Innholdsfortegnelse for #441 i Techlife News

President Donald Trump has been telling voters that the U.S. economy will leap back to life “like a rocket,” stronger than ever after its bout with the coronavirus. But there is a reason economics is called the “dismal science.”There are emerging signs that any recovery will fail to match the speed and severity of the economic collapse that occurred in just a few weeks. The 2020 presidential and Senate elections likely will take place as the world’s largest economy is still attempting to climb back from the deadly outbreak. “Anyone who assumes we’re going to get a sharp snapback in activity isn’t thinking about how consumers are going to feel. They’re going to be very cautious,” said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Markit. “Households and businesses have seen their…

Just as the coronavirus outbreak has boxed in society, it’s also squeezed high-flying tech companies reliant on people’s freedom to move around and get together. Since the beginning of March, for instance, Uber shares have lost a quarter of their value. Rival Lyft is down 28 percent. Over the same period, the S&P 500 has fallen just 10 percent, even with wild swings along the way. The picture is even less clear for other, still-private “unicorn” companies once valued at more than $1 billion, such as Airbnb and WeWork. “What market pressure will mean for all companies is survival of the fittest,” said Allen Adamson, co-founder of the marketing firm Metaforce and a business professor at New York University. “If you are going into this storm in a bad shape,…

New Mexico Highlands University students are working with state officials to bring online visitors to New Mexico museums later this spring. The university announced this week students in the school’s Media Arts and Technology Department are offering a free month of emergency cultural services to help create virtual tours, podcasts, websites, and online collections. Cultural Technology Internship program director Lauren Addario says the New Mexico Museum of Art, the Museum of International Folk Art, and the National Hispanic Cultural Center are among the cultural institutions that have shown interest in working with Highlands media arts and technology students.…

Quibi may specialize in small, bite-sized videos, but its volume of shows is large. The media platform launches Monday with 175 new original shows — everything from scripted series, comedic diversions, deep dramas and celebrity fluff. Here’s a look at some of the notable and less notable shows. MOST DANGEROUS GAME Liam Hemsworth stars as a father-to-be with huge bills and a terminal illness in this high-end thrilling series that feels like watching a big-budget film. Christoph Waltz plays a man with an intriguing offer for our hero: Be prey for a bunch of hunters and leave your wife and child millions. The idea of hunting humans for sport has a long history, and this series comes just a few weeks after the clunky film “The Hunt” was released. But…

A Microsoft engineer who designed an app to track North Dakota State University football fans on their annual trek to Texas for the national championship has taken that concept and applied it to contact tracing for the coronavirus. The Care19 app is meant to help reduce the spread of COVID-19 by retracing the steps of people who test positive for the virus, in order to find others who may have had contact with the sick person and also collect data to help with modeling, Gov. Doug Burgum said Tuesday during his daily briefing. “This is a way that every North Dakotan can save lives by downloading the Care19 app,” Burgum said. Tim Brookins, 55, a principal software engineer at Fargo’s Microsoft campus and CEO of sports app software company ProudCrowd,…

University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics reported that it has successfully treated dozens of COVID-19 patients through a program that allows them to stay in their homes while they recover. Doctors use virtual technology to check daily on patients who have been diagnosed with the disease, freeing up the hospital for the small percentage of those who need more intensive care. So far, 35 patients in the program have recovered while only three have needed to be admitted to the hospital, said UIHC chief medical officer Theresa Brennan. Another 38 are still being monitored through the program. Brennan said she was going public with the program’s success in the hope that other hospitals follow suit, potentially preventing them from being overwhelmed with patients. One key lesson, she said, was that…

The popcorn will be bring your own and the barbecue won’t be as good, but the Austin, Texas, SXSW Film Festival is moving online after having its 27th edition canceled by the coronavirus pandemic. SXSW announced that it’s partnering with Amazon Prime Video to stream as much of its movie line-up as possible for a 10-day period in the U.S. It will be free to viewers with or without an Amazon Prime membership. South by Southwest organizers have worked frantically to salvage what they could of the festival and bring attention to the many films that had been planning to premiere there. SXSW, which had been scheduled to run March 13-22, last week announced awards for its competition categories, anyway. Individual films will choose whether they want to opt in…

Dance instructor Lola Jaramillo switches the radio to an uplifting salsa song. “My students love this one,” says Jaramillo, dancing to the rhythm of “Life is a Carnival” and encouraging her class to follow her steps. But her students -- mostly older Hispanics -- are not around. Instead, a video camera records her in an empty room. Her elderly students are huddled in their homes, following orders to protect themselves from the new coronavirus, which hits older people especially hard. And in their homes, they can dance along with Jaramillo, getting the exercise that is so important to maintaining their health and mobility. The dance lesson was shared on the social media accounts of a nonprofit senior center in Washington that has been serving the capital’s older Hispanic community for…

There are 44 people in the Social Distance Movie Club’s Slack channel, where co-workers at Crooked Media have had discussions about everything from a Dwayne Johnson earthquake film to Faye Dunaway’s turn as Joan Crawford in “Mommie Dearest.” It doesn’t have anything to do with the work that’s done at the Los Angeles company, which produces podcasts like Pod Save America (it’s also helped raise over $1 million for coronavirus relief ). But for the past few weeks of working from home, it’s become a way for the staff to pause the news and escape into the world of film together. With theaters closed and most of the country staying home, virtual viewing parties are surging in popularity. They simulate the experience of going out to the movies, and you…

When Rebeka McBride and her husband put their home in Washington state on the market in early March, the coronavirus outbreak was just taking hold in the United States. They managed to hold two open houses and a smattering of private viewings before accepting an offer. But with the U.S. economy now collapsing, the family is less confident about their move to a Minneapolis suburb, where McBride sees brighter job prospects in her field of medical device research. She worries that their buyer will pull out before closing. And for her own new home, she’s using virtual tours but isn’t inclined to make an offer without seeing a home in person. Worse, McBride is suddenly worried about job prospects amid mass layoffs, forcing a reassessment of what she and her…

The number of Americans getting on airplanes has sunk to a level not seen in more than 60 years as people shelter in their homes to avoid catching or spreading the new coronavirus. The Transportation Security Administration screened fewer than 100,000 people on Tuesday, a drop of 95% from a year ago. The official tally of 97,130 people who passed through TSA checkpoints exaggerates the number of travelers – if that is possible – because it includes some airline crew members and people still working at shops inside airport security perimeters. Historical daily numbers only go back so far, but the nation averaged 97,000 passengers a day in 1954, according to figures from trade group Airlines for America. It was the dawn of the jet age. The de Havilland Comet,…

The callers were in tears. One by one, women in homes across rural Zimbabwe had a pleading question: When would family planning services return? Lockdowns imposed to curb the coronavirus’ spread have put millions of women in Africa, Asia and elsewhere out of reach of birth control and other sexual and reproductive health needs. Confined to their homes with their husbands and others, they face unwanted pregnancies and little idea of when they can reach the outside world again. In these uncertain times, women “have to lock down their uterus,” Abebe Shibru, Zimbabwe country director for Marie Stopes International, told The Associated Press. “But there is no way in a rural area.” Eighteen countries in Africa have imposed national lockdowns, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.…

As owners of a wedding and event-planning business, Karina Lopez and Curtis Rogers have always known how the best-laid plans can go awry. But there’s no way they could have imagined just a few weeks ago what would happen to their very own wedding plans. First, the joyous bash they’d been meticulously planning for many months — a three-day celebration for 200 guests — was thrown into indefinite limbo. Then they both tested positive for coronavirus. Yet now, as they recover in quarantine and try to keep their distance from each other in a one-bedroom New York City apartment, Lopez and Rogers are still making wedding plans — methodically and, indeed, defiantly. After all, they’re planners. It’s what keeps them going. “I definitely had one or two meltdowns,” says Lopez,…

A statistical model cited by the White House generated a slightly less grim figure this week for a first wave of deaths from the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. — a projection designed to help officials plan for the worst, including having enough hospital staff, beds and ventilators. The only problem with this bit of relatively good news? It’s almost certainly wrong. All models are wrong. Some are just less wrong than others — and those are the ones that public health officials rely on. Welcome to the grimace-and-bear-it world of modeling. “The key thing is that you want to know what’s happening in the future,” said NASA top climate modeler Gavin Schmidt. “Absent a time machine you’re going to have to use a model.” Weather forecasters use models. Climate…

Just when Americans need it most, a U.S. newspaper industry already under stress is facing an unprecedented new challenge. Readers desperate for information are more reliant than ever on local media as the coronavirus spreads across the U.S. They want to know about cases in their area, where testing centers are, what the economic impact is. Papers say online traffic and subscriptions have risen -- the latter even when they’ve lowered paywalls for pandemic-related stories. But newspapers and other publications are under pressure as advertising craters. They are cutting jobs, staff hours and pay, dropping print editions -- and in some cases shutting down entirely. Circulation and web traffic are up at the Sun Chronicle, a daily in Attleboro, Massachusetts, as it scrambles to cover the coronavirus pandemic. It’s “all…

Portia de Rossi has been teaching herself how to cook during the coronavirus lockdown. It’s been an eye-opening experience for the actress — and for her fans. She’s cut herself and been burned, yes. She’s also discovered she doesn’t like some Indian flavors and that her longtime wife, talk show host Ellen Degeneres, isn’t a fan of curry and garbanzo beans. “We’re learning a lot about each other in quarantine!”she admits on Instagram. We are indeed learning a lot about each other these days, and that’s especially true with our celebrities. Social distancing has meant they have no army of publicists or glam squad. They’re bored and unfiltered — and often incredibly relatable. Cardi B recently inexplicably ran headfirst into a massive Jenga tower and a daffy Madonna sang her…

A supermoon rises in the sky this week, looking to be the biggest and brightest of the year. Not only will the moon be closer to Earth than usual, it will also be a full moon. Scientists call this cosmic combo a supermoon. The moon was 221,855 miles (357,042 kilometers) away at its fullest Tuesday night, making it appear larger and more brilliant. NASA is encouraging everyone to look skyward, whether it’s outside or through a living room window. Scientist Noah Petro of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland said the important thing is to stay safe while moon-gazing during the pandemic. “If you can’t get out safely ... then fine,” Petro said. “Go out next month or whenever it’s safe again. Use the full moon as an excuse…

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has declared a state of emergency in Tokyo and six other hard-hit Japanese prefectures to fortify the fight against the coronavirus outbreak. But this is no European or Wuhan-style lockdown. A look at what Japan’s state of emergency entails: Q. WHY DID ABE DECLARE A STATE OF EMERGENCY? A. Abe was facing heavy pressure to declare a state of emergency after the number of new cases in Tokyo began doubling every several days in late March. The city of 14 million had 1,339 cases as of Wednesday, up from about 600 a week earlier. Japan focused on dealing with clusters of infections and selective testing for the virus, a strategy that has failed to curb its spread. Experts found that one-third of Tokyo’s recent cases were…

In a first, small step toward reopening the country, the Trump administration issued new guidelines Wednesday to make it easier for essential workers who have been exposed to COVID-19 to get back to work if they do not have symptoms of the coronavirus. Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, announced at the White House that essential employees, such as health care and food supply workers, who have been within 6 feet of a confirmed or suspected case of the virus can return to work under certain circumstances if they are not experiencing symptoms. The new guidelines are being issued as the nation mourns more than 14,000 deaths from the virus and grapples with a devastated economy and medical crises from coast to coast.…

Oil-producing countries including those of the OPEC cartel and Russia are trying to strike a global deal to pump less crude in a bid to limit a crash in prices that, while welcome for consumers, has been straining government budgets and pushed energy companies toward bankruptcy. Thursday’s videoconference is part of a series of talks on stabilizing a market, where oil prices have more than halved since the start of the year amid a pricing war between Saudi Arabia and Russia. The drop was intensified when the coronavirus pandemic caused a further plunge in the demand for oil as travel and business ground to a halt globally. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that Russia will advocate for a coordinated move that not only includes OPEC and Russia, which had…

Want to see Chance the Rapper prank Hollywood stars? Catch a new action thriller starring Liam Hemsworth and Christoph Waltz? How about a six-minute edition of “60 Minutes”? There’s an app for that, and more. Quibi — a snappy amalgam of “quick” and “bite” — is a mobile phone-only platform that will release its snack-sized installments of movies and TV shows each weekday. There will be seven-day-a-week dollops of news, sports and weather, gathered under the umbrella name Daily Essentials, all adding up to a mind-boggling 175-plus programs planned for this year. It launches Monday in the U.S. and Canada with a 90-day free trial and 50 programs, all in segments no longer than 10 minutes. They include “Punk’d,” with Chance the Rapper as host and executive producer; the Hemsworth-Waltz…

Though millions of professionals are relying on technology to adapt to working from home, others do not have that luxury, with their jobs on the line due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With no end in sight, making the best of your circumstances and utilizing your talents during quarantine could help you to unlock a revenue stream and turn a side hustle into a career. CHANGING EVERY PART OF OUR LIVES As the coronavirus spreads to all four corners of the globe, businesses and individuals are beginning to feel the pinch. The airline industry has, quite literally, fallen from the sky, bars and restaurants have been forced to close in many countries, and actors, barbers, beauty therapists, and personal trainers are just some of the entrepreneurs who are suffering the most.…

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering changing its guidelines for self-isolation to make it easier for those who have been exposed to someone with the coronavirus to return to work if they are without symptoms. The public health agency, in conjunction with the White House coronavirus task force, is considering an announcement as soon as Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence said. Under the proposed guidance, people who are exposed to someone infected would be allowed back on the job if they have no symptoms, test their temperature twice a day and wear a face mask, said a person familiar with the proposal under consideration. The person was not authorized to publicly discuss the draft because it had not been finalized and described the proposal on the condition…

The Walt Disney Co. overhauled its release schedule by moving the dates of half a dozen Marvel movies, announcing a new one for the live-action adaption of “Mulan” and pushing one movie, “Artemis Fowl,” to Disney Plus, in response to the coronavirus pandemic. “Black Widow,” the Marvel entry starring Scarlett Johansson, had been set to kick off the summer movie season. Instead, Disney said it will now open Nov. 6. Such delays have unique ramifications for Marvel movies because of their interconnection. With “Black Widow” on the move, that meant a domino effect, pushing most all upcoming Marvel releases back at least three months. “Black Widow” took the release date of “The Eternals,” which now moves to February 21 next year. “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” departs…

An Alaska official trying to promote participation in the national census has urged residents to file their forms online and by phone as the state falls behind the national response average. The push for remote filing comes as efforts by the U.S. Census Bureau to collect residency data have been been hampered by the cornoavirus pandemic, Alaska Public Media reported. The outbreak prompted the agency to close field offices and delay door-to-door interviews. The national response rate stands at nearly 43%, but less than 27% of Alaska households have completed the form. Many Alaska residents who have been waiting for visits from census takers are unaware they can file without the visits, Cook Inlet Housing Authority Chief Operating Officer Gabe Layman said. “People in remote Alaska were not notified that…

As the coronavirus spread across the world and began its reach into the United States, an assortment of Americans from the president on down summoned one notion as they framed the emerging cataclysm. “The Chinese virus,” they called it — or, in a few particularly racist cases, the “kung flu.” No matter the terminology of choice, the message was clear: Whatever the ravages of COVID-19 are causing, it’s somewhere else’s fault. Not someone. Somewhere. A thick thread of the American experience has always been to hold the rest of the world at arm’s length, whether in economics, technology or cultural exchange. The truth is, this nation has always been a bit of an island, a place where multilingualism, or even holding a passport, is less common than in many other…

An aerial survey of the Great Barrier Reef shows coral bleaching is sweeping across the area off the east of Australia for the third time in five years. Bleaching has struck all three regions of the world’s largest coral reef system and is more widespread than ever, scientists from James Cook University in Queensland state said this week. The air surveys of 1,036 reefs in the past two weeks found bleached coral in the northern, central and southern areas, James Cook University professor Terry Hughes said. “As summers grow hotter and hotter, we no longer need an El Nino event to trigger mass bleaching at the scale of the Great Barrier Reef,” Hughes said. “Of the five events we have seen so far, only 1998 and 2016 occurred during El…