Technology news

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Google is not working with the US government in building a nationwide website to help people determine whether and how to get a novel coronavirus test, despite what President Donald Trump said in the course of issuing an emergency declaration for the coronavirus pandemic. Instead, a much smaller trial website made by another division of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is going up. It will only be able to direct people to testing facilities in the B

Both Netflix and Disney have halted productions on current films and TV shows in an attempt to prevent the further spread of the novel coronavirus.Netflix confirmed to The Verge that it is pausing scripted TV and film production in both the US and Canada for two weeks due to government restrictions, alongside health and safety precautions. A statement from Disney reiterates that “while there have been no confirmed cases of COVID-19 on our productions, after considering the current environm

Trump's press conference declaring a nationwide state of emergency did little to quell the panic surrounding the coronavirus outbreak, but at least we got a decent meme out of it. 
During the conference on Friday, the president shook hands with a number of high-ranking officials from various corporations — doing the exact opposite of the social distancing we're all supposed to be practicing  — and referred to the American people as "consumers." He also announced a partnersh

The clock has run out on one of the founding fathers of tech.
Microsoft announced Friday that Bill Gates is stepping down from its board of directors. Gates co-founded Microsoft in 1975 and served as the chairman of the board until 2014. He had previously stepped back from day-to-day operations in 2008.
Gates will reportedly be spending more time on his philanthropic efforts in global health and more. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which the couple founded in 2000 and now has an endowm

Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images While at Mar-a-Lago last week, President Trump took a picture. In it, he’s standing next to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s press secretary, who later tested positive for the novel coronavirus.Two senators who were also at Mar-a-Lago are self-quarantining. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who also interacted with the aide, tested positive for the virus.Trump, however, maintained at a press conference today that he does not have to quarantine. &ldqu

By now you've probably read at least one article about how to manage anxiety related to the coronavirus. Many of them contain useful tips: avoid the 24-7 news cycle, reframe negative thoughts, practice mindfulness, and connect with loved ones. 
These coping skills will undoubtedly help many weather coronavirus anxiety, particularly if everything else in their life is going well. 
But COVID-19, the official term for the disease caused by the virus, is forcing people to isolate, distance

The Federal Communications Commission today announced a new initiative designed to help mitigate one possible effect of the coronavirus: namely, the ability of citizens to use their internet to work from home during the outbreak. The “Keep Americans Connected” pledge would help mitigate the effects of the massive “stay at home” social movement by helping ensure users won’t lose access to one of their most necessary functions — for now, anyway. FCC Chairman @A

Photo by Saeed Adyani / Netflix Bill Gates, co-founder and former CEO of Microsoft, is stepping down from the board of the company. Gates previously served as CEO of Microsoft until 2008 when he stepped down from the position in order to spend more time on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.Gates stepping down from the board is apparently due to similar motivations, with a press release announcing the news citing a desire to “dedicate more time to his philanthropic priorities.” G

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The Oculus Quest untethered virtual reality headset is available on Oculus’ website. The ship date at the time of publishing is March 16th. This model, along with many other VR headsets, has been out of stock for the past few months — in part due to the impact of the novel coronavirus pandemic on manufacturing. It’s unclear if this is a sign that availability is returning to normal or if this is a limited supply. Valve recently sold

When faced with illness, the president of the United States just turned to Google for help.
In a rambling Friday afternoon press conference, Donald Trump told the American people that their favorite search engine is here to save the day. Specifically, he insisted that Google is developing a website that will both help concerned individuals determine if they need a coronavirus test and where they can get one. 
In other words, Trump's big pandemic plan essentially boils down to a fancier vers

Photo by Robert Alexander/Getty Images The Transportation Security Administration announced that it was updating its policies concerning liquids in carry-on baggage in response to the novel coronavirus pandemic. Air passengers will now be allowed to bring on board hand sanitizer containers up to 12 ounces (355 milliliters) in size, which is much larger than the standard 3.4 ounces (100 milliliters) previously allowed.
There are some caveats, though. The updated policy only applies to hand sanit

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Instagram is attempting to stop the spread of misinformation about the novel coronavirus pandemic that’s surfacing through its augmented reality effects. In an update to its AR creators Facebook group, the company wrote that it has removed already-published AR effects and will reject any pending requests for effects that claim to “predict, diagnose, treat, or cure coronavirus.” It’s also not allowing users to search for COVID-19, t

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Google is working with the US government in building a specialized website to help people determine whether and how to get a coronavirus test, President Donald Trump said in the course of issuing an emergency declaration for the coronavirus pandemic. The site would allow people to enter their symptoms and then get directed to a nearby testing facility, Trump said.
We have reached out to Google for more information on the website and will update this story w

Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images Royal Caribbean will suspend all cruises passing through the United States for at least 30 days as the country declares a national emergency over the novel coronavirus pandemic, the company announced on Friday.The company joins Carnival Corporation in scaling back operations in order to try to slow the spread of the virus. Carnival announced on Thursday that it was shutting down its Princess Cruises line for two months after two

Photo: MSQRD Facebook will shut down MSQRD, its AR face-filtering app, this April, the company announced today.On April 13th, Facebook will remove the MSQRD app from both the Android and iOS app stores. Facebook purchased MSQRD in 2016, and the AR app played a key role in boosting Facebook’s internal portfolio of AR image and video tools. One of those tools, Spark AR, lets you create custom face filters for Facebook and Instagram.
As Business Insider pointed out, following the acquisition

wAMC has emerged as the first US movie theater chain to respond to the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic, with plans to reduce auditorium attendance by 50 percent of the standard level to promote social distancing, Deadline reports.The chain, the largest in the country, will now only sell half the number of tickets per theater that it normally does, and any theater with more than 500 seats will be automatically capped at a max of 250 people. AMC is also having its theaters comply with local and

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge AT&T is the latest enormous company to instruct its employees to start working from home if they haven’t already. The work-from-home edict does not apply to AT&T’s retail employees, equipment installers, and CNN’s TV talent and production staff, according to CNN. But AT&T’s massive corporate workforce (including those at WarnerMedia) are being asked to work from home for the time being — as long as their role allo

Photo by JOHANNES EISELE/AFP via Getty Images Public transportation ridership is down sharply in some major cities, with many residents opting to work from home or avoid taking transit to minimize their exposure to COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Meanwhile, the public agencies that run subways and buses are mulling service cuts and fare increases to keep finances afloat, which could dampen ridership even more and threaten their financial stability. It’s a worst-case

Photo by Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images President Donald Trump declared a federal state of emergency as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread throughout the US. The move frees up additional funding that will allow the government to address the effects of the pandemic.
“I am officially declaring a national emergency,” Trump said today. “Two very big words.”
Emergency declarations help governments tap into additional sources of funding during events like disease outbreak

Photo by Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images Delta Air Lines is reducing its flight capacity by 40 percent due to a coronavirus-related dropoff in demand, marking the biggest reduction in operations in the airline’s history. That includes the months after the September 11th terrorist attacks in 2001, Bloomberg reports. Delta CEO Ed Bastian told employees in a memo on Friday that he will forgo his salary for the next six months, calling the situation “a severe crisis.”&l

Over the last few weeks, a number of high-profile movie releases have been delayed due to the spread of the novel coronavirus. No Time to Die, the new James Bond movie, will now be released in November. Mulan and New Mutants are delayed without any new release dates attached. F9 just accepted the L, as Universal set the release date back a full year. With all of these delays, many people have started to wonder: why not just release these films on streaming instead?
Couldn’t Disney release

Photo credit should read JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images Ford, General Motors, and Fiat Chrysler have started telling non-factory employees to work remotely in order to avoid contracting and spreading the coronavirus, as the world comes to grips with a growing pandemic. Factory workers at plants in the US, however, are being told to remain in place — despite the United Auto Workers union announcing Thursday that a Fiat Chrysler employee at the company’s Kokomo Transmission Plant

In the era of social distancing that many of us now live in as part of a worldwide effort to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus pandemic, tons of people are now stuck at home for days or even weeks, discouraged from meeting in public places or hanging out in large groups.That means that it’s the perfect time to kick back, relax, and catch up on all of those great TV shows and movies you’ve been meaning to catch up on. But if you need some suggestions (or have already managed to

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Airbnb is extending its extenuating circumstances policy to the US due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The policy ensures guests can cancel an eligible reservation without being charged, and it is currently in effect for bookings in mainland China, Italy, and South Korea. Airbnb says for US customers this applies to rentals booked before March 13th and with a check-in date of April 1st, 2020 or before.Under normal circumstances, Airbnb guests hav

Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet isn’t just a great comedy about video games, but a strand connecting an older, weirder era of its culture to the more mainstream world of workplace comedies. Few people on the show exemplify this more than Ashly Burch, a writer on Mythic Quest who also plays Rachel, a wide-eyed game tester for the studio that makes the show’s eponymous game.Anyone watching Mythic Quest with more than a passing interest in games will recognize Burch’s name imm

Photo: Tyler Demogenes / Atlanta Faze The city-based Call of Duty League is shifting to a new format amid the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic. In a statement, the league said that upcoming matches will be played online as opposed to large events hosted by cities across North America and Europe. “Call of Duty League has seen firsthand the power of our live events in our inaugural season, and will return to city-based competition in front of live audiences as soon as it is safe and logis

Image: The Bold Type Working from home is not new for me — in fact, it’s something I’m used to. Besides spending years as a freelancer and a contract worker for several publications, I worked for nearly 10 years at an organization where the main office (and most of the employees) were in the Boston area. Since I live in New York City, that meant I worked almost exclusively via phone, email, and chat. It also meant that I found out how isolating working from home could feel.
Wh

Fred Haise, James Lovell, and John Swigert after splashing down from Apollo 13 | Image: NASA The 50th anniversary of NASA’s infamous Apollo 13 mission is almost here, and a new website just went live today that will let you relive the heart-wrenching journey as if it were happening live. The website, called Apollo 13 in Real Time, provides transcripts, video footage, and audio recordings surrounding the historical flight, posting the material at the exact times they were created half a ce

Photo by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai introduced a new broadband and telecom industry measure on Friday called the Keep Americans Connected Pledge, which is designed to rein in any potential abuses from US internet service providers during the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic. The pledge, which is for the next 60 days, asks that companies not terminate service for residential or small business customers, waive any late fees incurred due t

Photo by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai introduced a new broadband and telecom industry measure on Friday called the Keep Americans Connected Pledge, which is designed to rein in any potential abuses from US internet service providers during the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic.The pledge, which is for the next 60 days, asks that companies not terminate service for residential or small business customers, waive any late fees incurred due to