fortune--2020-03-10--NFL taps Take-Two to make video games for the first time since 2004

Take-Two Interactive Software, which got out of the business of making NFL games in 2004, is back on the gridiron, announcing a new deal with the league Tuesday morning. But don’t expect EA’s Madden series to take a hit.
The agreement specifically covers “non-simulation football game experiences,” meaning the publisher’s 2K Sports division won’t be able to create a game to compete with Madden. That’s bound to be disappointing to fans who remember the battle of those two brands in the early part of the 21st Century.
Take-Two’s first NFL game will launch in 2021. The company did not provide details about what it has in mind for that title.
“Non-simulation” gives Take-Two a lot of leeway. It can create a more action-focused arcade game (like Midway’s NFL Blitz or EA’s own Mutant League Football) or it could explore the league from a coach’s perspective, or it could focus on the mobile market. But the big money in NFL games is in simulations. That’s why EA paid big to sign an exclusive agreement with the NFL in late 2004.
And because Take-Two can’t compete on that field, analysts say the NFL deal probably won’t add a lot to the company’s bottom line.
“We think Take-Two’s games have extremely low potential to generate significant revenue,” said Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities. “Take-Two may craft a compelling lifestyle game based on the NFL, but we think such an effort is unlikely to challenge video game fans sufficiently to generate meaningful revenues.”
EA, which downplayed the announcement in a press release, is unlikely to give up its exclusivity on simulation games anytime soon, either. Its current agreement with the NFL and NFL Players Association (which Take-Two did not announce a deal with) is set to expire in 2022. And both Pachter and Niko Partners’ Daniel Ahmad expect the deals to be renewed.
Getting fully back into the NFL simulation game would be extremely expensive for Take-Two. One of the chief expenses in sports games is the cost to render the players’ likenesses-in other words, to create lifelike animated facial models, which give in-game players a photo-realistic appearance. Take-Two would have to start from scratch to build that database.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Google Doodle celebrates International Women’s Day
—Growing coronavirus threat weighs on Apple
—When will PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X debut?
—NASA hiring new astronauts for the first time in four years
—WATCH: Best earbuds in 2020: Apple AirPods Pro Vs. Sony WF-1000XM3
Catch up with Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily digest on the business of tech.


fortune--2020-03-10--A powerhouse trio pledges up to $125 million to fight coronavirus

Coronavirus and the flu have similar symptoms .
So , how are they different ?

This is the web version of Brainstorm Health Daily, Fortune’s daily newsletter on the top health care news. To get it delivered daily to your in-box, sign up here.
Happy Tuesday, readers.
Yesterday, I spoke with an intriguing trio—Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman, Jeremy Farrar, director of the drug research charity Wellcome, and Mastercard vice chairman Mike Froman. What would bring all three together? The coronavirus, of course.
The triumvirate announced on Tuesday that it’s creating a COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator. The purpose, as you might guess, is to speed promising therapies such as antivirals and immunotherapies through the clinic and on to the market—and then help speed up the manufacturing process and, critically, make sure therapies are accessible to all who need them.
The Gates Foundation’s and Wellcome’s involvement may not come as much of a surprise. But why is Mastercard in the mix (other than it just being a good thing to do)? It’s all about the financial fallout.
“Coronavirus is a major public health issue, but it’s also an issue for economic growth and economic vitality,” Froman tells me. “As a global company, it’s in our interest that we get back on track with our economies. We thrive when economies thrive around the world.”
The groups are collectively pledging up to $125 million ($50 million each from the Gates Foundation and Wellcome and $25 million from Mastercard) to fund the effort.
Check out my full writeup of how the accelerator will function—and how important such an initiative is given “a completely unprecedented epidemic,” as Wellcome director Jeremy Farrar describes it.
Read on for the day’s news.
Sy Mukherjee
sayak.mukherjee@fortune.com
@the_sy_guy
DIGITAL HEALTH
U.K.'s NHS tackles coronavirus misinformation with tech giants' help. The U.K.'s National Health Service (NHS) has joined forces with Google, Twitter, and Facebook to stem an outbreak—of coronavirus misinformation. In essence, the various firms will be working to cut down on questionable coronavirus content on their platforms and work with the NHS to verify NHS-affiliated accounts (and make sure they aren't fake). Google will also prioritize search results for coronavirus information that contain NHS-verified information. (HealthcareITNews)
INDICATIONS
Bristol-Myers helps fuel a staggering $600 million life sciences fund. Drug giant Bristol-Myers Squibb has helped lead LSP to what the firm says is the largest venture fund for the life sciences in Europe—an eye-popping $600 million fund. That's a significant chunk of change and would be critical for evening the playing ground between European drug makers and American firms. "The number of high-quality life sciences innovations in Europe is similar to the United States but there is 5x less capital available to back these innovators and entrepreneurs," said LSP managing partner René Kuijten in a statement. (FierceBiotech)
THE BIG PICTURE
Fighting anti-competitiveness in the midst of an outbreak. Yesterday, I wrote about the risk of snake oil salesmen capitalizing on the coronavirus crisis. But scams come in many forms—including price gouging and anti-competitive behavior. ModernHealthcare reports that the Justice Department is openly tracking "any anticompetitive actions in connection with the manufacturing, distribution, or sale of face masks, respirators, and diagnostic tests" related to the coronavirus. (ModernHealthcare)
REQUIRED READING
New federal rules allow patients to access medical records via smartphone, by Fred Schulte & Erika Fry
Some advice for young investors during their first stock market crash, by Ben Carlson
Politicians around the world are going into quarantine, by David Meyer
Sign up for other Fortune newsletters.


fortune--2020-03-10--Delta, American join airlines in slashing operations due to coronavirus outbreak

Delta Air Lines Inc. and American Airlines Group Inc. walked away from their 2020 forecasts and said they will slash operations because of the coronavirus outbreak, joining carriers across the globe grappling with one of the worst crises in modern air travel.
Delta plans to cut domestic capacity as much as 15% and international flights by 25%, the Atlanta-based carrier said in a statement Tuesday. The company also will freeze hiring and suspend share buybacks. American said it would reduce U.S. service 7.5% in April and cut foreign flights by 10% for the peak summer season.
The adjustments illustrate the depth of the crisis for carriers worldwide as the virus’s spread upends economies and prompts travelers to stay home. An airline trade group said last week that the industry will lose as much as $113 billion in sales because of the virus, while Jefferies anticipates the biggest annual drop in commercial air traffic since at least the 1970s.
Already this week, Qantas Airways Ltd. grounded most of its A380 jets, slashed management pay and cut about a quarter of international service for six months; Air France-KLM said its main Paris-based arm would cancel 3,600 flights this month; Finnair Oyj outlined plans to eliminate 2,400 short-distance services in April; and JetBlue Airways Corp. withdrew its 2020 forecast. United Airlines Holdings Inc. abandoned its 2020 forecasts last month.
Cost Cuts
“As the virus has spread, we have seen a decline in demand across all entities,” Delta Chief Executive Officer Ed Bastian said in the statement. “As a result, we have made the difficult but necessary decision to immediately reduce capacity and are implementing cost reductions and cash flow initiatives across the organization.”
Despite the pain for airlines, U.S. carriers rose Tuesday amid a broad market rally following a historic rout the previous day. Delta climbed 3.4% to $44.99 at 10:02 a.m in New York, while American jumped 6.7% to $15.74. A Standard & Poor’s index of major U.S. carriers tumbled 32% this year through Monday, dragged down by the outbreak.
Adding to the uncertainty for the airline industry, a Trump administration economic package to be unveiled Tuesday will leave out aid for the travel industry, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News. While the White House wants to find a way to help reeling airlines, as well as hospitality companies, administration officials remained uncertain about the best way to do so.
As a show of good faith during tough times, some airline executives have said they would give back some of their compensation. United CEO Oscar Munoz and President Scott Kirby will give up their base salaries through at least June 30, the carrier said. At Southwest Airlines Co., CEO Gary Kelly said he would take a 10% pay cut amid the drop in bookings, the Wall Street Journal reported.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Is this your first stock market crash? Some advice for young investors
—Here are two of the biggest losers from the Saudi Arabia oil price war
—Why investors suddenly turned on pot stocks
—Here are some of the most extreme ways companies are combating coronavirus
—Why it’s so hard to find the next Warby Parker
Subscribe to Fortune’s Bull Sheet for no-nonsense finance news and analysis daily.


fortune--2020-03-10--U.S. stocks rebound on Trump’s promises for economic relief from coronavirus

U.S. stocks rebounded from the worst drop since the global financial crisis after President Donald Trump said he would announce “substantial” economic measures on Tuesday to combat the fallout from the coronavirus.
Trump’s economic plan—which he said could include a payroll tax cut and paid sick leave—does not have buy-in from Congress yet, though he is dispatching his top aides to start pitching the measures on Capitol Hill. The president dismayed some officials with an announcement during a Monday press briefing that he would unveil a plan in 24 hours, as they had vied for taking the plan to lawmakers first.
Still, the S&P 500 jumped more than 3% at the open, as investors digested Trump’s announcement. U.S. stocks plunged more than 7.5% on Monday—the worst day on Wall Street since the financial crisis—as a full-blown oil price war rattled investors already on edge over the outbreak.
It was, in large part, the market crash that pushed the White House into action on Monday, according to people familiar with the matter.
The president caused some dismay in the West Wing when he announced during a Monday press briefing that he would unveil a plan in 24 hours, before the White House had briefed lawmakers.
As outlined by Trump, the proposal will likely include a payroll tax cut and a short-term expansion of paid sick leave, according to the people, who described the plan on condition of anonymity ahead of its planned release on Tuesday.
The package will leave out for now any aid for the travel industry, which has been battered by travelers curtailing plans since the coronavirus outbreak, according to people familiar with the matter. While the White House wants to find a way to help airlines and hospitality companies reeling from a plunge in demand from travelers, administration officials remain uncertain about the best way to do so.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Tuesday will speak with Senate Republicans about the plan. A payroll tax cut requires legislation, while paid sick leave may be implemented through executive action, the people said.
Elements of the package could still shift, including the payroll tax changes, which drew opposition from Richard Neal, the chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee late Monday, as well as other Democratic congressional leaders.
While Trump has been pointing to the Federal Reserve as the front line, economists have stressed that the crisis will require a multi-faceted response from governments, health-care professionals, central bankers and others to stem the human and economic damage.
The measures emerged following a tense meeting Monday of Trump’s top advisers in a bid to contain the widening fallout from coronavirus and tumbling oil prices, the people said.
About a dozen officials, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and economic adviser Larry Kudlow, hashed out the details before Trump. Peter Navarro, the president’s trade adviser, urged sweeping measures, including a payroll tax cut, while Mnuchin recommended more targeted steps.
The Treasury chief opposed going to Congress on the payroll tax cut, two of the people said. Details for such tax relief are preliminary and would have to be worked out with lawmakers, they said.
On paid sick leave, Tuesday’s announcement will most likely lay out an option that targets hourly wage workers who are quarantined because of the coronavirus, they said. The measure may be executed through executive action rather than through legislation.
The administration is aware that airlines, cruise operators and hotel companies will need some help after meetings with industry representatives. But Trump’s economic team for now is uncertain of what steps are needed, according to people familiar with the matter.
Until Monday, Trump and his administration were sticking to their message that the American economy was in a strong position to weather any fallout from coronavirus, but the dramatic market drop shifted their position, the people said.
Trump, speaking at a White House news conference Monday, said that he plans to announce “very dramatic” actions to support the economy at a news conference on Tuesday, following discussions with lawmakers. “I will be here tomorrow afternoon to let you know about some of the economic steps, which will be major,” Trump said.
Trump said he wants to help hourly wage earners who could lose pay by staying home “so they don’t get penalized for something that’s not their fault.”
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Is this your first stock market crash? Some advice for young investors
—Here are two of the biggest losers from the Saudi Arabia oil price war
—Why investors suddenly turned on pot stocks
—Here are some of the most extreme ways companies are combating coronavirus
—Why it’s so hard to find the next Warby Parker
Subscribe to Fortune’s Bull Sheet for no-nonsense finance news and analysis daily.


fortune--2020-03-10--Gates Foundation, Mastercard, and Wellcome team up to fuel coronavirus drug development

The formidable trio of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Mastercard, and British research charity giant Wellcome are banding together to spur faster development of, and greater access to, treatments for COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus strain wreaking public health havoc across the globe.
“The world does not have a very big armory for antivirals,” Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman tells Fortune. “While there’s a huge amount of work being done today to immediately address the crisis, this initiative is more for longer-term treatments.”
Under the partnership, the three organizations will create a COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator and commit up to $125 million in seed funding for the entity. The goal is to not just to advance to market more antivirals and immunotherapies that can treat COVID-19, but to make sure that vulnerable populations can access and afford such therapies once they’ve been created.
Mastercard vice chairman Mike Froman notes that his company has a simple incentive, beyond corporate citizenship, to help tackle the pathogen. “Coronavirus is a major public health issue, but it’s also an issue for economic growth and economic vitality,” he tells Fortune. “As a global company, it’s in our interest that we get back on track with our economies. We thrive when economies thrive around the world.”
Mastercard is pledging up to $25 million toward the effort while the Gates Foundation and Wellcome are each pledging up to $50 million. More broadly, the Gates Foundation announced an up to $100 million pledge to fight the coronavirus outbreak.
The initial steps will focus on screening the antiviral therapeutic libraries of major biopharma companies, Gates Foundation chief Suzman and Wellcome director Jeremy Farrar explains.
“We can move ahead right away, we can start moving those compounds and testing them rapidly,” says Suzman. “We hope to identify three to four compound subsets that are most likely to be efficacious and then would be in conversations with regulatory authorities on how to accelerate their development in the clinic.”
“We would bring together the regulators and the manufacturers so we can move things along as quickly as possible and assist the large-scale manufacturing process,” Farrar tells Fortune. “And then finally, we would make an absolute commitment that treatments are made available to the world as needed.”
“This is a completely unprecedented epidemic, so it’ll require an unprecedented response.”
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—How coronavirus is affecting the global concert industry
—Coronavirus is mutating: Chinese scientists find second strain
—Some of the most extreme ways companies are combating coronavirus
—How Europe is adapting to the coronavirus outbreak
—China’s box office was supposed to surpass North America’s this year.
—Growing coronavirus threat weighs on Apple
—Nearly half of American travelers are reconsidering their international trips due to coronavirus
Subscribe to Fortune’s Outbreak newsletter for a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on global business.


fortune--2020-03-10--Coronavirus is bringing all sorts of societal issues to the surface

Coronavirus hysteria is fully setting in.
My inbox currently houses emails about three cancelled events, a pitch about “how business leaders are better positioned to tackle coronavirus than politicians,” and a note to Fortune staff about working remotely.
And Fortune’s not the only company that’s urging people to stay home. Amazon yesterday told employees in New York and New Jersey to work from home, if they can, throughout the month of March. Salesforce, Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter issued similar notices.
Tools like Zoom and Slack facilitate remote work, but coronavirus fears are putting the idea to test on a scale we’ve never seen before. It’s a giant human experiment that will show companies whether it’s still possible to communicate effectively and do business as usual.
Only 42 million Americans, or about 29% of the workforce, are able to work from home. Here’s an interesting wrinkle in the whole debacle of shifting to online work: Federal Communications Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel explained to Fortune on Monday that “the coronavirus is exposing hard truths about the digital divide in this country.”
According to the story, the actual number of Americans lacking access to high speed broadband is a source of dispute. While the FCC has suggested the number is around 21 million, Rosenworcel says the actual number is much higher, because the agency uses a methodology that concludes everyone in a census block is wired if even a single subscriber has broadband.
It’s fascinating to see the various work obstacles the coronavirus panic is bringing to the surface. Feel free to share your thoughts about some of the unintended consequences from working remotely in the face of mass uncertainty.
ODD NEWS: Sequoia is walking away from Finix, a San Francisco-based payments infrastructure company, over a purported conflict of interest. The firm is also handing back its board seat, information rights, shares and full investment. According to TechCrunch, Sequoia just walked away from $21 million because it realized that Finix competes too directly with Stripe—after it wrote a check…Mmmm somehow I feel like this isn’t the full story. If you have more information, you can contribute to our anonymous tip box here.
Polina Marinova
Twitter: @polina_marinova
Email: polina.marinova@fortune.com
VENTURE DEALS
- NorthOne, a Canada-based digital challenger bank, raised $21 million in its Series A funding. Battery Ventures led the round, and was joined by investors including Redpoint Ventures and Tom Williams.
- TFLiving, a Pawleys Island, S.C.-based tech-enabled platform providing fitness and amenities services to residential and commercial communities, raised $4.8 million in seed funding. Camber Creek led the round, and was joined by investors including Courtside Ventures..
- BackboneAI, a New York-based intercompany data automation platform, raised $4.7 million in seed funding. Fika Ventures led the round, and was joined by investors including Boldstart Ventures, Cendana Capital, Dynamo Ventures, GGV Capital, MetaProp, and Spider VC.
- Rest Less, a U.K.-based social enterprise start-up offering jobs, volunteering and guidance for the over 50s, raised £3 million ($4 million) in seed funding. QED Investors led the round, and was joined by investors including 1818 Venture Capital and Octopus Ventures.
- Arfa, a New York-based platform for creating personal care brands, raised funding of an undisclosed amount. Investors include Index Ventures, White Star Capital, Forerunner Ventures, Thrive Capital, Norwest, Foundation Capital, AlleyCorp (Kevin Ryan), and Box Group.
PRIVATE EQUITY DEALS
- Blackstone Group Inc is in exclusive talks to take SOHO China Ltd (SEHK: 410) private in a $4 billion deal, according to Reuters. Read more.
- Genstar Capital recapitalized ConnectiveRx, a Whippany, N.J.-based provider of technology-enabled biopharmaceutical services. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
IPOs
- Caixa Seguridade SA, a Brazilian insurer, decided to cancel its initial public offering citing concerns about coronavirus and falling oil prices, Reuters reports citing sources. Read more.
- Wintershall DEA, a London-based energy group that planned an IPO for late-2020, is expected to pause those plans over coronavirus fears and plunging oil prices, Reuters reports citing sources. Read more.


fortune--2020-03-10--The online travel market is the perfect financial petri dish for the coronavirus crisis

This is the web version of Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter on the top tech news. To get it delivered daily to your in-box, sign up here.
I tried my level best to be positive yesterday, bringing you some hopeful stories from the world of tech in the time of coronavirus. Indeed, on a day the market was shellacked, Zoom Video Communications was off just a smidge, and Chinese delivery giant Meituan eked out a gain.
Later in the day, a pandemic pure play of a different sort, Booking.com, withdrew its previously issued earnings guidance, disclosing to investors what everyone already knew about the state of Europe and North America: Things are getting worse and no one really knows how bad they’ll get or when they’ll improve.
Booking.com is the perfect financial petri dish for the global crisis. A worldwide leisure-oriented travel business, it issued its previous guidance on Feb. 26, less than two weeks ago. The company was a raging e-commerce success story, especially when it was known as Priceline but was making all its money on its acquired Booking.com business. “Given the rapidly evolving situation, we are unable at this time to reliably quantify the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on our future financial results,” the company said in its withdrawal statement.
Tom White, an analyst with brokerage D.A. Davidson, told clients that Booking was the only travel company it covers that had issued a first-quarter guidance in the first place. (The group includes Expedia, Tripadvisor, and Trivago (down 17% Monday.) “Should the impact of COVID-19 continue to meaningfully impact travel demand into the second quarter (which we generally expect it will), we anticipate the other public companies in this space will also likely need to cut or withdraw their calendar-year 2020 guidance,” he said.
***
In the financial crisis of 2008-09, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway was here, there, and everywhere, providing capital to stressed but otherwise sound companies, notably Goldman Sachs. Today, Egon Durban’s private-equity fund Silver Lake seems to be playing a similar role, helping de-risk Waymo for Alphabet and, Monday, plowing $1 billion into a besieged Twitter. Silver Lake claims to have $43 billion in assets under management. It appears to be just getting going.
Adam Lashinsky
@adamlashinsky
adam.lashinsky@fortune.com
This edition of Data Sheet was curated by Aaron Pressman.
NEWSWORTHY
Just one darn tootin' minute. Many wrote off Amazon's lawsuit against the Trump administration over the $10 billion Pentagon cloud contract. Seems that was a mistake. Judge Patricia Campbell-Smith of the Court of Federal Claims says the challenge “is likely to succeed on the merits” and ordered Microsoft, which won the JEDI contract over Amazon's bid, to stop work temporarily. But the judge focused on "a lone technical finding," Microsoft said, not Amazon's headline claims that Trump biased the decision.
Excited molecules. While companies large and small try to build working quantum computing hardware, Google is getting ready for the quantum era with software. The company on Monday released open-source programming to develop quantum machine-learning apps. Called TensorFlow Quantum, the software extends the company's existing TensorFlow kit.
Invisible man. After developing cashier-less stores of its own, Amazon says it will sell the technology to other retailers, too. The “Just Walk Out” system relies on customers using a credit card when they enter a store and cameras on the ceiling that track the items they pick up.
Major Tom to ground control. I'm not sure we can take Elon Musk at his word when it comes to financial strategy matters (remember "funding secured"?), but the Tesla and SpaceX boss says he is not thinking of taking Starlink, his space Internet effort, public on its own. “We’re thinking about that zero,” he said on Monday at the Satellite 2020 conference in Washington, D.C.
(Correction, March 10, 2020: An earlier version of this summary misstated how customers check in with Amazon's Just Walk Out system. They use a credit card to check in.)
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
The coronavirus outbreak is forcing an increasing number of school districts to cancel classes and ask students to log online for lessons. But there's a pretty serious problem with that strategy, as Federal Communications Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel explained to Fortune on Monday.
"The coronavirus is exposing hard truths about the digital divide in this country," FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel tells Fortune. "Everyone doesn’t have broadband, and that has consequences if people need to remain at home to educate themselves."
The actual number of Americans lacking access to high speed broadband is a source of dispute. While the FCC has suggested the number is around 21 million, Rosenworcel says the actual number is much higher, because the agency uses a methodology that concludes everyone in a census block is wired, if even a single subscriber has broadband. According to Gigi Sohn, a former senior FCC staffer who is currently a Distinguished Fellow at the Georgetown Institute, the real number of Americans lacking high speed Internet is around 141 million.
ON THE MOVE
Estee Lauder's current CFO Tracey Travis and former McKinsey director Nancy Killefer are joining Facebook's board of directors, bringing the board's composition to 40% female...NXP Semiconductors CEO Rick Clemmer, who tried and failed to sell the company to Qualcomm, is stepping down and will be replaced by Kurt Sievers, the chipmaker's current president...Automated Data Processing is losing its chief security officer Roland Cloutier to TikTok, where he will hold a similar title and report to top boss Alex Zhu... Google is grabbing Sony game development leader Shannon Studstill, who oversaw major hit God of War, to run its Stadia Games and Entertainment studio.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
China iPhone sales drop 61% year-over-year, report says, as Apple struggles with coronavirus By Don Reisinger
New federal rules allow patients to access medical records via smartphone By Fred Schulte and Erika Fry
Coronavirus may not be all bad for tech. Consider the ‘stay at home’ stocks By Robert Hackett
Robinhood crashes for third time as markets tank By Chris Morris
Why focusing on a startup’s ‘exit strategy’ stifles innovation By Polina Marinova
Here are some of the most extreme ways companies are combatting coronavirus By Anne Sraders
(Some of these stories require a subscription to access. There is a 50% discount for our loyal readers if you use this link to sign up. Thank you for supporting our journalism.)
BEFORE YOU GO
While the current medical crisis rages on, some scientists are still focused on cool ideas to make the future better, like fusion-powered generators to create power with no pollution. Europe's ITER project this week revealed that its first giant magnet is ready. It weighs 320 tons. Now the project only needs to make 17 more to start generating a field of super-hot plasma, at 150 million degrees Celsius, to create a mini Sun on Earth. And who couldn't use a little more sunshine right now?
Aaron Pressman
@ampressman
aaron.pressman@fortune.com


fortune--2020-03-10--Coronavirus: Politicians around the world are going into quarantine

If you find yourself under quarantine in the coronavirus crisis, know that some very powerful people are in the same situation.
An increasing number of politicians have gone into isolation around the world, largely by their own choice. Some are doing so because they are themselves infected; some because they came into contact with people who are known to have contracted the virus; and some just because of the places they visited.
Here’s a rundown of some notable examples, by region.
Europe
On Tuesday, the president of the European Parliament put himself into quarantine. The Italian social democrat David Sassoli said he was doing so because the Italian government had put the whole country under quarantine, and he had visited Italy over the weekend. “For this reason, I have decided…as a precaution, to follow the indicated measures and to exercise my function as President from my home in Brussels” for two weeks, Sassoli said.
Sassoli’s move came after the European Parliament last week banned visitors from accessing the Parliament building in Brussels—with the notable exception of climate activist Greta Thunberg, who addressed a committee last week.
Meanwhile, the leader of Sassoli’s party back in Italy—the Democratic Party, which is part of the coalition government—has actually tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Nicola Zingaretti went into quarantine late last week.
In France, Culture Minister Franck Riester was on Monday revealed to have the virus, though he is reportedly “feeling well” in quarantine. Five cases have also been confirmed in the National Assembly, France’s lower parliamentary house. One of those was the now-hospitalized conservative lawmaker Jean Luc Reitzer, who recently met with Ukrainian opposition politician Oleg Voloshyn—who has also now self-quarantined as a result.
In Spain, Javier Ortega Smith, the secretary general of the far-right Vox party, has tested positive. He has apologized for holding a rally on Sunday, which 9,000 people attended, and has urged the closure of Spain’s lower legislative house, the Congress of Deputies.
Over in the U.K., members of Parliament including Labour’s Alex Sobel and Lilian Greenwood put themselves into quarantine after attending a conference alongside someone who turned out to have contracted the virus. John McNally, a member of the Scottish Parliament, also self-isolated after attending the same transport conference.
Middle East
One of the world’s worst coronavirus outbreaks is underway in Iran, and the country’s government has not been spared. Two lawmakers have died there—Fatemeh Rahbar and Mohammad Ali Ramazani—as has Mohammad Mirmohammadi, a top adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei.
All in all, more than 20 Iranian lawmakers have been infected and isolated. Esmail Najjar, the head of Iran’s crisis management organization, is also in isolation after having contracted Covid-19.
North America
Five Republican lawmakers have self-quarantined after coming into contact with an infected person at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) late last month. They include Senator Ted Cruz and representatives Paul Gosar, Doug Collins, Matt Gaetz and Mark Meadows. Meadows is the incoming White House chief of staff.
Both President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence (who is in charge of the U.S.’s coronavirus response) attended and spoke at the event. Neither has been tested.
Californian Congresswoman Julia Brownley, a Democrat, has also self-isolated after interacting with someone in Washington, D.C. who turned out to be infected.
Up in Canada, Montreal parliamentarian Anthony Housefather has self-isolated after attending an event where someone had Covid-19. That event was the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which took place in Washington, D.C. last week. Again, Trump and Pence were speakers there.
Asia
Mongolian President Khaltmaagiin Battulga and various government officials put themselves into quarantine at the end of February, following a state visit to China. This week it was reported that Battulga has tested negative for infection and will therefore emerge from quarantine.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—How coronavirus is affecting the global concert industry
—Coronavirus is mutating: Chinese scientists find second strain
—Some of the most extreme ways companies are combating coronavirus
—How Europe is adapting to the coronavirus outbreak
—China’s box office was supposed to surpass North America’s this year.
—Growing coronavirus threat weighs on Apple
—Nearly half of American travelers are reconsidering their international trips due to coronavirus
Subscribe to Fortune’s Outbreak newsletter for a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on global business.


fortune--2020-03-10--As Trump eyes coronavirus payroll tax cut, travel, energy and factory groups line up to plea for eco

As Trump eyes coronavirus payroll tax cut, travel, energy and factory groups line up to plea for economic aid

The travel, energy, manufacturing and consumer product industries are pressing the Trump administration and Congress to take decisive action to contain the economic damage from the coronavirus and plunging oil prices.
Business lobbies are pushing a range of proposals such as extending unemployment insurance, broadening business entertainment tax breaks and offering tax credits to employers of quarantined workers, according to representatives interviewed by Bloomberg News. Many of the ideas are in a preliminary state as President Donald Trump’s advisers weigh their options.
“Right now we’re in the spaghetti-on-the-wall phase of this conversation,” said David French, senior vice president of government relations at the National Retail Federation, the industry’s largest trade association.
Investors and the public are looking to the Trump administration for a more decisive response to the virus outbreak and to a sharp drop in oil prices touched off by a breakdown in talks between Russia and Saudi Arabia aimed at cutting output. U.S. stocks plunged more than 7.5% on Monday in the worst day on Wall Street since the financial crisis, crude sank 20% and credit markets showed signs of intense strain.
Trump said at a press conference Monday evening that he would seek “very substantial relief” for the economy, including discussing with Congress a payroll tax and help for hourly wage earners.
But the president’s economic package would leave out, for now, any aid for the travel industry, people familiar with the matter said Monday night.
The White House is hosting a parade of industry executives this week. On Monday, the National Retail Federation, the International Franchise Association, and the American Hotel and Lodging Association, among others, met with White House officials, according to people familiar with the gathering.
“What we’re looking at are things that are going to help employees, and things that are going to help businesses,” said Jennifer Myers, a spokeswoman for the American Hotel and Lodging Association. The group is pushing for expanded unemployment insurance to help blunt the impact of a potential long-term downturn that would lead to layoffs.
The National Association of Manufacturers issued a policy action plan with more than 30 recommendations, including tax credits for employers and credit leniency for small- and medium-size businesses.
“Neither government nor industry can solve this challenge alone,” said President and Chief Executive Officer Jay Timmons in a statement.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, one of Washington’s most powerful lobbying presences, and the Business Roundtable, which counts top chief executives as members, have set up task forces to respond to the coronavirus crisis.
The chamber is exploring whether those who can’t work because of the virus should benefit from unemployment insurance, according to Neil Bradley, the group’s chief policy officer. He said the plan could allow companies to respond “more nimbly” than by offering paid sick leave because it’s a policy already in use, a view shared by the NRF.
But Democratic leaders in Congress have said they want to see paid sick leave and warned that any package should give priority to workers’ needs over corporate interests. They have also called for enhanced unemployment insurance.
Pence to Meet Insurers
Vice President Mike Pence is scheduled to meet with top executives of some of the largest insurance companies on Tuesday, according to two people familiar with the matter. Invitations have been extended to UnitedHealth Group Inc., Anthem Inc., Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, Aetna Inc., Humana Inc. and America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group for health insurers, according to one of the people.
White House task force member Debbie Birx also will be at the meeting.
Pence has also met with executives from the cruise, airline and consumer product industries within the past week.
House Democrats have announced a hearing on legislation that would require some employers to provide paid sick leave. The Senate Finance Committee said Monday that Republican Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa was “exploring the possibility of targeted tax relief measures” to respond to the virus.
Oil and Energy
Oil industry leaders and lobbyists are rushing to develop policy plans for dealing with a double whammy from the coronavirus — which has spurred the first contraction in oil demand since 2009 — and a crash in crude prices touched off by a breakdown in talks between OPEC and Russia over cutting output.
So far, oil companies and trade groups haven’t coalesced around ideas or sent a lot of them to the White House for consideration, said two industry lobbyists who asked for anonymity discussing internal deliberations. Industry officials are still trying to figure out what levers can be pulled, including possible lending help, one of the people said.
It may be difficult to persuade the administration to single out the oil industry for aid in any targeted relief package, given that the president sees lower oil prices as a benefit for consumers.
Trump highlighted his view of the price drop as a boon for motorists on Monday. “Good for the consumer,” he said on Twitter. “Gasoline prices coming down!”
Good for the consumer, gasoline prices coming down! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 9, 2020
The administration could seek to delay a planned selloff of crude from the U.S. emergency stockpile — dictated by Congress before the current price rout. But otherwise, “it’s not likely he will intervene,” said Rapidan Energy Group’s Leslie Hayward.
The oil industry could benefit from broader relief efforts, pointed out Jim Lucier, of Capital Alpha Partners. “The same sorts of policies that are being considered for aviation may also apply to the oil industry,” he said, such as delays to tax deadlines.
Independent oil producers that are heavily invested in shale without the balance sheets to weather a long-term price dip could benefit the most from any government initiative.
Although the industry has a broad list of standing requests for the administration and Congress — including tariff relief, faster permitting times and more options to drill offshore — those changes wouldn’t yield an immediate cash infusion or provide instant help.
Bradley, the chief policy officer of the Chamber of Commerce, also talked about the possibility of unlocking lending authority for bigger businesses, similar to loans to small businesses that were authorized by Congress in supplemental funding last week.
Travel and Hospitality
The travel industry, which represents sales of about $1.1 trillion annually, has discussed requesting a bigger tax deduction for business entertainment, which was curtailed in Trump’s tax cuts, according to Tori Barnes, executive vice president of public affairs and policy at the U.S. Travel Association, which represents transportation, local attraction sites, tourism bureaus and other parts of the industry.
The industry, which is facing escalating conference cancellations and company travel curbs, has also looked at delaying payroll tax deductions and grants to states and municipalities to support tourism, Barnes said.
Consumer Brands
The Consumer Brands Association is focused on how to ensure products get to consumers if items like face masks, toilet paper, cleaning supplies, canned food and hand sanitizer disappear from store shelves with the spread of the coronavirus.
If access to certain ingredients imported from other countries is restricted, it could have a domino effect that affects the availability for consumers. Procter & Gamble Co. alone has nearly 400 suppliers in China that ship thousands of ingredients that end up in 17,600 different products, according to Jon Moeller, a top executive at the company.
“We can’t play catch-up when disaster strikes,” said Bryan Zumwalt, executive vice president of public affairs for Consumer Brands, whose members include 3M Co., Clorox Co., Procter & Gamble, and Hormel Foods Corp. “The government must be proactive in its supply chain policy.”
The group and some of its members met with Pence at the White House last week and wrote to Attorney General William Barr urging the Justice Department work with federal, state and industry officials to crack down on price gouging on these products.
Barr said Monday that the department “stands ready to make sure that bad actors do not take advantage of emergency response efforts, health-care providers, or the American people during this crucial time.”
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—How coronavirus is affecting the global concert industry
—Coronavirus is mutating: Chinese scientists find second strain
—Some of the most extreme ways companies are combating coronavirus
—How Europe is adapting to the coronavirus outbreak
—China’s box office was supposed to surpass North America’s this year.
—Growing coronavirus threat weighs on Apple
—Nearly half of American travelers are reconsidering their international trips due to coronavirus
Subscribe to Fortune’s Outbreak newsletter for a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on global business.


fortune--2020-03-10--Is a female Veep nominee progress—or window dressing?

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Leadership of the global health system is dominated by men, the NHL gets its first all-female broadcasting crew, and we ponder the significance of a female Veep pick. Have a productive Tuesday.
– No. 2 or no, thanks? When Sen. Elizabeth Warren announced last week that she was withdrawing from the presidential race, the heartbreak felt by a portion of Americans was unmistakable. Many of those mourning were true blue Warren loyalists, of course, but for some the pain was less specifically tied to the Massachusetts senator—and more spurred by the realization that, once again, the hope for a female president had been dashed.
So, what should we make of the Democratic conversation around what the New York Times dubs the “second highest, hardest glass ceiling”—the vice presidency? There’s a lot of talk in the party that no matter which of the two “septuagenarian white men” prevail in landing the nomination, his veep should be a woman, and ideally a black woman.
Both Biden and Sanders have expressed enthusiasm for the idea, so the speculation is on—could it be Kamala Harris? Amy Klobuchar? Stacey Abrams? Even Warren herself?
But not everyone who hopes to eventually see a woman in the White House is so enthused about the idea that the first to do so would be relegated to the No. 2 spot. And at time when part of the electorate is so vocally ready for a break from the string of men who’ve held the Oval Office since—well, since it was built—it’s hard not to see such a pick as something akin to window dressing. As Jennifer Lawless, a professor at the University of Virginia tells the Times: “It’s sort of like an ‘insert woman here’ kind of conversation.”
I’d love to know what all of you make of this. If you have a strong opinion—and I bet some of you do!—drop me an email. We may include your response in a future Broadsheet.
Kristen Bellstrom
kristen.bellstrom@fortune.com
@kayelbee
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Courting Elizabeth. Speaking of Warren, there's an ongoing race between the Biden and Sanders camps to secure her endorsement now that she's ended her own campaign for the Democratic nomination. The outcome is especially hard to predict since polls show her supporters now splitting evenly between Biden and Sanders. Yet the key to winning Warren's backing reportedly comes down to what was so fundamental to her own campaign: Substance. New York Magazine
- Rough patches. An oil slump and coronavirus uncertainty roiled markets yesterday; one especially big loser was Katrina Lake's Stitch Fix, which plunged almost 40% in extended trading after the online styling service slashed its full-year sales and profit forecast. Meanwhile, the coronavirus forced GM to delay the unveiling of its Cadillac Lyriq crossover. Its introduction was supposed to mark the start of GM's all-electric future that CEO Mary Barra has staked so much on. Elsewhere, Bloomberg reports that the buyout of WeWork's share in The Wing knocked the valuation of the female-focused co-working space, from $365 million in 2018 to about $200 million.
- Not healthy. A timely bit of news given the way the coronavirus has put the global health system under a microscope: The leadership of that system is 70% male, finds a new report from University College London. The upper ranks of the health world are also tilted toward rich nations—only 5% of leadership position are occupied by women from low- and middle-income countries, according to the study. The Guardian
- Put to the test. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is funding the project that plans to offer at-home testing kits to people in the Seattle region who suspect they may have been exposed to the coronavirus. It's not yet clear when the testing is expected to start. Seattle Times
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Facebook named two new directors, Estée Lauder CFO Tracey Travis and McKinsey executive Nancy Killefer; the appointments make Facebook's board 40% female. Archana Deskus, SVP and CIO at Intel, has joined the board of Cognizant. Lucinda Newcomb is joining WW as chief product officer. She was previously VP of personalization and discovery at Walmart eCommerce.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
- Ice, ice ladies. On Sunday, International Women's Day, NBC Sports made history by producing the first-ever all-female NHL broadcast, featuring about 30 women, both in front of and behind the camera. Here's how it all went down: ESPN
- Work of art. Elle takes a look at the state of women in the art world—including the female artists, curators, critics and other industry players who should be on our radar. Elle
- Pelosi's picks. Ever wondered what kind of movies Speaker Nancy Pelosi likes to catch in her off hours? This profile will quench that curiosity—and provide a peek into who in the entertainment industry supports Pelosi, and why. Variety
- Trump's gender gap. According to a WSJ/NBC poll, 24% black men say they approve of Trump’s efforts while in office—but the that share drops to 6% among black women. What's with the gender gap? Vox investigates: Vox
ON MY RADAR
TikTok has a pro-anorexia problem Wired
How Shakina Nayfack used her voice to reclaim trans representation in animation L.A. Times
We're not talking to our girls enough about money CNN
Photos: In Mexico, here’s what a day without women looks like Washington Post
PARTING WORDS
"My message to girls is, fight on, little ladies."
-Angelina Jolie


fortune--2020-03-10--Conferences go online amid coronavirus fears—minus the hallway schmoozing

Nearly 200 major conferences, ranging in focus from tech to art to retail, have been canceled or postponed due to the coronavirus, but some of them will still take place online.
Google Cloud Next 2020, scheduled for April 6 to April 8 in San Francisco, will now, instead, be livestreamed. More than 30,000 people attended last year’s installment.
Meanwhile, Collision, another technology conference that is big among start-ups, was to be held in Toronto from June 22 to 25, with 33,000 expected attendees. But it was cancelled last Friday, and will now be held entirely online during the same dates, with speakers and attendees participating from around the world.
“When it comes to tech conferences, I think the challenges are a large portion of attendees are startups,” says Paddy Cosgrave, CEO of Web Summit, the company that organizes Collision. “These are major moments for these companies. If that opportunity goes away entirely, Microsoft and Google are going to be fine, but there are going to be tens of thousands of startups where the next few months are going to be a storm.”
The shift to online comes at a tremendous cost to conferences, such as Web Summit, that make a profit by selling sponsorships and exhibitor floor space to companies, as well as attendee tickets. While conferences are ostensibly about the talks onstage, attendees often really go for the business networking in the hallways.
The challenge with streamed conferences will be making the chit chat possible online. Of course, that’s easier said than done.
“It won’t be a substitute. It will be far from perfect, but the key challenge is networking,” Cosgrave says. “It’s not streaming a talk.”
Streamed conferences aren’t an entirely new concept. For years, a number of companies have made live online video of in-person events available, such as Apple, Google, and Facebook. Fortune also generally streams main stage sessions at its conferences.
The difference this time is the number of conferences that have little choice but to stream, other than entirely cancel. And there is no in-person event to serve as the foundation.
Collision’s ticket holders can view the online conference this year for free and can transfer their paid ticket——admission started at $475—to next year’s conference. They can also ask for a refund between now and up to 30 days after the online conference.
So far, Web Summit says more than 200 of its speakers, including some who couldn’t make the offline conference, have committed to participate in what’s “Collision From Home.”
Meanwhile, some companies like Facebook are going with a hybrid approach to their conferences. Last month, the social networking giant cancelled its annual developer conference, F8, which was to have taken place on May 5 and 6 in San Jose, Calif. Instead, it will be “replaced” by locally hosted events, videos and live-streamed content,” according to a statement from Facebook that provided no additional details.
Other companies are still working on their plans. Google, for instance, has hinted that its now cancelled I/O developer conference, which had been scheduled for May 12 to 14 in Mountain View, Calif., would now be online. It plans to refund the $1,150 ticket price for the thousands of developers who bought them.
“Over the coming weeks, we will explore other ways to evolve Google I/O to best connect with our developer community,” the Google I/O website says.
Apple has not yet said whether it still plans to hold its annual Worldwide Developer Conference. Dates for the conference, which typically takes place in June, have not yet been announced.
Of course, many conferences have simply canceled their events outright without shifting online. Mobile World Congress, the huge mobile trade show in Barcelona, was scuttled in February after big corporate names, such as LG, Sony, and Intel pulled out because of coronavirus. GSMA, the trade group that operates the annual event, said MWC would return to Barcelona next year.
The organizers of SXSW, the annual interactive, music and film festival in Austin, on Friday canceled their event, just two days before more than 70,000 attendees were to gather from March 8 to 17. Like Mobile World Congress, SXSW’s organizers decided against streaming.
But some SXSW attendees are taking things into their own hands by planning to use online video conferencing service Zoom to hold meetings between founders and potential investors, or to share the in-person talks they had planned to give onstage, to an online audience.
“I bet I can also round up a few other investors willing to take some Zoom calls with the abandoned warriors of SXSW 2020,” tweeted Billy Draper, an investor with Draper Associates, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm.
Cosgrave says he thinks the widespread conference cancellations this year will change the future model for technology conferences, with more conferences offering online streaming in the future.
Says Cosgrave, “When we do get this thing under control, it’s just a question of time, I think it is going to create a hybrid future where an increasing number of people will decide to attend conferences online from home or their offices.”
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Researchers found a hole in PayPal’s security. PayPal says it’s no big deal
—For $3, this app will sue data brokers that don’t delete your personal info
—After folding phone screens, get ready for unrolling displays
—Chinese company publishes purported evidence of CIA hacks
—When will PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X debut? With coronavirus, it’s anyone’s guess
Catch up with Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily digest on the business of tech.


fortune--2020-03-10--Where A.I. jobs are exploding in number (it’s not in Silicon Valley)

This is the web version of Eye on A.I., Fortune’s weekly newsletter covering artificial intelligenceand business. To get it delivered weekly to your in-box, sign up here.
William Gibson, the science fiction writer, famously said that the future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed. Well, that’s certainly true of A.I. adoption.
Where are companies seeking employees with machine learning, data science and A.I.-related skills? Within the U.S., the jobs marketplace ZipRecruiter recently found that just four states dominate: California, Washington, New York and Massachusetts. Together, they account for 90% of all ZipRecruiter-advertised jobs that required advanced-A.I. skills, and 60% of all A.I. jobs.
Given that these states host of the headquarters and large branch offices of the FAANG companies, that’s not surprising. But, as the cost of living skyrockets in many of these tech hubs, ZipRecruiter found that the quest for A.I. talent is rapidly picking up steam in five other states: Colorado, Utah, Virginia, Texas and Arizona. The growth in A.I.-related job postings in these states over the past two years was 93%, and nearly three times faster than in the four leading locations.
ZipRecruiter also found some parts of the U.S. where companies seem to be seriously behind in terms of hosting in-house A.I. teams: Mississippi, Alaska, Kentucky, West Virginia and Louisiana. This does not necessarily mean those businesses aren’t using A.I.—but it is probably an indication that if they are doing so, they’re purchasing tech from vendors and consultants, rather than building it on their own.
That’s the U.S. For what’s happening internationally and across industry sectors, CB Insights’ latest AI 100 looked at which A.I.-related startups are doing best. The firm combines indicators of R&D strength, such as patents, with data on funding, existing customers and potential market sizes.
U.S.-based startups dominate the list, accounting for more than half of the 100 companies. Surprisingly, China, despite its A.I. ambitions and much-touted leadership in some areas such as facial recognition, had just four startups in the top 100. (That’s fewer than Canada, which had six. And the U.K. punched well above its population size, with seven.) Some very notable absences from the list: No startups from Australia or New Zealand, none from traditional tech powerhouse South Korea, and just one each from the entire continents of South America and Africa.
CB Insights’ drew from across 15 different industry sectors. It’s striking how crowded some fields were: Healthcare boasted nine of the top 100 and finance and insurance (which were combined into a single category) five. Other sectors, such as real estate and legal, each had just one company on the list.
Given the size of those sectors, I doubt that’s because the market opportunity isn’t there. Instead, it probably suggests industries that are late technology adopters in general.
If you’re thinking of creating an A.I. startup, it might be wise to stake a claim in those relatively wide-open spaces.
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Jeremy Kahn
@jeremyakahn
jeremy.kahn@fortune.com
This story has been updated to clarify that ZipRecruiter is a jobs marketplace, not a hiring firm.
A.I. IN THE NEWS
Clearview A.I. keeps sucking up data and controversy. The New York-based facial recognition startup has been trying to build a database of all U.S. police mugshots taken over the past 15 years, OneZero revealed, citing a company email the publication obtained through public records. Meanwhile, The New York Times reported that before Clearview gained notoriety for its work with law enforcement, its wealthy backers used a secret beta version of its facial recognition app as a private plaything, with one billionaire using the software to investigate the identity of his daughter's date.
London police are using facial recognition, badly. The U.K.'s Metropolitan Police released figures that show its efforts to deploy facial recognition to identify wanted suspects in crowded public spaces has not been working that well, The Register reports. On one day, its system at Oxford Circus, in central London, had an almost 88% false positive rate. On another day, the system broke entirely.
Deezer's A.I. tool could create a copyright nightmare. At least, that's the view of Pitchfork, which wrote about a machine learning tool called Spleeter that can separate each track in a piece of recorded music, essentially reverse-engineering it. The tool, which was created by the streaming service Deezer and released for free late last year, is becoming popular with DJs and others who want to sample just part of a piece of music—say the vocals or the bass line or the drum kick. Pitchfork says that ability, which is known in the music biz as "source separation," is a boon to music historians, archivists and obsessive fans who want to analyze the contribution of a single musician to a given piece. But, the publication argues, it may also cause a huge headache for artists and record labels who will find it even more difficult to guard their intellectual property.
Twitter announces a competition for an A.I. to predict which posts will get ratioed. Twitter has announced $25,000 in prize money for a contest that challenges people to develop an algorithm that can accurately predict how users will respond to a given tweet. The hope is that the winning algorithm will help Twitter develop a new recommendation system, the company said in a blog post. It has made a database of 200 million tweets and responses, all de-identified, available for contestants to train their algorithms on.
Facebook shows off A.I. used to block fake accounts. The social network revealed details of the machine learning system it built to block accounts that violate its terms of service. Facebook's method, which it calls Deep Entity Classification, or DEC, and which I wrote about for Fortune here, creates a statistical image of each users' account. The company says it is now able to remove more than 97% of fake accounts before users flag them for review, and that it has successfully taken down billions of fake accounts since deploying the system over the past two years.
EYE ON A.I. TALENT
Western Digital Corp. has appointed David Goeckeler as its new chief executive officer. He was previously head of Cisco's network and security business.
has appointed as its new chief executive officer. He was previously head of network and security business. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. has hired Gill Haus as head of digital technology for its consumer banking division, Bloomberg News reported. He was previously chief technology officer for enterprise products and platforms at Capital One Financial Corp.
EYE ON A.I. RESEARCH
DeepMind unveils A.I.-generated predictions of protein shapes useful in coronavirus treatment. The London-based artificial intelligence research company, owned by Alphabet, made headlines 18 months ago when its system AlphaFold proved better at predicting the shape of a protein based on its underlying amino acid sequence than any previous software method. Now DeepMind has let loose an updated version of the algorithm on the six proteins associated with SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
Knowing those shapes is an important step towards developing possible drug treatments for the disease. DeepMind said it used AlphaFold to target proteins that had not previously received much attention and might point to new drug development avenues.
When AlphaFold won 2018's Critical Assessment of Structure Prediction 13 (CASP 13) competition, a big biennial contest for software that can accurately predict how a protein will fold, it did so with an accuracy of around 58% (the next best software only had an accuracy of 7%.) So AlphaFold isn't perfect—and DeepMind has warned that its folding predictions for SARS-CoV-2's proteins have not been confirmed. The company said, however, that it tried AlphaFold on one protein associated with SARS-CoV-2 whose shape has already been experimentally verified and mapped—and the algorithm accurately predicted that pattern. This gives researchers confidence AlphaFold's predictions for other proteins associated with the virus stand a good chance of being accurate as well.
FORTUNE ON A.I.
What is Clearview AI and why is it raising so many privacy red flags?—by Alyssa Newcomb
Meet the A.I. that helped Facebook remove billions of fake accounts—Jeremy Kahn
Exclusive: For $3, a ‘robot lawyer’ will sue data brokers that don’t delete your personal and location info—Jeff John Roberts
Connected vehicles will make our roads safer—but only with regulators’ help—Michael Moskowitz
Some of these stories require a subscription to access. Thank you for supporting our journalism.
BRAIN FOOD
An artist uses A.I. to prove we're all just a little bit racist. London-based video artist Karen Palmer has teamed up with computer scientists from the city's Brunel University, social scientists from New York University and developers at the research lab ThoughtWorks Arts for a video project called Perception iO that uses a tool to analyze viewers' faces for four emotions: anger, fear, surprise and calm. The project is currently on display at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City.
The film places the viewer in the role of a police officer facing a number of tense situations. The initial set up of the film is random: The viewer sees either a white or black actor portraying either someone committing a crime or suffering from a serious mental health issue. As the viewer watches the scenario, a camera pointing towards their face tracks eye movements and feeds facial expressions through the algorithm. How the narrative of the film plays out depends on where the viewer's gaze goes and which emotions they express—emotions that may reveal unconscious prejudices. Palmer wants people to confront their own biases as well as the privacy implications of increasingly ubiquitous facial and emotion-detection systems. (She has made of the source code of her emotion detection A.I. EmoPy freely available for others to use.)
The project sounds cool and I'm looking forward to checking it out if it makes it back over to London. This type of ultra-personalized filmmaking may one day go mainstream. One drawback about the technology, though: If none of us can ever see the same exact film, what will happen to our water cooler conversations about the latest Netflix series? (O.K., all you philosophy and critical-lit majors: Yes, I know we already never see the same film—we are all prisoners of our own subjective experience. But with a unified plot, it is somewhat easier to bridge those subjectivities through dialogue.)


fortune--2020-03-12--Here’s how to get a refund on your Broadway tickets after coronavirus shut down

Why Dollar General thinks coronavirus can help business

In the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, all Broadway theaters and Off-Broadway shows in New York City will be shut down from March 12 to April 12. The move comes as part of a directive by New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo to end all gatherings of more than 500 people, citing health concerns.
The natural question for many who purchased seats within that month-long span is whether Broadway tickets will be refunded. The answer in most cases appears to be yes.
For those who purchased tickets through the Broadway.com website, the site’s telephone hotline says the ticketing service center will reach out to ticket holders for refunds in order of performance date. The hotline adds that customers can expect to hear from a representative within five to seven days of the scheduled ticketed performance.
The Broadway League, the national trade association for the Broadway industry, said ticket holders should contact their point of purchase for refunds and exchanges. Each Broadway show’s official ticketing service is either Ticketmaster or Telecharge.
The Theatre Development Fund, or TDF, which offers discounted tickets through its popular TKTS booth, said in a tweet that refunds will be issued automatically to the credit card of purchase.
Broadway theatres are suspending performances through April 12. TDF will automatically issue refunds for canceled performances. Refunds may take a few days to appear on your credit card. https://t.co/136585w0BF — TDF (@TDFNYC) March 12, 2020
BroadwayBox, another popular ticket service, also said it would contact ticket holders by order of performance date. Customers can expect to hear from the service with within five to seven days of the scheduled ticketing date.
Some customers may have purchased tickets through resale sites such as StubHub. In a statement to Fortune, StubHub said that it was monitoring the coronavirus, or COVID-19, and its “policy is to provide a full refund with fees if an event is canceled.
“In addition, given the current environment, if an event is canceled, customers can opt to receive a StubHub coupon valued at 120% of the original purchase,” the statement continued. “This coupon can be applied toward a future event of their choosing.”
Other popular Broadway services such as TodayTix said they would be in touch with customers soon with next steps and polices.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—How coronavirus is affecting the global concert industry
—Politicians around the world are going into quarantine
—Some of the most extreme ways companies are combating coronavirus
—How Europe is adapting to the coronavirus outbreak
—What Xi Jinping’s visit to Wuhan says about China’s coronavirus recovery
—Conferences go online amid coronavirus fears—minus the hallway schmoozing
—Coronavirus may not be all bad for tech. Consider the “stay at home” stocks
Subscribe to Fortune’s Outbreak newsletter for a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on global business.


fortune--2020-03-12--Live Nation postpones all large shows due to coronavirus

Here ’ s how to get a refund on your Broadway tickets after coronavirus shut down

All large-scale live entertainment events scheduled through the end of March should be postponed due to the spreading coronavirus, a task force of some of the industry’s biggest companies said Thursday.
The group includes top executives from Live Nation Entertainment Inc., Anschutz Entertainment Group Inc., Creative Artists Agency, William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, Paradigm Talent Agency and United Talent Agency.
“At this time, we collectively recommend large-scale events through the end of March be postponed,” the group said in a statement. “We continue to support that small-scale events follow guidance set by their local government officials.”
Anschutz had already postponed to October its massive Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, which was slated for April.
Live Nation’s shares were down 19% to $33.96 at 3:24 p.m. in New York, having lost as much as 24% earlier in the session.
Billboard magazine reported Live Nation’s suspension of arena tours earlier Thursday.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—How coronavirus is affecting the global concert industry, including SXSW
—China’s box office was supposed to surpass North America’s. Then came coronavirus
—‘Emma.’ star and director on updating Jane Austen’s text through blood and tears
—Pamela Adlon wants you to know she has your back
—Content is king: Inside Netflix’s streaming wars strategy
Follow Fortune on Flipboard to stay up-to-date on the latest news and analysis.


fortune--2020-03-12--Why Dollar General thinks coronavirus can help business

On a day of market turmoil thanks to growing anxiety about the impact of the coronavirus on the U.S. economy, Dollar General says the push for social distancing during the outbreak will likely boost its business.
The discount chain, with 16,278 stores in rural and suburban America, on Thursday reported its 30th straight year of comparable sales growth, and gave a bullish revenue forecast for 2020. Dollar General has added about 1,000 stores annually over the last few years. The company, which took in revenue of $27.8 billion in 2019, expects net sales growth of 7.5% to 8% in 2020, as well as an increase of 2.5% to 3% for comparable sales, which exclude new or recently closed stores.
Meanwhile, in afternoon trading, the S&P 500 was down 8% on fears of what the coronavirus, and the efforts to contain it, would do to consumer spending.
But Dollar General executives told Wall Street that the proximity of its small stores (typically 7,000-square-feet in size) to many shoppers, would be attractive for those looking to drive less and practice social distancing by avoiding large, crowded stores. CEO Todd Vasos, who expressed sympathy for people grappling with the outbreak, said that 75% of Americans live within seven miles of a Dollar General. The chain’s secret sauce has long been to situate small stores close to shoppers and stock the shelves with a wide array of products in a limited number of sizes, all at very low prices.
Some 57% of Dollar General’s clientele live in households with income of less than $49,900, according to 2019 data from research firm Kantar, and 30% get by on less than $25,000.
“We’re a small box shop close to your home,” Vasos said. “They just don’t want to travel to the big box [stores],” he added, predicting that “we’ll get our fair share” of spending from such customers during this crisis and beyond if the economy slows.
If that plays out, it would be a repeat of consumers’ reactions both during and right after 2008’s Great Recession when people sought out the very low prices of dollar stores, and shopped closer to home to save on gas. Dollar General was one of that period’s big winners, stealing market share from Walmart. While just about doubling its store count in the last decade, Dollar General has held on to much of those market share gains, remaining one of the fastest growing retailers.
Executives downplayed concerns about remaining fully stocked in a time of strain on its supply chain. Vasos allowed that there could be delays on some items originating in China but said Dollar General has a diversified set of vendors that mitigate the issue.
Despite all the uncertainty still swirling around the economy, Dollar General’s finance chief John Garratt said he did not expect the pandemic to have a “material impact on our business or fiscal 2020 financial results.” Competitors such as Walmart and Target have not quantified the potential impact of their business but allowed there is likely to be one.
Still, many retailers like Dollar General that sell staples and essentials have seen an increase in business this month with consumers buying up cleaning products, food, and other essentials. Costco stores have been mobbed, and Target’s chief executive Brian Cornell said last week there had been some “aggressive shopping” at some of his stores.
Still, Garratt cautioned analysts against seeing too much of a boon in such visits to Dollar General, suggesting some of it is just sales being brought forward. “Like most stock-ups, there’s always a backside to this,” he said.
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fortune--2020-03-12--A.I. startup accuses Facebook of stealing its software

An artificial intelligence startup has accused Facebook of stealing its software and reusing it in its own A.I. projects.
Neural Magic said in lawsuit filed last week that a former employee, Aleksandar Zlateski, took trade secrets to Facebook when he joined the social networking giant in July 2019.
The startup claims that its stolen technology helps researchers build neural networks—software used in deep learning projects—that can work more efficiently with standard computer processors, or CPUs. Neural Magic alleged that Facebook has since used the startup’s confidential software in its own A.I. projects and has published some of the technology “publicly and for free” on the popular developer service GitHub.
“Neural Magic is the owner of trade secrets that Aleksandar Zlateski and Facebook misappropriated and are now using and disclosing,” the lawsuit said.
In addition to Facebook, Neural Magic has sued Zlateski for allegedly violating his non-disclosure agreements. Neural Magic said it contacted both Facebook and Zlateski to remove its trade secrets from GitHub in Jan. 2020, but the company and the employee have refused to do so.
“Zlateski could disclose (and on information and belief has disclosed) even more to Facebook, for use internally or in future open source releases,” the lawsuit said, “Those continued disclosures would further damage Neural Magic’s business and market opportunities.”
Neural Magic, based in Somerville, Mass., seeks unspecified damages from Facebook and an “injunction against Zlateski and Facebook prohibiting any further use of Neural Magic’s trade secrets.”
A Neural Magic spokesperson told Fortune in an email that it does “not comment on active litigation.”
Facebook declined to comment about the lawsuit.
Neural Magic has raised $20 million from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, New Enterprise Associates, and Pillar VC, according to deal-tracking service PitchBook.
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fortune--2020-03-12--Dow plummets 10%, the biggest one-day drop since 1987’s Black Monday

It’s a bear market out there.
Both the Dow and the S&P 500 accelerated losses on Thursday, closing down roughly 10% and 9% respectively. The S&P 500 joined the Dow in bear market territory, after the latter finally broke the 11-year bull run on Wednesday. For the Dow, it was the biggest one-day drop since March 1987.
To Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Financial, “It is a market … that is screaming out for help.”
Markets anxiously awaited news of new fiscal stimulus to be announced during President Trump’s speech on coronavirus on Wednesday night, but were disappointed with a lack of detail—sending futures (and, the next day, stocks) plunging. “The market wanted—it needed—more specifics,” says Krosby.
Although President Trump has hinted at wanting to implement a 0% payroll tax to help soothe worries, no sweeping fiscal measures have been announced as of Thursday. And despite an announcement from the Fed midday on Thursday that it would increase its overnight funding operations to over $500 billion, markets were only briefly optimistic.
In fact, until markets have evidence of “more viable, targeted help” in the form of both fiscal and monetary policy, Krosby contends, we’re going to continue to see sell-offs.
That sell-off could easily extend to 30%, says Mark Hamrick, Bankrate.com’s senior economic analyst. He still isn’t suggesting a recession is likely, but notes that “we still haven’t seen every aspect of this Pandora’s Box unloaded.”
In Europe, markets nearly hit record sell-offs, as the FTSE 100 dropped nearly 10.9%, its second-largest decline, behind October 20, 1987. The STOXX 50 plunged a record 11.5% on Thursday, and the STOXX 600 followed suit with a record 11%.
Many companies have been quick to announce how coronavirus might impact earnings, but the bigger question on analysts’ minds are if we are going to start seeing layoffs.
Norwegian Air announced Thursday that on top of suspending over 4,000 flights, the company will lay off employees—up to 50% of its workforce temporarily—the airline said in a statement.
Another central worry is if and when the economic fallout hits the consumer.
“Consumers sitting at home and not out spending money because they fear catching the coronavirus is the ultimate negative outcome,” writes Scott Wren, senior global market strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute. And as the support-system of the economy currently, the consumer problem is a big one.
That could trickle into the housing market too, Krosby suggests, as fear over having a job or not may make some would-be homeowners rethink buying now.
As things stand, GDP is expected to decline by 4% annualized in the 2nd quarter, writes Andrew Hunter, senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics. To wit, per a Fortune Analytics poll Thursday, 75% of Americans are worried coronavirus will hurt the economy.
“It is positive that we came in, in essence, with our economic immune system strong, and that’s what’s holding us right now,” Prudential’s Krosby suggests.
On the bear market front, there have only been two bear markets without a recession, in 1962 and 1987, and in both cases, the drop was dramatic but short, Brad McMillan, chief investment officer at Commonwealth Financial Network, wrote in a note. A “reason for cautious optimism is that, so far, the fear we see in the markets has not translated to the economy itself,” highlighting good hiring and confidence numbers last month, McMillan notes.
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fortune--2020-03-12--Juul co-founder James Monsees steps down as adviser, board member

Juul Labs Inc. co-founder James Monsees plans to leave the e-cigarette maker, stepping down as an adviser and board member, the company said in an email to employees on Thursday.
Monsees and Adam Bowen created Juul after working together on their graduate thesis at Stanford University in 2005. The two designed what has become the most successful e-cigarette in the U.S., but it has generated controversy over the potential health risks of vaping and teen use of such products.
“Building this company alongside all of you has been the single most rewarding experience of my career and perhaps my life,” Monsees said in an email to Juul employees, adding that he was recently married and is looking forward to spending more time with his family and pursuing other interests.
Juul’s enormous popularity with young people has embroiled the San Francisco-based company in scrutiny from parents and lawmakers. The company is the target of lawsuits from school districts and state Attorneys General, as well as numerous federal investigations. Juul has said it never targeted minors in its marketing and is committed to gaining authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its products.
The company in September hired K.C. Crosthwaite, a longtime executive at tobacco giant Altria Group Inc., to take over as chief executive officer. Altria made a $13 billion investment in Juul that it has subsequently marked down in value by roughly two-thirds.
Crosthwaite praised Monsees in an email to employees.
“As one of our founders, James was fundamental in the creation of this company and instrumental in building this company from the ground up,” Crosthwaite said.
Monsees, who had previously been Juul’s chief product officer, was moved to a newly formed founders office with Bowen in October. Bowen remains at the company.
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fortune--2020-03-12--The U.K.’s coronavirus plan focuses on delaying the peak of the outbreak

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Countries across Europe have closed schools, cancelled events, curtailed transport, and quarantined entire cities and regions in response to the coronavirus pandemic. But one European nation has stood apart: Great Britain.
The U.K. has so far not imposed any wide-scale infection-mitigation policies, despite the number of confirmed infections spiking by at least 30% every day. The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country now stands at 590, with 10 deaths. That’s about half the number of infections confirmed in the U.S. so far, but in a country with a population one-fifth the size.
Until Thursday, the U.K. had officially been on the government’s “Phase One,” response level, which it defines as “containment.” On Thursday evening, Prime Minister Boris Johnson moved the country to “Phase Two,” in which measures are taken to try to delay the peak of the outbreak. His actions have divided health experts, with several prominent experts criticizing the government for doing too little, too late.
The government strategy, Johnson says, is to shift the period in which the greatest number of U.K. COVID-19 infections occur later into the spring, when officials believe the government’s National Health Service will be less overwhelmed with other seasonal ailments and more able to cope with a flood of coronavirus victims. It is also hoped warmer weather may slow the contagion.
‘The right thing, at the right time’
As part of this new phase, Johnson urged people who have a cough or fever, even if mild, to stay home for seven days and advised people over 70 years old to refrain from taking cruises.
But the government has refrained from mandating school closures, recommending the cancellation of large events, the quarantining of entire households, or travel restrictions, which many other European countries have imposed. In fact, Johnson’s chief medical adviser suggested some of those measures might even be counterproductive at this stage of the outbreak.
On Thursday, the prime minister of Ireland—which currently has 61 cases—said he would close schools, and Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said she had recommended the Scottish government ban all gatherings with more than 500 people. Scotland currently has 60 cases, which are counted as part of the overall U.K. tally. (Johnson says Scotland’s police and ambulance services are more stretched than elsewhere in the U.K., which justified Scotland’s decision.)
“At all stages, we have been guided by science,” said Johnson. “We will do the right thing, at the right time.”
Chris Whitty, the country’s chief medical officer, said the risk was that the government would impose restrictions and cancellations too early—before the infection rate is near its peak. With that peak period still an estimated 10 to 14 weeks away, according to Whitty, people may not be able to bear draconian restrictions for long enough to be effective. Whitty said the early imposition of social distancing would risk self-isolation burnout right when such measures would really be necessary to counter the predicted peak of the infection.
“If people go [into isolation] too early, they get very fatigued, [and] this is going to be a long haul,” Whitty said. “We’re asking people to do something that will interfere with their lives, and social lives, in quite a serious way.”
Those restrictions on the British public would eventually arrive, he and the Prime Minister said.
Proportionate—or dangerous?
During their press conference with Johnson, Whitty and the U.K.’s chief scientific advisor, Patrick Vallance, who is also a medical doctor, said they were looking at behavioral science about what social distancing measure people will actually follow, and for how long, as well as medical information about COVID-19 and how infectious it is.
Whitty, for instance, said that evidence showed that most people will infect only between two and three other people, most often people they live with, and that the disease was more likely to spread in indoor environments. He said as a result, cancelling sporting events, for instance, might be counterproductive, since it would just mean people would stay home and spread the infection there.
The announcement immediately drew a mixed response from experts, with some calling the approach proportionate and others saying that it was likely to be a strategy of too little, too late.
“This is a balanced and measured response. They have clearly come to a different strategy to some other European countries about what to do,” said Jimmy Whitworth, professor of international public health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. “The strategy clearly is going to be flexible and to adapt over time as the circumstances change.”
But Devi Sridhar, a professor of global health at the University of Edinburgh, warned on Twitter of “complacency” within the NHS about the threat of the virus. Criticizing Whitty’s and Vallance’s reliance on modeling—essentially complex simulations—of how COVID-19 might spread in the U.K., she said “models are useful but they’re also often wrong. Just look at E Asian countries to see how models can be proved wrong.”
It is unclear if the fact that the U.K. had still been in the “contain” phase, or its government’s less aggressive response, played any role in U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to exempt the U.K. from the 30-day travel ban he announced Wednesday on visitors coming from 26 other European nations. Some have suggested that Trump left the U.K. off the list mostly because he has business interests in the country. The White House did not immediately respond to requests for further information on its rationale for exempting Britain for the travel restrictions.
Johnson’s press conference was the Prime Minister’s latest effort to defend a policy that has come under increasing attack, as public calls for a more active response, including cancellations and school closures, has grown.
‘Five day game of cricket’
That approach has provoked heated responses and ridicule on Twitter, with some comparing it to a famous sketch in the comedy television program “Yes, Minister,” about inept government officials. But the government’s position has also drawn increasingly harsh criticism from scientists and health experts.
John Ashton, a former regional director for public health for the northwest of England, told the Guardian that Johnson’s administration was not being transparent and that its coronavirus strategy was weeks behind. He accused the government of behaving “like 19th-century colonialists playing a five-day game of cricket,” a sport known for its languid pace and afternoon tea breaks.
Richard Horton, the medical doctor who serves as editor of the prestigious medical journal The Lancet, was equally scathing, writing on Twitter following the Prime Minister’s latest press conference, “The UK is on the edge of an avoidable calamity. In addition to deaths preventable by more aggressive government action, it will be health workers who absorb the brunt of government complacency.” Horton noted that in the Lombardy region of Italy some 20% of healthcare workers have been infected and that “some have died.”
In a tweet on Wednesday, Horton had lambasted the government for their claim to be “following the science.” “That is not true,” Horton wrote. “The evidence is clear. We need urgent implementation of social distancing and closure policies. The government is playing roulette with the public. This is a major error.”
As of press time, the U.K. Department of Health and Social Care, which Hancock heads, had not responded to requests for further information on what scientific evidence the government has relied on in choosing to defer more rigorous social distancing policies.
Martin Hibberd, professor of emerging infectious disease at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, says the U.K. response has “clearly not been sufficient” as the number of cases continues to climb.
But he also said that if the government’s intention was simply to push the peak period of infection further into the summer, as opposed to severely reducing the number of people who are ultimately infected, then it might work. “If the aim is simply to delay the peak of the outbreak till the summer, then perhaps the UK response is enough,” he says.
Hibberd, however, also says that the strict quarantines imposed by countries such as China and Italy are “not an easy path,” and that the U.K. might be better off mimicking the approach of Singapore: rapid tracking and testing of potential cases, paired with social distancing methods that stop short of full-on regional “lock downs” and school closures.
Charlotte Edwards, a professor at University College London’s Institute of Clinical Trials and Methodology, says that the evidence on school closures for fighting outbreaks is also somewhat mixed.
While there is evidence with flu outbreaks, she says, that reducing children’s contact with one another reduces transmissions, a lot depends on how much children continue to associate with other kids. During a prolonged school closure, children might still wind up playing with other children.
In addition, school closures place an additional childcare burden on parents, some of whom may be unable to miss work, and also mean that some poorer children miss out on school meals, she says.
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fortune--2020-03-12--Despite fears of gridlock, Internet is holding up under coronavirus strain

Big telecommunications companies say there has been no surge in Internet traffic, countering concerns that employees and students forced to work from home due to the novel coronavirus outbreak would cause online gridlock.
Verizon, which runs both wired and wireless networks, said it had not seen a “measurable increase in data usage” since the outbreak but that it was prepared to handle potential increases. “Verizon operates its networks every day as though it’s a snow day,” Kyle Malady, Verizon’s chief technology officer, said in a statement. “While it is not clear yet how having millions of additional people working from home will impact usage patterns, we are ready to address changes in demand, if needed.”
Meanwhile, AT&T said it has actually seen reduced demand at some wireless cell sites in cities where the coronavirus outbreak has had the largest impact. Overall, AT&T said its network “continues to perform well.”
Over the past few days, many large U.S. companies and universities have closed their buildings and asked people to work remotely. This week, for example, Google, Facebook, and Amazon announced that most workers should stop coming into the office.
The shift, including the possibility of millions of people using video streaming for meetings and classes, prompted Federal Communications Commission commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, among others, to raise concerns. The Internet, they feared, could become congested, making it impossible for some people to get any work done. They also worried that some people didn’t have adequate connectivity even before the outbreak.
So far, at least, congestion problems have not appeared.
Longer term, Verizon told Wall Street on Thursday that it would spend $17.5 billion to $18.5 billion this year on improving its network, a $500 million increase in the target range due to possible demand from the huge at-home workforce. AT&T, in contrast, has announced no changes to its $20 billion capital spending plan for 2020.
AT&T has also taken steps to deal with its own workforce, encouraging employees in New York, San Francisco, and some other areas to work from home. The carrier also said it would give paid time off to any workers experiencing Covid-19 symptoms, who are in self-quarantine, who recently returned from an at-risk country, or who are caring for children affected by the outbreak.
The outbreak of Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, has already infected almost 1,200 Americans, according to the U.S. government, though experts says many more are likely carrying the virus but have not been tested yet.
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