and used for abuse.” Namecheap says legitimate companies and website owners can apply for a domain name containing one of the now-banned words by going through its support team, which “will be available to review and register it for you manually upon your request.” Coronavirus-related fraud and abuse has become rampant online in the past few months, as the situation has worsened around the world and countless economies have ground to a halt in an attempt to stem the spread of the illness. That’s led to a wave of countermeasures from tech companies large and small. Amazon, eBay, and other online sellers have begun removing listings that make false coronavirus claims, as well as restricting the sale of health items like face masks and hand sanitizer. Big platform companies like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have all started working together to take more aggressive stances on moderating potential misinformation and fraudulent content related to the crisis, too.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21194417/namecheap-coronavirus-covid-19-domain-name-ban-registrar-abuse

Web

The Verge

2020-03-25 00:00:00

2020

3.0

25

Sean O'Kane

Fox will broadcast NASCAR’s substitute sim racing ‘season’ on television

Fox and its sibling channel, FS1, are going to broadcast a “season” of virtual races that pit current, past, and the rising stars of NASCAR against each other on the sim racing platform iRacing. The races will air on Sundays at 1PM ET, pretty much the same time slot that NASCAR ran its real-world races before the novel coronavirus pandemic hit. They’ll also be available to watch in the Fox Sports app. Fox didn’t go into detail about how many races will be held, likely because it’s still unclear how long the real-world season will be suspended. And drivers aren’t racking up points towards the real-world NASCAR championship or taking home big paychecks. It’s just for fun, for now. This is all happening because the world’s biggest motorsports series are on pause during the pandemic, and so pro drivers have taken to competing in sim racing games like iRacing, rFactor 2, and F1 2019. At the same time, various esports teams, sim racing broadcasters, and real-world crew members helped spin up a handful of special races last week with big NASCAR, F1, and IndyCar stars that drew hundreds of thousands of viewers who suddenly had no real-world racing to watch. That successful patchwork effort has already inspired more official events. This past weekend, Formula One hosted its first “Virtual Grand Prix,” which featured current driver Lando Norris, former driver Nico Hülkenberg, and a roster of YouTubers and pro sim racers, some of whom compete in F1’s own esports series. NASCAR went even further. On Sunday, the top stock car series hosted its first virtual “Pro Invitational” race, a 100-lap affair held in iRacing that featured retired stars Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Bobby Labonte; multiple championship-winning drivers like Kyle Busch, Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, and Jimmie Johnson; and rising talents like William Byron and Christopher Bell. The race was even announced by Fox’s standard broadcast crew of Jeff Gordon, Mike Joy, and Larry McReynolds. The race was a huge success, all things considered. It brought in more than 900,000 viewers, according to Fox — far off the mark of the millions who watch NASCAR’s most popular events, but not that much lower than the viewership of some of the least popular races. One reason it was possible for the motorsports world to quickly flip this switch to sim racing is that there’s been a thriving community competing on these platforms for years. Sim racing has grown so prevalent that many pro drivers are already deeply familiar with the likes of iRacing. Most have sim racing rigs — a seat, steering wheel, pedals, and giant, often wraparound monitors — set up in their homes, or at the very least, at their team’s headquarters. What’s more, these games (iRacing especially) offer such true-to-life detail that sim racing has become a crucial piece of the puzzle of finding success in a top-tier racing series. They offer drivers the chance to practice virtually as much as they want without needing to go through the costly, if not impossible process of booking time to test at a real-world track. The downside of this new NASCAR Pro Invitational Series is that, since it’s been scooped up by Fox, it won’t be live-streamed on YouTube or Twitch. One of the reasons those first few post-pandemic sim races drew so much attention last week was because they were freely available, and because some of the drivers themselves hosted their own streams as well. There were no broadcast networks to tangle with over TV rights. NASCAR had already started streaming its own “eNASCAR” iRacing esports series on YouTube, which signaled a major step forward in bringing sim racing into the mainstream. Broadcasting the new virtual season shows NASCAR and Fox are willing to make even bigger bets during what is a very uncertain time for everyone. Here’s hoping they don’t stop pushing that envelope.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21194033/fox-nascar-iracing-pro-series-broadcast-dale-earnhardt-jr

Gaming

The Verge

2020-03-25 00:00:00

2020

3.0

25

Jon Porter

Dell now lets you control iPhones from its PCs

If you’re an iPhone user with a modern Dell computer, you can now mirror your phone’s screen to your PC and control it using Dell’s Mobile Connect app. Version 3 of the iOS app lets you control your phone using your PC’s keyboard and mouse, and you can also drag and drop photo and video files to transfer them between the two devices. You can also now send SMS messages without needing to keep the iPhone app open in the foreground. The features, which were first announced at CES earlier this year, brings the app’s iPhone functionality more into line with what it already offers on Android, where it has supported these features for a couple of years now. However, the two platforms haven’t quite reached parity. Dell’s website notes that file transfers on iOS are limited to photos and videos, for example, while Android supports music and documents. Alongside the new iOS functionality, Dell says Android users will now be able to use their computers to send MMS files from their smartphones. Dell isn’t the only company that’s working on letting you control your phone using your Windows PC. Most notably, Microsoft’s Your Phone app works on Windows 10 regardless of who manufactured the specific hardware it’s running on. Last year Microsoft updated its Android app with the ability to route calls from your phone to your PC, and is also testing similar screen mirroring functionality to what Dell offers. However, Microsoft’s current iOS app is more limited compared to the Android version, and doesn’t support screen mirroring. Huawei also has its own version of the technology that will also work with its tablets, but it’s entirely limited to Huawei hardware. Similarly, Apple’s Handoff feature has long enabled seamless interoperability between Macs, iPhones, and iPads. In order to use Dell’s new app, you’ll need to own a Dell laptop from 2018 or later, and your iPhone needs to be running iOS 11 or above. Supported Dell laptop ranges include its XPS, Inspiron, Vostro, Alienware, and the G Series. Dell says the update will be rolling out gradually over the course of this week.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21193655/dell-mobile-connect-ios-pc-screen-mirroring-drag-and-drop-transfer-files

Apple

The Verge

2020-03-25 00:00:00

2020

3.0

25

Jon Porter

Marshall’s new Uxbridge speaker features AirPlay 2 and Alexa voice support

The Marshall Uxbridge Voice is the latest Bluetooth speaker from Zound Industries, and it adds AirPlay 2 support to the lineup for the first time. Along with Apple’s streaming technology, the speaker also supports regular Bluetooth and Spotify Connect, and you can control it using the Alexa voice assistant. The speaker will be available starting on April 8th for $199 (£169.99 / €199). Unlike previous Bluetooth speakers released under the Marshall brand, the Uxbridge’s physical controls consist of a series of volume rockers, rather than guitar amp-style knobs. Across the top, there are rocker buttons to turn its volume, bass, and treble up and down, there’s a play / pause button, and also a button to disable the speaker’s Alexa-enabled far-field microphone. AirPlay 2 and Alexa support mean the Uxbridge Voice can also be paired with other speakers that use the same technologies to build a multiroom setup. Along with support for Alexa, Zound is also promising to add support for Google Assistant to the Uxbridge Voice lineup on June 11th. However, unlike Sonos, which added support for Google Assistant via an update to its existing Alexa speakers, Zound is releasing an entirely separate version of the Uxbridge Voice with support Google’s voice assistant. It’s similar to the approach it took with its first two Alexa-enabled Marshall speakers, the Stanmore II and Acton II, which also received separate Google Assistant models later on.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21193727/marshall-uxbridge-speaker-voice-airplay-2-alexa-bluetooth-price

Tech

The Verge

2020-03-25 00:00:00

2020

3.0

25

Jay Peters

Nomad is expanding its manufacturing to make masks for medical workers

Nomad, typically known for making smartphone accessories, has reprioritized operations and is expanding its manufacturing to make medical supplies like face masks amid the ongoing spread of the novel coronavirus, the company has announced. Right now, Nomad is currently selling disposable three-layer face masks, and you can apply to buy them here. Nomad says it will be prioritize masks first for medical professionals, then for first responders, and then for essential businesses. Its masks cost $0.375 each, and the company estimates that they’ll ship from the company’s Hong Kong warehouse within two to three days. Nomad’s masks aren’t tight-fitting N95 respirators, but the company says its masks’ filters are “tested at >98% bacterial filtration efficiency, meeting FDA testing standards.” Nomad advises using its masks in “lower contact situations,” until they get FDA approval, which it expects to get in the coming weeks. Nomad says its masks are currently approved in Europe, Taiwan, and China. “Right now we believe the single best thing we can do is to assist in the distribution of much-needed supplies around the world to aid those on the frontlines of flattening the curve: nurses, doctors, and first responders,” said Nomad co-founders Noah Dentzel and Brian Hahn in a letter. Nomad told The Verge after the original publication of this article that it’s still making its phone accessories and will continue manufacturing them — making masks is an expansion of the company’s ongoing manufacturing work. However, staff at its California offices have shifted their work where possible to help support the logistics of distributing masks and fielding requests for them. Many other companies are working to donate or make more medical supplies to help combat shortages. Razer announced last week that it’s using some of its manufacturing lines to make masks. Sharp said on March 1st that it would be making masks at one of its factories in Japan. Ford announced it’s working with 3M and General Electric to make ventilators and masks. Apple has committed to donating “millions” of masks. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company would donate its emergency reserve of 720,000 masks and that it is “working on sourcing millions of more to donate.” Director Peyton Reed thanked Tesla CEO Elon Musk for donating “a truckload of PPEs (masks, gowns, etc.)” to UCLA Health. Update, March 26th, 8:17PM ET: Added context from Nomad to clarify the company is still producing smartphone accessories in addition to face masks. The headline has been updated to reflect this fact.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21194057/nomad-coronavirus-phone-accessories-company-face-masks

Science

The Verge

2020-03-25 00:00:00

2020

3.0

25

Aliya Chaudhry

How to watch movies with friends online

Even a favorite stay-at-home activity like watching TV can get lonely sometimes, especially if you’re used to hanging out with your friends and watching together. And although you can stream and text, FaceTime, or share your screen on Zoom, sometimes that just doesn’t cut it. If you’re looking for a way to make your social-distancing series binge more, well, social, there are browser extensions that let you host watch parties digitally. Here are four apps you can use to host movie nights with friends online, along with step-by-step instructions on how to start watching. To use these apps, you will need your own subscription for each service, and everyone watching will have to be signed onto their own account. These extensions work on top of your existing subscription to sync the videos with your friends — they don’t provide non-subscribers with a free viewing. Netflix Party syncs up your streams with those of your friends and adds a live chat on one side of the screen. The app is only for use with Netflix and is only available for Chrome. To host a Netflix Party: To join an existing Netflix Party: Metastream allows you to live chat while watching videos on a range of platforms, including Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, Twitch, and Crunchyroll. But Metastream will open Netflix in another window. The app is still in beta, so there are some kinks — for example, we experienced some issues using it with Hulu on Chrome; Metastream recommends using Firefox when watching Hulu, which worked better when we tried it. To host a Metastream watch party: To watch something, you have a few options. Click the “Add Media” button in the center of the main screen and then you can either: Doing either of these things will put that video in a queue, so you can set up a list of things you want to watch. Scener lets you video chat with your friends while watching Netflix, and there’s also a live chat function. You can watch with up to 10 people total. It only works for Netflix, though, and you can only use it through the primary profile for your account. To use Scener: You can add friends on Scener. To do that: Scener has a virtual remote control you can pass between friends. Whoever has it gets to control what you and your friends are watching, rewind, or pause and play the movie or TV show, like an actual remote control. To pass the remote, hover over a friend’s icon. A remote button should appear under their icon. Click on that to give them the remote. The only issue with Scener is that if you’re signed on, it’s hard to hide the extension when you’re not using it. So every time you use Netflix, the extension will open up with it; if you want to use a different Netflix extension, like Netflix Party, you’ll have to disable the Scener extension. Here’s how: Scener has been experiencing some issues; the company says it’s facing more demand than usual and is working on fixing the problems. TwoSeven also has a video chat feature, but it supports more services. In addition to Netflix, you can use it to watch Amazon Prime Video, HBO Now, YouTube, and Vimeo. If you pay the subscription fee, you can also use the app with Hulu and Disney Plus. The subscription prices range from $5 to $20 a month, but because of COVID-19, TwoSeven is offering all of those paid features for $3 a month. To host a TwoSeven watch party: Once you add someone to the watch session via a link, you can add them as a friend to make it easier to include them in future watch sessions. To do that: Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. For more information, see our ethics policy.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21191604/watch-movies-friends-online-netflix-hulu-youtube-party-twoseven-metastream-amazon-hbo-scener

How-to

The Verge

2020-03-25 00:00:00

2020

3.0

25

Cameron Faulkner

HyperX Cloud Alpha S review: the dark mode of PC gaming headsets

HyperX has added a new color variant to its lineup of Cloud Alpha S gaming headsets. It’s called “blackout” and, as you’d probably expect, every single detail around the headset is pure black. A new color option usually isn’t too big of a deal, but the result here is a headset ideally suited for a minimalist, of which there aren’t many on the market. It doesn’t really stand out at all, and that’s what makes it look so good. The headphones still have the HyperX branding on the side of the ear cups and atop the textured headband. But it’s subtle and almost undetectable in most lighting conditions. Everything else, from the stitching on the headband to the braided cable and the side arms that hold the ear cups, is coated in a deep black color. On top of these design adjustments, you’re getting the same great headset that HyperX released in late 2019. We missed our chance to review this model when it originally released, so we’re seizing the opportunity to dive into it now that this new color option has come out. It comes with two sets of replaceable ear pads: one set that’s plush with a leather-like coating for better noise isolation and another that’s more breathable but with hardly any noise isolation at all. I opted for the breathable pads, but regardless, this is a comfortable headset to wear for hours on end. I have a large head, and I’m always delighted when a product manages to avoid clamping down too hard around my dome. The weight distribution is excellent, and no part of the headset feels like it’s resting too hard on my head or sitting awkwardly on my ears. This headset is designed with a PC in mind. The headset connects via USB and has clip-on inline controls that let you turn on the virtual 7.1 surround sound mode, mute the mic, and adjust the volume, as well as fine-tune the volume mix between voice chat and your game. If you’d rather have more game audio than chat, just tap the button with the controller icon a few times. While these features only work with a PC, the headset attaches to its inline controls via a 3.5mm jack that you can easily detach and connect to, say, a PS4 or Xbox One controller. If you sit close enough to your TV, this headset also works (along with the virtual 7.1 surround sound feature) with the full USB cable plugged into your Nintendo Switch dock. The audio quality of the Cloud Alpha S is impressive, regardless of the kinds of ear muffs that you opt to use and the kind of media you want to enjoy. I found the performance to be punchy when I played games, and listening to music was delightful — something that I wasn’t expecting. Whatever you use them for, there’s clear separation in the audio presentation, and the bass breathes naturally without stepping over the high frequencies that tend to get lost in many affordable headphones and gaming headsets. It just sounds really clean. And if the amount of bass isn’t to your liking, you can modify it in each ear cup with a bass adjustment switch located around its back side. Each notch in the switch only makes a subtle difference, so these aren’t a good match for you if you like relentless bass. Regarding the virtual 7.1 surround sound option, I actually preferred to have it turned off while in-game. These virtual implementations are usually hit or miss, and while some players may like it, I thought it made the audio sound a little too shrill. I could still clearly hear enemy positions and other details with the option off. Plus, it sounded more realistic and a little more bass-heavy. The last HyperX headset I reviewed was the HyperX Cloud Flight S, a $160 wireless headset that packs in some similar hardware features, like the chat and game audio mix buttons and a detachable boom microphone. Since it supported Qi charging, I remarked that for the price, it would have been nice to have a Qi charger included, along with more features, like the ability to plug in via 3.5mm. There are far fewer compromises with the Cloud Alpha S, so long as you’re cool with the long wire that connects it to your PC. It’s a better value overall, even if it’s still almost as expensive as the wireless Cloud Flight S. The sound performance is a few marks ahead and you can adjust the bass — a nice touch. It is also the clear choice between the two if you want a headset that offers a little versatility by way of its 3.5mm cable. Photography by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. For more information, see our ethics policy.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21191577/hyperx-cloud-alpha-s-gaming-headset-black-pc

Gaming

The Verge

2020-03-25 00:00:00

2020

3.0

25

Chaim Gartenberg

Qualcomm’s new Bluetooth chips will power next-gen wireless earbuds

Qualcomm is announcing a pair of new Bluetooth chips designed for wireless earbuds, the Qualcomm QCC514x and QCC304x SoCs. Both chipsets will support Qualcomm’s TrueWireless Mirroring technology for more reliable connections, along with integrated, dedicated hardware for Qualcomm’s hybrid active noise cancellation and onboard support for digital assistants. Qualcomm’s TrueWireless Mirroring handles connections to a phone through a single earbud, which is then mirrored (hence the name) to the other earbud, which cuts down on the amount of synchronization needed (in theory) for a more reliable connection. If you take out the primary earbud, the system is designed to transition the connection seamlessly over to the mirrored earbud, too. The system also helps make sure that a pair of headphones shows up as a single connection to a phone, instead of “two” separate headphones. The other major feature here is Qualcomm’s “hybrid ANC,” which promises integrated noise-cancellation technology — allowing for cheaper earbuds with active noise cancellation — while also enabling what the company describes as “leak-through” for outside noise, in a feature that sounds similar to transparency modes on regular noise-canceling headphones. Qualcomm also says that the new chips are more power efficient, promising better battery life (even with noise-cancellation enabled). The main difference between the more premium Qualcomm QCC514x and the entry-level Qualcomm QCC304x SoCs has to do with voice assistant integration: the QCC514x can offer always listening wake-word activation for voice assistants (similar to Apple’s AirPods or Amazon’s Echo Buds). The QCC304x, on the other hand, only offers push-button voice assistance — meaning that you’ll have to physically activate the listening mode, instead of having it hear a “Hey, Google” or “Alexa” command. But by making features like voice assistants and ANC standard for even entry-level headphones, Qualcomm could be ushering in an era where all wireless earbuds offer these kinds of features, not just ultra-premium models like Apple’s AirPods Pro or Sony’s WF1000XM3 earbuds. And that’s an exciting prospect.

https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2020/3/25/21194602/qualcomm-qcc514x-qcc304x-noise-cancellation-wireless-earbuds-anc-voice-assistants-bluetooth-soc

Tech

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

3.0

26

Nick Statt

Google says disabling an online business website due to coronavirus should be a last resort

Google has issued a set of guidelines and a helpful FAQ to website owners to try and minimize the damage being done by worldwide shutdowns, both online and off, over the coronavirus pandemic. The company says the most important advice it can give is to avoid disabling a website altogether, so long as it’s feasible to continue paying the hosting fees. Some domain registrars, like GoDaddy and Namecheap, are offering support to customers concerned they won’t be able to maintain websites adversely affected by the shutdowns. But Google says disabling a site may harm its search rankings when it is brought back online. ⚡️⚡️⚡️ Do you need to hit pause on your online business for some time? We just published some do's and don't's to help you with maintaining your site's presence in search. Check it out! ⚡️⚡️⚡️https://t.co/vmTJxWDVnn “If your situation is temporary and you plan to reopen your online business, we recommend keeping your site online and limiting the functionality,” writes John Mueller, Google’s senior webmaster trends analyst. “For example, you might mark items as out of stock, or restrict the cart and checkout process. This is the recommended approach since it minimizes any negative effects on your site’s presence in Search. People can still find your products, read reviews, or add wishlists so they can purchase at a later time.” Some options Mueller says a website owner should do instead is disabling the shopping cart, posting a banner or some other form of informational notice to the website to inform customers of limited functionality, and to use Google’s Search Console tool to ask the search engine to re-index the limited number of pages. Mueller says disabling a site should be a last resort. “This is an extreme measure that should only be taken for a very short period of time (a few days at most), as it will otherwise have significant effects on the website in Search, even when implemented properly,” he explains. “That’s why it’s highly recommended to only limit your site’s functionality instead. Keep in mind that your customers may also want to find information about your products, your services, and your company, even if you’re not selling anything right now.” If it does need to be done, however, Mueller says there are measures to limit the long-lasting damage it could to do to the site’s broader visibility: There’s also an FAQ at the bottom of the page with other useful information, like what happens if you disable a site for only a few weeks and how to handle inventory if you’re operating an e-commerce operation.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21196265/google-website-search-rankings-guide-coronavirus-disable-faq

Google

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

3.0

26

Taylor Lyles

CarPlay dashboard gets third-party maps support in iOS 13.4

CarPlay, Apple’s in-car interface, just got better thanks to an update that lets you use third-party map apps on its dashboard. The CarPlay dashboard displays information from multiple apps at once, like music and maps, which can help you get to your destination, but you could only use Apple Maps until now. Third-party map apps had to use a full-screen view instead of appearing as a split screen on the dashboard. With iOS 13.4, third-party apps can finally be made to work on the dashboard, too. While Apple has allowed third-party apps to now appear on the CarPlay dashboard, developers still need to add support. So far, two big services don’t work: Google Maps and Waze. Google declined to comment on future plans, but told The Verge it is committed to “exploring ways to make the in-vehicle experience more seamless.” Over the last few years, Apple has been overhauling its Maps app to make it more dependable for iPhone users; however, many people still prefer to use other apps for navigation. So the inclusion of third-party map apps on the CarPlay dashboard is a significant update for CarPlay users that find Apple Maps underwhelming. Alongside third-party support for navigation apps, iOS 13.4 also adds in-call information to the CarPlay dashboard, alongside highly requested features for other Apple products, like full mouse and trackpad support for iPads.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21194115/carplay-dashboard-third-party-map-support-ios-apple

Apple

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

3.0

26

Chaim Gartenberg

The Nintendo Switch is getting ports of BioShock, Borderlands, Burnout, and lots more

Nintendo released a surprise Nintendo Direct Mini presentation today, announcing a variety of new games, rereleases, and DLC coming to the Nintendo Switch in 2020, including classics like XCOM 2, BioShock, and Borderlands; a first look at the next Smash Bros. DLC character; more Star Wars ports; and more. Here are the biggest announcements and news:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21195303/nintendo-switch-games-direct-bioshock-borderlands-burnout-paradise-remastered-star-wars-xcom

Gaming

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

3.0

26

Kim Lyons

Airbnb asks its hosts to provide 100,000 free rentals to first responders

Airbnb introduced a new program Thursday that its CEO called “free” housing for first responders dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak. The program asks hosts — the people who actually own the properties that are booked via Airbnb’s platform — to donate the rental without reimbursement from the company, and apparently, to bear the cost of following CDC-recommended cleaning protocols. The goal is to offer lodging to 100,000 first responders, the company says. As of 3:30PM ET, CEO Brian Chesky tweeted, 12,000 hosts had “opened up their homes” under the program. Update: 12,000 hosts have now opened up their homes to COVID-19 responders. Thank you, hosts. First responders looking for a place to stay — either to be closer to their work site or to self-quarantine away from their families while they’re treating or interacting with COVID-19 patients — can connect with hosts who are making their properties available via a new portal the company has set up. Airbnb says the new initiative is built on pilot programs in France and Italy, which have seen 6,000 hosts offer their homes to doctors, nurses, caregivers, and other medical support staff. The program is an expansion of Airbnb’s Open Homes program, established in 2012, which lets hosts provide free lodging in emergency situations. Airbnb waives service fees on these transactions. Hosts don’t have to offer their properties for free, but will still have all fees waived by Airbnb. Chris Lehane, Airbnb senior vice president for global policy, said in an emailed statement to The Verge that the company anticipates it will have tens of thousands of hosts open up their homes. “We also invested $20 million in last year alone to the Open Homes program including grants and travel credits to nonprofits to help fund free, temporary housing to people in need, as well as operational costs,” he said. It’s now soliciting donations to the Open Homes fund which will be disbursed to “partner organizations,” including the International Rescue Committee, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and the International Medical Corps. The donations will “help power even more stays for relief workers while they do their critical work.” Airbnb has created a “robust list of cleaning and safety protocols” for hosts participating in the new program, and only full listings — not shared ones — are eligible, according to the company. Airbnb declined to say whether it was going to help hosts defray the costs of getting their properties cleaned per the CDC guidelines. A spokesperson said in an email to The Verge that “Airbnb is contributing to nonprofit partners, and by waiving all associated fees on at least 100,000 stays is also contributing millions of dollars in kind. Essentially, any money Airbnb would’ve made as part of these transactions, on both sides, is waived.” The spokesperson said in addition to the usual fee waivers offered through the Open Homes program, “fees for other COVID-19 responder stays are currently being waived as well. For any paid stays in the program, such as those booked by medical organizations, hosts can still charge their own fees, including cleaning fees.” Reuters reported on Wednesday that Airbnb saw revenue of $4.8 billion for 2019 and was cash flow positive. The company has $3 billion in cash, according to Reuters. Meanwhile, Airbnb hosts reportedly are struggling to book their properties after the company announced that starting March 14th it would offer refunds to any guests who canceled reservations through April 14th. The company didn’t offer reimbursement to hosts under that new policy. The company said that under the $2 trillion economic stimulus package passed by the Senate Wednesday, hosts who are diagnosed with COVID-19, or whose family members are diagnosed, would be eligible to apply for unemployment insurance, Reuters reported. Some Airbnb hosts may be eligible for the small business loans included in the stimulus package to cover property costs like utility payments and mortgage interest, and to pay independent contractors they may employ to clean or manage their properties, Airbnb told Reuters.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21195307/airbnb-free-first-responders-hosts-coronavirus-rentals

Tech

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

3.0

26

Nilay Patel

Apple MacBook Air (2020) review: the best Mac for most people

It was weird: at one point, Apple openly pointed out that the base model 13-inch MacBook Pro was a better choice than the Air during a keynote, and people still bought the Air instead. Eventually, the stubborn popularity of the Air and a renewed commitment to the Mac led Apple to completely redesign the MacBook Air around a Retina Display in 2018. But Apple also gave it one of its troubled butterfly keyboards, which developed a reputation for unreliability and a worse reputation for costly fixes. When Apple updated the new Air last year, it stuck with that butterfly keyboard, which meant that there was still a question mark hanging over it. And the Intel chips inside struggled with even moderately demanding tasks. That brings us to now: the 2020 MacBook Air comes with the new scissor-switch keyboard Apple introduced in the 16-inch MacBook Pro, and the processors have been upgraded to Intel’s new 10th-generation parts. Apple also lowered the price by $100: the MacBook Air now starts at $999. It’s been a long road back, but this new MacBook Air is right where it needs to be: squarely in the mix of being the best laptop for most people. Along the left side, there are two Thunderbolt 3 ports; the new Intel chips have Iris Plus graphics, which means you can now run a 6K display from a MacBook Air. (I wasn’t able to test this, as our Pro Display XDR is in the office, and I don’t currently have access to it. But I’m willing to bet that running a 6K display involves a fair amount of heat and fan noise from the Air. I’ll update if and when we learn more.) On the other side, you’ll find a headphone jack because normal people doing normal laptop things often need to plug in headphones. I implore you: use wired headphones for your videoconferencing. You will be much happier, and you will not find yourself delaying the start of every meeting so everyone can dink around with Bluetooth. I don’t really want to give Apple too much credit for updating this keyboard since it took the company way too long to get away from the butterfly design after people started calling out the problems. And I don’t think Apple gets the benefit of the doubt on reliability anymore. It’s just going to take time to earn that trust back. But history aside, the keyboard is one of the single most important parts of a laptop, and the new MacBook Air’s keyboard is extremely good. I also greatly prefer this keyboard with a standard top row and function buttons to the Touch Bar keyboard on the 16-inch MacBook Pro. I know people who love the Touch Bar — maybe you do, too — but I don’t love it, and I think it’s really telling that Apple still hasn’t put a Touch Bar on its most popular laptop. Physical volume and brightness keys forever, is what I’m saying. The other thing the Air doesn’t have is a touchscreen. There’s nothing much more to say about it at this point; if Apple can add trackpad support to iPadOS, it can probably figure out touch support in macOS. But the company doesn’t seem interested in that, so I wouldn’t expect to see it happen anytime soon. At least the trackpad is great: it’s huge like on all modern MacBooks, but it still feels great to scroll and click on. So that’s the keyboard. From a physical hardware perspective, it was the only thing Apple needed to fix. It still looks and feels like what you’d expect a MacBook Air to look and feel like. It has the classic wedge shape, it’s not flimsy at all like other ultrabooks, and the bezels around the screen are fairly minimal. Every smart device now requires you to agree to a series of terms and conditions before you can use it — contracts that no one actually reads. It’s impossible for us to read and analyze every single one of these agreements. But we started counting exactly how many times you have to hit “agree” to use devices when we review them since these are agreements most people don’t read and definitely can’t negotiate. In order to get past the setup and actually use the MacBook Air, you are required to agree to: - Apple’s warranty agreement - Game Center terms and conditions These agreements are nonnegotiable, and you cannot use the laptop at all if you don’t agree to them. There are also several optional agreements, including: The final tally is three mandatory agreements and four optional ones. Our review unit is the step-up configuration, with a 1.1GHz quad-core Core i5 chip and 8GB of RAM. It’s been fairly capable: I’ve been working in Chrome, Slack, Zoom, and Lightroom like I normally do, and things have clipped right along. That feeling is backed up by a single-threaded Geekbench 5 score of 1001, which is basically in line with the 16-inch Core i9 MacBook Pro’s single-threaded score of 1109. But I wouldn’t call the Air a rocket; I can definitely push the limits pretty easily. Just opening Lightroom is enough to make the fan speed up, and after a couple of edits, it’s going full blast. Heavy sustained workloads cause the system to do some aggressive thermal throttling, basically capping the max speed of the processor in order to manage heat. Apple told me this throttling is by design. The company doesn’t think most people need hardcore sustained performance, so the Air is built around Intel’s turbo boost feature, which can quickly ramp the processor to 3.2GHz to get something done and then ramp it back down to 1.1GHz to preserve heat and battery life. This is a pretty normal strategy now. But if you push the Air for a little while, things will get hot, and the system won’t allow the processor to get all the way up to 3.2GHz. In my tests with Cinebench, clock speed was capped at around 1.5GHz under sustained workloads. And that fan was blowing its heart out. In day-to-day use, I never really noticed any of this thermal management, which is the entire point. But it’s also clear that there isn’t a ton of performance headroom if you need to sit around rendering 3D graphics or exporting videos all day long. You’ll definitely hear that fan, and you might experience some slowdowns. A lot of people tweeted questions at me about the performance difference between the Core i5 Air and the Core i5 13-inch MacBook Pro. U-series processor differences aside, it really comes down to thermal design: Apple told me that the MacBook Pro is the better laptop for people who need to push their machine to the limit all the time. It has a more forgiving thermal design and faster turbo boost clock speeds. Basically, the MacBook Pro can run hotter and faster for a longer period of time than the MacBook Air, which means better performance for heavy sustained tasks. My sense is that the people with those needs know exactly who they are; they should wait for a refreshed MacBook Pro with an updated keyboard. Everyone else will likely find that the MacBook Air’s performance is totally fine for most day-to-day tasks, but that they’ll hear the fan run every so often. I don’t think this is entirely Apple’s fault — all three of these apps are battery hogs — but at this particular moment in history, I don’t think I’m alone in having Zoom and Slack open all day every day. And while Safari is much more efficient than Chrome, Chrome is still just a fact of life for a lot of people. It’s great that the Air can get terrific battery life if you restrict yourself to Apple’s own apps, but my friends, we live in a society. Speaking of Zoom, the webcam in the Air is the same old 720p webcam Apple’s been using forever. It’s fine. It is aggressively fine. I hope someone on the Mac team talks to someone on the iPhone team about cameras before they release another laptop with this webcam. But really, the most important thing is that, for the first time in several years, I feel confident saying that most people in the market for a Mac laptop can just buy a MacBook Air and expect it to competently and reliably do most things for a long time to come. That’s a big win and a solid return to form. The Verge on YouTube

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21195008/apple-macbook-air-review-2020-new-keyboard-processor-battery-life-camera-price

Apple

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

3.0

26

Jay Peters

OnePlus 8 Pro may come in a slick seafoam green and finally have wireless charging

New leaked information about OnePlus’ next flagship phone reveals it may come in a really slick seafoam green shade and that it might be the first OnePlus phone to have wireless charging (via Android Police). The new green color for the new device, likely to be dubbed the OnePlus 8 Pro, was revealed today in what appears to be leaked press renders shared by @OnLeaks and iGeeksBlog. These renders also show that OnePlus has apparently dropped the OnePlus 7 Pro’s pop-up selfie cam in favor of a hole-punch display, a change that was rumored all the way back in October. And yesterday, leaker Ishan Agarwal shared apparent specs for both the OnePlus 8 Pro and the smaller, standard OnePlus 8. The OnePlus 8 Pro may have a 6.78-inch QHD+ display, a 120Hz refresh rate screen, LPDDR5 RAM, a quadruple-camera setup, an IP68 water and dust resistance rating, a 4,510mAh battery, 30W wireless charging, and 3W reverse wireless charging. The OnePlus 8 may have a 6.55-inch FHD+ display, a 90Hz refresh rate screen, a triple-camera setup, LPDDR4X RAM, a 4,300mAh battery, and no wireless charging or IP rating. Both phones may also have Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 865 5G processor. Exclusive: They're coming! Here is the full specification list of the #OnePlus8 & 8 Pro. Seems like #OnePlus8Pro is gonna be a beast with 6.78" 120hz QHD+ Display and 48+48+8+5MP Camera Setup. Will have 30W Wireless Charging & IP68 Rating too. I'm so excited! #OnePlus8Series pic.twitter.com/j1AAo19q4J OnePlus CEO Pete Lau told The Verge in January that its next phone would have a 120Hz display, so it’s not too surprising to see the OnePlus 8 Pro leaks seemingly confirm this. A 120Hz display would be a step up from the OnePlus 7 Pro’s 90Hz screen, though it seems the standard OnePlus 8 may stick with that lower refresh rate. It’s also not too surprising to see the OnePlus 8 Pro could have wireless charging. In January, the company joined the Wireless Power Consortium, the group that manages the Qi wireless charging standard.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21195464/oneplus-8-pro-leak-green-color-wireless-charging-5g-120-hz

Mobile

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

3.0

26

Dieter Bohn

Outside China, Android isn’t Android without Google

The tech story that made the biggest impact on me yesterday was Sam Byford’s “Living a Google-free life with a Huawei phone.” In the run up to the launch of Huawei’s new flagship P40 line, he got himself a Mate 30 Pro and used it to see what Android is like sans Google. This is, of course, something untold millions of people in China do every day, but outside China Huawei falls in a weird zone where it doesn’t have its local China services nor Google services. The result, as Sam writes, is weird. But what struck me the most is how essential Google Mobile Services (GMS) are to the functioning of every modern Android phone outside of China. You might already expect that not having Gmail, Chrome, and the Play Store would be annoying — but the fact that so many non-Google apps don’t work was a bit of a shock. GMS and Google Play Services have slowly grown to become essential parts of how an Android phone works. They’re how the web engine gets updated, they’re increasingly how the operating system itself gets updated (via Project Mainline), and they protect against malware — even for apps you don’t load from the official Google Play Store. You’re reading Processor, a newsletter about computers by Dieter Bohn. Dieter writes about consumer tech, software, and the most important news of the day from The Verge. This newsletter delivers “mostly daily,” which nets out three to four times a week, some of which include longer columns. You can subscribe to Processor and learn more about it here. Processor is also a YouTube series with the same goal: providing smart and surprising analysis with a bit of humor. Subscribe to all of The Verge’s great videos here! They also offer lots of services to developers, and that’s the part that’s easy to forget. Google’s services offer push notifications, location, casting, ad support, and much more. Huawei has been building out its own services and store to deal with life away from Google, but the situation right now is that the Mate 30 Pro doesn’t even ship with a viable maps app. Android may be open source, but an Android phone doesn’t really operate without Google — at least outside of China. None of this is especially shocking or even nefarious, it’s just something that isn’t in your face every day. Other operating systems like Windows and iOS are equally tied up with the company that makes them, which is a point so obvious that pointing it out in the first place seems silly. But with Android, it’s worth remembering. We’ll have lots of coverage of Huawei’s new P40 series today, so look forward to that. For what it’s worth, Huawei has said it would come back to the US if it could, but that seems unlikely in the near future. Also, thanks to everybody who emailed me today with their thoughts on the iPad — I’ll try to reply personally to everybody but it’ll take a bit. ┏ Google Podcasts rolls out new design, launches on iOS. Looks like a huge upgrade, and availability on iOS makes it more appealing to people who need to be on multiple platforms. But the cross-platform king of podcast apps remains Pocket Casts, in my opinion. It’s also the rare app that is excellent on every platform I use it on, from CarPlay to the web to Android to smart displays. Plus, it’s not owned and operated by a giant tech company! (Though to be fair NPR ain’t small.) ┏ Royole claims the FlexPai 2 fixes the problems of its rough first foldable. I love that Royole is just going for it with another foldable phone and promising this one won’t be a cringey mess like the first. I do wonder why the display is branded “Cicada Wing,” though. Apparently they’re good at repelling water and self-cleaning? The wings I mean, not this screen. ┏ Samsung’s new Galaxy Tab A offers LTE connectivity. I’m not sure I’d recommend this over an iPad to anybody, but it’s inexpensive and gives you an LTE option if you want that. ┏ Samsung’s S10 and Note 10 are getting updated with the S20’s best camera features. ┏ Dell now lets you control iPhones from its PCs. It’s legit amazing that Dell does this and the Mac does not. I’m sure people will turn their nose up at it, but using the Your Phone app on Windows 10 has me convinced that it’s a good idea. There are still going to be bugs and such, but I hope there’s continued investment in this kind of software from multiple companies. For $30, you can support organizations that are helping to supply those fighting on the front lines against the novel coronavirus. That $30 gets you a bunch of good games, including Into The Breach, Hollow Knight, Undertale, Totally Accurate Battle Simulator, The Witness, Superhot, and several other titles. The ebooks cover a range of topics like mindfulness and coping, as well as Saga Volume 1, The Boys Volume 1, along with a few more digital comics. The pack even includes crosswords and Music Maker EDM Edition, so you can make some beats while you’re at home. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. For more information, see our ethics policy. Prices displayed are based on the MSRP at time of posting. ┏ Qualcomm’s latest chips could make noise cancellation standard on new wireless earbuds. ┏ SpaceX is making its own hand sanitizer and building face shields to donate to fight coronavirus. ┏ Apple says customers must wait to pick up repairs locked inside its retail stores. Here’s an idea that sounds easy and is easy to recommend because I’m not Apple: why not offer loaner devices to these people? I am guessing Apple could afford to! Like I said, probably harder and more expensive than I would guess, but it would suck to be stuck in a lurch without a computer. Maybe I just feel this particularly pointedly because the N key on my MacBook Pro is about to die. I, like seemingly everybody else I follow, am playing a bunch of Animal Crossing. If you are too, we have a lovely set of stories that are both useful and entertaining. If you want a full-on guide, Polygon’s is quite comprehensive. I’m also playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider and it’s kind of an overloaded, overwhelming collect-the-map game. If you’re looking for something to play, my advice is to check out our best games of 2020. Our team is keeping this page updated throughout the year. Bookmark it! ┏ How to watch movies with friends online. Aliya Chaudhry goes over all the major options. There are a bunch, and some of them work with multiple video services. ┏ Fox will broadcast NASCAR’s substitute sim racing ‘season’ on television. Sean O’Kane is going to get me into NASCAR, isn’t he? I have gone to one NASCAR race and I deeply loved it, but there are only so many things I can afford to keep track of. But this looks joyful and fun. One reason it was possible for the motorsports world to quickly flip this switch to sim racing is that there’s been a thriving community competing on these platforms for years. Sim racing has grown so prevalent that many pro drivers are already deeply familiar with the likes of iRacing. Most have sim racing rigs — a seat, steering wheel, pedals, and giant, often wraparound monitors — set up in their homes, or at the very least, at their team’s headquarters. ┏ CBS All Access is offering a free one-month trial, just in time to binge Star Trek: Picard.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21194803/android-google-play-services-huawei-china

Google

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

3.0

26

Andrew Webster

Ring Fit Adventure gets a new rhythm mode while everyone’s stuck at home

With everyone stuck at home, Nintendo’s home workout game Ring Fit Adventure has become particularly popular — so much so that it’s hard to even find a copy. For those who do have the game, though, there’s some good news: today, Nintendo announced a free update that adds even more activities and functionality. The biggest new feature is a rhythm game mode where players can do exercise routines in time to songs from some of the Switch’s most popular games. That includes songs from the Ring Fit soundtrack, alongside upbeat tracks from Super Mario Odyssey and Splatoon 2 as well as the more orchestral score of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Aside from the new mode, there is also a handful of quality-of-life updates. Players will now be able to change the voice of the helpful guide character Ring; there’s now a “female” option as well as multiple languages to choose from. The updates should be a welcome change for people who are stuck working out in their living rooms for the foreseeable future. They’ll be free to download and will launch later today.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21195313/ring-fit-adventure-free-rhythm-game-mode-update-zelda-mario-music

Gaming

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

3.0

26

Bijan Stephen

Twitch’s Stream Aid 2020 plans to raise money for COVID-19 relief this weekend with a bunch of celebs

Twitch plans to put its community’s charity muscles to good use on Saturday, by hosting a benefit called Stream Aid 2020 that will feature a host of celebrity guests, a lot of music, and a little bit of gaming. (Think UNO and Fortnite.) The event will go live on Twitch’s channel at 12PM ET and stay up for 12 full hours, and the goal is to raise as much money as possible for the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund for the World Health Organization. Everyone from Diplo to Charlie Puth to Die Antwoord will be there. On the gaming side of things, streamer Nick “Nick Eh 30” Amyoony will be headlining the Fortnite tournament with his duos partner Joe Jonas. (He’s a fan.) Amyoony is a Twitch darling — follower count: 869.5k at present — and a professional Fortnite streamer, so it’s no surprise the company chose him to represent the brand at a tournament, though he says he’s not 100 percent sure what the format will be yet. Even so, Amyoony says he’s participating because he wants to do his part. “Literally every single person who’s in my livestream has someone who’s affected, whether it be a parent out of a job, a friend who might be sick,” he says. “A lot of people are a little nervous. They don’t know how long they’re going to be out from work, out from school, and they realize how serious it is.” Amyoony sees his role as helping people get their minds off of the global pandemic, in the same way a friend might help keep you from spiraling over a breakup. He also says he’s seen his Twitch community grow — “a lot more people are watching, and you can definitely tell from the numbers,” he says — during this weird time, when everyone’s trapped inside. (Though his routine hasn’t changed much: he still streams eight hours a day, but has stopped going to the gym for his workouts.) The roster of people set to appear on Stream Aid 2020 shows its ambition, which is also in its name: a callback to Live Aid, that seminal ‘80s event that got the 1.9 billion people watching concerts around the world to care about famine in Ethiopia. (That said, in the end, its impact was possibly not as large as advertised.) Twitch is known for its streamers’ huge charity drives — last year, Ben “DrLupo” Lupo raised more than $2 million in a single stream for St. Jude’s in 24 hours — and Stream Aid 2020 looks like it’s set to do something similarly big. That’s what Amyoony’s excited about, too. “One of the things I’m excited for is just seeing how much the community will raise in the name of COVID-19,” he says. “Because that’s what it’s all about at the end of the day — using community for good. And I’m looking forward to that.”

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21195811/twitch-stream-aid-2020-live-aid-covid-19-coronavirus-celebrities

Web

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

3.0

26

Julia Alexander

YouTube creators figure out how to film during a pandemic

On Scotty Sire’s YouTube channel, it doesn’t look like anything has changed. He does Q&As with friends, pranks his pals, and jokes around with them in his backyard — just about the same things he did before California required him to stay indoors since Sire and his co-stars live and are quarantining together. “We’re going to be sitting on our asses, doing whatever we can think of,” Sire said in a video last week. Social distancing has had very different impacts across YouTube. For some YouTubers, it’s business as usual as they continue to sit inside and film with their friends. But for others, whose jobs require them to go outside, the pandemic has forced them to rethink what their channels look like. Food travel YouTubers, fishing channels, and dedicated theme park explorers suddenly can’t operate like they did three weeks ago. Some creators are uploading old footage they shot before self-quarantine orders went into effect. Others are turning their channels into more personal vlogging projects, taking on other staples of YouTube vlogging culture. On TheTimTracker, a channel that uploads weekly review videos from theme park resorts like Disney World, the channel’s hosts are trying to show off life at home through daily vlogs and at-home activities. Like so many people in the world right now, they’re trying to figure out how to get by while self-quarantining at home. “We want to make sure we’re not leaving you guys without content,” Jen, one half of TheTimTracker, said in an update video to subscribers. “Especially if we’re all going to be stuck in the house. Maybe the only thing we can do is watch YouTube videos. We’re going to try and keep it interesting and entertaining for you guys, but we won’t be going to the parks because all the parks are going to be closed.” Some YouTube creators, like Chris Steinbacher, one of the team members behind the car creation channel B is for Build, are taking more extreme measures to ensure that new content appears on the channel consistently. Steinbacher and his team agreed not to see anyone outside of their families and one another so they can keep working. “Either everyone goes home, or we all agree that we don’t go out and get each other sick,” Steinbacher told The Verge. To keep people entertained while they’re stuck at home, Steinbacher also decided to start making more videos and change up his channel’s usual content. On B is for Build, Steinbacher and a group of friends build cars from scrap over the course of several videos. One video per week gets uploaded to Steinbacher’s 1.5 million subscribers, with videos typically pulling in north of 500,000 views. The channel allows Steinbacher and his friends to earn a living through advertisements and sponsorships, which makes changing things up risky. Deciding to change a channel’s output or the type of videos that appear, can often hurt viewership. But Steinbacher says he wanted to put his audience before the algorithm. “I basically said, ‘Screw it, I don’t care if we lose X-amount of dollars,’” Steinbacher said. “Yeah, it hurts the company a lot. You lose a percentage of money for the time being. But let’s work as hard as we can to make videos.” Then, Steinbacher did get sick. Shakes, cough, fever. He went into immediate self-isolation. A few days later, he started to feel better and realized he came down with a bad cold or seasonal flu. In that time, however, he was forced to find creative ways to work with the team — performing voice-overs, working on behind-the-scenes projects — without actually interacting with them. “It’s nice for us to get out of the house and be around each other and do something productive,“ Steinbacher said. “And I get to keep my employees employed. If you work as a server you’re just unemployed, and that’s devastating. We’re able to work through this.” For other YouTubers, it’s business as usual. Jenna Marbles, a longtime YouTuber who mainly films in her house, is asking for fans to send their favorite TikTok videos so she can react to them in upcoming videos — a popular style of video that she often publishes. The only inclination that Marbles is in the same situation as everyone else is a message at the top of a recent video about trying to provide comfort to fans who are also stuck at home. “I thought this week would be a good week to make you something that I seek out on the internet when I’m feeling a little stressed out, which is just some lovely dog footage,” Marbles says in a recent video. “Maybe I can do something next week that will lift our collective spirits.” As long as Steinbacher has the parts to build cars, he says he’s going to keep producing videos. When he wonders if people will still show up if his team publishes more than once a week, he thinks about emails he’s received since announcing incoming changes to the channel. “I’ve received so many emails saying, ‘You’ve helped me so much throughout my life.’ Emails from Italy saying ‘I’m in lockdown’ or ‘My family member is sick so this is really helpful,’” Steinbacher said. “They’re letting me know that the show means something to them, and I’m going to keep making videos to show them they mean something to me.”

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21189266/youtube-creators-coronavirus-pandemic-vlog-upload-content

Tech

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

3.0

26

Dani Deahl

Here are a bunch of free music apps and sample packs while we’re all stuck inside

Life looks very different right now as the novel coronavirus has millions around the world stuck indoors. Festivals, clubs, and even house parties are banned in many cities, leaving musicians (and music lovers) housebound and searching for creative outlets. Over the past few weeks, several music companies have responded by offering freebies in order to, as Korg said, provide “a musical way to occupy your mind.” Below, we’ve rounded up an array of apps, plug-ins, sounds, lessons, and even digital audio workstations (DAWs) that are currently free to give tools to musicians and those looking to learn musical skills during the pandemic. A few were already free, but the majority are only free for a limited time. There are tons of deals available, so get ready to hunker down with some new digital toys. Here are some of the top picks, with more to come.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21195631/free-music-apps-plugins-sample-packs-fender-avid-moog-korg-roland-coronavirus

Apps

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

3.0

26

Andrew J. Hawkins

Rad Power Bikes releases an upgraded version of its best electric bike

Last year, Rad Power Bikes released the RadRunner, a fat-tire electric utility bike with a beguiling look, a simplified-but-not-underpowered drivetrain, and an affordable price tag. The response was so great that the Seattle-based company wanted to build on the buzz with an upgraded version, which it dubbed the RadRunner Plus. And it looks great. The original RadRunner was the company’s most affordable model (only $1,299) because Rad Power Bikes left out many of the features that typically make for a more expensive price tag. Now, with the RadRunner Plus, many of those features have been added back in to make for a more comfortable, adaptable, and expensive experience. First of all, the RadRunner Plus (which will only have a limited run) will retail for $1,699. That makes it Rad Power Bikes’ most expensive model, but it’s still more affordable than a lot of e-bikes on the market today. What do you get for that extra $400? A seven-gear shifter, front suspension fork, LCD display, front and rear fender, and a front LED rock-resistant halo light. The Plus will also come standard with the accessories for a rear passenger seat, including a padded seat, rear pegs, and skirt guard. (Those cost extra with the original RadRunner.) There’s also a new silver paint job and leather “espresso”-colored handlebar grips and seat. But the core look and motor remain the same. The RadRunner Plus is available for preorder in the US, Canada, and Europe starting on March 26th, though deliveries won’t start until July for North America and August for Europe. In the meantime, the company says it will lower the price of the original RadRunner for North American customers to $1,199. The RadRunner Plus can “cross a lot of use cases and customer categories,” Rad Power Bikes CEO Mike Radenbaugh told The Verge. He recalled that the customers that come to pick up their bikes at his company’s retail shops arrive in a wide variety of vehicles, from expensive Ford F-350s and Teslas to 30-year-old Subarus with a million bumper stickers to Uber and Lyft vehicles. The RadRunner Plus is a bike that “touches everyone,” he said. Radenbaugh says he envisions the RadRunner — and now, the RadRunner Plus — as the ultimate e-bike for city-dwellers. It’s lighter weight than the company’s other models, with a drop-frame and rear rack that make it more versatile. And while the company is pulling back on some of its expansion plans in response to the coronavirus pandemic, Rad Power Bikes’ facilities have been deemed “essential businesses” and will remain open to respond to customer orders for the duration. “People want to get out of the house,” he said. “They need to social distance, too.” In other words: there’s no better time to buy an e-bike.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21195204/rad-power-bikes-radrunner-plus-upgrade-specs-price

Transportation

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

3.0

26

Monica Chin

Samsung’s Galaxy S10 Plus is discounted for a limited time

If you’ve had your eye on Samsung’s Galaxy S10 Plus but haven’t fancied the $999 price tag, today is your lucky day. Verge readers can get an unlocked model of the 2019 flagship for just $579 over at Daily Steals. All you have to do is enter the code VERGEGXLYS10 at checkout. The S10 Plus has a 6.4-inch OLED screen that looks rich and vibrant, according to Verge deputy editor Dan Seifert. It’s also excellent for shooting video, with the ability to record in up to 4K at 60 or 30fps. It’s fun and fast to use, thanks to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 855 processor. And with light usage, its battery lasts two days. One thing to note: most of the units Daily Steals is shipping only have three to six months of Samsung’s warranty left. Daily Steals says it will provide a similar warranty for the remainder of the year. Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus Control Standard Edition is discounted over at Best Buy. Both the PS4 and Xbox One editions usually cost $59, but you can currently snag them for $29. Control is a supernatural thriller game made by the creators of Quantum Break. You play as Jesse Faden, the director of a government entity that studies and documents paranormal activity. Control Standard Edition (PlayStation 4) Control Standard Edition (Xbox One) While you’re at Best Buy, check out this discounted Raspberry Pi 4. It’s now $49, which is $10 off its original price of $59. Not only is this kit a decent price, but its 64-bit quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM allow it to easily run many different applications. Remember that Best Buy’s stores are only allowing curbside pickup for the time being. Raspberry Pi 4 2GB with CanaKit Power Supply Verge Deals on Twitter

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21195318/samsung-galaxy-s10-plus-android-smartphonecontrol-xbox-one-ps4-raspberry-pi-deal-sale-discount

Good Deals

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

3.0

26

Nicole Wetsman

During a public health crisis in the US, distancing power rests with the states

At press conferences for the past week, President Donald Trump has continued to push the idea that the United States could relax the distancing measures put in place around the country to slow the COVID-19 outbreak by Easter, April 12th. “America will, again, and soon, be open for business,” he said on Monday, despite public health experts’ warnings that April 12th is far too soon and would be catastrophic. Many governors (both Republican and Democrat) and local officials are shrugging off that suggestion. “We are going to make sure we take care of the needs of New Hampshire first,” said Chris Sununu, the Republican governor of New Hampshire. Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, also a Republican, said the same: “We’re planning this much longer than two weeks here in the state of Missouri,” he said. During a public health crisis like this one, they are the ones who have the final say, says Ross Silverman, professor of health policy and management at Indiana University. “Public health powers are generally handled at the state level,” he says. The federal government plays a major role in resource allocation and can offer states suggestions and expertise, but state and local governments are largely responsible for on-the-ground decision-making. “For the most part, when we have public health concerns, they arise mostly at the local and state level. The way the system is constructed really reflects that history as far as public health is concerned,” Silverman says. “It’s the same reason why drivers licenses are different — it’s from the same decentralized system.” Legally, the states can maintain social distancing orders and business closures, even if Trump says that they shouldn’t, but that can create communication problems. “It sends really mixed messages,” Silverman says. It makes public health officials’ jobs harder when people in different types of leadership positions contradict each other, Glen Nowak, director of the Center for Health and Risk Communication at the University of Georgia, told The Verge. “It can be hard to know which point of view should be weighted more heavily and what actions and recommendations should be followed,” he said. While states can make their own decisions about the types of public health responses they think are necessary, they’re reliant on resources and regulations from the federal government during an unprecedented crisis like the COIVD-19 pandemic. For example: states had to wait for COVID-19 tests to be approved and manufactured at the federal level. Mismanagement and errors at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention meant they had to wait longer to receive federal tests, and Food and Drug Administration regulations meant they weren’t allowed to make their own for weeks. The federal government also, in theory, has access to reserves of drugs and protective equipment through the Strategic National Stockpile. States do not have direct access to the stockpile. The federal government can put pressure on companies to produce things like masks, either informally or under the Defense Production Act, which lets the president require companies to take on federal contracts for certain items. It also has a far more extensive and flexible budget. “States respond to the crisis first and foremost with the resources they have,” Silverman says. “The way it’s set up to work is that the feds provide a boost, and are the backup if states run out of something.” In this crisis, though, states have struggled to access that boost. The national stockpile is more limited than the situation requires, Trump hasn’t used the Defense Production Act to boost manufacturing of masks and ventilators, and the federal government has largely left the states to negotiate for and purchase supplies on their own. It’s still hard to say how much state-level policies like physical distancing can steer their outbreaks and how much the federal government’s influence impacts those trajectories, Silverman says. The two levels of governance are supposed to work together, with the federal government setting the tone for the state-level response. But the decentralized public health system in the US coupled with inconsistent and slow activity at the federal level means initiatives have been patchwork. “You can see which governors are working very closely with their health experts,” Silverman says. Some are following best practices, and some seem to be focused on other priorities. “The tension right now is between economic and public health interests,” he says. “You would hope everyone would be on the same page, and that is to protect the health of the public. It seems like that’s become a challenge. That’s going to lead to a more difficult-to-handle outbreak.”

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21194485/public-health-distancing-state-federal-power-trump-coronavirus-covid-19

Policy

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

3.0

26

Gigi Sohn

The FCC should let itself do more to keep Americans connected through the pandemic

As the COVID-19 pandemic has forced schools and workplaces to close all over the country, tens of millions of American children have started to attend classes online and tens of millions of American adults are now teleworking from home. This crisis has highlighted how many Americans lack high-speed wired broadband internet at home (approximately 141 million) and specifically how many school-age children are disconnected (as many as 12 million). This digital divide did not happen by accident. It is the result of years of scorched-earth deregulation and consolidation pushed by large cable and broadband companies and a government that, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, believes that somehow the so-called “free market” will take care of the unconnected. That is why, in this national emergency, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai was forced to beg broadband providers to sign up for his “Keep America Connected Pledge.” Under this pledge, companies promise not to terminate customers who cannot pay for 60 days. In addition, providers with Wi-Fi hotspots pledge to keep them open for 60 days so that anyone can use them. According to Pai, nearly 500 companies have now signed onto the pledge. While taking the pledge is commendable, it’s not nearly enough to ensure that all Americans are connected during this time. Fixed and mobile broadband companies should also eliminate data caps and overage fees, permit tethering of mobile wireless service to computers, and increase bandwidth if necessary, at no charge, to ensure that everyone has access to fast, reliable broadband. They should expand, improve, and lower the price of low-income broadband programs or create such programs where they don’t already exist. Pai “urged” the broadband industry to do some of these things, and to their credit, some providers have. But knowing that most of them would never commit to such measures, Pai did not make them part of the pledge. One might think that during a national emergency, the chairman of the FCC wouldn’t have to plead with broadband providers to do what is necessary to ensure that every American is connected. But in 2017, at the behest of cable and broadband companies, the Trump FCC abdicated its responsibility to protect consumers and promote competition in the broadband market when it repealed its network neutrality rules. Not satisfied with simply eliminating the rules, which prohibited broadband providers from blocking, throttling, and otherwise favoring certain internet content and services, the Trump FCC blithely threw away its legal power to oversee the activities of these companies by reclassifying them as unregulated “information services” rather than regulated “telecommunications services.” As millions of Americans rush to get online, the shortsightedness of the commission’s action becomes clear. A voluntary pledge isn’t adequate to ensure that Americans can work, learn, have access to health care, and communicate during this trying time. Without legal authority over broadband providers, the agency cannot hold any of those companies to their promises — they can simply walk away after 60 days or before. Nor can the FCC require broadband providers to take critical steps beyond the pledge, like relaxing data caps, providing low-cost or free connectivity, or other steps that would help those desperately in need during this crisis, if even on a temporary basis. The Communications Act of 1934 gives the FCC a great deal of flexibility to ensure that the public is protected during a national emergency. But when it comes to broadband internet access, this FCC is powerless. An FCC with oversight over the broadband market not only can ensure that all Americans are connected now, it can ensure that they are connected when there isn’t a pandemic. A fully empowered agency can, among other things, promote competition in the highly consolidated broadband market, which would lower prices and improve services. It can strengthen, expand, and introduce competition and innovation into the Lifeline program, which gives a very small $9.25 subsidy to low-income Americans for broadband. It can protect consumers from fraudulent billing, price gouging, and privacy violations and data breaches. And it can make sure that broadband networks are resilient, reliable and secure — a vital service now that so many Americans are sheltered in place and relying on digital networks for basic needs. The Trump FCC will do none of these things. If the COVID-19 crisis has taught us anything, it is that we must remain connected when we are forced to be physically distant. Right now, millions of Americans cannot get broadband internet access, which is the primary way they can stay connected to their schools, workplaces, families, and friends. This alone is cause for Congress, the FCC, and the American people to take a long, hard look at our broadband policies now and in the future. Getting through this national emergency and being prepared for the next one depends on it.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21195760/fcc-internet-connection-social-distancing-gigi-sohn-coronavirus

Policy

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

3.0

26

Jay Peters

Google’s new Pixel Buds could hit spring release date, as they may have just hit the FCC

Google’s second-generation Pixel Buds may have just appeared in Federal Communications Commission (FCC) filings, indicating that the company’s new true wireless earbuds could hit their spring release window (via 9to5Google). Two new FCC filings from Google for wireless earphones appeared yesterday. The filings have two different model numbers, G1007 and G1008, possibly correlating to one filing for each earbud. The filings don’t specifically state that these are the new Pixel Buds, and a product appearing on the FCC isn’t always a confirmation that it will launch imminently. But given that Google has said the new Pixel Buds will come out sometime in spring, it seems likely that yesterday’s filings are indeed for the new earbuds. Google says the new Pixel Buds will have hands-free access to Google Assistant, passive noise cancellation, five hours of battery life on one charge, 24 hours of battery life with the case, and long-range Bluetooth that can apparently stay connected to your phone from up to three rooms away. They’ll cost $179. My colleague Nilay Patel got to hold and wear the new Pixel Buds shortly after they were announced, but the ones he tried weren’t actually working yet, so it’s unclear how good they will sound or if they’ll live up to Google’s promises. We’re also still waiting on Microsoft’s $249 Surface Earbuds, which were also first announced last October but were later delayed to this spring. Both Google and Microsoft will face fierce competition from Apple’s popular AirPods and AirPods Pro, Samsung’s new Galaxy Buds Plus, and other true wireless earbuds.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21195788/google-new-pixel-buds-2-fcc-spring-release-window

Google

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

3.0

26

Josh Dzieza

Amazon isn’t notifying workers about COVID-19 cases at their warehouses

Bobbi Johnson, a worker at an Amazon warehouse south of Detroit, first saw the rumors on Facebook over the weekend. Kelly McIntosh-Butler, another worker at the facility, heard about them on Monday from her daughter, who works at another Amazon warehouse nearby. But it wasn’t until Tuesday, when Johnson and others confronted someone from human resources in the break room, that they received confirmation that someone at the facility had tested positive for COVID-19. Six workers at the sortation center DTW5 say they only learned of the case from coworkers or after McIntosh-Butler, frustrated with the lack of transparency, tipped off Local Four News, which received confirmation from Amazon Tuesday. In the information vacuum, they are left wondering whether they’ve been exposed and whether it’s safe to continue working. Last week, Johnson’s son, who has asthma, began having trouble breathing. This week, her daughter developed a dry cough. She hasn’t been able to get either tested, and she worries she was an unknowing vector for COVID-19. She decided to stay home, without pay, to care for her children and avoid potentially spreading the virus. “They should have closed that building down and sanitized that whole building before they let us come in,” Johnson tells The Verge. “And they should have given everyone a robocall, because you never know if you bumped into that person in the bathroom or anything, because not only are you putting your life at risk, you’re putting the people that you come in contact with’s lives at stake.” Workers at DTW5 say that after they confronted management, they were told that five workers who had been in contact with the infected person had been informed. Workers feel that is far from sufficient. Their jobs often take them to different parts of the warehouse and they share break rooms, restrooms, and equipment, making it difficult to say precisely who may have been exposed. Many are balancing the need to receive a paycheck with potential risks to themselves and their loved ones, and without being notified of potential exposure, they fear they are making decisions in the dark. “Here I am, a week after being exposed to it, and I’ve already been to work three other times, three other days breathing on people,” McIntosh-Butler says. “This is how this thing is getting out of control right now.” Several workers at DTW5 say they hear hacking coughs, sneezes, and other potential symptoms in the facility, but no one is being screened upon arrival. Though the workers have been told cleaning has been ramped up, they say they’ve seen no evidence of it, and that sanitary wipes and other cleaning material is often in short supply or nonexistent. Yesterday, another worker at the facility said she was experiencing COVID-like symptoms, hasn’t been able to get tested, and has decided to self-quarantine, according to screenshots shared with The Verge. (Update: Three workers at DTW5 received an automated call on Thursday morning informing them there had been a second confirmed case of COVID-19 at the facility, though several other workers say they have yet to be notified.) Workers have been diagnosed with COVID-19 at 10 Amazon warehouses in the US so far. At many of them, workers only confirmed the infection after confronting management or hearing news reports. In Jacksonville, Florida, workers learned of a coronavirus case at their warehouse from the local news. At a New York City sortation center last week, the first known case of an Amazon warehouse worker contracting COVID-19, Amazon sent day shift workers home while the company disinfected the facility, but workers on the following shift only learned of the case after getting a text from a workers’ group. When the night shift arrived, they refused to work, shutting down the facility. On Tuesday, an Amazon worker at a Staten Island fulfillment center tested positive, and again workers received no email, text, or call from Amazon. At the MDW2 warehouse in Joliet, Illinois, Stephanie Haynes heard through coworkers that someone who works near her had tested positive. She approached someone from human resources, who confirmed it. “Me and some other ladies went to human resources and confronted them about it, and we thought they’ll do something as far as shutting the building down or doing a lot of cleaning,” Haynes said during a call organized by Athena, a coalition of groups critical of Amazon. Instead, management claimed to have checked the cameras and found that the workers had not been close enough to the infected person to be in danger, Haynes says, and told the workers to continue coming in. The building wasn’t shut down — management told workers the facility would be cleaned as they worked. Haynes, who has asthma and whose husband has diabetes, putting them at higher risk from COVID-19, decided to self-quarantine anyway. Though Amazon has said it will provide two weeks’ paid leave for any workers diagnosed with COVID-19 or placed in quarantine, unless the company calls to recommend she should quarantine, her time away is unpaid. “Amazon needs to do a lot more to protect us,” she says. “We need to know how they’re going to handle things when somebody is in a warehouse and gets sick.” Amazon has the capacity to quickly notify workers. The company frequently messages all workers at a given facility for things like schedule changes or mandatory overtime. When California shut down all non-essential businesses last week, Amazon workers received automated calls telling them they were essential and should continue coming to their warehouses. “You guys call us to tell us that we’re getting extra pay or that we can come in, but nobody was notified that there was a confirmed case?” says Johnson at DTW5. Asked about the lack of notification for workers at DTW5 and elsewhere, Amazon said only that it had made employees aware of confirmed cases and asked anyone in close contact with diagnosed individuals to self-quarantine for 14 days with pay. “We are supporting the individuals, following guidelines from local officials, and are taking extreme measures to ensure the safety of all the employees at our sites,” the company said in a statement. Millions of Americans told to stay home have turned to Amazon as a means of getting basic necessities, and the company has embraced its role as an “essential service,” scaling up operations as governments order other businesses closed. But the situation puts Amazon workers in a difficult position, forced to choose between going without a paycheck or venturing into crowded warehouses where many feel inadequate safety precautions are being taken. On Facebook, workers have begun changing their profiles to read, “I can’t stay home, I work at Amazon.” More than 1,500 workers have signed a petition calling on the company to improve safety measures, provide sick leave regardless of a COVID-19 diagnosis, and shut down facilities where workers test positive for cleaning. The company says it has implemented new cleaning procedures and taken steps to avoid people crowding together, but workers at DTW5 and elsewhere say cleaning supplies are often lacking, the pace of work doesn’t leave them time to use them, and their jobs still require them being in close proximity to each other. While Amazon shut down a returns-processing warehouse in Kentucky Wednesday after three workers tested positive, it has so far refused to close facilities more integral to its distribution network. In Italy and Spain, the company’s decision to keep warehouses running despite infections prompted protests and absenteeism. Amazon, meanwhile, is struggling to staff up to meet surging demand. Last week, the company raised pay by $2 per hour, increased pay for overtime, and announced plans to hire 100,000 workers. Amazon also changed its policies to allow workers to take unlimited time off without pay (previously they would have been fired for taking more than a certain amount), and even before Amazon workers began getting infected, many were choosing to stay home or leave early, fearing an outbreak was inevitable. As orders flood in, delivery times for some items now stretch to a month or more. “A lot of people are coming to work, working two or three hours, and leaving because they’re thinking overexposure is scary,” McIntosh-Butler says. “Management is mad, and if they tell anybody that we had a positive case, they’re thinking people aren’t even going to show up to work.” But at DTW5, the fact that workers had to confront management over rumors to learn a coworker tested positive has only heightened their anxiety. One worker said that after HR confirmed the case on Tuesday, more than 100 workers walked out, and now she’s weighing whether to work her next shift. She needs to make rent, but she’s also in frequent contact with her father, who has cystic fibrosis, potentially making him more vulnerable to COVID-19. Another worker said that as a single mother of three, she can’t afford to go without a paycheck, but also fears getting the virus and infecting her kids. “It’s very scary,” she says. McIntosh-Butler’s husband has seen work dry up during the pandemic, but she’s only going to work one more shift this week and then stay away. She’ll wear a bandana over her face, as many workers at the facility have begun doing, even though she knows it won’t do much. “I’ll have my $200 check and they can have the rest,” McIntosh-Butler says. “I just think that it’s too dangerous right now, because I don’t know who I’m coming into contact with, and HR isn’t taking it seriously.” Update March 26th, 11:30AM ET: The story has been updated with information about a second confirmed COVID-19 case at DTW5. Several workers received an automated call about the case after publication.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21194739/amazon-warehouse-workers-coronavirus-covid-19-outraged-informed

Report

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

3.0

26

Chaim Gartenberg

Dyson developed and is producing ventilators to help treat COVID-19 patients

Dyson — the British technology company best known for its high-powered vacuum cleaners, hair dryers, and fans — has designed a new ventilator, the “CoVent,” in the past several days, which it will be producing in order to help treat coronavirus patients, via CNN. The company reportedly developed the ventilator in 10 days based on Dyson’s existing digital motor technology. Dyson is still seeking regulatory approval in the UK for the rapidly designed device, but it’s already received an order from the UK Government for 10,000 ventilators, of which the National Health Service (NHS) is in dire need. The CoVent is a bed-mounted and portable ventilator, with the option to run on battery power should the need arise. “This new device can be manufactured quickly, efficiently and at volume,” company founder James Dyson noted in a letter to the company obtained by Fast Company, adding that the CoVent was “designed to address the specific clinical needs of Covid-19 patients.” Dyson also pledged in the letter to donate an additional 5,000 ventilators to “the international effort, 1,000 of which will go to the United Kingdom.” “The race is now on to get it into production,” Dyson noted in his letter, with a company spokesperson telling CNN that the ventilators would be ready in early April. Ventilators — which provide assisted breathing for patients who are unable to breath themselves — are critical for the treatment of severe cases of COVID-19, which causes respiratory symptoms in some patients. Dyson isn’t the only major company that’s pivoted to ventilator design and production in recent days — carmarkers like Ford, Tesla, and General Motors have also pledged to repurpose their plants toward developing the critical treatment devices as shortages around the world continue to grow.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21195433/dyson-ventilators-covent-coronavirus-develop-produce-uk-nhs-donate-vacuum-motor

Science

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

3.0

26

Andrew Webster

Epic launches publishing label, signs creators behind Control, Inside, and The Last Guardian

Fortnite maker Epic Games is getting into publishing in a big way. Today the company announced the launch of Epic Games Publishing, which is exactly what it sounds like: a publishing label funded by Epic. “We’re building the publishing model we always wanted for ourselves when we worked with publishers,” Epic founder Tim Sweeney said in a statement. To start, Epic has lined up an impressive trio of development partners. That includes Remedy Entertainment, most recently known for the surreal action game Control; Playdead, the team behind the haunting side-scrollers Limbo and Inside; and Gen Design, a studio helmed by director Fumito Ueda, which most recently launched The Last Guardian. In a separate statement, Remedy said that the deal covered two titles; one larger-scale production, and a smaller game set in the same universe. As with the Epic Games Store, which boasted about its more developer-friendly terms, the new publishing label is meant to offer a better deal for game creators. Here are the key aspects, according to Epic: It’s a similar premise to the EGS, which offers developers a revenue split of 88 / 12, compared to the 30 percent cut most major digital stores take from sales. Epic previously supported game development through grants, such as the $100 million MegaGrant program, and by signing games to exclusive EGS deals. “Gen Design, Remedy, and Playdead are among the most innovative and talented studios in the industry, with strong visions for their next games,” Hector Sanchez, head of the label, said in a statement. “They will have full creative control, while Epic will provide a solid foundation of project funding and services.” One important note is that the new games published by Epic won’t necessarily be exclusive to its store. Epic describes the new venture as “a new multiplatform publishing effort with a developer-first approach.” Epic says that more partners, and the first games, will be announced “in the coming months.”

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21195152/epic-games-publishing-label-control-last-guardian-inside

Gaming

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

3.0

26

Chaim Gartenberg

Verily details drive-through COVID-19 testing in new video

Nearly a week and a half after Google’s sister company Verily launched its COVID-19 screening and testing website, the company has published a video of its in-person drive-through testing process. As the video explains, anyone looking to be tested first has to take an online screening questionnaire, the details of which were revealed last week when the website launched. The screener is designed to help prioritize testing. The criteria include exposure to existing cases of the virus, current symptoms, age, previous health conditions, and at-risk locations or occupations. Those criteria determine whether you qualify. If you qualify for testing, you’ll get a reference ID number and appointment details, including the time and location. Then, you’ll head to the testing site, which consists of three stations. At the first station, you’ll get your ID and reference ID checked through the closed window of your vehicle to prevent possible infection. Once confirmed, you’ll drive to the second station, which will match your ID to a lab kit. Then you’ll head to the final station, where you’ll receive a nasal swab. That sample will get sent to a lab, with results delivered between two to four days later. Right now, Verily’s Project Baseline testing is still limited to just Santa Clara, San Mateo, Riverside, and Sacramento counties. As the video notes, Verily’s website and testing process is part of the larger, California-based COVID-19 testing program, which is a “state-directed program with federal input.” Despite muddled statements from the White House regarding a Google-built screening website earlier in March, it’s not clear that Verily has plans to expand the program beyond California, or even whether the Verily Project Baseline site was the Google website that President Trump had been referring to at the time. Correction: Verily has expanded testing on March 23rd to Riverside and Sacramento Counties, not just the Bay Area as this article originally claimed.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21195874/verily-project-baseline-drive-through-covid-19-testing-new-video-swap

Science

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

3.0

26

Adi Robertson

FBI arrests man for hawking fake ‘coronavirus prevention pill’

The Justice Department arrested a California man for hawking a fake COVID-19 cure, marking the first federal criminal case tied to the novel coronavirus. Keith Lawrence Middlebrook allegedly advertised on Instagram that he’d invented a “coronavirus prevention pill” and an injectable “COVID-19 formula vaccine cure,” falsely claimed that basketball player Earvin “Magic” Johnson was on his company’s board, and promised potential investors millions of dollars in returns. He was arrested after delivering his “prevention pills” to an undercover FBI agent. There is no vaccine or treatment for the novel coronavirus, although researchers are conducting clinical trials for both. But Middlebrook claimed he was about to mass-produce his own cure. The Justice Department says he garnered around 2 million views on YouTube and Instagram, and he spoke to at least two people about investments: one FBI agent and one cooperating witness. He’s now charged with attempted wire fraud, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. The new coronavirus is spreading through the US, and several states have made emergency declarations. The World Health Organization has declared it a pandemic. Here are the basics: According to California court records, Middlebrook was previously arrested for wire fraud in 2014 after allegedly running a fraudulent credit score improvement business. The case was dismissed in 2016. The Justice Department and other federal agencies have urged citizens to report coronavirus-related fraud. The Food and Drug Administration sent cease and desist letters to several companies promoting essential oils or ingestible silver for COVID-19 prevention, and the Justice Department filed its first enforcement action over the weekend, issuing a temporary restraining order against a site selling fake “vaccine kits” to collect credit card information from buyers. State attorneys general have also cracked down on virus-related scams, including New York AG Letitia James who censured radio host Alex Jones for marketing toothpaste and other products as coronavirus killers. Missouri’s attorney general sued to stop televangelist Jim Bakker from selling his own ineffective and potentially dangerous treatment. US Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen has also said that people who intentionally expose others to the novel coronavirus could be charged under federal terrorism laws since the virus meets the definition of a “biological agent.” However, there have been no arrests for intentional exposure so far.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21195236/fbi-doj-arrest-fake-coronavirus-vaccine-cure-covid-19-keith-middlebrook

Policy

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

3.0

26

Cameron Faulkner

Polaroid Now review: a revival that’s light on features

The Polaroid brand has been through a lot in the past 10 years. After the company announced that it was abandoning its instant film format, Impossible Project resurrected it in 2011 and sold reverse-engineered film alongside the Polaroid Spirit 600 camera at Urban Outfitters. Later in 2017, Impossible Project brought the brand back in the form of “Polaroid Originals” with a camera called the OneStep 2, followed by the OneStep Plus in 2018. We’ve now come full circle: Polaroid Originals has reclaimed the classic Polaroid brand. And to celebrate, it’s releasing a new $99 camera called the Polaroid Now. Like the OneStep 2 and the OneStep Plus, this model works with I-Type film (the type of film that the Impossible Project reverse-engineered from Polaroid’s factory and continues to make). And if you’re willing to pay a premium, it’ll work with the classic, battery-operated 600 format packs, too. Unlike the company’s more recent cameras, the Polaroid Now doesn’t fuss with multiple lenses or superfluous connectivity features. Instead, it has an autofocus system that detects the subject, then cleverly slides in a 35mm or 40mm lens based on how far the subject is from the camera. Polaroid claims that, this way, the camera can home in on the correct subject, be it a portrait or a landscape shot. As you might expect, this camera has a viewfinder to peer through. It also features a more accurate flash than previous Polaroid Classic models. Polaroid says that the camera takes lighting conditions into consideration to adjust the hue of the flash. If you don’t want to use the flash, there’s a button next to the yellow power button that disables it for each shot. For continuous shooting without flash, you just tap that button twice. In terms of other notable features, the Polaroid Now has a self-timer mode and a double exposure mode. They’re both activated with the same button; you tap it twice to activate double exposure. The camera is rechargeable via a Micro USB port on its side, and the company claims that it can last up to 15 packs of film, each of which contains eight sheets of instant film. To insert a pack, you just open the film door by pressing a button on the side of the camera. Polaroid lent me a review unit of the Polaroid Now camera, along with two packs of film to shoot with: a color I-Type pack and a black-and-white pack. As simple as this camera is to use, it didn’t play nicely with the shots I wanted to take. Whether I shot in natural light or in my relatively dim basement studio apartment, the prints always came out looking blurry. It was as if the autofocus system just wasn’t working, and whether the flash was on didn’t make a difference in the outcome of the photo. A few of the photos that I took have that signature warm, nostalgic look I was aiming to capture with Polaroid’s instant film format. But most of them look like a faded, blurry memory (even though I just took the pictures), and the film takes quite a while to process (around 10 to 15 minutes). In Polaroid’s defense, shooting with analog film is something that takes practice, and I don’t have a ton of experience with it. And the costly trial-and-error process is part of what makes it fun and rewarding. That said, I put it through paces that I’d put any camera through, although since the cost per shot was about $2, I thought twice and thrice before committing to taking a picture. I took shots in low light with and without flash, shots that tried to test the different zoom levels, and tricky compositions, like shooting at night through a chain-link fence. A Polaroid representative shared a few reasons why, perhaps, some of my photos didn’t turn out as I intended them to. They said that this camera delivers the best results indoors with the flash on; otherwise, the long exposure to compensate for a lack of light can lead to blurry photos if you aren’t perfectly still. As for why the photo of the chain-link fence below has a chemical splotch on the side, it’s because I didn’t pull the camera away from the fence quickly enough, so the photo got slightly bent on its way out. These were beginner mistakes, and I got better with the camera as I took more pictures with it. But after 16 photos, I had burned through about $30 worth of film with only a few I’d consider to be keepers. Poor results aside, this camera just isn’t as ambitious as the OneStep Plus, the model from 2018. In the current model, Polaroid has stripped away the useful Bluetooth function that let you use your phone as a remote shutter through a companion app. The new Polaroid Now does have a self-timer, but it might not give you enough time to set up the perfect selfie. What’s more, the older model let you handle double exposure through the app, whereas the newer model relies on a series of button presses that aren’t clearly laid out in the instruction manual. I’m not saying that having those features would have led to me taking better pictures, but they certainly would have helped. If you’re looking for an instant film camera, Polaroid has some work to do if it wants to be among the ones that we recommend. Fujifilm’s Instax lineup of cameras dominate our buying guide on instant film cameras, and some of its models cost far less than the Polaroid Now and seem to produce better-looking photos. Then again, maybe I just need to practice more. Photography by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. For more information, see our ethics policy.

https://www.theverge.com/photography/2020/3/26/21193062/polaroid-now-instant-film-camera-rebranding-price-impossible-project

Cameras and Photography

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

3.0

26

Jay Peters

Duolingo is launching an iOS app to teach young kids how to read

Duolingo is launching a new iOS app on Thursday that is designed to teach young children how to read English. The app, called Duolingo ABC, uses short lessons made to help teach the alphabet, phonics, and sight words to kids ages three through six. The company says Duolingo ABC has more than 300 lessons. Kids will be asked to perform tasks like spell a given word from a jumble of letters, trace the outline of a capitalized or lowercase letter, trace their names, tap objects that start with a certain letter, and tap a specific word in a sentence. You can get an idea of what some of the games look like in the screenshots in the below gallery: At launch, Duolingo ABC will be available in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the UK, and the US. Right now, it will only be available for iOS, but the company says it plans to release an Android version at some point in the future. Duolingo ABC will be free and won’t have any ads or in-app purchases, the company says. Update, March 26th, 11:20AM ET: Added App Store link.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21194763/duolingo-abc-ios-app-teach-kids-read-english-free-download

Apple

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

3.0

26

Tom Warren

Xbox Series X graphics source code stolen and leaked online

AMD says that a hacker has obtained source files for some of its current and future GPUs, including details about the Xbox Series X. “In December 2019, we were contacted by someone who claimed to have test files related to a subset of our current and future graphics products, some of which were recently posted online, but have since been taken down,” says an AMD spokesperson. AMD has filed multiple takedown notices to Microsoft-owned GitHub, where repositories were hosting the stolen Navi GPU source code. TorrentFreak reports that the code included details for AMD’s Navi 10, Navi 21 and Arden GPUs, and the GitHub takedown notices say it included intellectual property “stolen from AMD.” AMD’s Arden GPU is believed to be the codename for what’s used in Microsoft’s next-gen Xbox Series X console. Some details previously leaked in December about Arden, related to test files that were also posted on GitHub. The alleged hacker has claimed they will “just leak everything,” in an interview with TorrentFreak, if they’re not able to sell the information. It’s not clear whether the source code is partial or whether it will impact the security of AMD’s future GPUs, but the company doesn’t appear to be overly concerned. “While we are aware the perpetrator has additional files that have not been made public, we believe the stolen graphics IP is not core to the competitiveness or security of our graphics products,” says AMD. “We are not aware of the perpetrator possessing any other AMD IP.” We’ve reached out to Microsoft to comment on the situation, and we’ll update you accordingly.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21195086/amd-hack-gpu-navi-information-xbox-series-x-source-code-theft

Microsoft

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

3.0

26

Sam Byford

Animal Crossing powers Nintendo to record Switch sales in Japan

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is on track to become one of the best-selling video games of all time in Japan, according to sales figures released by Famitsu. The game managed to sell 1.88 million physical copies in its opening three days in Nintendo’s home market, a number far bigger than any other Switch game or Animal Crossing title to date. Famitsu doesn’t track digital sales, so the actual total will be significantly higher. The game’s launch also propelled Switch hardware sales to new heights, despite Nintendo’s prior warning that the coronavirus pandemic would affect hardware production and shipments. More than 392,000 consoles were sold in Japan last week, the highest seven-day total ever for the Switch, and one that means it’s now sold more than the Wii in Japan. (The Switch is still far behind the Wii in global sales, however — the latest official total was 52.48 million units sold worldwide as of the end of 2019, while the Wii reached 101.63 million in its lifetime.) Hardware sales were undoubtedly helped by the launch of two new variants: the Animal Crossing-branded Switch, and the coral pink Switch Lite. The cheaper, portable-only Switch Lite made up roughly 70 percent of all Switch sales last week, according to Famitsu’s data. New Horizons is a relaxing adventure that sees you move to a desert island and hang out with your animal friends (or IRL buddies), making it perhaps uniquely suited for the challenging COVID-19 situation right now. “We’ve been planning this release for quite some time, so it’s unfortunate that this timing overlapped with what’s currently happening in the world,” producer Hisashi Nogami told The Verge. “I am very disheartened and saddened by the events happening across the world. Considering the timing, we hope that a lot of the Animal Crossing fans will use this as an escape, so they can enjoy themselves during this difficult time.”

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21195022/animal-crossing-switch-sales-japan-famitsu

Gaming

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

3.0

26

Loren Grush

ULA targeting first launch for the US Space Force this afternoon during pandemic

The United Launch Alliance is on track to launch a communications satellite for the US Space Force out of Cape Canaveral, Florida this afternoon — the company’s first flight for the newly minted military branch. The flight is happening against the background of the COVID-19 pandemic that has forced other rocket companies to stand down from their missions to space. For ULA, the pandemic has not stopped the company’s ability to move forward with launch preparations, though they did make some adjustments to protect their workers. In early March, before state governments started issuing lockdowns, ULA CEO Tory Bruno said that the company had issued new precautions in response to the outbreak, such as limiting how many people could be in meetings and eliminating all non-essential travel, according to Space News. However, travel associated with upcoming launches — such as traveling to launch sites — was considered essential, he said. ULA confirmed that these policies are still in place and that the company has made it easier for employees to work from home. A “cross-functional team” is also monitoring the situation and following CDC guidelines, according to ULA. Meanwhile, the company is deep cleaning their facilities daily and quarantining personnel who may have been exposed to people with COVID-19. ULA says it does not anticipate any delays in the future. “As for other launches or developments, we are not currently projecting any disruptions to our manifest,” a ULA spokesperson said in a statement. “ULA is working closely with our mission partners to navigate this unprecedented situation. We are working to ensure that we retain a fully functioning mission-essential capability to support our nation.” While ULA is still able to launch, other US space companies are standing down or postponing missions as they start to feel the full weight of the pandemic. Small satellite launcher Rocket Lab announced it would delay its upcoming launch out of New Zealand next week in order “to protect the health of our team members, our families & the community.” Meanwhile, SpaceX’s upcoming launch of a Venezuelan satellite has been postponed indefinitely because of restrictions put in place to combat the spread of COVID-19. It’s not just launch companies that are hurting. Bigelow Aerospace, which creates space habitats, laid off its entire workforce this week in order to comply with the Nevada governor’s order to close all non-essential businesses. Things could change for ULA in the future, but for now, the company is ready to launch its workhorse Atlas V rocket. The vehicle is lofting the sixth Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellite, or AEHF-6, for the Space Force. The satellite, headed to a high orbit above Earth 22,000 miles up, will join the five other AEHF satellites already in space that “provide global, survivable, protected communications capabilities for strategic command and tactical warfighters operating on ground, sea, and air platforms,” according to the company. ULA also launched all the other AEHF satellites. Takeoff of ULA’s Atlas V is scheduled for 2:57PM ET out of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and the company has a two-hour launch window to get the rocket in the air. ULA plans to provide live coverage of the launch starting at 2:37PM ET, so check back then to watch the Atlas V take flight.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21194208/united-launch-alliance-atlas-v-rocket-launch-space-force-takeoff-watch-live

Science

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

3.0

26

Tom Warren

Slack breaks user records as demand surges for remote working

Microsoft Teams isn’t the only business-focused chat and communications app that’s seeing a spike in demand. Slack is revealing today that it has hit new user records for simultaneously connected users, thanks to a surge in demand for remote working amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. On Tuesday March 10th, Slack saw concurrent users pass 10 million, which then jumped to 10.5 million six days later on March 16th before reaching 12.5 million yesterday. Slack isn’t revealing a total count of daily active users during this period, only simultaneously connected users. Slack previously revealed it has 12 million daily active users back in October, but the company has not publicly updated this number since. Microsoft Teams usage has soared over the past year, reaching 44 million daily active users during a big increase in demand earlier this month. Slack has instead been trying to steer the conversation to how many actions are taken in Slack compared to its competitors, and how much people love to use its app. Slack is also overhauling its design for the biggest revamp in its history. The new design, which includes a focus on simplification and customization, is rolling out to existing customers over the coming weeks. But in a refreshingly honest note, Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield admits there’s still more to do. “If you’re just getting started on Slack, I’m sorry: there are still some rough spots,” admits Butterfield. “It’s not as easy to get used to as we’d like. But we’re working hard to simplify and guide people towards effective usage. It’s worth the effort. When it works, you’ll never go back to email.” Slack also revealed last month that IBM has picked it over Microsoft Teams to power the company’s chat communications for its 330,000 employees. IBM has long been Slack’s biggest customer, but IBM’s decision to roll out Slack to all of its employees comes just weeks after Microsoft started a big TV ad push to convince businesses to pick Teams instead of Slack. Microsoft also has its eyes on Zoom, just as more businesses turn to its video conferencing solution. Even consumers are flocking to the app instead of Skype. Microsoft is planning to hold an Office press event on Monday, where the company is expected to unveil a more consumer-focused version of Microsoft Teams.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21195092/slack-new-user-records-coronavirus-pandemic-remote-working-growth-concurrent-users

Tech

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

3.0

26

Casey Newton

How COVID-19 is changing public perception of big tech companies

The Interface is a daily column and newsletter about the intersection of social media and democracy. Subscribe here. On March 5th, as COVID-19 began to reshape American life, I noted here that big tech companies had responded with unusual alacrity. Where they once had been loath to intervene in matters of fact, suddenly Facebook and Twitter were prominently featuring links to high-quality information from the Centers for Disease Control and World Health Organization in their respective feeds and search results. Google followed suit shortly thereafter. In the weeks since, Big Tech has only accelerated its efforts at doing good. They have donated tens of millions of dollars to relief efforts. They have contributed large stocks of precious N95 masks acquired during last year’s wildfires to medical organizations. They have added sections to their apps highlighting accurate news about COVID-19. And as unemployment surged, Facebook pledged $100 million in grants to small businesses, and Amazon said it would hire 100,000 people. In a dramatic change from only weeks before, news about Big Tech has been a bright spot at a time of great fear — and, increasingly, of grief. Increasingly, journalists are asking whether the backlash against technology companies that has defined coverage of them for the past three and a half years might have come to an end. In Wired on Friday, Steven Levy asked the question plainly: has the coronvirus killed the techlash? He writes: Now that our lives are dominated by these giants, we see them as greedy exploiters of personal data and anticompetitive behemoths who have generally degraded society. Before the pandemic, there was every expectation that those companies would be reined in, if not split apart. But the deus ex machina of an overwhelming public health crisis has changed things. The pandemic may have the effect of a justifiable war waged by an embattled president with low popularity. While Big Tech’s misdeeds are still apparent, their actual deeds now matter more to us. We’re using Facebook to comfort ourselves while physically bunkered and social distancing. Google is being conscripted as the potential hub of one of our greatest needs—Covid-19 testing. Our personal supply chain—literally the only way many of us are getting food and vital supplies—is Amazon. Who knew the techlash was susceptible to a virus? At CNBC, Salvador Rodriguez explored the same issue on Saturday, focused on Facebook. After rounding up everything the company had done so far, he said: “Facebook won’t be able to rebuild trust with the public overnight, but when the company was presented with an opportunity to rebuild goodwill by being proactive and helpful during global health and financial crises, Facebook sprung to action and seized the moment.” Subsequent articles have noted that, however magnanimous tech giants have acted in the crisis so far, they have much to gain from successfully navigating the coronavirus response. In The Information, Cory Weinberg noted that the companies’ work so far would likely have a recruiting benefit: It is too early to know how big tech companies might seize the moment. And their own businesses certainly aren’t immune to economic fallout. But one area where they stand to benefit is recruiting. In recent years, big tech firms have had to compete with fast-growing startups for skilled computer scientists, especially as scandals and questions about abuses of power have tainted the reputations of the bigger firms. But tech workers who once might have preferred the dynamic surroundings of a small startup now might welcome the safer bet of a big enterprise. One software engineer, who declined to be named to protect his job prospects, said he has been ignoring dozens of emails and calls from recruiters at Facebook in the last few months as he sought to develop his own company or join younger firms. But with venture capital firms expected to pull back from investing in nascent businesses, this month he scheduled an interview with the social media giant. His rationale: Stock gains from an equity package at Facebook could eventually help him self-fund his startup. And perhaps even more importantly, the crisis represents an opportunity for tech companies to entwine themselves ever more deeply into customers’ lives. Already I’ve had friends who had sworn off Facebook for good return to check on friends and family; will they be so quickly to delete it when a more normal way of life resumes? Amazon Prime may be groaning under the weight of increased demand, but after it gets your family through this crisis, would you ever dream of canceling it? Daisuke Wakabayashi, Jack Nicas, Steve Lohr and Mike Isaac explore this question in the New York Times: While Amazon has changed shopping habits for items like books, getting customers to trust it with groceries has been challenging. Now, as more people are forced to stay home, one of the last strongholds of physical retailing may be coming under pressure. [...] As more customers try different Amazon services, they may create permanent shifts in buying habits, said Guru Hariharan, a former Amazon employee and the founder of CommerceIQ, a company whose automation software is used by major brands like Kellogg’s and Kimberly-Clark. For now, I think the prevailing sentiment is accurate: tech giants have probably turned a corner in public opinion. I imagine that the next time The Verge does its survey of Americans, it will find that the decline in trust has at least slowed, if not entirely reversed. One pressing question is whether that shift in sentiment, assuming its real, will affect the many ongoing state and federal investigations into competition and privacy issues that are still under way. Since late 2016 we have been focused on the problems that emerge from the size of giants like Google, Facebook, and Amazon; in the past several weeks the benefits that come from that size have become more apparent. Still, it’s possible that even a perfect response to the COVID-19 crisis could plant the seeds for a future backlash. So much of the frustration with tech companies in recent years has originated from the fact that they are inescapable. Dependence breeds resentment, and the fewer alternatives consumers have to tech giants, the more resentful they are likely to become in time. It’s also possible — and even likely — that tech companies will make significant errors in their handling of the crisis, which could set back any progress they haver made. But all that can wait for another day. For better and for worse, Americans are relying on technology companies to get them through the next several months. If there was ever a moment for these companies to prove their worth, it’s now. Today in news that could affect public perception of the big tech platforms. ⬆️Trending up: Volunteers from Amazon, Alphabet, and Apple worked every night for a week to make a website called covidnearyou that tracks the virus as it spreads. ⬆️Trending up: The World Health Organization has partnered with Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and Microsoft for a hackathon dedicated to solving problems related to the coronavirus pandemic. ⭐Ten Amazon warehouses in the United States have had workers test positive for COVID-19. The news comes as the e-commerce giant races to hire 100,000 more workers to meet the rising demand. Here’s Jay Greene at The Washington Post: The company has recently adopted new policies for its warehouses, including more regularly cleaning door handles, stairway handrails, touch screens and more, Levandowski said. It’s nixed stand-up meetings, staggered start and break times to aid social distancing, and suspended screening workers as they leave to improve the flow of workers, she said. Amazon, though, is struggling to get workers all the protection it wants them to have. The company placed orders for “millions of face masks” to give to employees and contractors who cannot work from home, Bezos wrote in a letter to employees Saturday. Because of the global shortage of those masks, though, very few of those orders have been filled, he wrote. Also: Amazon told workers at its warehouse in Shepherdsville, Kentucky, that it will keep the facility shut indefinitely after three people tested positive for COVID-19. The workers will continue to receive their scheduled pay. (Matt Day / Bloomberg) Still, Amazon could come out of this crisis stronger than ever. The shutdown of many retail stores, along with a general anxiety about going out in public, could end up increasing the company’s share of overall retail by prompting shoppers to buy more stuff over the internet. (Priya Anand and Ashley Gold / The Information) Amazon appears to be prioritizing shipments of its own hardware devices, like the Amazon Echo, while delaying distribution of other nonessential items as demand continues to soar. (Priya Anand / The Information) ⭐Singapore is open-sourcing its coronavirus contact-tracing app, called TraceTogether. The app uses Bluetooth to identify people who’ve been in close contact with COVID-19 patients. Here’s Hariz Baharudin at The Straits Times: Launched last Friday, the TraceTogether app can identify people who have been within 2m of coronavirus patients for at least 30 minutes, using wireless Bluetooth technology. Its developers say the app is useful when those infected cannot recall whom they had been in close proximity with for an extended duration. For the app to start tracing, the Bluetooth setting on mobile phones has to be turned on. If a user gets infected, the authorities will be able to quickly find out the other users he has been in close contact with, allowing for easier identification of potential cases and helping curb the spread of the virus. Russia is using facial-recognition technology to track people who are supposed to self-quarantine. It’s also threatening prison time for those who don’t self-isolate. (Robyn Dixon / The Washington Post) Nextdoor has become the place for neighbors to connect, organize, and help one another amid the coronavirus outbreak. But relics of the old Nextdoor are still there, conspiracy theories and all. (John Herrman / The New York Times) Facebook, Tesla, and Apple have pledged to donate thousands of masks to combat the medical equipment shortages caused by the novel coronavirus. Experts say it makes sense that these companies have vast stockpiles, since California is no stranger to natural disasters. (Blake Montgomery / Daily Beast) Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook is “just trying to keep the lights on” as traffic continues to soar amid the coronavirus outbreak. The challenge is compounded by the company struggling to transition to a fully work from home culture. (Mike Isaac and Sheera Frenkel / The New York Times) Also: Here’s what Facebook said about dealing with the spike in traffic. The World Health Organization plans to reach at least 50 million people with a WhatsApp chat service that delivers information about the novel coronavirus. The service garnered 10 million users within three days of launching. (Antony Sguazzin / Bloomberg) Twitter temporarily locked the account of The Federalist after the conservative opinion site published a piece proposing the deliberate spread of the coronavirus in order to boost immunity to the disease. Fast, decisive, positive action from Twitter here. (Zachary Petrizzo / Mediaite) Apple’s Screen Time feature has become a horrifying reminder of how much we’re using our devices now that we’re all stuck at home. I’m up to 16 hours a day across my devices, how about you? (Travis M. Andrews / The Washington Post) Pinterest launched a new Today tab to bring people curated boards and coronavirus information. The company plans to include expert information from the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control. (Nathan Ingraham / Engadget) Foxconn and Wistron, two iPhone makers, have suspended production at their Indian plants to comply with a nationwide lockdown ordered. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has ordered the population to stay at home for three weeks. (Debby Wu / Bloomberg) The coronavirus pandemic isn’t (yet?) hurting TikTok stars at The Hype House in Los Angeles. Some say they’ve seen enormous growth since the virus started to spread. (EJ Dickson / Rolling Stone) Hundreds of tech employees are getting laid off amid the coronavirus outbreak — and now it’s all happening over Zoom. Here’s how it went down at TripActions. (Biz Carson / Protocol) There’s a conflict playing out in the more orthodox factions of the Jewish community about whether or not to allow Zoom for virtual Seders. (Arutz Sheva) Why you’re getting coronavirus emails from every brand you’ve ever interacted with. They’re all making decisions out of “an abundance of caution.” Abundance O’Caution is going to be a great drag name for someone when this is all over. Or now! (Rebecca Jennings / Vox) The internet was designed to adapt to huge spikes in traffic just like the one we’re living through. But the platforms and apps that make the internet useful are less tested. (Adam Clark Estes / Recode) Americans who primarily get their news through social media are less likely to closely follow coronavirus news coverage. They’re also the most likely to report seeing misinformation about the pandemic. (Pew Research Center) Total cases in the US: 54,453 Total deaths in the US: 737 Cases reported in California: 2,853 Cases reported in New York: 26,358 Cases reported in Washington: 2,469 Information from the CDC. California data from the Los Angeles Times. Stuff to occupy you online during the quarantine. Crunch is now offering free online workout classes for 45 days. The Verge launched a newsletter called Home Screen about life on the internet during the pandemic. It’s designed to show you fun distractions from the disaster — highly recommended. A new app called Find My Pasta tells you the availably of products at nearby stores. The popular game Heads Up is now free to download. i need to practice social distancing from the refrigerator. maybe if i develop feelings for covid-19 it will leave Send us tips, comments, questions, and backlash against this newsletter: [email protected] and [email protected].

https://www.theverge.com/interface/2020/3/26/21193902/tech-backlash-covid-19-coronavirus-google-facebook-amazon

The Interface

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

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Jacob Kastrenakes

Zoom is 2020’s hottest yoga studio

Yoga looks different this week. Studios are empty, music is off, and instructors are often demonstrating forms with a couch on one side of them, a TV on another, and a laptop pointed at them from across the room. As more of the US goes under quarantine to limit the spread of COVID-19, yoga studios and instructors have moved online to connect with clients and stay afloat. Yoga instructors say it’s a nice reprieve for students, giving them a chance to de-stress and maintain a degree of normalcy. But it’s also a critical offering for studios, many of which would otherwise see their income drop to zero, and for instructors, who are typically contractors and are therefore at risk of being overlooked by unemployment protections. “We’ve just lost all of our income,” said Katie Baki, a yoga instructor who works around Los Angeles. “So being able to supplement that by doing donation-based classes, it’s not only maintaining routine for my students who I love and care for, but it’s also giving me additional income when I just lost everything.” The classes, like those offered by Baki, are frequently held over Zoom. Baki quickly began offering donation-based yoga classes last week after the studios she works at shut down and shelter-in-place requirements in California made it impossible for her to see her private clients. She’d had some experience with Zoom before — at an old marketing job — and she liked that it let her record the sessions for later and see students who turn on their webcams. A post shared by Namaste Yoga + Wellness (@ilovenamaste) on Mar 26, 2020 at 6:20am PDT The app lets studios and instructors re-create some semblance of a normal yoga class. The instructor is front and center, taking up the big box on the video chat screen, and students can all see each other in the little boxes that seem to rotate at random at the top of the app. Some instructors, like Baki, have been emailing Spotify playlists out to students so they can stay in sync with her and attempt to re-create the mood that would be set in an actual studio. For props, instructors have been recommending makeshift options that can be found around students’ homes, like a rolled-up towel in place of a bolster, stacked books for blocks, or an old T-shirt as a strap. It’s not the same as an in-person class, but some instructors have said that, at times, it feels more intimate: cats and dogs wander in and out of the frame, children dart through, and students show up in their pajamas. “For me, the interaction with the families and the kids has meant a lot,” said Katie Stoeckeler, an instructor and the owner of New York studio Peace in Piermont, which specializes in children’s classes. “The families seeing other families, the kids running around and just being silly. It’s like, okay, we’re not alone in this. I’m losing my mind at home too like they’re losing it. We’re not alone.” A post shared by Peace in Piermont (@peaceinpiermont) on Mar 18, 2020 at 5:40am PDT Because the classes are remote, instructors’ ability to interact with their classes is limited. Several teachers said that, rather than giving notes on form or cracking jokes like they usually do, they’re focusing more on guiding people through the routine and helping people stay calm at a hectic time. “I want it to be an opportunity to de-stress and feel good about yourself,” Stoeckeler said. Stoeckeler keeps her phone beside her so that students can text her with questions since she doesn’t want to be darting back and forth between her mat and computer. At Namaste Yoga + Wellness in Oakland, California, some of the studio’s instructors have been giving students a chance to ask questions between poses or after class. Others simply ask students to email them later. “I’m letting the instructors decide what they’re most comfortable with,” said Emily Roth, Namaste’s program director. “Let them do what they need to do to teach the best they can.” The instructors and studios that have jumped online say they haven’t had a problem finding an audience. In addition to her regulars, Baki said she’s seen people from Europe finding and joining her classes. She’s also been happy to see old students of hers from other states joining in. Namaste has been able to support up to 10 classes a day, and Stoeckeler has moved nearly her studio’s entire class schedule online. Much of the word of mouth that’s helping to spread these classes beyond existing students has come from Instagram as participants post stories of themselves working out and tag their instructors and studios. ⏱ 2pm EST TODAY ⏱ LIVE with Krissy & Chloe You bring your mat, they’ll bring the entertainment ⚡️ A post shared by SKY TING (@skyting) on Mar 26, 2020 at 6:37am PDT It also helps to have an audience ready to move online. Sky Ting, a studio with three locations in New York, had already been in the process of creating online classes when the pandemic hit. Its subscription service launched in November for $20 per month and saw a spike in customers around the holidays as students left the city to visit family, said founders Krissy Jones and Chloe Kernaghan. Sky Ting still wasn’t set up for live-streaming, though, so the studio’s IT person ran to Best Buy and bought a webcam before just about everything in the city was shut down. For the past week, the two founders have been streaming a class every day from a studio down the block from their apartment building. Rather than using Zoom, which has a limit on how many participants can be on a call, Sky Ting has been using Vimeo to live-stream classes. It means the instructors can’t see their students at all, but it allows the studio’s stream to reach a far larger number of people. In one case, Kernaghan said around 2,000 people tuned in. (Though students can’t see each other over Vimeo, Jones said some students set up Zoom calls with friends to hang out during class.) “Right now, I think it’s more important to honestly just move your body and to feel like you’re part of something,” Kernaghan said. Jones said the feedback has been “super positive” and led to “the most amount of direct messages we’ve ever gotten in our lives.” These small studios have competition as they try to move online. Companies that specialize in on-demand fitness videos, like Glo, are often cheaper and have more existing content. Other companies, like CorePower Yoga and Tonal, have even made their pre-recorded yoga videos free for a period of time to draw in new viewers. While viewers won’t know the instructors and can’t get feedback, the videos are usually a lot more polished because they’re prerecorded (and were created before the pandemic made filming anything an immense challenge). But even though live online classes can be similarly lacking in interaction at times, instructors say they’re still worth tuning in to watch. You get to see other people participating, you may be able to stick with an instructor you know, and instructors need the financial support in a way that large companies don’t. “My students are saying you can feel the energy,” Baki said. “I had a girl be like, ‘Man, that energy in class was so good.’ And I was like, ‘How do you know that? You’re not even seeing people.’ So they’re feeling it. They’re really feeling it.”

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21195288/zoom-yoga-online-classes-coronavirus

Tech

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

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Ashley Carman

Patreon says more creators are signing up for accounts than usual

Patreon says the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have reached its platform. In a blog post today, the company said more than 30,000 creators signed up for an account in the first few weeks of March. These creators are likely independent artists who have been particularly impacted by government restrictions of large gatherings, as well as restaurant and business closings. The company also says the average new patron growth across the US, UK, Canada, Germany, Australia, and Italy is up 36.2 percent compared to February, which could suggest that people are seeking out ways to support their favorite creators. The report doesn’t give any concrete numbers about the number of patrons that have signed up in the past few weeks and instead only offers some graphs and charts. At the same time, the company has seen more people delete their pledges, and “some” of those people cited COVID-19 as the reason. Again, it doesn’t provide concrete numbers or percentages even in this case, although it notes that the gain in fan support outweighs people’s cancellations. Patreon’s report is relatively expected during this time. Of course, as businesses close, independent creators are seeking ways to recoup revenue, whether it be through donation-based live streams or ongoing membership support on services like Patreon. It’s disheartening to hear that some people are canceling their memberships, but that also lines up with what we’d expect. The economic outlook for the US and world is grim right now, which is prompting people to tighten their budgets. Patreon gives independent creators the power to reach their fans, but if those fans are out of a job, the platform is at risk, too.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21195412/patreon-covid-19-coronavirus-update-support

Tech

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

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Dani Deahl

Apple’s Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro X have 90-day free trials for a limited time

Apple’s creative professional apps — video editing software Final Cut Pro X and music production suite Logic Pro X — now have free 90-day trials for a limited time. The coronavirus pandemic has left many homebound and unable to attend school or work, so having access to professional tools that cost hundreds of dollars during this time is a big deal. “We hope customers who are home and looking for something new to master will try out these free trials,” reads Apple’s announcement. Final Cut Pro X already had a 30-day free trial, but a free trial of any kind is entirely new for Logic Pro X. Apple doesn’t mention when the offer for 90-day trials will end, but notes that both programs will revert to a 30-day free trial once the initiative expires. Additionally, customers who have already downloaded the 30-day free trial of Final Cut Pro X will be able to take advantage of the extended trial period. Other companies that make music software are handing out similar free deals amid the pandemic. Avid is issuing a limited number of free 90-day licenses for Pro Tools, for example, and Fender is giving 100,000 people three months of free guitar lessons on its Fender Play app. For those looking to purchase the software after the trial period, Final Cut Pro X costs $299.99, and Logic Pro X costs $199.99.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21196321/apple-final-cut-pro-logic-pro-x-90-day-free-trial-coronavirus

Apple

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

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Kim Lyons

BBC Dad, the OG of interrupted work-from-home calls, is back with the kids

Marion Kelly is back and still stealing her dad’s thunder in live BBC interviews. The OG of “interrupting a work-from-home parent’s video call,” Marion and her family appeared on BBC today to share tips for dealing with cooped-up kids while working from home during the pandemic. As Marion and younger brother James squirmed and protested behaving on camera, her mother Kim Jung-A said the family has tried to get outside as much as possible, while under coronavirus lockdown with the rest of South Korea. “We try to go see the flowers and trees so they can shout and scream.” Dad Robert Kelly added it was tough: “There’s only so many games they can play and puzzles you can do before they just kind of, you know, run around.” Marion, then four years old, famously interrupted her father’s 2017 live appearance on BBC News as he tried to discuss the intricacies of politics on the Korean peninsula. She strutted in wearing a yellow shirt and plopped down beside him as he heroically tried to continue the interview. But then baby James rolled in, and even though Kim ran in and tried to corral the kids and salvage the situation, it was pretty much over at that point. A meme was born. walk into the club like pic.twitter.com/Dp4rcdI0pj South Korea, where the Kelly family lives, has been praised as a model for flattening the curve, preventing the spread of coronavirus infection with widespread testing, tracing the source of infections, and cooperation with social distancing measures. The head of the World Health Organization suggested other countries should follow its lead. “I think social compliance here has been pretty high,” Robert Kelly said in today’s BBC interview. “You don’t see the kind of stuff that you’ve seen in the United States, with like people crowding beaches and people refusing to stay off the subways and stuff like that. South Koreans have actually really responded really well, and that’s why the curve has flattened now to only 100 a day. So it’s actually been pretty successful.” He then started to apologize for the obviously bored kids who were mugging it for the camera (young James actually left the room and returned with what looked like a video game at one point during the interview), but the BBC presenter interrupted him: “That’s one thing you can never apologize for now,” he chuckled. So if you’re worried about your kids interrupting your video calls while you’re working from home, maybe don’t be. The BBC Dad and family are faring okay (even if things seem a little bit loud).

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21195340/bbc-dad-work-from-home-calls-south-korea

TL;DR

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

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Jon Porter

Huawei’s Watch GT 2E is a sporty redesign of its last smartwatch

Huawei has a new sporty smartwatch it’s announcing alongside its flagship P40 smartphone series. The Huawei Watch GT 2E includes 100 workout modes, like rock climbing, skateboarding, and parkour, and has storage for up to 500 songs, Huawei says. The red and green versions of the device feature a similar design to the Nike Editions of Apple’s smartwatches, with a rubber watchband covered in small holes. The smartwatch features broadly similar specs to last year’s Watch GT 2. It’s got a 1.39-inch OLED touchscreen with a resolution of 454 x 454, 4GB of memory, it uses the company’s Kirin A1 chipset, and Huawei says it should last 14 days on a single charge. However, new for this version of the device is blood oxygen saturation (SpO2) monitoring via a dedicated IR sensor. The watch is water resistant up to 50m, supports GPS, and has two physical buttons on the right-hand side of its watchface. As well as the red and green, the watch is also available with black and white straps, while the watchface itself is available in silver or black. The #HUAWEIWATCHGT2e is perfect for those who have an active lifestyle! With 2 weeks of ultra long battery life, 100 workout modes and other exciting features, you can get ready to #PlayFor2Weeks.​We’re LIVE at https://t.co/QdwooYadDM pic.twitter.com/XiMHg4OXWn Alongside the new Huawei Watch GT 2E, Huawei has also announced a new gold variant of its existing 42mm GT 2 smartwatch, which maintains the same overall design of the previous smartwatch but with a new gold finish on its steel casing. The new Watch GT 2E will retail for €199 in Europe, while the gold edition of the Watch GT 2 will be priced starting at €229 for a version with a white strap or €249 for a red strap. Huawei says the watches will be available in April.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21195104/huawei-watch-gt-2e-release-date-news-specs-features-price-lite-os-sports-smartwatch

Tech

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

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T.C. Sottek

Coronavirus: America just surpassed China in number of COVID-19 cases

The United States now has the highest number of coronavirus infections of any nation on the planet, The New York Times reports. Johns Hopkins’ tracker agrees. We now know for sure that our country’s response to the pandemic is a spectacular failure that has been exacerbated by an incompetent president who spent years sabotaging the government’s ability to respond to the current crisis. The World Health Organization may soon declare that the US is the new epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic. This outcome was never predetermined; even a Texas-based grocery chain outsmarted the US government with its own preparations for the disaster by following the obvious warning signs. As of March 26th, more than 1,000 people have died in the US, and the spread of the virus continues to accelerate across the country. Increase over yesterday in detected coronavirus cases. Hopefully, grouping things by region helps even out disparities in testing rates.South: +32%Northeast (excluding NY): +30%Midwest: +27%West (excluding CA & WA): +23%New York: +20%California: +20%Washington: +11% Governors faced with mounting infections and deaths are begging for help, especially in New York, where cases are expected to overwhelm hospitals within days. Meanwhile, President Trump has suggested the country ought to get back to work by Easter, the governor of Mississippi is overturning social restrictions by local officials, and the lieutenant governor of Texas suggests our grandparents ought to die to restart the economy. America has failed to mount a coordinated and decisive response to save itself. We don’t need to know how bad it’s going to get to see America’s unique failure to act. Future generations can look to the history we’ve already made as a warning about what not to do when faced with an outbreak. President Trump once said that when he was elected we would win so much that we’d be sick of winning. As America leads the world in infections, we’re not sick of winning — we’re sick from it.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21196267/coronavirus-usa-cases-covid-19-pandemic-china-number-positive-trump

Editorial

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

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Megan Farokhmanesh

Nine Inch Nails just released two new albums for free

It’s been two years since Nine Inch Nails released its last album, Bad Witch, but today, the band dropped a surprise pair of records as part of its Ghosts collection. Ghosts V - VI are a product of the times: the uncertain world we’re now living in as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread. “Music — whether listening to it, thinking about it or creating it — has always been the thing that helped us get through anything — good or bad,” reads a post on the band’s website from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. “With that in mind, we decided to burn the midnight oil and complete these new Ghosts records as a means of staying somewhat sane.” Both albums are available as free downloads on the band’s website and via YouTube; they’ll hit wider streaming services later today. Together, an 8-track list, is “for when things seem like it might all be okay,” while Locusts has 15 songs the band says “you’ll figure it out.” Based on the titles from the latter — a smattering of stress-inducing names, including “The Worriment Waltz,” “Trust Fades,” and “So Tired” — it doesn’t seem hard to guess the mood. “As the news seems to turn ever more grim by the hour we’ve found ourselves vacillating widly between feeling like there may be hope at times to utter despair — often changing minute to minute,” the band writes. “Although each of us define ourselves as antisocial-types who prefer being on our own, this situation has really made us appreciate the power and need for connection.” Thank you, Nine Inch Nails, for scoring our current apocalypse.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21195266/nine-inch-nails-new-albums-just-ghosts-v-vi-free-download

TL;DR

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

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Jon Porter

Huawei hopes the P40 Pro’s powerful hardware can lure you away from Google

In a similar vein to Samsung’s recent S20 lineup, the biggest differentiating feature between the three devices is their cameras. Starting with the base P40, you’ll find a triple rear-camera setup consisting of a primary 50-megapixel f/1.9 camera, a 16-megapixel f/2.2 17mm ultra-wide-angle camera, and an 8-megapixel f/2.4 telephoto camera with a 3x optical zoom. Like last year’s P30 Pro, which takes some of the best low-light photographs around, Huawei is once again using a RYYB sensor, which it says absorbs more light, resulting in better low-light performance. The sensor is also massive at 1/1.28 inches, which is even bigger than the 1/1.33-inch 108-megapixel sensor found in the Galaxy S20 Ultra. That should help even more with low-light performance. It produces 12.5-megapixel photos by default by combining four pixels into one. Stepping up to the P40 Pro gets you a ToF sensor and increases the resolution of two out of the three cameras. The main camera is still 50 megapixels, but on the P40 Pro, the wide-angle camera has a resolution of 40 megapixels, and the telephoto lens is 12 megapixels. The zoom on the telephoto lens is also increased to 5x rather than 3x. You’ll find some camera samples from the P40 Pro below, but unfortunately, the reality of my current coronavirus-imposed quarantine means that I only had a limited opportunity to test out its optical zoom. Regardless, please enjoy these photographs taken from my apartment. Where things get really interesting is at the top of the lineup where you’ll find two telephoto lenses: a periscope lens with a zoom of 10x and one with a zoom of 3x. Huawei claims this means you’ll get better photos at both medium and far distances. Alongside the two telephoto cameras, which both have a resolution of 8 megapixels, there’s a 50-megapixel primary camera and a 40-megapixel ultrawide. Naturally, the ToF sensor on the P40 Pro is also present on the Plus. Huawei has also made some improvements on the software side. It says that its AI is now clever enough to remove glass reflections from an image, and it can even remove unwanted passers-by if they accidentally photo-bomb your shot. There’s also a feature that’ll suggest a better photograph to you after automatically capturing a burst of photos in the background, similar to the “Top Shot” feature Google first introduced on the Pixel 3. Modern. Minimal. Elegant.With nature as inspiration, the #HUAWEIP40 Series brings a new twist to classic hues. Which colour will you choose? #VisionaryPhotographyWatch us LIVE now https://t.co/QdwooYadDM pic.twitter.com/uth2HkfO0z Huawei is making a big deal of the curved screen on the P40 Pro and P40 Pro Plus, which it proudly boasts wraps around not only the left and right sides of the device but also the top and bottom. In reality, while the screen’s glass does curve around the four edges, the actual display underneath it doesn’t stretch nearly as far. If you look at the P40 Pro from the front, there’s still a visible bezel. That said, the phone’s bezel is just a couple of millimeters thick, and the P40 Pro is still a striking-looking device. The specs of the 6.58-inch OLED screen are likewise impressive. Like Samsung, Huawei has gone beyond the standard 60Hz refresh rate for its flagship devices, although the P40 Pro and Pro Plus only go up to 90Hz, not 120Hz, but animations still felt very smooth as I swiped around the P40 Pro’s interface. The resolution of the two phones tops out at 2640 x 1200, and each has a small oval hole-punch selfie cutout on the top left for their 32-megapixel selfie cameras, which feature a ToF sensor of their own as well as infrared face unlock for low light. The standard P40 is a bit of a step down design-wise. It’s got a smaller 6.1-inch screen that doesn’t wrap around the sides of the device, and it’s lower resolution at 2340 x 1080. There’s also no infrared face unlock on this device, and the display’s refresh rate tops out at 60Hz, meaning it won’t quite have the smoothness of the Pro Plus. Alongside the biometric face unlock mentioned earlier, the three phones also include in-display fingerprint sensors, which Huawei says are 30 percent bigger this time around and unlock 30 percent faster. Rounding out the specs, all three phones are powered by the same 5G Kirin 990 processor found in last year’s Mate 30, and Huawei has confirmed that there will be no 4G-only versions of the devices. The Pro and the Pro Plus include 4,200mAh batteries that can be charged at up to 40W, and the Pro Plus even supports this charging speed wirelessly using one of Huawei’s charging pads. The regular P40 has a 3,800mAh battery and a maximum charging speed of 22.5W using a cable. The water resistance also differs between the three phones, with the Pro and Pro Plus rated at IP68, while the P40 is IP53 (essentially meaning that the Pro and Pro Plus should survive being completely immersed in water, while the regular P40 is only designed to withstand light rain). The whole range will be available in a glossy white, black, and blue and matte silver and gold finishes, and the P40 Pro Plus is also available with a ceramic finish in either black or white. Of course, it’s impossible to write about these phones without addressing the big, Google-shaped elephant in the room, which is that they can’t and won’t ship with access to Google’s apps or services, including the Google Play Store. Yesterday, my colleague Sam Byford wrote a pretty detailed explainer on what the situation continues to mean for Huawei’s devices, so I won’t repeat too many of his points here. Suffice it to say, despite Huawei offering a number of alternatives to get popular apps onto your device, a lot of them feel like workarounds and can come with downsides like a lack of access to automatic updates. For mapping apps, in particular, it’s hard to overcome the lack of Google Maps (other apps are available, but I’ve yet to find a good one), and if you absolutely need to use Google’s apps in other areas (such as if your work uses G Suite) then there really is no alternative to Google’s software. Huawei is making investments to try to improve the situation. It says that it’s adding more and more apps to its own AppGallery store, that it’s working with developers to build more apps that use Huawei Mobile Services rather than Google’s Mobile Services, and it’s also got its own first-party apps to compete with Google’s. These include its video chat service, MeeTime, which it announced is coming to European markets, including Germany, France, Italy, and Spain, after launching in China last year. It’s also introducing its own voice assistant called Celia, which it’s clearly hoping can provide a replacement for Google Assistant. Finally, it’s working with TomTom to provide a Google Maps alternative. It’s a good start, but the extent to which these services can truly replace Google’s outside of China is still uncertain. All of this raises the question of how good a phone’s hardware has to be in order to tempt users away from Google’s app ecosystem. Huawei hasn’t forgotten how to make great hardware. Last year’s P30 Pro had one of our favorite smartphone cameras of the year, but it also still came with all of the apps and services that you tend to take for granted on an Android phone. The Huawei P40 Pro series boasts similarly impressive specs, but there are still big questions to be answered about how viable Huawei’s software ecosystem is for users outside of China. Update March 26th, 10:20AM ET: Updated with pricing and availability information.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21194248/huawei-p40-pro-plus-release-date-specs-price-features-camera-google

Google

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

3.0

26

Sean O'Kane

Some Tesla factory employees still had to work after the production shutdown

Local officials have confirmed that Tesla stopped making electric cars in California on Monday, March 23rd, in compliance with a shelter-in-place order brought on by the novel coronavirus pandemic. But dozens of workers had to report to the company’s automotive factory to finish processing the final batches of cars this week, according to an email to some of those workers obtained by The Verge and the account of one of the factory’s employees. This comes as Tesla confirmed the first two cases of COVID-19 among its office workforce on Thursday, according to another email that was viewed by The Verge after it was first reported by Business Insider and Electrek. Tesla is also making its first workforce cuts during the pandemic, temporarily laying off some employees in Norway, an electric vehicle stronghold. The email to factory employees, sent ahead of the production shutdown, informed some of these “end of line” workers that they’d have to keep reporting to the automotive plant to run quality checks, make fixes, and charge and prep the cars for delivery. Tesla management, they were told, essentially wanted all departments that work on a car after it comes off the production line to keep reporting to the factory until the cars were out for delivery. The current employee, who was granted anonymity because they feared retribution, confirmed many of these workers reported to the factory throughout this week. A spokesperson for the local police department told The Verge that it “conducted a visit and inspected Tesla [on Wednesday] and found their current level of operation to be in compliance” with the shelter-in-place order. “Their vehicle assembly line has stopped and they have only a small number of employees in the factory. They have also gone to great lengths to implement social distancing measures,” they said. Factory workers were also told in the email that they wouldn’t receive the paid leave Tesla has promised until their own departments finally shut down. Any workers who did not feel well or felt uncomfortable coming to work were encouraged to use accrued paid time off or take unpaid leave, which was the company’s guidance before the shutdown was announced last week. The current factory worker said Tesla’s end of line process usually takes a few hours for a car with “moderate issues.” But they also said the company finished production on Monday with an increased number of cars considered to be “work in progress,” which, therefore, required more end of line work. Cars coming off the production lines of legacy automakers usually complete end of line checks in a matter of minutes, according to Sam Abuelsamid, principal analyst at Navigant Research. Tesla did not respond to questions about the end of line workers or the employees who tested positive for COVID-19. Tesla had kept the Fremont, California factory open last week, even after the shelter-in-place order took effect in the San Francisco Bay Area on March 17th. The company had just started delivering the Model Y, its fifth electric car, and was in the middle of a typical end-of-quarter push to make and deliver as many cars as possible. At the same time that CEO Elon Musk was underplaying the threat of the coronavirus, almost every other major automaker suspended production operations in the United States following a deal between Ford, General Motors, Fiat Chrysler, and the United Auto Workers union. Tesla, which is the biggest automaker in the US without a unionized workforce, did tell some of its white-collar workers to work remotely if possible last week while the factory remained open. The company ultimately announced on March 19th that it would comply with the Bay Area order and shut down operations at the California factory where the Model 3, Model S, Model X, and now the Model Y are assembled, and it agreed to reduce the workforce there to “basic operations” like processing payroll. Tesla announced that same day that it would also pause operations at its solar panel factory in New York, but that the Gigafactory in Nevada would keep operating, despite the governor asking all nonessential businesses to close. It’s currently unclear which office the two infected Tesla employees work in. Laurie Shelby, who runs Tesla’s environmental, health, and safety division, said in the email that the two employees “had been working from home for nearly two weeks” before they tested positive for COVID-19. Shelby said the employees did not show symptoms of the disease while they were in the office and that their “direct coworkers, who were already working from home for nearly two weeks as well, were immediately notified so they can quarantine and watch for symptoms.” Both employees are “quarantined at home and recovering well,” Shelby wrote. Tesla briefly shut down its newest factory in China earlier this year as part of a government-mandated effort to suppress the spread of the virus. But Musk tweeted on Wednesday that he plans to reopen the New York factory “as soon as humanly possible” as Tesla joins in the effort to help increase the production of ventilators, which are crucial to treating the worst symptoms of COVID-19.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21195551/tesla-fremont-factory-workers-coronavirus-covid-19-shutdown-shelter-place

Tech

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

3.0

26

Nick Statt

Yelp to stop auto-creating fundraisers after outrage from business owners

Yelp has paused an effort in partnership with GoFundMe that automatically opted tens of thousands of small businesses into fundraisers after complaints from restaurant and bar owners, the company tells The Verge. Yelp launched the initiative earlier this week in response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, but it did so without informing any of participants. Some business owners said the process for opting out — in the event they were hosting their own fundraisers or simply did not want one automatically set up by Yelp — was unnecessarily cumbersome. “On Tuesday, Yelp announced a partnership with GoFundMe to provide a fast and easy way for people to support their favorite local businesses by donating to a GoFundMe fundraiser directly on the Yelp pages of eligible businesses. In an effort to get businesses help quickly and easily, a GoFundMe fundraiser was automatically added to the Yelp pages of an initial group of eligible businesses, with information provided on how to claim it or opt out should a business choose to do so,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “However, it has come to our attention that some businesses did not receive a notification with opt-out instructions, and some would have preferred to actively opt-in to the program,” the statement goes on to say. “As such, we have paused the automatic rollout of this feature, and are working with GoFundMe to provide a seamless way for businesses to opt into the program moving forward, as we have received a great deal of interest and support for the program from both consumers and businesses alike.” Some prominent critics of Yelp’s approach included Andy McMillan, an organizer of the annual art and technology festival XOXO and owner of Suckerpunch bar in Portland, and Nick Kokonas, co-owner of the Michelin star restaurant Alinea and other Chicago-based businesses. McMillan specifically called out Yelp’s process for opting out, which included providing Yelp with a copy of a personal identification card and an employer identification number. Yelp has since taken down McMillan’s fundraiser. Hey @gofundme, can you shut down this page please? https://t.co/bP97PeRMcS It was created by Yelp without my consent. I'm not comfortable giving you a scan of my ID, and I don't have an EIN, so I can't complete the form myself. Kokonas demanded Yelp take down the GoFundMe when he noticed the link automatically placed on the Yelp page for Alinea. He said the entire situation was causing unneeded stress at a time when most business owners are simply trying to survive the current coronavirus-related lockdowns keeping bars and restaurants from fully operating. “If you want to report on the worst behavior in the industry — here you go. This causes harm to our reputation, is done without consent, and is being done on a mass basis for their own benefit. Unbelievable. I don’t need to deal with this in the middle of a crisis,” Kokonas said in a follow-up tweet directed toward the food and dining website Eater. (The Verge and Eater are both owned by Vox Media.) .@gofundme & @Yelp It is unconscionable of you to create a page for my restaurants trying to take advantage of this crisis for your companies under the guise of 'helping'.Immediately remove all Alinea Group properties. I hope someone sues you... I might once i have time. pic.twitter.com/0xfCK6OnG3 Yelp said in its original announcement of the GoFundMe partnership that it would be waiving fees and that both companies would match the first $1 million donated. However, critics of the partnership fast discovered that GoFundMe was setting the recommended tip, which is how GoFundMe funds its own operations, at 15 percent. “Yelp does not get any portion of the donations. Donations through the GoFundMe platform may be subject to payment processing fees in some instances per the terms of the GoFundMe platform,” reads an FAQ page for the program. Others, like XOXO festival co-founder Andy Baio (who is a friend of McMillan’s), noted that Yelp’s insistence that it would only set up fundraisers for small businesses with less than five locations was not entirely true. Baio began finding and publicizing GoFundMe pages for large companies, like multi-billion dollar French cosmetics company L’Occitane. Here's what the verification process looks like for business owners to remove a fundraiser. https://t.co/EQSKNN5c6h

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21196446/yelp-gofundme-coronavirus-automatic-opt-in-fundraiser-pause

Web

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

3.0

26

Justine Calma

The COVID-19 pandemic is generating tons of medical waste

Garbage contaminated with bodily fluids or other infectious materials is becoming a bigger concern for hospitals as they brace for a surge in patients sick with COVID-19 in the US. Patients and health care workers are quickly going through medical supplies and disposable personal protective equipment, like masks. Eventually all that used gear piles up as medical waste that needs to be safely discarded. In Wuhan, where the novel coronavirus first emerged, officials didn’t just need to build new hospitals for the influx of patients; they had to construct a new medical waste plant and deploy 46 mobile waste treatment facilities too. Hospitals there generated six times as much medical waste at the peak of the outbreak as they did before the crisis began. The daily output of medical waste reached 240 metric tons, about the weight of an adult blue whale. There’s already been an uptick of garbage from personal protective equipment in the US, according to medical waste company Stericycle, which handled 1.8 billion pounds of medical waste globally in 2018. And some things that aren’t usually considered medical waste, like food, now need to be handled more carefully after coming in contact with a COVID-19 patient. Stericycle didn’t provide numbers for how much of an increase it’s seeing so far, adding that it believes it has the capacity to handle the swell and may add shifts to the company’s 50 treatment centers in the US if necessary. Additionally, the drop in elective surgeries might offset some of the rise in waste we’re seeing from the pandemic, a spokesperson for Stericycle tells The Verge. “It’s a rapidly changing environment right now and forecasting volumes is challenging,” Stericycle Vice President of Corporate Communications Jennifer Koenig wrote in an email to The Verge. “We are closely monitoring the situation with all relevant agencies to determine next steps.” The CDC says that medical waste from COVID-19 can be treated the same way as regular medical waste. Regulations on how to treat that waste vary by location and can be governed by state health and environmental departments, as well as by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Department of Transportation. Generally, to make sure contaminated trash from health care facilities doesn’t pose any harm to the public before going to a landfill, it’s typically burned, sterilized with steam, or chemically disinfected. There’s more to worry about than waste from medical centers. The disease is spread out beyond hospitals. Some people who have minor symptoms are recovering at home. Others who are asymptomatic might not know that the trash they’re throwing out could be contaminated. That means people may be generating plenty of virus-laden trash. That’s worrying for sanitation workers, as the virus can persist for up to a day on cardboard and for longer on metal and plastic, according to one study of the virus in lab conditions. But if garbage is properly bagged instead of kept loose and workers are wearing personal protective equipment, especially gloves, then there shouldn’t be a risk of catching the virus, David Biderman, CEO of the Solid Waste Association of North America, tells The Verge. Practicing social distancing while on the job, including maintaining appropriate distances from people, may also help reduce sanitation workers’ risks, says Elise Paeffgen, a partner with the firm Alston & Bird who works on medical waste issues. People handling health care waste in particular should wear appropriate gear, including boots, aprons, long-sleeved gowns, thick gloves, masks, and goggles or face shields, according to recommendations from the World Health Organization. Luckily, protective efforts so far seem to have paid off. “There is no evidence that direct, unprotected human contact during the handling of health care waste has resulted in the transmission of the COVID-19 virus,” according to a March 19th technical brief from the WHO. As the pandemic grows, so will the waste, and keeping that garbage safe and contained will continue to be a challenge for communities until the crisis is over.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21194647/the-covid-19-pandemic-is-generating-tons-of-medical-waste

Science

The Verge

2020-03-26 00:00:00

2020

3.0

26

Adi Robertson

Half-Life’s Alyx Vance, explained

It’s been a tumultuous couple of weeks for residents of Earth. City 17, formerly one of our planet’s finest remaining urban centers, has been destroyed. A nearly spontaneous uprising has destabilized the Combine Empire’s two-decade stranglehold on humanity. It’s a time of danger, but also hope, and we owe much of it to one woman: Alyx Vance. Vance hasn’t received as much attention as her colleague, the theoretical physicist and military hero Gordon Freeman. But a recent chronicle of her early time in the Resistance has sparked renewed interest in her background and achievements. The story itself is worth hearing in full. If you’ve been restricted to official Combine media for most or all of your life, however, you might want a refresher on the context. To get everybody on the same page, we’re answering some questions you might have about Alyx Vance but are too embarrassed (or busy fighting headcrab zombies and antlions) to ask. Alyx Vance is a leader of the human resistance against the Combine as well as the daughter of Eli Vance, a former physics researcher at Black Mesa. The Combine are an interdimensional empire that has occupied Earth for roughly the past 20 years. Their goal is to fully colonize our planet, strip its resources, force its residents into prison-like cities, and effectively exterminate the human race by suppressing our urge to reproduce. This plan has been widely condemned by the Resistance as well as many other residents of Earth. Giant brain-eating psychic worms. It’s more complicated than that since the Combine Empire has absorbed many alien species. But the worm-like Advisors, as they’re called, appear to control the Combine Empire on Earth. More practically, “Combine” refers to the whole range of the Empire’s biomechanical weapons, including its trans-human military troops. So when a neighbor warns you about a Combine raid before screaming or abruptly going silent, that’s generally what they mean. I’m glad you asked those questions together. The Black Mesa Research Facility was a top-secret laboratory located in the former American state of New Mexico. As its name suggests, it was the site of the Black Mesa Incident, which indirectly led to the Combine invasion. In the early 2000s, a team of Black Mesa researchers discovered an alternate dimension called the Xen Borderworld. An expedition recovered a crystal from Xen, and the research team examined it with an Anti-Mass Spectrometer, an extremely large device designed to test exotic materials. For unclear reasons, however, the test produced what’s known as a “resonance cascade” — essentially an unstable reaction that opened a rift between Earth and Xen. This allowed an invasion by several hostile species, including ones that we still see today, like the Vortigaunts. Definitely! Vortigaunts are a vital part of the Resistance — they can shoot electricity, heal wounds, commune through a collective hive mind, and (sort of) see into the future. They’ve taken an increasingly central role in fighting the Combine. Back then, though, Vortigaunts were enslaved by a superpowerful and apparently hostile being called the Nihilanth. A giant floating psychic fetus who ruled the Xen Borderworld. Actually, the opposite. The Nihilanth was a refugee from a different Combine invasion. It took up residence in Xen, then either disappeared or died during the Black Mesa Incident. We’re a little vague on that point — all of our accounts come from the Vortigaunts themselves, and human language doesn’t seem complex enough to capture the nuance of their explanations. But either way, you don’t really have to think about it too much. Through a series of “portal storms”: hurricane-like extreme weather events that create interdimensional openings. Portal storms are uncommon now, although they’ve increased sharply in recent days. But a wave of them hit Earth shortly after the Black Mesa Incident. While they’re presumably related to the resonance cascade, it’s difficult to be sure, since Black Mesa was destroyed by a targeted nuclear attack and many records were lost during the Seven Hour War. Probably. But most experts say the Combine had a decisive advantage over human military forces. So the real question is: should Earth have held out longer? It’s hard to say. The quick surrender arranged by Wallace Breen — who was Black Mesa’s administrator before being appointed planetary administrator — may have saved countless lives. However, since the Combine’s apparent goal is human extinction preceded by unspeakable atrocities and mass internment, the ultimate efficacy of this choice is questionable at best. Gordon Freeman, mostly. That’s reasonable! Few people survived the Black Mesa Incident, and some stories about Freeman are probably exaggerated. It seems unlikely, for example, that anyone could neutralize hundreds of hostile aliens with a crowbar. And he did disappear without a trace for 20 years. But eyewitness reports indicate that Freeman debarked a train in City 17 approximately two weeks ago. Since then, the Combine’s Earth headquarters (otherwise known as the Citadel) has been neutralized — albeit not without massive collateral damage since it appears to have caused an explosion that leveled City 17 as well. He also apparently helped Resistance fighters close a “superportal” that might have allowed Combine reinforcements to arrive. Not by a long shot. Freeman was a vital catalyst, and the Resistance would be almost certainly doomed without him. But his greatest enemies and allies tend to oversimplify his achievements. Breen’s recent claim that “some of the worst excesses of the Black Mesa Incident have been laid directly at his feet,” for instance, is dubious. Based on interviews with City 17 refugees, Freeman has played a mostly frontline role in the recent conflict, leaving large-scale logistics and strategic planning to Resistance leadership. Despite his scientific background, he’s uninvolved in Resistance research and development programs. Some reports have stated that Freeman simply doesn’t talk at all. Again, that may be an exaggeration or a joke, but it speaks to the importance of his allies. Which brings us back to Alyx Vance. Alyx Vance is also a survivor of the Black Mesa Incident, although she was a young child at the time, and the exact circumstances of her escape are unclear. Her father, Eli, has helped run the Resistance since then. As a result, she’s basically grown up inside the movement, receiving extensive training in combat, mechanical engineering, and computer hacking. She’s also one of the Resistance’s most charismatic figures, maintaining a tone of hopeful pragmatism that’s rallied citizens to its cause. And in a movement dominated by first-generation Black Mesa researchers, she provides some much-needed new blood. Vance has reportedly accompanied Gordon for large parts of his journey in the past couple of weeks, providing backup firepower and helping him infiltrate Combine facilities. Recent accounts have offered far more detail about Vance’s earlier life — and the Resistance’s history — before the recent uprising. But as we said, they’re worth checking out on their own. We’re not sure. It’s rumored that she and Freeman are trying to locate an Arctic research vessel called the Borealis, which was created before the invasion by a Black Mesa rival called Aperture Science. But we’re not sure what they want with this ship, and we’ve gotten virtually no new information since the closure of the superportal. Hopefully, we won’t be waiting too long for an update. We have no idea.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21136702/half-life-alyx-vance-valve-game-explainer

Gaming

The Verge

2020-03-27 00:00:00

2020

3.0

27

Jay Peters

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative commits $25 million to a fund researching COVID-19 treatments

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s philanthropic arm, has committed $25 million to a research fund designed to help identify and develop treatments for the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, it announced today. CZI, managed by Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, is donating to the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator, which will help coordinate research efforts to identify new drugs and treatments for the illness. The Accelerator is already backed by $125 million in commitments from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, health foundation Wellcome, and Mastercard’s Impact Fund, according a March 10th press release. CZI says it will provide $20 million to the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator and make another $5 million available “based on future needs.” The Gates Foundation and Wellcome each have committed up to $50 million, while Mastercard’s Impact Fund has committed up to $25 million. The COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator will work with the World Health Organization, organizations in both the public and private sectors, and “global regulatory and policy-setting institutions” to coordinate research efforts, according to the release. “We’re excited to partner with the Gates Foundation, Wellcome, and Mastercard to help the biomedical research community quickly identify, develop, and test treatments for COVID-19,” said Chan and Zuckerberg in a statement. “The Therapeutics Accelerator will enable researchers to quickly determine whether or not existing drugs have a potential benefit against COVID-19. We hope these coordinated efforts will help stop the spread of COVID-19 as well as provide shared, reusable strategies to respond to future pandemics.” CZI and the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, which researches ways to cure and manage diseases, have already been working to help increase the number of COVID-19 tests in the San Francisco Bay Area. CZI said last week it is aiming to help the University of California, San Francisco support at least 1,000 tests per day “in the coming days.” The Gates Foundation is also working to increase testing, partnering with the University of Washington to offer at-home COVID-19 testing kits for people in the Seattle area. However, it’s not clear when that program will begin. The Gates Foundation’s commitment to the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator comes in part from its up to $100 million commitment to COVID-19 response announced on February 5th.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/27/21196335/chan-zuckerberg-initiative-commits-25-million-covid-19-therapeutics-accelerator

Science

The Verge

2020-03-27 00:00:00

2020

3.0

27

Elizabeth Lopatto

Here’s how hospitals are keeping up emergency services during COVID-19

At first, Long Island Jewish Medical Center’s emergency department tried to keep people with suspected COVID-19 separate from patients with other complaints. But since the volume of patients exploded, every patient is now treated as a possible COVID-19 patient and given a mask, says Adam Berman, associate chair of emergency medicine at the Queens hospital. The same thing is happening at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center; even if a patient comes in with a different complaint, they are treated as though they may be infected. Keeping likely COVID-19 patients separate from those who don’t have the illness becomes difficult as the virus spreads, and virtually everyone is “COVID-possible.” “A woman came in with vaginal bleeding, but she was COVID-positive,” says Chris Colwell, the chief of emergency surgery at SF General. Her complaint wasn’t the disease; it was the bleeding. “It’s very hard to cohort in a situation like this.” Hospitals around the country are closing some services to make sure that people who have medical emergencies can still get help — even with an influx of people sick with COVID-19. In many hospitals, any surgery that could reasonably wait is canceled. That frees up surgeons, internal medicine doctors, and others to help in the emergency department. Some hospitals have stopped offering outpatient care to conserve resources. Visitors are being limited or banned. “The issue here is one of crowding out,” says Stephen Shortell, a professor of health policy and management at the University of California Berkeley, where he is also a dean emeritus. “The concern here is that COVID-19 will crowd out other people who need hospital care, which puts a premium on hospitals’ ability to set priorities.” Hospitals have to figure out how to distribute available rooms or beds, staff, and equipment to ensure all patients get care. The way they allocate resources in a global pandemic must necessarily change, says Lisa Eckenwiler, a bioethicist and associate professor of philosophy at George Mason University. There’s a duty to care for patients, while also trying to preserve the maximum number of lives. Hospitals must make sure that all patients are treated fairly, and that the public understands how these decisions are being made, she says. And it’s important for patients to show solidarity for each other — for instance, by understanding why your own surgery has been rescheduled in light of the crisis. At most hospitals, figuring out how to provide the best care starts with emergency planning documents. At the University of North Carolina Medical Center, for instance, those documents include hurricane plans, floods, electrical outages, and two kinds of plans for highly communicable disease, says David Weber, the medical director of infection prevention there. That hospital has limited visitors and developed guidelines for what counts as a truly urgent surgery, he says. Both LIJMC and SF General have pandemic planning documents — as well as documents for other kinds of emergencies, such as mass shootings — but even with a plan, it can be difficult to predict in advance what course a pandemic will take. Both hospitals began monitoring the outbreak in China in January. LIJMC had kept a particularly close eye on the new coronavirus, since the hospital is near John F. Kennedy airport in New York, and there was a direct flight from Wuhan, the city hardest hit by the virus, to JFK three times a week. COVID-19 patients require special rooms and special precautions, so LIJMC began tweaking its emergency plans immediately, Berman says. No one has stopped tweaking them. “It’s literally every day being revised and changed and updated based on new information and the capacity of our hospital,” he says. Ordinarily, the hospital’s emergency department is staffed based on the amount of demand the hospital sees historically. But the volume of patients has gone up, so LIJMC has brought in extra providers, mostly emergency physicians. Elective surgeries were canceled and visitors aren’t allowed. The hospital’s lobby is now used for screening. At first, COVID-19 patients were sent exclusively to the intensive care unit, but it was filling up — so other floors of the hospital were equipped as makeshift ICUs. Just about every floor has a COVID-19 patient on it. “Most of our hospital now is a COVID wing,” Berman says. But if a patient comes in with another emergency — a heart attack, a stroke, or trauma — they will still get the same standard of care they would have before the pandemic, he says. One benefit of the shelter-in-place order effective March 17th in San Francisco has been a drop in moderate trauma cases, says SF General’s Colwell. When people don’t leave home much, they’re less likely to be exposed to COVID-19 — but also less likely to have an accident, resulting in an emergency room visit. Those people who do have other kinds of emergencies are still receiving normal care. The biggest constraint on his emergency department now is the number of people with marginal, inadequate, or no housing, Colwell says. No shelter or skilled nursing facility will take them without a negative COVID-19 test, and they can’t be sent back to the streets where they might pass the virus on to others. Right now, he has 15 patients in beds who might have COVID-19, but who don’t have acute medical issues and have nowhere else to go. “As we sit here today, the problem is not ventilators,” Colwell says. It’s that he has nowhere to send these patients. That’s been an issue for a long time — but it’s particularly acute right now. Both Colwell and Berman say that they are particularly grateful for community support. Colwell was particularly delighted by donations of N95 masks, but other gifts have also flooded in. “We have gotten such an outpouring of donations of food and equipment and things that help the mental state of the people working in the emergency department — because this is taking a toll on everyone,” Berman says.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/27/21197397/coronavirus-covid-19-hospitals-emergency-services-heart-attack

Report

The Verge

2020-03-27 00:00:00

2020

3.0

27

Chaim Gartenberg

Fitbit Charge 4 leak reveals built-in GPS and new fitness tracking features

Fitbit’s upcoming Charge 4 fitness tracker broke cover earlier in March, revealing a design that was virtually identical to the 2018 Charge 3 model, but a newly leaked promotional video posted by Roland Quandt has revealed what makes the Charge 4 different — including the addition of built-in GPS, one of the biggest missing features from the old model. The video — which The Verge has translated from Dutch — also reveals that Fitbit is adding a host of new fitness features to the Charge 4 (as one would expect from an updated Fitbit), including the ability to show training intensity on a map after a workout and how many minutes users have spent in “Pulse Zones,” where a user was particularly active. Fitbit Charge 4 pic.twitter.com/TaJGV2otkp The GPS is definitely the biggest feature, allowing users to track runs, cycling trips, and more without requiring that they tether to a phone. This should make the Charge 4 even more useful for fitness tracking. Also new is the already-rumored addition of NFC for Fitbit Pay payments, something that the company has previously offered on pricier “special edition” models of its Charge trackers but not as a default option. All of the existing features from the old Charge 3 are still here: you can track your statistics for exercises in real time, get basic notifications from your phone, take advantage of smartwatch features like timers, sleep tracking, and alarms, and control music off your phone. It’s also still water resistant to 50 meters and supports swim tracking. Notably missing is any mention of Google-specific features. Although considering that Google announced that it was buying Fitbit in a $2.1 billion deal last November, it’s likely too early for that sort of integration to appear in actual products. According to an additional leak from WinFuture, the Charge 4 will cost €149, while Fitbit Charge 4 SE will cost €169 — but unlike past models, where the SE version featured NFC support that the standard model did not, the only difference here is that the SE model will include more bands in the box. There’s no word yet on US pricing or a release date (although if past trends hold up, the two models will likely cost $149 and $169), but at the rate that leaks are coming, it will likely only be a matter of time before Fitbit makes it official. Update March 27th, 9:58am ET: Added additional details and pricing information from WinFuture.

https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2020/3/27/21196783/fitbit-charge-4-leak-built-in-gps-new-fitness-tracking-features

Tech

The Verge

2020-03-27 00:00:00

2020

3.0

27

Nick Statt

Microsoft to end investments in facial recognition firms after AnyVision controversy

Microsoft says it will no longer invest in third-party facial recognition companies following a controversy around its funding of Israeli startup AnyVision, which critics and human rights activists say powered a surveillance program in the West Bank following an NBC News report about the company’s relationship with the Israeli government. Microsoft now says an independent investigation led by former US Attorney General Eric Holder and his team at international law firm Covington & Burling found that “AnyVision’s technology has not previously and does not currently power a mass surveillance program in the West Bank that has been alleged in media reports.” Had it done so, Microsoft says it would have constituted a breach of the finance portfolio’s pledge on ethical facial recognition use. Regardless, Microsoft says it is divesting from AnyVision and will no longer make minority investments in any facial recognition firms. “For Microsoft, the audit process reinforced the challenges of being a minority investor in a company that sells sensitive technology, since such investments do not generally allow for the level of oversight or control that Microsoft exercises over the use of its own technology,” reads an announcement on the website of the company’s M12 venture arm. “By making a global change to its investment policies to end minority investments in companies that sell facial recognition technology, Microsoft’s focus has shifted to commercial relationships that afford Microsoft greater oversight and control over the use of sensitive technologies,” the announcement goes on to say. While Microsoft is stepping away from funding facial recognition firms, it does still have a facial recognition technology of its own through its Azure cloud computing platform. The Face API, as it’s called, allows any developer to “embed facial recognition into your apps for a seamless and highly secured user experience.” However, the company’s chief legal officer, Brad Smith, said last year that Microsoft would never sell facial recognition for surveillance purposes, and Smith has gone on the record saying it’s denied law enforcement access to the technology over concerns it would contribute to civil and human rights abuses. It’s unclear if Microsoft’s new investment stance means it can still acquire facial recognition firms or whether it is making any adjustments to its own use of internal facial recognition software as a result of the change in direction. Microsoft was not immediately available for comment. Facial recognition, specifically the variety of the technology powered by advanced machine learning and other artificial intelligence tools, has come under a spotlight in recent years. At the same time, concern grows among politicians and activists that it could be used by law enforcement and governments to surveil citizens without their consent and in ways that violate privacy and human rights laws. In January, Facebook was hit with a $550 million fine as part of a settlement for a class action lawsuit over its use of facial recognition without clear opt-in provisions for users of its social networking products. Tech leaders like Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who helped oversee the formation of the company’s AI ethics principles in 2018, has said a temporary ban on the technology might be warranted in response to the European Union’s ongoing efforts to more aggressively regulate it. One notable provider, Clearview AI, has found itself at the center of the growing controversy around the tech, as its database of billions of photos scraped largely from social media sites is already in use by thousands of private companies and law enforcement agencies. As a result of the Clearview story, more attention is now being paid to lesser-known facial recognition firms, and especially whether they have deals with local law enforcement groups or under-the-radar relationships with big tech firms.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/27/21197577/microsoft-facial-recognition-investing-divest-anyvision-controversy

Microsoft

The Verge

2020-03-27 00:00:00

2020

3.0

27

Adi Robertson

Half-Life: Alyx gives us a big hint about Gordon Freeman’s future

Half-Life fans have gotten used to uncertainty over the fate of hero Gordon Freeman. Gordon last appeared in Half-Life 2: Episode Two, an extension of the 2004 game Half-Life 2. But the follow-up Episode Three was canceled. The newly released Half-Life: Alyx is set five years before Half-Life 2 and stars Gordon’s ally Alyx Vance, so it doesn’t majorly advance the story. Even so, the new game includes a big hint about Gordon’s future journey... especially if you play through the credits. We posted a spoiler-light review of Alyx, so if you’re planning to play it, you might want to stop reading. Otherwise, let’s talk about what Alyx means for the Half-Life universe — where Valve says it’s not done making games. Warning: Huge spoilers for the ending of Half-Life: Alyx and Half-Life 2: Episode Two ahead. Half-Life 2: Episode Two ends with a cliffhanger. Gordon Freeman (who accidentally opened an inter-dimensional portal in Half-Life) has reawakened from a 20-year stasis to find Earth conquered by the alien Combine. He’s met up with the anti-Combine Resistance, including an old colleague named Eli Vance and his daughter Alyx. After winning a key military victory, Gordon and Alyx are preparing to hunt down a long-lost research ship called the Borealis, and Eli has hinted at some new information about the mysterious G-Man, who placed Gordon in stasis and saved Alyx’s life as a child. Then, a Combine “Advisor” bursts in and kills Eli. But that’s no longer canon. Alyx mostly takes place five years before Eli’s death, while Alyx and Eli are fighting the Combine, and Gordon is in stasis. But when Alyx infiltrates a Combine facility to find a “superweapon,” this changes dramatically — because Alyx runs into the G-Man. The G-Man, following one of his typically portentous speeches, pulls Alyx into the future. He gives her the chance to save her father, and she takes it... then disappears. After some credits, Alyx cuts back to the final scene. This time, players are in the shoes of Gordon Freeman, who hefts his iconic crowbar as the game ends. Until now, the closest we’d gotten to Episode Three was a piece of unofficial fanfic called “Epistle 3” from former series writer Marc Laidlaw. “Epistle 3” features the player traveling alongside Alyx to find the Borealis, which turns out to be a teleportation system and a sort of time machine. The G-Man then appears and pulls Alyx out of reality, leaving her fate unknown. Alyx undercuts this arc pretty substantially, although it does assimilate some of the core themes. Road to VR suggests that Alyx is hinting specifically at a VR-based Half-Life 2: Episode Three equivalent, since it’s so conspicuously letting players hold Gordon’s crowbar. That seems unlikely for one reason, though: Valve thinks VR crowbars aren’t much fun. When I spoke to level designer Corey Peters before the game’s release, he said Alyx was supposed to use one for puzzles and combat because “it’s a Half-Life game — it has to have a crowbar in it.” But he said the hook constantly got stuck on objects, and it wasn’t satisfying to kill an enemy using a melee weapon with little tactile feedback. While Valve might fix this problem someday, I doubt it would promise a feature it had just tried and failed to implement. Alyx’s ending is still an obvious hint that Valve isn’t done with Gordon Freeman, though. The twist leaves parts of Episode Two’s trajectory unchanged. Gordon and the Combine are presumably both looking for the Borealis. We still don’t know why the ship matters, although since portal-making corporation Aperture Science is involved, it’s probably somehow related to teleportation. But now, Alyx is gone. Eli is desperate to get her back. And the G-Man’s ever-inscrutable plans are central to whatever happens next.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/27/21192318/half-life-alyx-episode-2-ending-gordon-freeman-crowbar

Gaming

The Verge

2020-03-27 00:00:00

2020

3.0

27

Monica Chin

OnePlus phones are finally getting always-on displays

OnePlus fans have been demanding always-on displays for years, and the manufacturer has finally caved in. OnePlus announced on Twitter today that the feature is “on our roadmap.” The always-on display was the most popular idea submitted to OnePlus’ Ideas portal, receiving more than 999 likes. The portal allows users to submit suggestions for new software features and offers rewards for submissions that the company decides to implement. If you own a recent OnePlus model, you likely won’t have to wait for new hardware to get this feature; it will be included in a future build of OxygenOS, OnePlus’ exclusive Android-based operating system. But it won’t come without a cost: an always-on display requires a lot of power, and strong battery life is currently one of the main attractions of OnePlus phones. OnePlus will need to figure out how to introduce the function without decimating your phone’s battery — so it may be a while. The company wrote in a comment on the Ideas portal that it is “working on fine-tuning AOD to make sure it is perfectly optimized.”

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/27/21196974/oneplus-always-on-display-oxygen-os-ideas

Google

The Verge

2020-03-27 00:00:00

2020

3.0

27

Andrew Marino

Vergecast: MacBook Air and iPad Pro reviews and how COVID-19 is affecting tech companies

Two new Apple product reviews published on our site and our YouTube channel this week: the 2020 versions of the MacBook Air and the iPad Pro, reviewed by Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel and executive editor Dieter Bohn, respectively. Nilay and Dieter also co-host The Verge’s podcast The Vergecast, so on this week’s episode, they dive into those reviews and compare how each managed their workloads on a practical day-to-day basis. What is the computer to buy in 2020 for the average consumer? But before all of that, this week marked a visible change in how tech companies are handling the coronavirus pandemic. Zoom is transforming from an enterprise app to an essential consumer app, handling everything from work-from-home calls to family video chats, Amazon’s warehouse workers are petitioning to improve safety measures in their facilities, and streaming apps like Disney Plus, YouTube, and Netflix are reducing streaming quality as internet traffic increases. The Vergecast tackles how these reactions from the tech and culture sections of the world are changing the ways we use the internet. There’s a whole lot more in between all of that — like a Dell app that can mirror your iPhone on your PC, Huawei releasing the P40 Pro, and Paul’s weekly segment “It’s my year of the Linux desktop, boys” — so listen through here or in your favorite podcast app to hear it all. Stories discussed this week: The Vergecast

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/27/21196874/macbook-air-ipad-pro-2020-review-coronavirus-vergecast-podcast-398

Podcasts

The Verge

2020-03-27 00:00:00

2020

3.0

27

Julia Alexander

The entire world is streaming more than ever — and it’s straining the internet

Over the last decade, some of the world’s biggest entertainment and telecom conglomerates bet on streaming entertainment. The last 10 years have ushered in a rapid progression of at-home entertainment as Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus, HBO Now, and more rack up millions of subscribers. As more people are forced to stay at home to try to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus, the concept of a bored, cable-cutting consumer searching for things to constantly watch for weeks on end has become a reality. HBO’s parent company, WarnerMedia, looked into just how many of its subscribers are spending more time watching movies and TV shows over the last couple of weeks. While the television industry as a whole saw a 20 percent increase last week compared to the month prior, HBO Now saw the highest usage on its platform since summer. The percentage of people binge viewing series has increased 65 percent, while movie watching is up 70 percent on HBO Now. WarnerMedia isn’t the only company seeing increases in traffic. Netflix’s chief content officer, Ted Sarandos, told CNN that although the company wasn’t going to release numbers, Netflix has seen a surge in streams. Third-party companies have reported seeing massive increases in usage and subscription signups for streaming platforms like Disney Plus (between March 14th and March 16th, when social isolation really began in the United States). Amazon’s other streaming platform, Twitch, has seen a 31 percent growth in viewership, with total amount of hours watched jumping from 33 million on March 8th to 43 million on March 22nd, according to data given to The Verge by research firm StreamElements. YouTube Gaming streams have also seen a 15 percent increase since people started social distancing. While these aren’t traditional entertainment platforms, they all belong to the broad streaming universe. This isn’t just Netflix’s moment, or Disney Plus’ time to shine, or Twitch’s breakthrough into the mainstream. This is it. If every streaming launch or direct-to-consumer pivot was a preamble teasing what streaming could do, our reality right now is a clear depiction of what it’s like when more people are forced to rely on entertainment they can access inside their homes. So what happens if the internet’s entire infrastructure can’t keep up? People prepared for a world where everything is available at the press of a button, but broadband networks might not be ready. Music streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music take up far less bandwidth than video streaming platforms — many of which are referred to as “bandwidth hogs.” Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney Plus, YouTube, and other video platforms all committed to reducing streaming quality in Europe at the request of the EU. The reduction from Netflix specifically was in addition to other methods the company has implemented since 2011 to keep streaming steady in low bandwidth areas. Netflix already uses an adaptive streaming tool that automatically adjusts the quality of streaming video based on accessible bandwidth. Internet service providers in different parts of the world have asked Netflix to start reducing streaming quality immediately. Ken Florance, vice president of content delivery at Netflix, noted in a blog post that it’s an understandable request “as different ISPs around the world have built their networks in different ways, and operate within different constraints.” ISP networks in dense cities take on a different level of strain than rural areas. Some ISPs will build networks with a notable amount of capacity, while others might not. Other companies are following in Netflix’s footsteps and then some. YouTube announced earlier this week it will automatically make videos available in standard definition, instead of high definition, around the world for 30 days. It’s a proactive move from Google as concerns over broadband network limitations rise. Amazon is much more reactive, preparing to reduce bit rate streams in countries around the world, including the United States, once local authorities request it, The Verge learned earlier this week. Florance also announced in Netflix’s blog post that the company will help ISPs dealing with “large government-mandated ‘shelter in place’ orders by providing the 25 percent traffic reduction we’ve started in Europe.” Streaming increasingly putting a strain on broadband services isn’t just a concern for people trying to binge a show on Netflix. Internet service providers are seeing big surges in people using the internet to work and study from home or communicate with friends and family over video chat. AT&T’s mobile Wi-Fi calling is up 100 percent, while mobile data is up 40 percent, according to AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson. If streaming puts too much of a strain on networks, it’s not just entertainment that could suffer, but entire communication channels. Stephenson also told CNN on Sunday that network infrastructures continue to perform “quite well,” but acknowledged the company is seeing some stress as more people work from home. Several internet service providers also signed a pledge with the FCC essentially promising to not take advantage of people relying on their networks more than ever. The pledge came one day after AT&T announced it would suspend broadband data caps from home internet customers, and Comcast announced it would raise internet speeds on its Internet Essentials tier. Streaming eats up a lot of bandwidth. Normally, not everyone is trying to stream at the same time. It’s different right now. People are using the internet for videoconferencing calls and to work, to take online classes, and to distract themselves from isolation. The streaming platforms have to share that bandwidth. When people are trying to use those same pipes for day-to-day essential acts, streaming quality has to be disrupted. FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel noted in a tweet last week that the FCC “needs to report daily on the state of communications networks in this country,” especially now when “these are the networks we are all counting on for some semblance of modern life.” Netflix, YouTube, Twitch, Disney Plus, or whatever other streaming platform running all the time can create a problem. Depending on how long health officials and governments recommend folks stay at home, there’s a chance that upcoming streamers like Quibi, HBO Max, and Peacock will launch at a time when people are looking for new things to watch. As analyst and venture capitalist Matthew Ball noted on Twitter, the fact that people are stuck at home “will give every new, nascent and yet-to-launch OTT video service a much stronger shot at success.” It also means more companies and platforms competing for a piece of bandwidth. “They will still need to ‘earn’ long-term subscribers, but content sampling and free trials will be enormously higher, easier to get, and cheaper to ‘buy’ than before,” Ball wrote. The situation the entire world has found itself in isn’t normal. Extreme measures are being taken to try to prevent coronavirus from spreading. While industries around the world are taking hits because of society’s recent self-isolation, streaming is seeing a boom. It is likely to continue seeing a boost, as WarnerMedia noted in its official blog, because people will continue to be at home. As usage increases, and services launch, it’s clear that companies with streaming businesses will be fine — as long as the internet’s infrastructure can keep up. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. For more information, see our ethics policy.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/27/21195358/streaming-netflix-disney-hbo-now-youtube-twitch-amazon-prime-video-coronavirus-broadband-network

Entertainment

The Verge

2020-03-27 00:00:00

2020

3.0

27

Sean O'Kane

General Motors will make ventilators to help fight the worst cases of COVID-19

General Motors will manufacture ventilators that are crucial to fighting the worst symptoms of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. One thousand members of the automaker’s unionized workforce will build the equipment for ventilator company Ventec Life Systems at GM’s factory in Kokomo, Indiana, which has been shut down during the pandemic. The goal is to eventually make 10,000 ventilators per month, according to GM and Ventec, but the companies didn’t say how long it would take to reach that output. Chris Brooks, the chief strategy officer for Ventec, told The Verge late Friday that the two companies expect to make “hundreds” next month in Kokomo. GM will also start making surgical masks, a critical component for health care workers, at its idled factory in Warren, Michigan, next week. The automaker plans to make 50,000 masks per day within two weeks, with a possible total output of 100,000 per day. The automaker joins a large collective effort from corporations around the country to produce resources that the federal government is failing to provide to the parts of the country that have been hit worst by the pandemic. Tesla is helping source ventilators for New York hospitals. Apple has launched a COVID-19 screening app and is donating 10 million surgical masks. Google is making and donating millions of masks as well. Ford is also working with 3M and GE to increase the supply of both ventilators and masks. GM and Ventec’s announcement came about an hour after President Trump tweeted that he wanted General Motors to “reopen” a factory it no longer owns so that the company can make thousands of ventilators that, last night on Fox News, he said were not necessary. It’s unclear why Trump thought GM would be able to “reopen” the Lordstown, Ohio, factory, as he not only praised the sale last year, but he also broke the news of the deal — where else? — on Twitter. That Lordstown factory now belongs to a startup called Lordstown Motors, which plans to build electric pickup trucks for commercial fleets. Representatives for the startup did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump’s rage-tweets about GM came mere hours after The New York Times published a report about how the White House and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) balked at the $1 billion price tag proposed by the automaker and Ventec, hundreds of millions of which would go to GM to help ready the Kokomo plant for making ventilators. GM now says it is providing resources “at cost,” though it’s not clear if it’s absorbing that reported nine-figure hit. A spokesperson for GM said the company “did not change our approach to this project,” and declined to comment on the president’s statements. GM announced last week that it was working to boost Ventec’s ventilator output, and that effort will continue, according to the announcement on Friday. But the administration was reportedly unhappy that GM and Ventec would only be able to make a few thousand of them by the end of April — something Trump seemed to confirm on Friday. “As usual with ‘this’ General Motors, things just never seem to work out,” Trump tweeted on Friday morning. “They said they were going to give us 40,000 much needed Ventilators, ‘very quickly’. Now they are saying it will only be 6000, in late April, and they want top dollar. Always a mess with Mary B. Invoke ‘P’.” “P,” Trump clarified in a later tweet, referred to the Korean War-era Defense Production Act. Trump has spent weeks talking about relying on the Defense Production Act to alleviate shortages of critical equipment like ventilators and surgical masks. But he had refused to actually use it before Friday, despite repeated requests from people like New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to do so. Trump even went so far as to claim on Fox News that the tens of thousands of ventilators that Cuomo has asked for won’t be necessary. “I have a feeling that a lot of the numbers that are being said in some areas are just bigger than they’re going to be,” he said on the show. “I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators.” But then at Friday’s press briefing, he said he wouldn’t mind having a surplus because the US could give the ventilators to other countries in need. This scattered messaging, along with a delayed government response in testing for the virus, are big reasons why the United States now has more confirmed cases of COVID-19 than any other country in the world. Hours after GM and Ventec’s announcement on Friday, though, Trump announced he was directing the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to invoke the Defense Production Act to force the automaker to “accept, perform, and prioritize contracts or orders for the number of ventilators that the Secretary determines to be appropriate.” Trump said he felt he had to use the Defense Production Act because he said General Motors was asking for too much money to make the ventilators, and because he said he was unhappy with the revised production estimate. Ventec said Friday that it still had not received any official communications from the administration about what the Defense Production Act will mean for the joint effort with GM, and pushed back on Trump’s claim about the two companies revising down production goals, saying it has not received a clear number from the federal government of how many ventilators are needed. Regardless, Brooks said Ventec and GM are moving forward. “You have two companies that have been acting in good faith, prior to the White House being involved, to create as many ventilators as possible to arm frontline health workers to save lives,” he said. “This is an issue bigger than Ventec, bigger than GM, and frankly, bigger than the United States.” Update March 27th, 7:25PM ET: Added new information from Ventec, and information about the Defense Production Act.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/27/21197015/general-motors-ventilators-ventec-coronavirus-covid-19-trump-defense-production-act

Tech

The Verge

2020-03-27 00:00:00

2020

3.0

27

Bijan Stephen

Go read this story about Bon Appétit test kitchen staff making videos during quarantine

There are few people as beloved online as the staff of the Bon Appétit test kitchen. Nearly a month ago, in the Before Quarantine Times, a pal and I talked over a tier list at a party, back when people were still allowed to congregate in groups. (Claire Saffitz, the wildly charming host of their flagship YouTube series, Gourmet Makes: S+.) When businesses across the country began closing their offices and asking — then ordering — their employees to work from home, my second thought was: what’ll happen to the Bon App YouTube channel? Luckily, we have an answer in the form of a fun story from Madison Malone Kircher over at Vulture: the show will go on. However, Gourmet Makes will take a brief hiatus because why would you have a dehydrator at home? Here’s Kircher: BA has, according to Duckor [Condé Nast’s head of programming], about six to eight weeks of content pre-filmed at any given time, but the team was concerned those videos could feel tonally out of sync with the current global climate. “Knowing that so many people all over the country are home and finding themselves in a similar situation as Brad, Claire, Molly, Sohla, and everybody in the test kitchen, not creating content that feels reflective of that felt like it would be a huge disservice to our fans,” Duckor explains. They set to work figuring out how to film videos from the chef’s home kitchen. Originally, the team thought they’d be able to send small crews to each house; as the coronavirus pandemic evolved, that morphed into solo shoots with an entirely remote production team. The story of the Bon App staff adapting to our changed circumstances will feel familiar to anyone who’s tried to devise a work-from-home strategy from scratch; going forward, test kitchen shoots will be conducted from home kitchens and will feel, as Kircher put it, “familiar to test-kitchen fans, if a little pared down.” And who isn’t feeling that right now? I’m just glad they’ll be posting more stuff. There is a business incentive here, too: as Kircher reports, video views of the Bon Appétit YouTube channel are up a full 15 percent since March 17th, compared to 2020’s averages. That means we’ll get more healing content to consume during our long, global nightmare. It’ll help me ride it out, at least.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/27/21196952/bon-appetit-test-kitchen-staff-videos-quarantine-coronavirus

TL;DR

The Verge

2020-03-27 00:00:00

2020

3.0

27

Sean O'Kane

Tesla’s shrinking its workforce at the Nevada Gigafactory because of the coronavirus

One week after Tesla said it would keep up “normal” operations at the Gigafactory in Nevada, the company now plans to scale back the workforce there by “more than 75 percent” as the state shelters in place to fight the novel coronavirus. Panasonic, which helps make Tesla’s batteries in a section of the Gigafactory, suspended its operations there last week. Legacy automakers have also halted manufacturing operations in the United States amid the pandemic. Tesla has already paused some nonessential operations at the factory and is encouraging employees to work from home if possible, which has “significantly” reduced the number of people showing up to work every day, according to an email obtained by the Reno Gazette-Journal. The company expects to be down to only essential “supply chain” work by next week, as well as roles like security, facility maintenance, limited critical production, and IT support. It’s unclear if the Gigafactory workers who are being told to stay home are being offered paid or unpaid leave. Tesla did not respond to a request for comment. The company is paying the hourly employees at its other factories during similar shutdowns, though it also recently made its first pandemic-induced workforce cut in Norway. Tesla is taking a number of steps to reduce the chance of spreading the novel coronavirus among the employees who will keep coming into work, according to the email. The company will close some entrances and will perform temperature checks at the entrances that remain open. Hand sanitizer will be required upon entry. Workers will have to stay six feet apart, including in the cafeteria, where the company will only have one chair per table. Work stations will be disinfected twice per shift, too. On Thursday, Tesla confirmed two office employees had tested positive for COVID-19, but did not specify where those workers were located. The company said in an internal email that the employees “had been working from home for nearly two weeks” before they tested positive for COVID-19. News of the partial shutdown of the Gigafactory was first announced by the local county manager, Austin Osborne, in a post on the local government’s website late Thursday. “Our companies at TRIC [the industrial park where Tesla operates] are taking the COVID-19 matter seriously, and regularly report to us the measures they are taking to adhere to the established guidelines while maintaining essential operations,” Osborne wrote. “Checking employee temperatures, creating central access, allowing remote work, maintaining workstation distance, and others are occurring.” Osborne declined to offer more information in a follow-up email. Tesla announced on March 19th that it was shutting down its electric car factory in California and its solar panel factory in New York. The shutdown in California came almost a full week after local authorities had implemented a shelter-in-place order that forced nonessential businesses to close. Tesla also briefly shut down its newest Gigafactory in China earlier this year, though production there is back up and running.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/27/21196879/tesla-gigafactory-shelter-in-place-nevada-coronavirus-covid-19

Tech

The Verge

2020-03-27 00:00:00

2020

3.0

27

Megan Farokhmanesh

Games Done Quick is holding a speedrunning marathon to raise money for coronavirus relief

Games Done Quick, an organization that holds speedrunning marathons for charity, will hold a special event to raise donations for those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Corona Relief Done Quick will take place April 17th-19th, with all proceeds going to humanitarian aid organization Direct Relief. Direct Relief aids those affected by poverty and emergencies. In response to the coronavirus spread, the organization is working to provide crucial medical equipment, such as face masks and protective gear. Streams will be online only and available via Twitch. GDQ’s in-person summer event will also be postponed; the event will now take place August 16th-23rd in Bloomington, Minnesota, instead of the originally planned June dates. Benefits will go to Doctors Without Borders.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/27/21197121/games-done-quick-coronavirus-relief-marathon

Gaming

The Verge

2020-03-27 00:00:00

2020

3.0

27

Jon Porter

Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant can now help you diagnose COVID-19

Amazon Alexa users in the US can now use the voice assistant as a first step towards diagnosing cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, Amazon has announced. Queries such as “Alexa, what do I do if I think I have coronavirus?” or “Alexa, what do I do if I think I have COVID-19?” will prompt the voice assistant to ask about your symptoms, travel history, and possible exposure to the virus. It will then offer advice based on official Centers for Disease Control and Prevention information. The functionality is a step up from the information Alexa was offering previously. Earlier this month, Vox reported that Alexa would list off simple facts. Amazon’s announcement follows a similar move from Apple, whose Siri voice assistant has also been updated to offer diagnosis advice. As well as offering advice on symptoms, Alexa can now also be asked to sing a song for 20 seconds to help you know when you’ve properly washed your hands. Alexa’s subpar singing voice means we can’t see people using the feature much for themselves, but it might motivate children. Amazon says the feature is available in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, India, the UK, and the US. CNET reports that Google has also added a similar hand-washing timer to its voice assistant. More generally, Amazon has also kept its fulfillment centers running, which has helped populations to follow shelter-at-home mandates. However, in some cases concerns have been raised about how it’s gone about this. Workers in the company’s warehouses, which are still operating to fulfill orders, including the delivery of COVID-19 test kits in the UK, have reported that management hasn’t been proactively informing them when colleagues have tested positive for the disease. Instead, they’ve often been hearing about them through rumors. Amazon has also been criticized for not providing enough cleaning supplies in its warehouses, despite assuring workers that it has ramped up its cleaning procedures.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/27/21196735/amazon-alexa-covid-19-coronavirus-diagnosis-advice-symptoms-risk-factors-travel

Tech

The Verge

2020-03-27 00:00:00

2020

3.0

27

Andrew J. Hawkins

Bird lays off nearly a third of its staff during coronavirus pandemic

Bird is laying off about 30 percent of its staff in response to the financial uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic. The layoffs, which were first reported by TechCrunch, are the first major staff cuts by a scooter startup since the pandemic first hit — but they are likely not to be the last. The news comes after most of the major scooter sharing startups have said they would reduce or eliminate service in most major markets in response to the coronavirus pandemic. According to a memo from Bird CEO Travis VanderZanden published by TechCrunch, the layoffs were needed to ensure the company stays solvent until the end of 2021. Laid off employees will be provided four weeks of pay, three months of health coverage, and an extra 12 months to exercise their stock options, TechCrunch reports. With “shelter-in-place” orders, social distancing, and most people simply staying at home and avoiding unnecessary travel, scooter companies are seeing a steep drop in sales and demand. The timing of the pandemic is also posing a unique challenge for the money-losing scooter industry that sees its business slow down in the winter and pick back up again when the weather turns warm. The pandemic notwithstanding, no startup has yet figured out how to earn a profit without relying on tens of millions of dollars in venture capital investment. Bird’s main rival, Lime, is likely also considering worker reductions. The San Francisco-based company laid off 14 percent of its workforce last January and exited 12 markets, and a recent report in Bloomberg suggested that Lime is close to eliminating up to 70 more positions in response to the coronavirus. Another scooter startup, Wheels, recently laid off 6 percent of its employees.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/27/21197377/bird-scooter-layoff-staff-coronavirus-shutdown-sales-drop

Tech

The Verge

2020-03-27 00:00:00

2020

3.0

27

Joshua Rivera

Bloodshot never had a chance of starting a new cinematic universe

As one of the last movies to premiere in theaters before the coronavirus pandemic shut down social gatherings, Bloodshot has had a terrible journey to existence. Once upon a time, the Vin Diesel-led action movie based on the comic book from Valiant Entertainment would have kicked off a new cinematic universe built around its superheroes. That is no longer the case, largely due to a shift in which studio now has the film rights to most Valiant characters. But even if rights weren’t an issue, Bloodshot — which is more of a middling action movie than a promising superhero debut — doesn’t inspire confidence. And in the midst of a pandemic that has reshaped Hollywood, is there even room for a new cinematic universe anymore? As an action movie, Bloodshot is the worst kind of uninspiring: not bad enough to circle back around toward fun, not good enough at action to be even momentarily impressed by a fight scene. Ray Garrison (Vin Diesel) is a soldier rebuilt with the power of high-tech nanomachines that make him super strong, super fast, and able to recover from any injury. The company that did this wants Garrison to be a guinea pig, and Garrison just wants to use his powers to get revenge on the man who killed his wife. The twist comes when Garrison learns that his memories are forgeries, manipulated to motivate him into doing some corporate dirty work. When a potential rival needs to be taken out, handlers wipe Garrison’s memories to give him a new nightmare where someone different killed his wife, and let his desire for revenge run its course. It’s a wonderfully twisted state of affairs, all hamstrung by truly awful writing and action that plays like a CW show with a little extra spending money from dad. It’s, quite simply, boring — the kind of boring that quickly makes you feel like you made a mistake, even if you knowingly put it on because you’re stuck at home with nothing to do for an hour and forty minutes. There’s something admirable about Bloodshot’s unassuming take on comic book worldbuilding, but it has the unfortunate downside of making everything about it forgettable. It’s hard to imagine Bloodshot ginning up much excitement for a sequel or kicking off a cinematic universe like an earlier version of it was supposed to. (That movie was going to be directed by the directors of John Wick, with Jared Leto in talks to star.) But in the grand scheme of things, it’s difficult to envision another cinematic universe getting off the ground anymore. To this day, the Marvel Cinematic Universe remains the only sprawling movie enterprise of its type to find any real success. Every other attempt has been aborted — most famously, Universal’s Dark Universe, and most interestingly, the DCEU, which is actively being retooled under a state of plausible deniability where it does not particularly matter if its post-Justice League films are connected or not. The exception that proves the rule is The Conjuring, which has spawned a web of horror movies loosely connected by the collection of mementos kept under lock and key by the paranormal investigators at the center of that franchise. Creating a cinematic universe is hard, if not impossible, and as Hollywood moves into triage to salvage this year’s releases, extending them into 2021, the idea of a new one just seems increasingly absurd. Whether the plans to build a new constellation of films starring Valiant’s non-Bloodshot characters will weather this storm is just one of the countless projects in limbo right now. The economics of the entertainment industry are being entirely upended, and a return to the previous status quo seems increasingly unlikely. Marvel movies will likely be fine with some reconfiguring, DC films will likely stick around, and mega-franchises like The Fast and Furious movies or Star Wars are probably not going anywhere. But the era where studios actively try to catch the cinematic universe wave? That trend might be over for everyone but the biggest players in Hollywood, a strange period in history brought to an even stranger end.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/27/21195867/bloodshot-review-vin-diesel-cinematic-universe-superhero

Movie Review

The Verge

2020-03-27 00:00:00

2020

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27

Chaim Gartenberg

Google cancels its infamous April Fools’ jokes this year

April Fools’ Day is one of the most annoying internet traditions, but this year Google — infamous for its numerous elaborate pranks that typically touch on nearly every major product the company makes — won’t be participating due to the serious threat of the coronavirus that continues to impact the entire world. According to an internal email obtained by Business Insider, Google will “take the year off from that tradition out of respect for all those fighting the Covid-19 pandemic. Our highest goal right now is to be helpful to people, so let’s save the jokes for next April, which will undoubtedly be a whole lot brighter than this one.” “We’ve already stopped any centralized April Fool’s efforts but realize there may be smaller projects within teams that we don’t know about,” the email from Google’s head of marketing Lorraine Twohill continues. “Please suss out those efforts and make sure your teams pause on any jokes they may have planned — internally or externally.” Like or loathe internet April Fools’ jokes, it’s hard to argue that Google’s decision here isn’t a wise one. With the seriousness of the health crisis gripping the United States and the world, dedicating a day to misleading people and adding extraneous, misinforming features to critical products like Google search, YouTube, Gmail, or Maps just seems like a bad idea. Hopefully other companies will take note of Google’s lead here and adjust their own April Fools’ plans accordingly. There’s a time and a place for a good joke — but this probably isn’t it.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/27/21197260/google-cancels-april-fools-jokes-2020-coronavirus-covid19-pranks

Google

The Verge

2020-03-27 00:00:00

2020

3.0

27

Kim Lyons

Go read this Texas Monthly piece on how HEB prepped for the coronavirus outbreak

In February, while the US government was still dithering and downplaying the potential impact that the novel coronavirus and COVID-19 might have, San Antonio-based grocery chain HEB was already running pandemic simulations and adapting the plans that helped it respond to the H1N1 outbreak in 2009. Yes, that’s correct: a regional grocery chain arguably did better advance planning than our government did and is now better equipped to handle the coronavirus pandemic that has left more than 80,000 Americans infected so far. Texas Monthly has the story about how HEB management used its experience with natural disasters to get ahead of the outbreak. Justen Noakes, director of emergency preparedness, explained: “So when did we start looking at the coronavirus? Probably the second week in January, when it started popping up in China as an issue. We’ve got interests in the global sourcing world, and we started getting reports on how it was impacting things in China, so we started watching it closely at that point. We decided to take a harder look at how to implement the plan we developed in 2009 into a tabletop exercise. On February 2, we dusted it off and compared the plan we had versus what we were seeing in China, and started working on step one pretty heavily.” Yes, February 2nd, which is even before President Trump’s statement that the virus would “disappear like a miracle.” It saw what was coming, so HEB starting putting restrictions on purchases before panic shopping had gone into full swing in most areas: The company began limiting the amounts of certain products customers were able to purchase in early March; extended its sick leave policy and implemented social distancing measures quickly; limited its hours to keep up with the needs of its stockers; added a coronavirus hotline for employees in need of assistance or information; and gave employees a $2 an hour raise on March 16, as those workers, many of whom are interacting with the public daily during this pandemic, began agitating for hazard pay. In addition to its advance planning for H1N1 a decade ago, HEB drew on its experience dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in 2017, according to Texas Monthly. One important lesson, Noakes said, was paying attention to what its customers wanted and being transparent about what it was doing: “The most important lesson for us is to listen to what’s going on in our stores. When we started seeing the N95 masks and the sanitizers, we took that as a good sign that our customers were concerned about what was going on, and that’s what really spurred us to activate our program. That’s the biggest one—to make sure that we’re really paying attention to what our customer does, and to actually respond to it. As we continue to maneuver our supply chain and support our stores during COVID-19, we’ll bring some lessons learned and tools out of that into hurricane season.” The story is really an interesting dive into how a well-run business (cough) can prepare for an unprecedented situation and take lessons from what’s worked well in the past. Bonus: a mariachi band showed up randomly to play at an HEB store (it is Texas, after all).

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/27/21196919/heb-prepared-coronavirus-outbreak-covid-19-texas-monthly-reading-recommendation

Tech

The Verge

2020-03-27 00:00:00

2020

3.0

27

Loren Grush

NASA tasks SpaceX with sending cargo and supplies to future lunar space station

Despite the worsening coronavirus pandemic in the US, NASA is still looking ahead to its long-term goal of sending humans back to the lunar surface and is now asking SpaceX to start doing cargo runs to the Moon in the near future. NASA awarded the aerospace company with a new contract this afternoon, tasking SpaceX with sending cargo and supplies to a space station that NASA wants to build in the Moon’s orbit. The new partnership is a big piece of NASA’s Artemis program, an initiative to land the first woman on the lunar surface by 2024. As part of the program, NASA has proposed building a space station in orbit around the Moon called the Gateway, where astronauts can work and train before heading down to the lunar soil. Just like the International Space Station, the Gateway is going to need supplies and science experiments from time to time, and now SpaceX is the first company charged with making that happen. SpaceX has been supplying cargo to the International Space Station for almost a decade now, packing supplies inside the company’s Dragon capsule and launching them on top of a Falcon 9 rocket. To get supplies to the future Gateway, SpaceX is going to use some upgraded vehicles. The company is developing a new cargo vehicle called the Dragon XL, a cylindrical white spacecraft that can “carry more than 5 metric tons of cargo to Gateway in lunar orbit,” according to SpaceX. The supersized Dragon will launch on top of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket, the much more powerful variant of the Falcon 9 that consists of three rocket cores strapped together. Thanks to a fixed-price contract, SpaceX is on the hook to send multiple supply missions to the Gateway once the station is up and running. During each trip, the Dragon XL will stay docked to the Gateway for six to 12 months a time. The capsule will carry things like “sample collection materials and other items the crew may need on the Gateway and during their expeditions on the lunar surface,” according to NASA. “Returning to the Moon and supporting future space exploration requires affordable delivery of significant amounts of cargo,” Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president and COO, said in a statement. “Through our partnership with NASA, SpaceX has been delivering scientific research and critical supplies to the International Space Station since 2012, and we are honored to continue the work beyond Earth’s orbit and carry Artemis cargo to Gateway.” SpaceX likely won’t be the only company tasked with sending supplies to the Gateway. Ultimately, NASA has the option to add multiple cargo suppliers and has allotted up to $7 billion to spend on cargo contracts for Artemis. Each contract guarantees that NASA will order at least two cargo missions per provider and NASA can request missions for up to 12 years. While the contract is a big step for SpaceX and NASA, a lot of questions remain about the future of the Artemis program. For one, it’s unclear when the Gateway will actually be built. For the last few years, NASA officials have argued that building the Gateway is a crucial part of the Artemis program as it will help the space agency establish a sustainable presence around the Moon, rather than just send astronauts to the lunar surface to leave “flags and footprints.” But the administration challenged NASA to land its first Artemis astronauts by 2024, and with that deadline quickly approaching, the space agency may not have enough time to build the Gateway if it wants to get humans back to the Moon in the next four years. In fact, NASA’s newly appointed associate administrator for human exploration said that the Gateway is no longer critical for getting humans back to the Moon by 2024, according to Space News. That doesn’t mean it won’t get built, but it may not happen until after the first lunar landing deadline. Meanwhile, it’s becoming increasingly unlikely that NASA will be able to meet its 2024 deadline at all, as the coronavirus pandemic has forced the agency to suspend production on some key programs. Notably, NASA shut down development of its next big rocket, the Space Launch System, which the agency plans to use to fly the first Artemis astronauts to the Moon. As for SpaceX, the company is still operating during the pandemic as the company has been deemed mission essential by the state of California, due to its work with the Department of Defense. So it’s possible the company could still get a jump-start on the development of this new capsule. But it’s unclear when the Gateway will be ready to receive its first shipment.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/27/21197300/spacex-nasa-dragon-xl-cargo-moon-gateway-space-station-artemis

Science

The Verge

2020-03-27 00:00:00

2020

3.0

27

Nicole Wetsman

Med students are graduating early to join the fight against COVID-19

In a normal year, fourth-year medical students across the United States would have some downtime in April. They would have already found out where they’ll be doing their residencies and should have the whole month or more to coast through to graduation and the start of their medical careers in the summer. But this isn’t a normal year, and a handful of medical schools around the country are offering to let students graduate early so they can join the fight against COVID-19. The Grossman School of Medicine at New York University was the first to do so. Eligible students who’d already met graduation requirements could become doctors a few months ahead of schedule if they agreed to join the emergency or internal medicine departments at NYU’s hospital. Gaby Mayer is one of the dozens of NYU students who volunteered to graduate early. (Full disclosure: she’s also my friend.) She’d first heard that early graduation might be an option a few weeks ago when New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo mentioned the possibility at a press conference. “We weren’t sure if it would really get there, but we knew that other countries that were getting hit hard by COVID-19 were entertaining similar plans,” she says. Now that it’s official, she says she’s relieved that she can help. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity. How did you feel when you were officially asked to graduate early? We’d all been talking about it informally as medical students. We really felt like a lot of us were sitting around doing a lot of nothing between now and graduation. We were feeling really happy to have a skill set where we could go into the hospital and relieve some of the strain. The first response was relief and, in some ways, excitement. I think I’d be remiss to not say I was a little nervous. The prospect of becoming a doctor for the first time is always going to be overwhelming, and there’s a big learning curve at the beginning. To be learning in this hectic environment is certainly an additional challenge, but I think we’re ready for it. What are you doing to prepare for COVID-19, specifically? I’ve been keeping up with case reports and keeping an eye on the medical literature. Now, I’ll dive in a bit more. Since the announcement, a lot of us have put together a plan for the next few weeks — less about COVID-19, but more about how we’ll be transitioning our role in the hospital. What will your role be in the hospital during the outbreak? I’m not sure how much of what I’ll be doing will be different from what I would have been doing in my first year. But normally, we’d be there to keep parts of patient care moving forward so they receive appropriate care. We’re the first ones to see patients in the morning, we coordinate consults between the different areas of medicine, write notes on patients, and keep the closest eye on them. We do that so the senior medical staff, who’s closely supervising us, can both teach us about things like diagnoses but also so they can have room to think about the higher-level plan. The dean mentioned that we wouldn’t be seeing intubated or medically complex patients, so my guess is that they’ll try to keep us out of COVID-19 areas. But it’s hard to say for sure. How does it feel to enter medicine and become a doctor right now? I feel really prepared. I wouldn’t have volunteered if I felt in any way that I wouldn’t be able to serve my patients. I think I’m going to have to adjust my expectations, but there won’t be a lot of adjusting of the core things I need to be a good doctor. I think I am a little nervous, of course. A big part of [the first year of residency] is about having a strong team to walk you through this new identity and new role. I think I’m a little bit nervous about whether we’ll get the same attention. We’ll get the same supervision in terms of patient care, but this is all happening in a crazy environment. But the biggest feeling I have is one of gratitude that I can help. I’m really committed to patient care. It’s the reason I went to medical school, and it keeps me really grounded. To be able to come back to that is a gift in a time when things are so crazy.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/27/21196885/medical-students-early-graduation-nyu-coronavirus-covid-19

Science

The Verge

2020-03-27 00:00:00

2020

3.0

27

Andrew Webster

How the biggest gaming leagues are adapting to an online-only world

Almost every single major professional sports league across the globe is on indefinite hiatus due to the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic. There’s no NBA, no Champions League, no Olympic Games. But an unlikely option has started to fill that void for viewers: competitive video games. For years, esports leagues have tried to emulate traditional sports to reach a larger and more mainstream audience. But with millions forced to stay at home, these leagues have had to adapt in a way that emphasizes their digital-first nature. “This is where our roots are,” says Dominique Gelineau, the general manager of the Call of Duty League’s Toronto Ultra. Over the past few weeks, almost every major esports league in the world — including the CDL, Overwatch League, ESL Pro League, Flashpoint, and multiple League of Legends competitions — has shifted to an online format. Typically, these games are played offline in a studio or arena environment. Players take the stage, fans go wild, and casters keep up the energy with infectious commentary. Re-creating that when everyone, from the players to the event’s producers, is working from home creates its own unique set of challenges. In late February, IEM Katowice 2020, one of the world’s premier Counter-Strike competitions, took place in an empty 11,000-seat stadium after the Polish government declared a ban on mass gatherings not long before the event was set to kick off. It was around this time that Craig Levine, global chief strategy officer for the CS:GO ESL Pro League, realized they were going to need to make some changes. The league originally planned to play out its regular season at a studio in Malta, with the finals slated for an event in Denver. The team went through a few options, including playing in a studio with no fans, but as the situation escalated, they settled on playing the entirety of the competition online. This created some potential issues. For one, the competition was meant to be a global one, with teams from around the world competing. That was less viable as travel restrictions became more abundant, so the league reorganized with divisions specifically for Europe and the Americas. “We went from one global product, to essentially two continental products, to solve for latency which isn’t quite so good across the Atlantic yet,” says Levine. There was also the question of actually producing the events. Unlike many leagues, the ESL is still operating a studio for a skeleton production crew, while the players compete from their homes or team facilities. Even still, they started small. The first online broadcast was relatively bare-bones; you couldn’t even see the players themselves. “The first day of Pro League was getting the Xs and Os down, the basics of it,” Levine says. “Then starting day two, day three, and every day thereafter we’ve started adding other production elements; more videos from players at other events, more player interviews from team facilities. We wanted to make sure that the show went on.” Other leagues have gone fully remote. Like the ESL Pro League, the League of Legends Championship Series originally intended to continue its season in a studio with no fans present, but ultimately, they were forced to go online instead. “We realized that forcing everyone into the arena is probably something that we shouldn’t be doing,” says LCS commissioner Chris Greeley. But the LCS has also taken things a step further with a completely remote broadcast. Every person involved is working from home, which means viewers get to see things like commentator Josh Leesman’s shiba inu appear in a live broadcast. Greeley says that the production team created new tools to simulate the experience of being in a broadcast booth so that they can work from home “but in a way that feels like they’re all in the control room together.” The league has also had to make some changes to ensure everyone plays fair. In a studio environment, everything is controlled; in the LCS, players aren’t even allowed to take their gaming peripherals out of the building. But that level of oversight isn’t possible online, so the LCS has instituted other measures. These include screen recording, running in-game communications through league-operated Discord servers, and broadcasting games on a delay so players can’t gain a significant advantage from watching the competition. Similarly, the ESL Pro League is utilizing proprietary anti-cheat tools during matches and also keeping tabs on players through webcams. These have an added benefit: not only can you ensure the person playing is who they say they are, but you also get extra footage for the broadcast. There are, of course, some unexpected issues with such a big transition. For instance, some LCS broadcasters were seeing their internet throttled in the middle of a game because they were consuming so much bandwidth. It’s also been a significant logistics adjustment for the teams and players. For the Toronto Ultra, the team was just getting ready to open up a new practice facility when they were forced to work remotely. Thankfully, most of the players and staff live at the same apartment complex, so they’re still able to keep in touch. He pet the dog #LCS pic.twitter.com/Xcw97frTHS Gelineau says that the team has maintained the same practice schedule as before in an attempt to keep a sense of normalcy. “The biggest challenge for us has been, these are young players, a lot of them have moved away for the first time, and so just making sure they’re supported and that they know they’re not alone in this,” she explains. While the CDL season hasn’t started back up again yet, she notes that the team will do something similar for game days, with players keeping their same pregame rituals — whether it’s a particular warmup playlist or pregame meal — to stay focused, which will be particularly important since they’re used to live events. “You don’t get the roar of the crowd,” she says, “or getting hyped from people around you.” Other teams have different setups. Gen.g’s LA office — which houses its Fortnite, CS:GO, and NBA 2K teams — remains open; the team says it was designed to run with minimal staff. “This allows for our players to continue to come into a safe / clean environment where they can eat, practice, and compete in online tournaments safely,” says general manager Nathan Stanz, noting that all of the team’s players live within walking distance. Some teams are more scattered. In the ESL Pro League, Complexity Gaming’s CS:GO squad is spread out across Denmark, with one player currently based in Bulgaria. It’s an awkward setup, but as Complexity COO Kyle Bautista notes, it also made a lot more sense than flying everyone back to the team’s home base in Texas. “We wanted to make sure that we were keeping our players safe and in a good mental space,” he says. No matter the team or league, everyone is dealing with uncertain times and a situation that is constantly changing. As Greeley notes, “there is no pandemic playbook.” And with millions stuck at home looking for entertainment, esports are one of the only live options. The ESL Pro League says that its second day of online play was “the single most-watched broadcast day of an ESL Pro League season ever,” while the LCS maintained a fairly consistent level of viewership and its Chinese counterpart, the League of Legends Pro League, saw a 30 percent viewership jump year over year when it returned to online play. “As other sports and entertainment have gone dark, we’ve probably inadvertently benefited,” says Levine.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/27/21196237/esports-leagues-online-coronavirus-call-of-duty-overwatch-league-of-legends

Gaming

The Verge

2020-03-27 00:00:00

2020

3.0

27

Dieter Bohn

The MacBook Air: restore default

Nilay Patel published his 2020 MacBook Air review yesterday. He calls it “the best Mac for most people” and I agree. After three iterations in its modern incarnation, the MacBook Air has finally been restored to its place as the default MacBook. When your computer goes haywire and you can’t seem to diagnose the problem, usually the easiest solution is to just wipe everything and start from scratch. You restore default settings and start again with a clean slate, avoiding whatever mistakes you couldn’t undo before. It’s not a perfect metaphor for what Apple did with the MacBook Air, but it’s not far off. It fits because Apple fixed the keyboard, mainly. But the company also gritted its teeth and held out until Intel could make a chip that worked well for the Air’s needs. In so doing, Apple eliminated the major reservations we had with the MacBook Air. It was a very, very long time coming. I will admit that when I first encountered the butterfly keyboard on the 2015 12-inch MacBook, I didn’t foresee what a fiasco it would become. And through subsequent years, it took some time for the issues to become obvious — credit once again to Casey Johnston and Joanna Stern for leading the charge on calling Apple out. You’re reading Processor, a newsletter about computers by Dieter Bohn. Dieter writes about consumer tech, software, and the most important news of the day from The Verge. This newsletter delivers “mostly daily,” which nets out three to four times a week, some of which include longer columns. You can subscribe to Processor and learn more about it here. Processor is also a YouTube series with the same goal: providing smart and surprising analysis with a bit of humor. Subscribe to all of The Verge’s great videos here! During those years, Apple tried iterative fixes to the fundamentally flawed butterfly design. At the same time, it let the MacBook Air languish in a pre-retina, pre-USB-C state. But even so, it remained the default MacBook. People liked the USB-A port, they liked the MagSafe power connector, they liked the keyboard, and most of all they liked the price. The 12-inch MacBook, beloved as it was by many (including me), wasn’t a viable replacement as it never got powerful enough. I still think that Apple hoped it would be that back in 2015, and that’s why it was just called the MacBook, no modifiers. Apple also made an effort to get people to buy an entry-level MacBook Pro, as Nilay pointed out in his review yesterday. That didn’t take, either. So in 2018 Apple finally refreshed the MacBook Air. I reviewed it and found it completely ...whelming. It finally added a retina display, but it wasn’t much faster than its then three-year-old predecessor. 2019’s edition slightly updated the keyboard we no longer trusted To try to fix those issue and slightly updated the screen with True Tone, but kept the processor that still didn’t feel quite powerful enough to recommend without reservation. As Nilay notes, 2020’s finally just gives us the keyboard we want and — at least on the $1,100 model — a processor that shouldn’t slow you down when you’re doing the basics, or even just a little more. Before this week, if somebody asked what MacBook they should buy, the appropriate response was a heavy sigh. The sigh came because the answer involved juggling lots of different variables until you landed at one of several answers, all of which felt like a compromise. Now, you can simply say this: get the Air unless you need to do a lot of intensive work like video editing or compiling code, in which case get a Pro. (Well, get a 16-inch MacBook Pro. If you want a 13-inch, wait for that keyboard to get updated.) Apple even managed to make a version that crossed the psychologically important sub-$1,000 mark (by a buck). Again, most people should pony up for the upgraded processor, but that’s a minor nit. A less minor complaint is how macOS needs a more thoughtful, cohesive strategy for its user experience. Siri and search are getting stale, Catalyst apps aren’t taking off, and the constant permission prompts recall the bad old days of Windows Vista. I hope we see something meaningful in Apple’s virtual WWDC this summer. So that’s that: the MacBook Air is the default again, just like the 3rd-generation MacBook Air that you likely still think of when you think of a MacBook. That classic wedge MacBook Air wasn’t just the default recommended MacBook for nearly its entire lifespan, it was usually an enthusiastic recommendation. And in fact, it was often the default recommended laptop regardless of OS. That MacBook Air was the default because of a long list of superlatives: it was thinner, better built, more beautiful, more reliable, and had better battery life than other laptops. This MacBook Air, however, gets to its default status mainly by dint of getting rid of problems like the keyboard and the processor, not by outclassing the competition. Lots and lots of Windows laptops are great now and in many cases surpass even this Air on any number of metrics. Apple has reinvigorated its commitment to Mac hardware in the past couple years. The Mac Pro is powerful, the Mac mini is actually seeing somewhat regular updates, and the iMac remains an incredibly good desktop machine. But what the vast majority of people buy are laptops, and for too many years Apple made those purchases too fraught. Those days are thankfully over (or, technically, they will be when the last butterfly keyboard MacBook exits the lineup). So welcome back, MacBook Air. Glad to see you made it through the desert — all that sand was hell on keyboards. ┏ Huawei hopes the P40 Pro can lure you away from Google. Jon Porter takes a close look at the P40 Pro and explains the differences between all three models. There are a lot — and I mean a LOT — of camera differences to try to track. But as I wrote yesterday, outside of China I am not really sure this is going to be worth using. Huawei needs to do quite a lot to convince people it’s worth the pain of going with Google services and the apps it supports. ┏ OnePlus 8 Pro may come in a slick seafoam green and finally have wireless charging. ┏ Xbox Series X graphics source code stolen and leaked online. It seems like there isn’t going to be a ton of fallout from this, but yikes anyway. ┏ CarPlay dashboard gets third-party maps support in iOS 13.4. Google and Waze won’t commit, but obviously I hope they work better. I’ll be honest with you: I never expected Apple to open up access to this dashboard view to third party mapping apps. The CarPlay dashboard is by far the best smartphone interface on a car I’ve ever used because it just so obviously displays the stuff you want on one screen. I don’t know why Google hasn’t gotten here yet and I don’t know what took Apple so long to make it, but it really is great and I’m glad Apple opened it up. ┏ Google’s new Pixel Buds could hit spring release date, as they may have just hit the FCC. After such a long wait, these had better be inspired in some respect. Inspired sound quality, incredible Google Assistant integration, or something. At this price and in this year, shipping mediocre earbuds is not okay. I’d say it’s unfair to hold Google to the high standards set by Apple and Samsung, but them’s the rules. You don’t get a handicap in consumer tech. ┏ Polaroid’s new Now instant film camera delivers a classic, punishing experience. Cameron Faulkner reviews the latest film camera. I want to like this thing, it has some clever ideas about autofocus. But maybe too clever by half. ┏ Rad Power Bikes releases an upgraded version of its best electric bike. ┏ Huawei’s Watch GT 2E is a sporty redesign of its last smartwatch. ┏ Here are a bunch of free music apps and sample packs while we’re all stuck inside. Great roundup from Dani Deahl. I recently bought myself a little Pocket Operator (the PO-20 Arcade) and it’s been a great way to chill out and not think about anything other than the tune I am making. Since bailing on choir in the sixth grade, I have done nothing to foster a musical skill but I still find it fun to play around with. If you’re like me, I encourage you to try out one of the things Dani linked to here. ┏ Apple’s Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro X are getting 90-day free trials. Same deal! ┏ Amazon warehouse workers are outraged after a coworker tested positive for COVID-19 and they weren’t notified. Important reporting from Josh Dzieza. ┏ Dyson developed and is producing ventilators to help treat COVID-19 patients. So it is a long-running joke that if a thing involves moving air in any way, Dyson will make an overpriced gadget that does it. Well, joke’s over: if this thing works I’ll never make fun of overpriced hairdryers again. ┏ YouTube creators figure out how to film during a pandemic. Julia Alexander talks to a bunch of YouTube creators about dealing with isolation Some YouTube creators, like Chris Steinbacher, one of the team members behind the car creation channel B is for Build, are taking more extreme measures to ensure that new content appears on the channel consistently. Steinbacher and his team agreed not to see anyone outside of their families and one another so they can keep working. “Either everyone goes home, or we all agree that we don’t go out and get each other sick,” Steinbacher told The Verge. ┏ Airbnb asks its hosts to provide 100,000 free rentals to first responders. ┏ Some Tesla factory employees still had to work after the production shutdown. ┏ The coronavirus is now the American virus. We could have prevented a lot of suffering. We still have time to do so now. Correction: the original version of this article misstated that the 2019 MacBook Air received a small processor bump. It did not and the relevant sentence has been changed to note the keyboard and screen updates instead. We regret the error.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/27/21196425/apple-macbook-air-restore-default-laptop-recommendation-best-mac

Apple

The Verge

2020-03-27 00:00:00

2020

3.0

27

Jay Peters

Apple launches COVID-19 screening app and website

Apple today launched a website and a new app dedicated to COVID-19 screening. The resources offer an online screening tool, information about the disease, and some guidance on when to seek testing or emergency care. Apple developed the site and app in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the White House. The screening tool asks you questions about your symptoms, recent travel, and contact you may have had with people who have had or been exposed to the virus. After completing the screening process, you’ll be taken to a page with recommended next steps that will also suggest whether you need to be tested for COVID-19. Apple noted in a press release that the screening tool “does not replace instructions from healthcare providers or guidance from state and local health authorities.” If your screening results indicate that you may need to take a COVID-19 test, Apple doesn’t provide direct advice on where to get tested. It merely suggests that you “talk to someone about testing.” That’s likely because testing in the US is inconsistent and limited right now, and the CDC has urged people to contact their primary doctor before heading to a hospital in hopes of a test. However, Apple urges anyone experiencing difficulty breathing to immediately dial 911. Apple says it doesn’t collect or share data from the screening tool, nor does it require logging in with your Apple ID or any other account. “To help improve the site, Apple collects some information about how you use it. The information collected will not personally identify you.” It also doesn’t ask for location access, so the app won’t give you any localized recommendations. In addition to these tools, you can also now ask Siri “How do I know if I have coronavirus?” and Siri will have you respond to a few screening questions and point you toward information from the CDC. Apple is not the first to offer online screening resources. Amazon’s Alexa can now help US users diagnose COVID-19, and the CDC offers an online assessment chatbot built on Microsoft’s Healthcare Bot service. Google sister company Verily has also launched a COVID-19 screening and testing website.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/27/21197056/apple-coronavirus-covid-19-website-app-online-screening-tool-cdc

Apple

The Verge

2020-03-27 00:00:00

2020

3.0

27

Jay Peters

Google has banned the Infowars Android app over false coronavirus claims

Google has banned the Infowars Android app from the Google Play store, the company confirmed to Wired on Friday. Google also confirmed the app’s removal to The Verge, and we couldn’t find the Infowars app in a search on the Play Store this evening. The app was apparently removed because of a video posted by radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones that, according to Wired, “disputed the need for social distancing, shelter in place, and quarantine efforts meant to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.” Before it was removed, the app had more than 100,000 downloads, Wired reports. “Now more than ever, combating misinformation on the Play Store is a top priority for the team,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement given to The Verge. “When we find apps that violate Play policy by distributing misleading or harmful information, we remove them from the store.” Infowars was not immediately available for comment. Last week, Alex Jones was ordered by New York Attorney General Letitia James to stop selling Infowars products that were marketed as a treatment or cure for the coronavirus. “[Alex Jones’] latest mistruths are incredibly dangerous and pose a serious threat to the public health of New Yorkers and individuals across the nation,” James said in a statement. Tech companies have also publicly committed to cracking down on coronavirus misinformation. Google has an “SOS Alert” in place for searches for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, that points to resources from the CDC and local governments at the top of search results. And a group of companies that includes Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube said they’re “jointly combating fraud and misinformation about the virus” in a statement issued on March 16th. Apple permanently banned the Infowars app from the App Store in September 2018, citing App Store guidelines that forbid content that’s “offensive, insensitive, upsetting, intended to disgust, or in exceptionally poor taste.”

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/27/21197701/google-banned-infowars-android-app-play-store-coronavirus

Google

The Verge

2020-03-27 00:00:00

2020

3.0

27

Russell Brandom

Electronics companies are getting gridlocked by coronavirus lockdowns

For anyone in the hardware business, the last month has brought some scary numbers. Computer shipments from China to the US dropped 64 percent in the first two weeks of March, according to a report from S&P Global Market Intelligence. Monitor and TV imports dropped 66 percent, against a broader 45 percent drop in total Chinese imports. Some analysts are already worried that the next round of iPhones could be delayed (although Apple insists the disruptions will be temporary). This, roughly, is what happens when China closes its factories. The country began its coronavirus shutdown in earnest at the end of February, extending the Lunar New Year holiday until February 5th and placing severe public health restrictions. But while the strictest lockdown was limited to Hubei province, the broader restrictions have rippled through the entire country. Bloomberg reports that Foxconn was at reduced capacity for most of February and is hoping to get back to full strength by the end of the month. But with so many other manufacturers still scaling up, the result is a huge disruption in the supply chain. It’s made worse by the structure of modern manufacturing, as The Verge detailed earlier this month. For decades, hardware companies have been cutting costs by reducing stockpiles, trying to minimize the time a product spends sitting around at any stage of the process. That magnifies the impact of any disruption to the system, whether the component can’t be built because the workers are locked down or can’t be shipped as fast because of travel restrictions. We should be clear: the important crisis is still the public health crisis, and backing off on social distancing will make all of this worse, not better. The ongoing financial collapse is also going to mean less money to spend on computers, which could be an even bigger problem for companies. But in the short term, companies are going to have trouble getting products into stores — and if you’re trying to get repair parts, you might be in for a rough time. The Verge on YouTube

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/27/21195953/tech-manufacturing-companies-coronavirus-lockdown-apple-electronics-china

Apple

The Verge

2020-03-27 00:00:00

2020

3.0

27

Nicole Wetsman

Nursing home residents tested positive for the coronavirus before showing symptoms

Only around half of the residents of one Washington nursing home overwhelmed by COVID-19 had symptoms when they tested positive for the coronavirus, according to a new report. King County, Washington, was the first coronavirus hotspot in the United States. Multiple nursing homes in the area had cases, including the Life Care facility where two-thirds of the residents were found to have the virus that has been linked to 37 deaths. The new coronavirus is spreading through the US, and several states have made emergency declarations. The World Health Organization has declared it a pandemic. Here are the basics: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) gave coronavirus tests to 76 people in a different facility on March 13th, and 23 of those tests were positive. Only 10 of those people had symptoms on the day they were tested, according to data published today in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The remaining 13 did not appear to have symptoms on the day they were tested, but 10 developed symptoms — including fever and cough — one week later. After the first person in the care facility was diagnosed with the virus, staff restricted visitors, began regularly screening all residents for symptoms, and isolated those who were sick. The report notes, though, that symptom-based precautions wouldn’t have been enough to stop the spread of disease. Residents who didn’t have symptoms had similar levels of the virus in their respiratory systems as those who did, and they could have passed it to others before it seemed like they were sick. That’s consistent with recent research done around the world showing that people with mild or no symptoms could be driving outbreaks. Studies show that they have high levels of the virus in their noses and throats and that people appear to be more infectious earlier in the course of their illness before significant symptoms may have developed. COVID-19 is an unusual illness in that respect. When the virus first appeared, experts — including Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — stressed that asymptomatic cases haven’t been the main driver in other outbreaks of respiratory diseases. Identifying and controlling COVID-19 outbreaks in nursing homes and long-term care facilities is especially important because their residents — who are older and have other health conditions — are at high risk for having a severe case of the disease. Infectious diseases spread quickly in nursing homes, like they do in other closed environments. Many residents share rooms, and staff and aides go from room to room regularly. Dozens of nursing homes in the US have reported cases. In one New Jersey nursing home, all 94 residents are assumed to have contracted the virus. The CDC report outlines the steps that these facilities could take to protect against outbreaks if someone gets sick. Because symptoms aren’t a good way to figure out who has the virus, it suggests they do widespread testing. It also recommends that both health care personnel wear masks and other protective equipment. But those aren’t steps most places in the US will be able to take, which the report also notes. Tests are in short supply and are largely restricted to people with symptoms or who have been hospitalized. Nurses and doctors at hospitals are facing severe shortages of protective equipment and masks. Without those resources, it’s nearly impossible for anyone to follow public health recommendations — including for those people, like nursing home residents, who are the most vulnerable. The US now has the highest number of cases of COVID-19 in the world, and experts predict the outbreak will only get worse.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/27/21197195/washington-nursing-home-coronavirus-test-asymptomatic-king-county

Science

The Verge

2020-03-27 00:00:00

2020

3.0

27

Makena Kelly

House approves $2 trillion coronavirus bill as members struggle with infection

After weeks of negotiations, Congress approved its $2 trillion coronavirus relief package on Friday. But that measure’s final approval was threatened by the same virus that made it necessary. Over the past few weeks, more than 30 lawmakers have been exposed to the novel coronavirus or showed some degree of symptoms that have led them to self-quarantine. But so far, only three have tested positive for the virus, including Reps. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL) and Ben McAdams (D-UT) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY). Paul announced that he tested positive for the novel coronavirus on Sunday as senators continued to negotiate provisions in their relief package on Capitol Hill. Both Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Mitt Romney (R-UT) were advised to self-quarantine for 14 days by the Capitol’s attending physician after they had interacted with Paul. Other members like Sens. Cory Gardner (R-CO) and Rick Scott (R-FL) have also gone home after potential exposure to the virus. The COVID-19 pandemic has renewed calls from some lawmakers for congressional leadership to allow remote voting. According to FiveThirtyEight, the Constitution does require a majority of members to establish a quorum to vote, but it’s the House and Senate’s own rules that require lawmakers to be physically present to cast their votes. So far, congressional leaders like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) have opposed total remote voting. The Senate already allows members to vote on behalf of others in committee, known as proxy voting, and Pelosi has entertained changes to the rules that may allow proxy votes on the House floor in the future. But none of those rules were in effect when the House voted on Friday’s relief package. Still, many lawmakers stayed home to protect themselves from infection as congressional leaders nailed down the specifics of the deal on which the House planned to vote on Friday morning. House leaders sought to pass the measure by voice vote, a seldom-used procedure that doesn’t require the entire chamber to be present for passage. Those plans changed after Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) told a local radio station on Thursday that he planned to object that vote and request a recorded tally, meaning 216 members need to be present, threatening to delay an already-delayed stimulus package. “We have notified our Members of the possibility that the bill may not pass by voice vote,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s (D-MD) press office wrote in a statement on Thursday. “The Majority Leader’s Office has sent a notice to Members that if they are able and willing to be in Washington, DC by 10:00 a.m. tomorrow, they are encouraged to do so, while exercising all due caution.” By Friday morning, enough House lawmakers had raced back to Washington by car and plane to override Massie’s objections. Earlier this week, the House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving and Congress’ attending physician, Brian Monahan, issued guidance advising lawmakers to stay in their offices until the vote was called and required them to use hand sanitizer as they entered and left the chamber. According to The Washington Post, the galleries that hang above the House floor were opened up so more members could filter in while maintaining the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidance of six feet of distance between one another. Still, not every lawmaker was able to make remarks on the House floor on Friday either lauding or critiquing provisions in the titanic relief package. The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that Hoyer’s office told lawmakers outside of DC that they could record their own video statements that would be aired on C-SPAN during primetime hours next week. They will also be shared on social media. The pandemic has upturned political life. Aside from threatening congressional business, presidential candidates like Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump have all started to host rallies and campaign events online. No one knows exactly how long the pandemic will last, but it could force lawmakers to reimagine political business entirely as much of it moves online.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/27/21197513/house-stimulus-coronavirus-relief-package-bill-approved-rand-paul

Policy

The Verge

2020-03-27 00:00:00

2020

3.0

27

Casey Newton

How to stop trolls from taking over your Zoom call

Zoom is an easy-to-use videoconferencing tool with a generous free tier. With people around the world isolating indoors to protect themselves against the spread of the coronavirus, it has never been more popular. But its popularity has also attracted trolls. The phenomenon of “Zoombombing,” in which an uninvited guest uses Zoom’s screen-sharing feature to broadcast porn and shock videos, has been on the rise. Most Zoom meetings have a public link that, if clicked, allow anyone to join. Trolls have been collecting these links and sharing them in private chat groups, and then signing on to other people’s calls to cause mischief. There’s an easy way to stop this from happening, but Zoom makes it needlessly difficult to find. If you schedule a meeting from the web interface, you won’t see the option to disable screen sharing. Instead: Once you save your settings, future meetings that you start will have sharing disabled by default. If you forget to change the setting before you start your meeting, there’s a way to modify your settings after it starts: And what if you’re creating a meeting from your mobile device? To disable screen sharing after you’ve started your meeting: Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. For more information, see our ethics policy.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/27/21197090/zoombombing-zoom-stop-how-to-porn-trolls-video-chat-screen-sharing

Apple

The Verge

2020-03-27 00:00:00

2020

3.0

27

Ashley Carman

Instagram therapists, and their DMs, are open for business

Instagram Live therapy sessions can be jarring. An iPhone ping occasionally goes off, the therapist forgets to turn off the press conference she was watching before going live, or the sound drops out momentarily. Even beyond the technical difficulties, watching an influencer chat with her therapist feels intrusive and wrong, but, eventually, as the Live levels out and everything works as it should, the therapist can get to the nitty-gritty. Conversation flows, and viewers get to benefit from hearing another person’s anxieties expressed out loud. Influencer Katie Sands and her therapist Stephanie Lesk started weekly live chats last week for Sands’ more than 200,000 followers. They discuss COVID-19 and the realities of working and living through a pandemic. They talk about financial stress and how strange everything is right now — presumably, feelings other people are working through, too. Other therapists began bringing COVID-19 content to Instagram a few weeks ago, and as more countries around the world started telling residents to stay home, the volume of accounts posting outbreak-oriented advice grew. Therapists across the US are now offering virtual sessions, open workshops, opening their DMs up for questions, and partnering with influencers to get their messages out. They’re trying to find a way to bring calm to a severely stressful and anxiety-inducing pandemic, especially for people who can’t afford their own therapist. “Why not have a conversation about it and just kind of allow people in the room to say, ‘Look, we’ve got to make choices here [about] how we want to move through this thing,’” Lesk said. “You have to find some way to take control of this thing.” Direct contact with a therapist is one option, and Instagram offers a way for therapists and clients to connect. Jamie Castillo, who leads the Arizona-based therapy group Find Your Shine, piloted a virtual support group for Arizona residents this week, advertising it on her popular Instagram account. The group gives people a place to “focus on self-soothing strategies and empowerment, rather than talking about the pandemic and perpetuating fear.” It costs $20 per person. “During this time, we’re going to also try and delicately talk about the silver lining that we can take in terms of increasing empathy for people around us and focusing on the collective good versus every man for himself kind of mentality,” she says. What else are you still enjoying?? A post shared by Jaime Castillo, LCSW (she/her) (@findyourshinetherapy) on Mar 25, 2020 at 2:19pm PDT Castillo’s Instagram account also offers supportive posts and advice on topics such as infertility, relationship conflict, and trauma. But recently, her posts have a different, more targeted purpose: helping people through quarantine. She only addresses COVID-19 by name several times while the rest of her posts center on the idea of cancellations, social distancing, and media overexposure. “What’s cool with Instagram is to obviously not act as a replacement for therapy, but to kind of close those gaps and reduce those barriers that people all over the world face when it comes to getting mental health care,” Castillo says. Her posts can’t apply to everyone at once, “but people have said the posts make them think about things in a different way or encourage them to give themselves grace.” Instagram also allows therapists to share how they’re able to help, says Alyssa Lia Mancao, a therapist in Los Angeles. “People normally see therapists as kind of this thing that happens behind closed doors,” she says. “You don’t really know what’s going on; you don’t really know what it’s like. It’s something that we don’t talk about as much as we should.” Mancao pivoted her content to topics that speak more directly to the crisis. The pandemic pushed her to go live on her own page where she took questions from viewers, and she’s planning to take over the Stories of a separate, finance-oriented account, The Financial Diet, to reach its followers and give mental health tips. That last one ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ .⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ .⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ .⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ .⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ .⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ .⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ #communication #communicationskills #istatements #healthyrelationships #assertive #assertivecommunication #couples #couplestherapy #couplescounseling #recovery #traumarecovery #shermanoakstherapist #emdrtherapy #selflove #radicalselflove #selfacceptance #mentalhealthawareness #depressionrecovery #mentalhealthadvocate #alyssamariewellness #innerchildwork A post shared by Alyssa *Lia Mancao,Therapist (@alyssamariewellness) on Mar 18, 2020 at 10:10pm PDT “Most [therapists] aren’t taking any new clients right now and don’t want to start out a relationship through a video,” Mancao said. “Being able to provide at least this information through Instagram, it’s really helpful for the people who haven’t had the luxury to be in therapy and get to therapy right now.” Governments and organizations have recognized how important mental health is during this crisis, too. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced this week that more than 6,000 mental health professionals signed up to assist people via a public hotline, which he encouraged people to call into to talk through their feelings. UNICEF published an article highlighting ways in which teenagers can care for their mental health. Other therapists are using Instagram to advertise their services, knowing there’s a need. Instagram gives therapists the ability to market themselves and their messages widely, making it an important platform for independent therapists trying to find new clients. Hilary Weinstein, a therapist in New York City, has advertised on influencers’ pages before and has started doing so again as she plans to expand her practice. In the past, she reached out to meme accounts, like @sobasicicanteven, and offered to pay them to share posts advertising her services. This time around, she’s doing the same thing. We Met At Acme, a popular Instagram account and podcast, reposted her because of a partnership. She says these posts have resulted in many people reaching out to her, although with insurance and figuring out whether they’re a good match, that number can dwindle. Take good care of yourself, friends A post shared by Jaime Castillo, LCSW (she/her) (@findyourshinetherapy) on Mar 14, 2020 at 6:43pm PDT Online therapy had already been growing, Weinstein says, and the pandemic’s unknown length will help it grow. “That kind of sparked a lot of anxiety in and of itself, like how long am I going to have to be alone and be alone with my thoughts?” Weinstein says. “That’s never healthy, especially so for extended periods of time, so I think it just really lends itself to the whole teletherapy trend that was kind of on the rise anyway.” Instagram therapy isn’t a substitute for an actual person giving care, these therapists say, but it’s a step toward destigmatizing mental health, and it gives people a clearer idea of how they can care for themselves during this challenging time. “A lot of people feel ready to go to therapy, but not a lot of people have the privilege, you know, financially, [they] can’t go to therapy,” Mancao says. “There’s so much stigma about therapy in different cultures and different families, but I think that being able to follow a therapist on Instagram bridges that barrier and really helps people connect to information that they probably wouldn’t have otherwise.”

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/27/21193904/instagram-therapy-live-sessions-covid-19-coronavirus-posts-influencers

Tech

The Verge

2020-03-27 00:00:00

2020

3.0

27

Jay Peters

Postmates couriers are eligible for unemployment benefits, rules New York appeals court

New York’s Court of Appeals has reinstated a 2015 decision determining that couriers for on-demand delivery app Postmates should be classified as employees, making them eligible for unemployment insurance at a time when the US is seeing record job losses due to the coronavirus pandemic. The 2015 decision by the state’s Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board originally found that a terminated Postmates courier, Luis Vega, should be classified as an employee and therefore eligible for unemployment benefits when he was kicked off the platform. That decision also required the company to pay into New York’s Unemployment Insurance Fund for that employee and for “all other persons similarly employed.” The ruling could be significant for Postmates couriers, as shelter-in-place restrictions or the need to self-quarantine has led to mass layoffs and significantly reduced on-demand work. For those still able to work for on-demand delivery apps like Postmates, there is a risk of getting infected. Typically, gig workers are classified as independent contractors, which means they are ineligible for unemployment benefits or healthcare. Postmates has tried to address this by launching a fund that couriers can take advantage of to pay back medical expenses related to COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. And DoorDash and Instacart now offer up to 14 days of sick pay if they’re affected by coronavirus. But workers for these companies and others are still especially vulnerable while more and more Americans are relying on their services. For that reason, Instacart shoppers are organizing a work stoppage on Monday to fight for better sick leave and company-provided protective gear such as hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes. In yesterday’s ruling, a majority of the judges supported the original decision’s determination that “Postmates exercised control over its couriers sufficient to render them employees rather than independent contractors operating their own businesses.” If those workers were classified as independent contractors, Postmates would not be obligated to pay into unemployment insurance for them. “Today’s decision is a huge victory for thousands of gig workers across New York,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James in a statement. “The courts have solidified what we all have known for a while — delivery drivers are employees and are entitled to the same unemployment benefits other employees can obtain.” “While we do not agree with the majority opinion from the New York Court of Appeals in the matter of Vega v. Postmates, the court’s conclusions support a position for which Postmates has long advocated: we need a modern worker classification framework that is relevant to the autonomy and flexibility made possible by app-enabled work,” Postmates said in a statement provided to The Verge. “We fully support designing a responsible framework that allows New Yorkers to choose if, when, where, and for how long they work, while also providing them access to the benefits and services they deserve. As stated in the dissenting opinion, ‘Our current framework, as inconsistently applied, fails to provide clarity to anyone involved.’ We want to work with New York to change that.” In addition to its medical fund, Postmates has also followed other on-demand delivery apps in introducing “non-contact” meal deliveries to help encourage social distancing, which can help prevent the spread of COVID-19. You can read yesterday’s full decision here:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/27/21197540/postmates-couriers-unemployment-benefits-new-york-appeals-court

Policy

The Verge

2020-03-27 00:00:00

2020

3.0

27

Russell Brandom

We’re still waiting for Trump to make good on coronavirus testing plan

On a sunny afternoon two weeks ago, President Trump stood in front of the White House and promised the US a way to get tested for COVID-19. Google was working on a new website, he said, which would give every American consumer an easy way to see if they should be tested and find a place to get that test. Vice President Pence had promised a “dramatic increase in testing capacity” at a press conference a few days earlier — and now, it looked like an American tech giant was swooping in to make good on the promise. “Google is going to develop a website... to determine if a test is warranted and to facilitate testing at a nearby convenient location,” Trump said at the press conference. “We cover very, very strongly our country. Stores in virtually every location. Google has 1,700 engineers working on this right now. They have made tremendous progress.” It’s now clear that nothing of the kind was actually happening. Google was blindsided by the announcement; the 1,700 engineers were taken from a volunteer list. None of the company’s subsequent projects have offered anything like the comprehensive testing promised by the White House. Google launched a COVID-19 information page the next week, but it had little to do with testing. Yesterday, Verily rolled out details of its drive-through testing unit, but it’s restricted to a handful of counties in California, and there’s no indication it will ever cover the entire country. Most importantly, it doesn’t expand testing to include anyone who wasn’t already eligible. It simply isn’t getting more tests to more people. There have been lots of false starts and bad promises in this White House’s outbreak response, but it’s worth spending a minute to focus on this one. Every country that has gotten the outbreak under control has done so by relentlessly working to identify everyone who has contracted the virus — through both contact tracing and random population tests — then cordoning off the infected population. Right now, US doctors barely have enough testing to handle hospitalized patients, much less look for the mild or asymptomatic cases who are helping to drive the spread of this disease. A functional public health response would use every available resource to expand testing, but as the epidemic has spread, our testing capacity simply hasn’t kept pace. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, we didn’t reach 10,000 tests a day until March 17th. South Korea — a much smaller country that has largely contained the virus — reached that point almost immediately. The biggest problem with Trump’s plan was that it never addressed the real problem with US testing. His website would have been a new way for the average person to submit samples and receive results, but the limited resource is the laboratory work that happens in between those steps. Lots of health care providers have set up places to collect samples (really, all it takes is a swab), but we simply don’t have enough equipment and resources in labs to test as many samples as we need. In California alone, a backlog of more than 48,000 test results is still pending. Clever as it is, Verily’s site can’t address that backlog; it’s not in the laboratory business. It’s as if someone built a new website for ordering face masks but didn’t check whether there were any left in the warehouse. You may not be surprised by all this. Again, Trump has blustered in with ambitious promises and vague details, then moved on to another distraction before the facts can catch up. He does this so much that it can feel pointless to call him out for it: there was the wall, the China tariffs, rewriting NAFTA, the North Korean nuclear deal — on and on and on until you can’t keep track of it all. There’s never any political cost, so the details become irrelevant. Dwelling on them can make you feel like you’re the only one not getting the joke. But the scale and velocity of this crisis are different, and the stakes are much higher. We don’t have two weeks to waste on empty promises. We don’t have time to play games. On the day Trump held his press conference, there were 2,133 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States. Two weeks later, there are more than 85,000, the most of any country in the world. If infections keep growing at this rate — roughly 35 percent each day — the next two weeks will put us over 5 million. An optimistic 1 percent mortality rate would project 50,000 dead from those infections alone, roughly the number of enlisted US soldiers who died in the Vietnam War. There’s a way out of this. We need testing — enough to test asymptomatic people at scale and begin to isolate the contagious population. We need ventilators to sustain the lives of thousands of gravely ill patients who are already overwhelming hospitals. We need gloves and face masks to keep health care providers safe through the treatment process so we can keep those same hospitals staffed through the coming months of crisis. And behind all of those things, we need leaders who keep their promises.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/27/21197026/trump-coronavirus-testing-website-plan-google-covid-19

Policy

The Verge