COVID-19 – Page 2 – Newswire Report

Pre-school edtech startup Lingumi raises 4m, adds some free services during COVID-19

April 8, 2020April 8, 2020 NewsEditorAlibaba, articles, artificial intelligence, China, coronavirus, COVID-19, Education, Entrepreneur, Europe, France, General Partner, Germany, Italy, lingumi, Taiwan, teacher, United Kingdom

At these difficult times, parents are concerned for their children’s education, especially given so much of it has had to go online during the COVID-19 pandemic. But what about pre-schoolers who are missing out? Pre-school children are sponges for information but don’t get formal training on reading and writing until they enter the classroom when they are less sponge-like and surrounded by 30 other children. Things are tougher for non-English speaking children who’s parents want them to learn English. Lingumi, a platform aimed at toddlers learning critical skills, has now…

Headlines

HBO and AMC Are Offering Free Streams for Folks Stuck Inside

April 7, 2020April 7, 2020 NewsEditorcoronavirus, COVID-19, streaming, SXSW, The Monitor

Hello, and welcome to this Monday's edition of The Monitor, WIRED’s entertainment news roundup. Today we've got some news about Jay-Z and Meek Mill, a surprising second act for the South by Southwest film festival, and some free content from HBO and AMC. Let's get going. HBO and AMC Are Offering Free Streams for Folks Stuck at Home Rejoice, everyone looking for new content to binge-watch! HBO and AMC are both now offering tons of streaming content for free. Starting Friday, HBO began offering nearly 500 hours of programming—from Veep…

Headlines

Why Some States Are Resisting Social Distancing Measures

April 5, 2020April 5, 2020 NewsEditorcoronavirus, COVID-19, Paywall Exclude, public health, states, WIRED Free Access

Alabama hospitals were more than 630 confirmed Covid-19 cases in the state, more than 100 of whom were hospitalized, and dozens of patients on ventilators. Read all of our coronavirus coverage here. Her own lieutenant governor disagreed. The day before, Will Ainsworth “One thing that this outbreak reminds us of is that infectious diseases observe no borders—and that's true if they’re international borders, state borders, or county lines for that matter,” said Ben Lopman, a professor of epidemiology and environmental health at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health. “At…

Headlines

Security News This Week: A Notorious Spyware Vendor Wants to Track Coronavirus Spread

April 5, 2020April 5, 2020 NewsEditorcoronavirus, COVID-19, cybersecurity, Hacking, Iran, security, security roundup, vulnerabilities

Everybody's worried about Zoom this week. As the video conferencing software rocketed to 200 million users amid widespread shelter-in-place orders, security and privacy pros have catalogued a litany of issues. It's probably perfectly fine for most people! But especially if you need true end-to-end encrypted meetings, maybe give Zoom a minute to get its act together. Zoom's not the only one benefiting from novel coronavirus quarantines. Online credit card skimmers have stepped up their activity now that everyone's shopping from home, according to data from security company RiskIQ. The most…

Odds and Ends

White House teams up with Google to build coronavirus screening site

April 2, 2020April 2, 2020 NewsEditorcoronavirus, COVID-19, Donald Trump, Google, google search, president, Trump, Walgreens, Walmart, websites, White House

During a press conference at the White House, President Trump today announced that the government is working with Google to build an online screening website for COVID-19. The announcement was short on details, but the idea, it seems, is to give users the ability to enter their symptoms and see if they need additional testing. None of this sounds extremely complicated, but according to Trump, Google has 1,700 engineers working on this. According to Debbie Birx, the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator, users will have to log into this new…

Headlines

The Mathematics of Predicting the Course of the Coronavirus

March 31, 2020March 31, 2020 NewsEditorcoronavirus, COVID-19, epidemiology, modeling, Paywall Exclude, WIRED Free Access

In the past few days, New York City’s hospitals have become unrecognizable. Thousands of patients sick with the novel coronavirus have swarmed into emergency rooms and intensive care units. From 3,000 miles away in Seattle, as Lisa Brandenburg watched the scenes unfold—isolation wards cobbled together in lobbies, nurses caring for Covid-19 patients in makeshift trash bag gowns, refrigerated mobile morgues idling on the street outside—she couldn’t stop herself from thinking: “That could be us.” It could be, if the models are wrong. Until this past week, Seattle had been the…

Headlines

This Is Not the Apocalypse You Were Looking For

March 31, 2020March 31, 2020 NewsEditorApocalypse, coronavirus, COVID-19

The shock itself is shocking. Shouldn’t we have been more prepared? Hasn’t culture been drenched in catastrophe porn for decades? The bomb. The breakdown. The fallout. The senseless armies of shambling corpses, all the nightmares of dead generations sliding out of our screens. For more than a decade, young and young-ish people have been living in anticipatory grief for everything we know. But somehow, this is different. The idea of imminent annihilating catastrophe has been part of the collective unconscious for as long as we've had one. From the end…

Headlines

The Covid-19 Pandemic Aggravates Disputes Around Gig Work

March 31, 2020March 31, 2020 NewsEditorcoronavirus, COVID-19, Lyft, on-demand economy, Uber

The rapidly spreading novel coronavirus is supercharging a debate about the treatment of gig workers. The relief bill signed Friday by President Trump will provide a short-term lifeline. But some workers for companies such as Uber, Lyft, Postmates, Instacart, and Amazon worry the help won’t come soon enough. Today, many gig workers are considered independent contractors, not entitled to workers’ compensation, health care benefits, or sick pay. Because their employers don't pay into unemployment insurance, the workers haven’t been able to obtain those benefits either. Many app-based companies have established…

Odds and Ends

How child care startups in the U.S. are helping families cope with the COVID-19 crisis

March 31, 2020March 31, 2020 NewsEditorcaregiving, child care, Childcare, coronavirus, COVID-19, families

The COVID-19 pandemic has upended the lives of billions of people around the world. For many parents with young children in the United States, shelter-in-place orders implemented in different areas over the past few weeks mean they now spend each day balancing work with taking care of their families. For child care providers, a vital but often under-appreciated part of the American economy, the crisis means dealing with economic uncertainty, but also adapting to serve new roles, including providing care for essential workers. Child care startups, including home-based daycare networks,…

Headlines

14 Apps and Tools to Stave Off Cabin Fever

March 30, 2020March 30, 2020 NewsEditorApps, coronavirus, COVID-19, how-to

As more and more counties and states impose shelter-in-place restrictions while the new coronavirus spreads, everyone's suddenly spending much more time at home. While you might be glad to have escaped the grind of the daily commute for a while, staying indoors for the majority of the day comes with its own set of challenges. Your smartphone can help. With the right choice of apps, you can forget you're in such a confined space, get some exercise, and let your mind roam free. From socializing to exercise to checking up…

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This Is the Cozy Catastrophe Americans Have Always Wanted

March 30, 2020March 30, 2020 NewsEditorApocalypse, coronavirus, COVID-19

Here’s a little secret about the coronavirus crisis: If you and your loved ones are healthy and financially secure—for now—then some not-so-small part of you might just be enjoying this whole thing. Lazy days at home, ALL CAPS headlines, desolate parking lots, that warm-and-fuzzy-end-of-the-world feeling. The turmoil is thrilling from afar. The internet works just fine. And, let’s be honest, you needed a break from the daily grind. These pandemic days flow by in waves of exhilaration and stillness. Who knew a trip to the grocery store could be so…

Headlines

The Nonprofits and Companies Helping to Fight the Pandemic

March 28, 2020March 28, 2020 NewsEditorCharity, coronavirus, COVID-19, free, Paywall Exclude, shopping

It’s been a tough few weeks for everyone. At times, it can feel like the world is unraveling. Whether you’re dealing with sickness, social distancing, working from home for the first time, and/or trying to homeschool kids, it isn’t easy. We all want to get back to normal. We don’t know when that will be, and what normal will look like, but we wanted to point out a few of the organizations, companies, and brands (big and small) that are chipping in to help. While the government has been struggling…

Odds and Ends

Jimmy Kimmel Mocks Melania Trump: The Inventor of Social Distancing

March 26, 2020March 26, 2020 NewsEditorcoronavirus, COVID-19, Donald J. Trump, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Late Night, Melania Trump, pandemic, social distancing

Some of our thickest-headed politicians have been passing the time by spreading nonsense about the coronavirus, Jimmy Kimmel said in the argued to Tucker Carlson on Monday that, in Kimmels words old people are willing to go to an early grave in order to help boost the stock market. And that doesnt make me noble or brave or anything like that, Patrick said on Fox News. No, it makes you an idiot, Kimmel replied, before adding, I shouldnt say it makes you an idiot. It reveals to us that you…

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The US Army Corps of Engineers Deploys Against Coronavirus

March 25, 2020March 25, 2020 NewsEditorArmy, coronavirus, COVID-19, logistics, public health

The Jacob K. Javits Center occupies over 22 million square feet on the west side of New York City, a block or so down from where the Lincoln Tunnel splashes into the Hudson River. This week, it had been scheduled to host the World Floral Expo until coronavirus fears scuttled those and most other non-essential plans. Instead, thanks to the United States Army Corps of Engineers, the convention center is being transformed into four field hospitals with a thousand total beds. And that’s only the beginning. Since its founding in…