Office workers aren’t the only ones who can work from home during the coronavirus pandemic — radio DJs can do so, too. Show hosts on Beats 1, Apple Music’s internet radio station, will be broadcasting from the safety of their homes starting today. According to Apple, they will use FaceTime on their iPhones to conduct…
Tag: Technology
400,000 new people have joined Folding@Home’s fight against COVID-19
The Folding@Home community has turned its attention toward the fight against COVID-19, and it now has massive computational power at its disposal as a result. The distributed computing project is now working with about 470 petaflops of output in its quest to fold proteins, or enough to eclipse the world’s top seven supercomputers combined. That’s…
If Robots Steal So Many Jobs, Why Aren’t They Saving Us Now?
Modern capitalism has never seen anything quite like the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In a matter of months, the deadly contagious bug has spread around the world, hobbling any economy in its path. In the United States, where consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of economic activity, commerce has come to a standstill as people…
Sacramento Kings arena to use liquor-measuring gadget to control how much guests drink
The Sacramento Kings arena will let guests in its suite and loft areas make their own drinks at the Golden 1 Center using an internet-connected gadget affixed to the top of liquor bottles to monitor how much alcohol is being poured. It sounds like a good idea from the venue’s point of view: the NINA…
Waymo’s first outside investment round includes car industry heavyweights
Alphabet is also contributing, but it appears to be in the minority this time around.Waymo was vague about how it would use the funds, saying only that this would help “our people, our technology, and our operations.” One look at Waymo’s business suggests that it has plenty of need for cash, though. In addition to…
The TurboGrafx-16 Mini’s Launch Is Delayed Due to Covid-19
The planned launch of the TurboGrafx-16 Mini later this month has been delayed “until further notice” due to the spread of the coronavirus, publisher Konami announced Friday.The plug-and-play retro console, originally set to launch with dozens of games on March 19, has been pushed back because “the manufacturing and shipping facilities in China have encountered…
Clearview AI’s Massive Client List Got Hacked
It was the RSA security conference in San Francisco this week, and the security industry descended on Moscone Center for days of handing out free stickers, demoing products, and presenting research. The week was punctuated by fewer handshakes and more elbow bumps, thanks to concerns about Covid-19. WIRED looked at research that North Korea is…
The iPad’s Lidar Is a Dry Run for Apple’s AR Glasses
This week, Apple debuted a new iPad Pro. It has a little more power than the previous model and a keyboard with a trackpad. Neat. But its most consequential upgrade is the one that will likely get the least use, at least on a tablet: a lidar scanner.If you’ve heard of lidar it’s likely because…
With Covid-19, Tech Is Making History Repeat Itself
I have been a professional epidemic watcher for nearly 30 years. I’ve researched seven centuries of pandemics. Yet ever since late January, I have been gobsmacked by the Covid-19 crisis. This surreal disbelief began with the news of China imposing a draconian quarantine on its people—first in Wuhan, where the epidemic began, and then 14…
Covid-19 Is Nothing Like the Spanish Flu
Coverage of the novel coronavirus pandemic teems with monstrous and sometimes contradictory statistics. Among the most vexing figures flitting across our screens, and spreading via text and tweet, is the case fatality rate (CFR)—the proportion of known infections that result in death. Early in the Covid-19 pandemic, World Health Organization officials announced an average CFR…