fortune--2020-04-28--Scammers have registered 150,000 fake stimulus check websites. Here’s how to protect yourself

Eager to get your stimulus check? You aren’t the only one, apparently.
According to Bolster, an online security firm, there has been a dramatic spike in the number of websites trying to steal data or provide misinformation to consumers. Bolster reports more than 150,000 suspicious stimulus check related domains.
This comes amid a broader backdrop of heightened worry about coronavirus-related scams. Overall, Bolster says the number of phishing sites has spiked 235% during the COVID-19 pandemic, and is updating the number via its tracker. “The broader COVID-19 scam and suspicious domain explosion is the largest topic-oriented phishing spike that we’ve ever seen,” says Abhishek Dubey, CEO of Bolster, who previously ran machine learning and security research teams at Cisco, and whose company now counts Uber and DropBox as clients, according to their website.
Here’s how the stimulus scam generally works. Fraudsters create a copy of the IRS’s official “Get My Payment” site. When a user goes to Google to search for the real stimulus check tracker, then might instead be lured to a fake site. If they input their information, “scammers can then use the newly acquired credentials to try to beat the victim to their stimulus check,” says Bolster. Then they can input another bank account to received the money, or just use your personal information for identity theft.
Below, Bolster’s CEO recommends a few steps to protect yourself:
Notice SSL certificates (the lock in the address bar) , check the URL, and be cognizant of what you clicked to get to that page. If the site doesn’t have an SSL certificate (the lock in the address bar of your web browser), then you can’t be sure your information is going to where the address bar says it’s going to.
, check the URL, and be cognizant of what you clicked to get to that page. If the site doesn’t have an SSL certificate (the lock in the address bar of your web browser), then you can’t be sure your information is going to where the address bar says it’s going to. Check the URL to make sure that the domain is legitimate. If the URL doesn’t end in ‘irs.gov’ before the URL path (all the characters after the first slash), then it is a fake site. Scammers might try to make the URL look real by starting it with a familiar phrase like irs.gov.scam.site.com, but that would be a counterfeit site.
If the URL doesn’t end in ‘irs.gov’ before the URL path (all the characters after the first slash), then it is a fake site. Scammers might try to make the URL look real by starting it with a familiar phrase like irs.gov.scam.site.com, but that would be a counterfeit site. Finally, don’t forget how you got to a page. If the link was sent to you via text or email, then there’s a higher chance it is fake. Find the real IRS.gov website and navigate to the ‘Get My Payment’ app, using IRS site navigation. This way you can be sure that your information is going to the IRS and not to a scammer.
According to a release on the IRS website, the “IRS Criminal Investigation is actively working to combat scam artists trying to exploit Economic Impact Payments and other provisions related to coronavirus. So far, the scams CI has already seen look to prey on vulnerable taxpayers who are unaware of how the payments will reach them. IRS CI is prioritizing these types of investigations to help protect taxpayers and the tax system.”
In addition, the “IRS will not call, email or text anyone about Economic Impact Payments. These are impersonation scams by thieves seeking to steal bank account or other sensitive data.” The agency asks that all suspicious emails be reported to phishing@irs.gov.
The IRS also noted that it had upgraded its Get My Payment portal over the weekend, so anyone who had previously received a “status not available” message should check back again. The agency added that data is added once a week, overnight, so there is no need to check more frequently than that.
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fortune--2020-04-28--Two CEOs offer a master class in crisis innovation during the coronavirus pandemic

Boneless chicken is first to go scarce as coronavirus hits U.S. meat supply

This is the web version of raceAhead, Fortune’s daily newsletter on race, culture, and inclusive leadership. To get it delivered daily to your inbox, sign up here.
Like it or not, we live in a time of crisis innovation.
I wanted to take a moment to share two inspiring coronavirus-related business stories about CEOs who found a way to quickly retool their operations to provide medical and personal protective equipment for communities battling the coronavirus. Both were master classes in planning, creativity, and mission-driven boldness.
I interviewed KR Sridhar, the CEO of Bloom Energy, and Jane Mosbacher Morris, the founder and CEO of To The Market for Leadership Next, Fortune CEO Alan Murray’s podcast on the changing rules of business leadership.
Both were already working on noble missions. Bloom Energy creates state-of-the-art fuel cells, for hospitals and similar institutions. To The Market is a unique for-profit social enterprise that connects buyers—many of whom are corporate—with sewn goods made by a global network of small manufacturers, typically women, who often come from vulnerable and underserved communities, or who have overcome terrible things—like conflict, trafficking, and yes, epidemics.
Sridhar said that he realized pretty quickly that hospital ventilators are similar to fuel cells, sharing key components like fans and hoses. What I didn’t realize was that there were hundreds of expired or broken units sitting around that simply needed expert refurbishment to be viable again. So, with a mission in mind and a granular focus on rapid learning, the company was able to safely deploy employees to update the desperately needed ventilators while maintaining their basic operations.
Bloom had refurbished 1,200 ventilators at the time of the interview, but it is capable of refurbishing around 2,000 per week in its East and West Coast facilities. And best of all, Sridar is working a plan to make existing ventilators more efficient and available.
In early March, Mosbacher Morris put out a request-for-proposals to her network of To The Market makers, and dozens responded. Barely 30 days later, shipments of three-ply FDA-certified face masks, isolation gowns, and scrubs—the personal protective equipment known as PPE—came rolling in, shipped to increasingly desperate medical systems across the U.S.
The company has received orders for over 2 million units of PPE, and at the time of the interview, had already delivered 1.1 million. The move earned Mosbacher Morris a place on Fortune’s 2020 World’s 25 Greatest Leaders list.
It was the feel-good boost I certainly needed. If you feel so inclined, please give a listen and subscribe—the story is even more interesting coming from them. And, I’ll try to keep the inspiration coming.
Ellen McGirt
@ellmcgirt
Ellen.McGirt@fortune.com
On point
Minority and women-led small businesses appear to be shut out of the Paycheck Protection Program The problems appear to be many, but some of the most desperate small business owners were either technically ineligible or found that the funds were depleted by the time their applications were processed. “Based on how the program is structured, we estimate that upwards of 90% of businesses owned by people of color have been or will likely be, shut out of the Paycheck Protection Program," said Ashley Harrington, speaking on behalf of the non-profit Center for Responsible Lending. Many banks administering the program are only issued the low-interest, forgivable loans to existing clients, who are less likely to be women or entrepreneurs of color.
CBS News
An education grant program for incarcerated people gets a much-needed boost On Friday, the Department of Education expanded the Second Chance Pell Experimental Sites initiative, an Obama-era program which offers need-based Pell grants for people incarcerated in state or federal prison. Currently, 63 colleges offer programs in 26 states; the expansion will bring the total number to 130 colleges in 42 states and the District of Columbia. The participating colleges offer a wide arrange of certificate and degree programs, and some 10,000 students received grants through June 2019. More about the announcement here. The Vera Institute of Justice, a non-profit focused on criminal justice reform partners with participating schools and corrections facilities, has analyzed three years of data from 60 of the participating colleges below.
Vera
Call centers are now hiring people with disabilities who are used to working from home The transition has been chaotic, reports the New York Times, with companies hustling to get new employees the equipment and training they need to get to work. The pandemic is also revealing other issues—existing workers, who make about $35,000 a year, often can’t afford high-speed internet at home. But making people go to the office has a dangerous cost: Some 230 Charter Communications call center employees tested positive for COVID-19.
New York Times
Coronavirus in the community
Homeless and hungry college students are uniquely vulnerable to the disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Wealth will not save us: Prince George’s County in Virginia, one of the most affluent majority-Black communities, is being “ravaged” by the coronavirus.
A leading ER doctor, overcome by the impacts of the pandemic on her hospital, dies by suicide.
Re-opening the U.S too soon is racist.
Parents of kids with autism or other developmental delays are becoming DIY occupational therapists.
On background
We know that Black and brown communities are hit the hardest by the coronavirus. Now what? This is the question posed by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, an author and assistant professor in African American studies at Princeton, writing in The New Yorker. She ticks through the growing, disproportionate death toll, then dispatches the chilling argument that Black folks have pre-existing conditions. “Racism in the shadow of American slavery has diminished almost all of the life chances of African-Americans,” says Taylor. “Black people are poorer, more likely to be underemployed, condemned to substandard housing, and given inferior health care because of their race.” It’s time to build on the points to small efforts from state and local governments (that were options all along) – suspending arrests for minor offenses, halting evictions and foreclosures, keeping utilities on. “One cannot continue to decry the rising rates of black death while preparing to change not a single thing about our failing political and economic systems,” she writes. Taylor is also the author of Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership.
The New Yorker
All praise queer (virtual) AA Followers of the wonderful writer Britni de la Cretaz will be familiar with some of her story, but her essay on the unique lifeline that queer AA meetings offer is a wonderful snapshot of how intersectionality literally saves lives. “Though I was sober for many years before I discovered queer meetings," she writes. "When I finally did, they were a game-changer for me." Sure, pronouns are exchanged, materials are re-worked to be more inclusive, but it’s really about allowing people to be holistically authentic. “It was the first place where I felt that I could merge the entirety of who I was, instead of siloing it: I used to have my queer community and my recovery community, and those two things were separate.”
Self
A fashionable way to raise awareness of acid attacks on girls and women Pre-pandemic, the number of acid attacks on women had been on the increase in the U.K., a nod to a toxic male culture that reacts violently to even simple affronts, like declining an offer to date. (It’s worth noting that men are also victims of acid attacks.) To show support, a group of acid attack survivors from Bangladesh flew to London in 2016 to show help new survivors reclaim their dignity. How? They had a fashion show. Enjoy.
Vice
Tamara El-Waylly produces raceAhead and manages the op-ed program.
The big number
0
That’s the number of Puerto Ricans who have received their stimulus checks, according to Carmen Yulin Cruz, the mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Reminder: Puerto Ricans are American citizens.
Today's mood board
The family business
Updates from members of the raceAhead community.


fortune--2020-04-28--Streaming films that didn’t have a theatrical run will be eligible for the Oscars this year

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Movies that debuted on a streaming service without a theatrical run will be eligible for the Oscars, but only this year.
The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences on Tuesday announced the change for the 93rd Academy Awards as a response to how the coronavirus pandemic has impacted the film industry.
The film academy also said it will condense the two sound categories into one and prohibit DVD screeners for 2022’s 94th Oscars in an effort to become more carbon neutral.
The question of eligibility has been a major question since stay at home and social distancing orders led to both the cancellation of major film festivals and the closure of movie theaters. Previously, a film would have to have a minimum seven-day theatrical run in a Los Angeles County commercial theater in order to be Oscar eligible. Now films that had a previously planned theatrical release but are made available on a home video on demand service may qualify for best picture and other categories.
“The Academy firmly believes there is no greater way to experience the magic of movies than to see them in a theater. Our commitment to that is unchanged and unwavering,” said Academy President David Rubin and CEO Dawn Hudson in a statement. “Nonetheless, the historically tragic COVID-19 pandemic necessitates this temporary exception to our awards eligibility rules.”
The 93rd Academy Awards are scheduled to be held in Los Angeles on Feb. 28, 2021.
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More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Mike Schur talks Parks and Recreation coronavirus episode
—Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is coming to Disney+ two months early
—Ricky Gervais on releasing After Life season two in a global pandemic
—Chris Hemsworth calls Extraction the “most exhausting” shoot of his career
—Hollywood artists are creating PPE for the medical community
Follow Fortune on Flipboard to stay up-to-date on the latest news and analysis.


fortune--2020-04-28--Mike Schur talks ‘Parks and Recreation’ coronavirus episode—and why remote TV production isn’t the f

Mike Schur talks ‘Parks and Recreation’ coronavirus episode—and why remote TV production isn’t the future

Alphabet ’ s shares jump 8 % after the coronavirus impact is less than feared

When A Parks and Recreation Special airs Thursday night on NBC, it will remain just that—a special one-off episode that’s unlikely to lead to a series reboot.
“This felt like a moment in time and a cause that we could all rally behind and that made sense,” said executive producer Mike Schur in a call with reporters Tuesday. “Parks and Rec [in its original run from 2009 to 2015] had a very specific subject to discuss and a very specific point to make.”
“When it ended, Amy [Poehler] and I used to talk a lot about this, like we felt like we made our point,” he continued. “I don’t see the point of rebooting a show…just to do it.”
The “Parks and Recreation” cast during season seven (from left): Chris Pratt as Andy Dwyer, Aubrey Plaza as April Ludgate, Retta as Donna Meagle, Rashida Jones as Ann Perkins, Nick Offerman as Ron Swanson, Aziz Ansari as Tom Haverford, Rob Lowe as Chris Traeger, Amy Poehler as Leslie Knope, Adam Scott as Ben Wyatt, and Jim O’Heir as Garry Gergich. Colleen Hayes—NBCU Photo Bank, NBCUniversal via Getty Images
But this one-off installment is something different. It was announced last week that the half-hour episode, which will feature series regulars in character as they navigate a time of social distancing amid the coronavirus pandemic, will serve as a fundraiser for Feeding America’s COVID-19 Response Fund.
It wasn’t hard to get the cast back together. Schur said he sent an email about doing the episode and received responses in less than an hour. The cast could have done a table read of a past episode, but Schur opted not to, instead choosing to drum up a new story line. That wasn’t difficult either, he added.
“There’s only one thing happening in the entire world right now,” Schur said. “If you get any groups of people together to film anything and you don’t have the story be about what’s happening to them during this pandemic, what are you doing?”
Schur said the creative team came up with ways to explain why some of the characters—especially the married couples on the show—weren’t in the same room in the episode. But a lot of what fans are familiar with and would expect of those characters remains the same, which means some—like noted Libertarian Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman)—haven’t changed very much.
“Leslie [Knope, played by Poehler] says, ‘When you go to your cabin, are you social distancing?’ And he says, ‘I’ve been social distancing since I was 4 years old,’” Schur said.
As far as whether those characters look the same, he said they all looked the same to him: “It’s a handsome crew of actors, and they’ve aged very excellently and gracefully.”
Schur (left) with actors Adam Scott and Retta during the “Parks and Recreation” panel at the NBCUniversal portion of the 2015 Winter TCA Tour in Pasadena. Frederick M. Brown—Getty Images
But making the special involved some very careful logistics. Visual effects were taken care of by the team Schur worked with on The Good Place. Rigs containing a tripod, an iPhone, a light, and microphone—all wiped down, of course—were either shipped to or dropped off at cast members’ homes. Select members of the behind-the-scenes team would then watch through a computer as the actors looked into the iPhone that was actually recording them.
“They would send us screenshots to show what their framing was, and we would be able to listen and sort of watch from a weird oblique angle,” Schur said. “But they had to be their own camerapeople.”
It all came together in a pinch, and making the episode was a lot of fun, but ultimately, it’s no way to film a TV show, he said, pointing out that productions are a team sport that require a lot of collaboration.
“I don’t think there’s any way that this is a sustainable way for making television,” he said.
The Paley Center Salutes “Parks and Recreation” special will air at 8 p.m. ET on NBC, Thursday, April 30, followed by the Parks and Recreation special at 8:30 p.m.
Our mission to help you navigate the new normal is fueled by subscribers. To enjoy unlimited access to our journalism, subscribe today.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is coming to Disney+ two months early
—Ricky Gervais on releasing After Life season two in a global pandemic
—Chris Hemsworth calls Extraction the “most exhausting” shoot of his career
—Hollywood artists are creating PPE for the medical community
—China’s movie theaters are closed again, causing anxiety for studios
Follow Fortune on Flipboard to stay up-to-date on the latest news and analysis.


fortune--2020-04-28--Tesla earnings: 4 things to watch for on Wednesday

Tesla was easily one of the star companies of the economic expansion that ran from 2009 to early 2020, growing from a tiny startup into a serious automotive competitor. That makes the company’s upcoming earnings report, scheduled for Wednesday, particularly notable: It will be Tesla’s first since the start of the coronavirus-induced economic downturn that began in March.
That means there’s more on the line than a single quarter’s results. CEO Elon Musk and other executives will also need to explain how they plan to handle the challenges of the coronavirus economy.
After the threat of the coronavirus became clear in the U.S., Tesla’s shares sank sharply to as low as $361.80 on March 18. But they’ve since recovered dramatically, more than doubling since then to near $800, suggesting investor optimism.
Here are four key themes to watch for.
Profits
The shutdown of Tesla factories in both China and California threaten the key element of Tesla’s recent string of success: the steadily improving profitability of its vehicle production. Tesla announced earlier this month that it had delivered 88,400 vehicles during the first quarter, beating analysts’ predictions. But analysts still expect a loss of 34¢ per share excluding for one-time costs, or $1.24 per share by conventional accounting standards. That would end two consecutive quarters of profitability for the company.
A more positive outcome is possible, though. Analysts at Barclays, for one, argue that Tesla could beat investor expectations if it has continued to make production more cost efficient, reduce warranty costs, and win pricing concessions from suppliers.
One sign that profits will meet or beat Wall Street’s lowered expectations is that Tesla recently rescheduled its “Battery Day” event from April to mid-May. Tesla will likely use the event to announce plans to reduce battery production costs, which would boost its profits over the long term. Its postponement, according to Barclays, suggests that Tesla doesn’t need to use the event to offset negative first-quarter results.
Factory reopenings
The most pressing issue Tesla could provide insight into on Wednesday is its plan for restarting production. Tesla’s factory in Fremont, Calif., which produces cars for North America and Europe, has been closed since March 23. That shutdown will almost certainly limit the number of cars Tesla can sell in the second quarter, or even beyond.
The company had planned to reopen the Fremont factory as early as April 29. But on Monday, Alameda County, where the factory is located, along with other California counties, announced it would extend its shelter-in-place orders through the end of May, and Tesla said it will comply with that order.
It’s unclear what if any steps Tesla could take to work around those restrictions, since Fremont is its only factory producing cars for sale in North America. Construction of a car factory in Germany has been slowed by the coronavirus and other challenges. A factory in Shanghai has now reopened, and Wednesday’s call may include details about its production, but vehicles produced there are intended for sale in China and may not be economically feasible to ship elsewhere.
If there’s any silver lining, it’s that Tesla’s larger competitors are facing the same crunch. In a report on the broader auto industry on Monday, analysts at Barclays argued that overall North American vehicle production, including the likes of Ford and GM, will decline about 70% in the second quarter because of the coronavirus-related supply chain and factory disruptions.
Delivery outlook
If the supply of vehicles is in question, though, consumer demand for them is as uncertain. Unemployment in major Tesla markets including the U.S. and Europe have skyrocketed owing to coronavirus shutdowns. Most Wall Street analysts have already accepted that Tesla will fail to deliver the 500,000 cars in 2020 that it had promised in January. Wedbush Securities, for instance, now says annual car deliveries will be between 400,000 and 425,000.
Tesla itself may announce revised expectations for full-year deliveries on Wednesday. On the other hand, it may also hold off on announcing new numbers, or withdraw annual delivery guidance completely, given the immense uncertainty about the weeks and months ahead.
New products
It may seem out of step during a recession, but Tesla’s continued growth relies on a steady flow of new products and technical innovations. The company’s current market value of $145 billion dollars implies investor faith that it will become an even larger company than Ford or GM, now valued at a combined $50 billion.
Tesla has many products at various stages of development. The most important is the Model Y, a lower-priced small SUV that Tesla began delivering to U.S. customers in mid-March. Musk has said he believes the Model Y will be an even bigger seller than the Model 3, Tesla’s mass-market sedan, so any data supporting that would be a huge win for Tesla, especially given the pandemic.
Tesla executives may also provide news about other important products. The company has recently updated its self-driving software, but there is no clear timeline for when the feature will be completed, which would have a direct impact on profits. And the Cybertruck, a futuristic pickup announced last November, is not expected to start production until late 2021. But given the enthusiasm that greeted it, any updates would likely rally Tesla investors.
More must-read tech coverage from Fortune:
—Who is new AT&T CEO John Stankey?
—Work-from-home tips from the executive team that brought you Zoom
—Is A.I. better at diagnosing illnesses than doctors? Don’t believe all the hype
—Facebook debuts Zoom-like video chat feature called Messenger Rooms
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEOs
—WATCH: Zoom’s ups and downs since the coronavirus crisis
Catch up with Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily digest on the business of tech.


fortune--2020-04-28--Watch: Talking tech stocks with Gene Munster

Gene Munster is a longtime tech-stock analyst, now running an investment fund and still focused on research. Fortune executive editor and Data Sheet coauthor Adam Lashinsky, in the second installment of Data Sheet conversations, engages with Munster on his picks, his concerns, and the trends he’s seeing during this time of economic downturn.
The conversation goes live on Wednesday, April 29, at 10:00 Pacific/1:00 Eastern. Watch this space for the live-stream. Or, register here for free to participate in the Q&A via Zoom.


fortune--2020-04-28--Five weeks off and nowhere to go: How coronavirus sabotaged the European vacation

Last week, the Czech Republic’s alcohol industry trade body shared some sobering news.
Although market researchers had noted a 14% year-over-year uptick in booze sales for March, those sales comprised all that retailers had sold to locals who were staying at home during the country’s coronavirus lockdown. Sales in hotels, restaurants, and bars had flatlined—unsurprisingly, given their closure—and, when measured by alcoholic units, overall sales were actually down by a quarter.
And the main driver for that, in this notable inebriation destination, was the lack of tourism. “The explanation…is the closure of borders,” said Vladimír Darebník, head of the Czech Union of Liquor Importers and Distillers (UVDL), in a statement.
The Czech Republic’s borders slammed shut on March 16, making it one of the first European countries to self-isolate in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. It would not be the last. Six weeks later, among the 27 European Union member states, only the Netherlands and Luxembourg are allowing unrestricted travel in and out of their territories by land.
For Europe’s $2 trillion tourist industry, which would in less crazy times be preparing for a summer-holiday bonanza, it may as well be the end of the world.
“We are in the unique position of there being no demand and no product,” says Tom Jenkins, CEO of the European Tourism Association (ETOA). “You could not devise anything worse.”
‘We were looking forward to a record year’
The figures are staggering. In the Czech Republic (which on Monday started allowing its own citizens to leave the country again), tourism revenues are expected to be down 75% this year. In Spain, where tourism accounts for 12% of gross domestic product, the anticipated drop is 80%, or $130 billion.
And Greece, where tourism represents a whopping 20% of GDP, is steeling itself for the prospect of two-thirds of its hotels going bankrupt.
Much of this catastrophe is the result of people’s inability to travel into Europe, where external borders closed March 17. Jenkins notes that the once-every-decade Oberammergau Passion Play was to have taken place in the Bavarian town of that name this year, which would have helped boost tourist traffic from the U.S. into Europe by between 10% and 20%.
“From an incoming point of view, the sad thing is we were looking forward to a record year,” he says.
But the shutdown of intra-European tourism is also devastating—EU residents typically spend around 80% of their tourism expenditure within the bloc. And for good reason: Almost all EU countries are within the so-called Schengen Area of free movement, rendering the EU’s internal borders practically invisible. Like the ability to operate businesses across borders, this is something Europeans take for granted. But for now, the Schengen system is no longer functioning.
Europeans are facing the unthinkable. Endowed with an allotment of paid-vacation days that is the envy of the developed world—by statute, workers in the EU are guaranteed a minimum of four weeks off; add in a packed calendar of public holidays, and it’s not uncommon for Europe’s workers to be plotting elaborate trips with the five or six weeks of annual leave they receive—Europeans are now being ordered to stay put.
Germans, in particular, take advantage of these generous holiday allotments; its citizens are also among the most enthusiastic tourists in other European countries. Home to 46 Unesco World Heritage sites, Germany is a popular tourist destination unto itself. It too won’t be spared, neither as a supplier of tourists nor as a place for other countries’ tourists to come. The DRV travel industry association predicted Sunday that two-thirds of its travel firms are on the brink of insolvency.
“It is feared that the majority of the 11,000 travel agencies and over 2,300 tour operators will not survive this existential threat from the corona pandemic, and tens of thousands of jobs will be lost if the federal government does not soon put a protective shield over the industry,” said DRV president Norbert Fiebig in a statement.
Conflicting road maps
The effective suspension of the Schengen free-movement system (named for the small Luxembourg town where the agreement was signed 35 years ago) is emblematic of a wider crisis in the EU structure, which largely revolves around the issue of economic solidarity, as individual countries struggle to cope with the pandemic.
But, symbolism aside, those closed borders are a practical problem that nobody is quite sure how to solve. Each EU country still retains ultimate control over its borders, and the bloc’s central administration—the European Commission—can only do its best to try nudging governments toward some kind of coordinated lifting of border controls.
On April 15, the commission published a “European road map to lifting coronavirus containment measures,” offering sets of criteria that member states should consider when deciding on the opening of their borders. “A highly coordinated way forward is a matter of common European interest,” the commission pleaded.
What’s happening now is anything but coordinated. Instead, some European countries are proposing bilateral agreements that would allow people to enter from some other EU member states—but only a handful.
The Czech Republic, for example, is in talks with Croatia about establishing a so-called corona corridor that would allow tourism between the two countries, for holidaymakers who can demonstrate they don’t have COVID-19. That the two countries do not share a common border is apparently no issue. What they do have in common is a relatively low and manageable caseload of coronavirus infections.
Austria, which has realized that its tourism industry will go bust without German tourists, has a similar plan—though German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas is less than keen on tourism fueling new spikes in infection rates. “A European race to see who will allow tourism travel first will lead to unacceptable risks,” Maas said Sunday.
Marie De Somer, head of European migration at the European Policy Center, characterizes the reimposition of border controls within Europe as chaotic. “If that chaos is repeated in the lifting [of controls] then we will be in trouble,” she says.
De Somer points out that, despite the general existence of free movement within the EU before March, some of the internal border controls established in the 2015 refugee crisis never quite went away.
“Until March and April, Germany, France, Austria, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark were still upholding…border controls aimed at identifying so called secondary movements of asylum seekers from their countries of first arrival [in the EU],” she says. “It was likely about imagery, and about being able to tell the national public there were border controls in place, [but] that also doesn’t bode well for the future, because it clearly shows that introducing controls is an easy thing to do, and lifting them is quite different.”
Safety measures
This year, as French and Italian politicians have suggested, staycations may be the only option. But border issues aside, it is unclear what tourism might look like in Europe—and indeed everywhere else—once it becomes viable again.
It is by no means a certainty that a COVID-19 vaccine will become a reality anytime soon, if at all, so the hospitality sector will likely need to enforce distancing rules that make for a very different vacation experience. Think bars with spaced-out stools, and deck chairs that are no longer as tightly packed on Europe’s beaches as they once were.
Key players in the travel industry are deeply skeptical about how this might work in practice. For example, Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary has said his low-cost airline won’t resume flights if that means leaving the middle seat in each row empty. “We can’t make money on 66% load factors,” he said last week.
“Every service business has high fixed costs and runs on the basis of maximizing the use of capacity to offset these fixed costs,” agrees ETOA’s Jenkins. “If you open your business, be it a shop, a restaurant, a theater, an airline, or a coach, every incentive will be there for you to push attendance up towards capacity…What is being offered to the tourism industry is the chance to have no business or a loss-making business. That isn’t much of a choice.”
And what of the idea of “immunity passports”?
Involving digital documents that prove the holder has been infected and is therefore supposedly immune, this has been regularly proposed as a way to revive the travel and tourism industries—Delta CEO Ed Bastian, for one, certainly seems to think they may become a reality.
But the World Health Organization (WHO) poured cold water on the concept in a scientific brief published late last week. “There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection,” it said.
And even if they did work as promised, immunity passports may not make for a great sales pitch. “If you want to attract visitors you attract visitors by welcoming them, not by treating them as lepers unless otherwise proved,” says Jenkins.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune :
—What the law says about forcing employees back to the office
—Coronavirus turns the outdoor industry’s crucial spring into the most challenging in years
—5 lessons for the coronavirus recovery, from an expert on success and failure in crisis
—What to know if your small business is applying for Round 2 PPP loans from the SBA
—There may be 22 hidden coronavirus hotspots in states poised to lift restrictions
—The coronavirus brought China’s travel industry to a standstill. Now it’s showing signs of life
—Work-from-home tips from the executive team that brought you Zoom
—PODCAST: COVID-19 might have upended the concept of the best companies of the year
—WATCH: Fortune’s top 10 heroes of the coronavirus pandemic
Subscribe to Outbreak, a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global business, delivered free to your inbox.


fortune--2020-04-28--‘It doesn’t have to be quite so destructive’: A Harvard Business School professor reimagines capital

‘It doesn’t have to be quite so destructive’: A Harvard Business School professor reimagines capitalism

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Six months ago, Rebecca Henderson wouldn’t be able to share this with a mixed business audience.
But here goes: In American business, inequality is a liability—that is, the lack of a strong safety net carries a cost—and this realization is now front and center, the Harvard Business School professor says.
“I mean, maybe I’d say it really quietly at the end of a presentation,” she says. “But now”—and here, she shouts—”THE COSTS OF NOT HAVING A SOCIAL SAFETY NET ARE FRONT AND CENTER! And people [are] saying, ‘Yes.’”
Perhaps no one is more surprised how suddenly we’ve arrived at this reckoning than Henderson. The COVID-19 pandemic has given the ideas in her book, Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire, out today (April 28)—on the costs of inequality, climate change, and the duty of business to address those costs head-on—a perverse timeliness, making these issues not only relevant, but even appealing, to people who previously may not have touched them with a 10-foot pole.
The product of a three-year period of writing, the book emerged from her class at Harvard of the same name. The structure is intended to mirror that course, starting with a skeptical audience in mind—Henderson says her students, on arrival, usually are—and progressing to a full-throated attack on the belief that shareholder returns should be the sole, or even primary, purpose of a modern business.
In her course, by the time multiple executives of multibillion-dollar companies have trekked to her classroom to attest to the fact that their companies are, indeed, in the midst of this transition away from focusing purely on profits, “the students start to find that maybe there’s something here,” she says.
Henderson, a Brit, got her start in business as a management consultant, helping close down century-old companies in the North of England, before going on to advise executives at legacy companies in the midst of immense, often technological change.
She’s keen to stress that she is a fan of capitalism—”I teach at the Harvard Business School for a good reason,” she says—but has come to believe that the current style of mainstream American capitalism is not “given by God or economics,” and there are models for how to approach making a profit differently.
“It doesn’t have to be quite so red in tooth and claw,” she says. “It doesn’t have to be quite so destructive.”
It’s an idea that has gained ground in those same mainstream business circles in recent months and years. In August, the Business Roundtable—an association for the CEOs of America’s most powerful companies—rewrote its mission statement, putting value for customers and employees ahead of its previous priority: shareholder value, above all else.
While the costs of doing so were substantial even before the arrival of the coronavirus—”Reimagining capitalism is not easy or cheap,” she notes in the book—the pandemic has made it much more real to business leaders she speaks with, Henderson says. It has also driven home the point of what she considers her most controversial chapter: the idea that well-functioning capitalism can’t exist without a strong, healthy political system and public institutions.
“I thought no one would want to talk about it,” she says. “And the big thing that’s happened with the pandemic is now people are absolutely fine talking about it. They’re still like, ‘I’m not sure what to do,’ but it’s no longer some crazy idea.”
As many companies have turned their resources toward the common good, from finding or making medical and protective equipment to turning their technology and expertise toward research—as businesses did in Seattle, at the forefront of the virus’s arrival in the U.S.—executives have also realized that the vast inequalities among their employees and customers are part and parcel with their business risks, she says.
Before the pandemic, she says, many CEOs would express a “general concern” about inequality, “but didn’t really think it was their problem.”
Now, she says, that’s yet another thing that’s changed.
“I’ve come to believe that the whole deal is about changing the moral conversation,” she says. “That the effects of our system on the human beings who hold up half the sky are so negative.”
The weight of being the one to bring up that “moral conversation” has, as Henderson points out in the book, often been a gendered one. Lecturing onstage to executives, she writes that she frequently found herself tempted to couch her ideas about purpose and values in business with assurances of profitability—lest she be written off as a “simpering female” not focused on the bottom line.
But in the age of COVID-19, when businesses must make hard choices about the fates of their employees and suppliers while their revenues are evaporating, an unwillingness to have those bigger moral conversations suddenly feels like a level of denialism that verges on luxurious.
It’s a dramatic shift in perspective Henderson hopes executives will apply not just to battling the pandemic—but addressing climate change too.
“I’m super worried about maintaining the urgency on climate change,” she says. “We didn’t want to pay the upfront cost [of preparing for a pandemic], and I think, I hope, it’ll be easier to make the argument that let’s take out some insurance against the risk of climate change.”
But whether it’s referring to inequality, or climate change, Henderson is grimly surprised by how timely her book—and its title—have become in the three years since she began writing.
“I called it ‘in a world on fire,’ because I was trying to reach millennials,” she says. “And I thought, this is a bit ‘out there.’ Business people will think I’m a bit crazy. But now everyone says, ‘Whoa, that’s such a great title.’ How did you know?”
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—Which companies’ stocks will thrive after the coronavirus crash?
—Everything you need to know about furloughs and what they mean for workers
—What to know if your small business is applying for Round 2 PPP loans from the SBA
—PODCAST: COVID-19 might have upended the concept of the best companies of the year
—WATCH: Why the banks were ready for the financial impact of coronavirus
Subscribe to Outbreak, a daily newsletter roundup of stories on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global business. It’s free to get it in your inbox.


fortune--2020-04-28--As stores reopen in rural U.S. towns, coronavirus fears seem far away

Traffic got a little busier along Main Street, but otherwise, it was hard to tell that coronavirus restrictions were ending in the tiny Montana town of Roundup.
That’s because it’s largely business as usual in the town of 1,800 people. Nonessential stores could reopen as a statewide shutdown ended this week, but most shops in Roundup — the pharmacy, the hardware store, two small grocers — were essential and never closed.
A florist and a thrift shop reopened Monday, apparently two of the only stores that had to shut down at all. Bars and restaurants remain shuttered and getting takeout is still the only option until May 4, when they can open with restrictions.
Parts of the U.S. are starting to lift closures, and some of the quickest to do so have been rural states like Montana, Vermont and Alaska. The effects of the pandemic in small towns can seem a world away from cities grappling with overwhelmed hospitals, packed morgues and economies pushed to the brink.
The consequences of easing restrictions in rural communities won’t be fully known for some time, and health officials said they will be watching closely for a resurgence of infections.
But for now, there’s little doubt in places like Roundup that it was the right thing to do after weekslong stay-at-home orders.
“We don’t have the fear of the virus. It’s been more concern about our shut-ins and older people who can’t come out,” said Shannon Thompson, who works in the deli at Picchinoni’s IGA supermarket and has two sons home with school still canceled.
The coronavirus is largely a distant threat that so far has touched few people here directly. Face masks are a novelty, and greetings often still come with a handshake.
Despite some grumbling that the lockdown was too harsh, most people cooperated, county commissioner Adam Carlson said.
Thompson said she practices social distancing and “we’re all doing what we’re supposed to do.”
By contrast, in some rural parts of states where stay-at-home orders remain in place, local leaders have pledged defiance. The mayor of Grants, New Mexico, population 9,000, led a rally Monday attended by dozens of people urging nonessential businesses to reopen.
Only a fraction of people in the state have been infected by COVID-19, and it doesn’t make sense to keep small businesses closed, Mayor Martin “Modey” Hicks said. New Mexico has more than 2,800 confirmed cases of the virus and 104 deaths.
“The governor is killing the state over a little bug,” he said before heading to the city-owned golf course, where about 20 people were playing despite a warning by state police for the facility to close.
For most, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.
In small Alaska towns, some restaurants resumed dine-in service on Friday, while shops, personal care services and other nonessential businesses reopened with limits. Rules still restrict how many people can be in a shop at once, and no waiting is allowed in salons.
In Vermont, people can shop at outdoor retailers, and five people can work at the same outdoor worksite. Manufacturing and indoor construction also can expand.
Mike MacLeod, who owns a garden center just south of the resort town of Stowe, said the phone began ringing within miutes of the governor’s announcement Friday loosening the restrictions.
“People are getting into their gardens,” he said. “One of the things they can do is work on the gardens and beautify their houses.”
Being remote and sparsely populated helps towns avoid infections, said Dr. Marc Mentel, president of the Montana Medical Association.
Yet a rural ZIP code is no magic shield and carries its own disadvantage: fewer medical resources. That can make outbreaks difficult to contain, such as the infections that swept through an assisted living facility in recent weeks in another remote Montana area, Toole County, that has led to six deaths.
“No matter where you are, this is a dangerous virus,” Mentel said. “The risk is low, but if something takes off in rural America, it could be devastating.”
Gov. Steve Bullock credits an early lockdown with pushing down Montana’s infection rate and helping it reopen before other states.
“That’s what got us to this point, more than the rural nature of our state,” the Democratic governor said Monday.
Montana has one of the lowest per capita death rates from the virus in the nation, and the rate of confirmed cases has declined since since peaking at 124 cases a week in late March and early April. There were 15 new cases last week, health officials said.
But not every business is throwing open its doors.
In Montana’s capital of Helena, the Lasso the Moon toy store was open, but its doors were locked. Customers had to knock to be let in, up to four at a time, as long as they were wearing masks.
Owner Amy Barrett said the door is locked to give employees a chance to don masks. Her wariness reflected the uncertainty of many small-business owners who have been allowed to reopen.
“We’re still unsure quite how open to be,” Barrett said. “I don’t know how many people are going to want to come in.”
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—What the law says about forcing employees back to the office
—Alphabet and Facebook earnings are expected to be bad. The question is how bad?
—How the U.S. should invest in public health before reopening the economy
—Tech issues and backlogs hit the SBA’s second round of PPP loans
—There may be 22 hidden coronavirus hotspots in states poised to lift restrictions
—Coronavirus brought China’s travel industry to a standstill. Now it’s showing signs of life
—The coronavirus pandemic is impacting critical research into neuromuscular diseases
—PODCAST: How 2 CEOs outside of health care decided to pivot to fight COVID-19
—WATCH: Fortune’s top 10 heroes of the coronavirus pandemic
Subscribe to Outbreak, a daily newsletter roundup of stories on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global business. It’s free to get it in your inbox.


fortune--2020-04-28--To reopen the economy, there are 5 guidelines we need to follow

America is going back to work. It must be done safely. And it can be done safely, even with the limited testing capacity available today.
The President’s guidelines appropriately do not open the economy all at once. However, they do not adequately account for the fact that the U.S. does not currently possess the robust capacity and capability to safely and rapidly test, diagnose, treat, and isolate COVID-19 cases and trace their contacts at scale.
Under the following modified approach, the economy can start reopening, but at the slower pace allowed by its current testing capacity—while ramping up its testing and tracing capabilities for more extensive reopening as soon as is safely possible. Federal, state, and local government leaders must work urgently with business leaders on the following key elements to ensure that reopening does not cause a resurgence of the pandemic, which would have debilitating effects on American lives and set the economic recovery back even further.
First, the economy will not reopen without putting more lives at risk unless the federal government plays a greater leadership role. Under the President’s guidelines, the states compete not only with each other, but also with private businesses to acquire personal protective equipment, tests and testing equipment, cleansing materials, and other needs.
Such an approach will result in price inflation, acquisition chaos, and supply shortfalls, as well as opportunities for fraud and abuse, particularly in testing devices. Greater use of the Defense Production Act, which enables the President to compel businesses to produce essential goods, may be the only recourse.
Increased personnel to carry out testing and contact tracing, as well as increased funding for the states—particularly for increased hospital capacity and implementation of the testing guidelines—are also critical.
Sufficient funding—at a Manhattan Project scale—and smart regulatory relief are essential to quickly and safely finding treatments and a vaccine, as well as achieving reliable testing capacity for both the disease and its antibodies. Treatments may be as important as a vaccine in dampening the coronavirus threat, as we have seen in the battle against HIV/AIDS.
Second, the President’s guidelines should state how low the infection rate must be before a state or local economy is reopened. The confusion that results can be seen already, as some states and localities are opening quickly and haphazardly.
Third, the administration needs to guide governors’ plans. Even with increased federal leadership, the states are at the epicenter of managing the fight against this pandemic. Given the shortfall of testing and public health capacity (and the lack of treatments and a vaccine), the most realistic approach for governors would be to carefully scale the opening of the economy by sector in keeping with the public health infrastructure’s capacity to test, track, and isolate.
This process demands close cooperation and collaboration with business leaders. The businesses that governors should reopen first fall into three categories: sectors that meet a gradual, broadening definition of “essential,” expanded beyond security and safety and based on the sector’s importance to the economy; businesses most able to effectively implement social distancing in the workplace—given warmer weather, this could include construction, other outdoor industries, and a federal and state infrastructure program that could help put Americans back to work; and those that can most effectively operate remotely with a limited physical presence in the workplace.
Under this approach, the sectors that closed first—because they were hotbeds for the spread of the virus—should be among the last to reopen. Food services and drinking establishments, sports stadiums, museums, movie theaters, spas, gyms, and vacation and hotel locations should be the last to reopen, assuming they are confined to their pre-COVID-19 business models.
But as other sectors open, demand for services such as food and drink will also increase. That demand should initially be met under alternative business models where takeout and catering services would expand before physical spaces open to the public. Similarly, in entertainment and sports, the NBA’s idea of restarting games for virtual audiences, or drive-in theaters reopening, are examples of altered, realistic business models that can follow CDC guidelines for employees and customers more manageably.
As testing capabilities ramp up, small gathering places could start to open first, followed by larger ones if they demonstrate they can follow appropriate protocols to keep employees and customers safe.
Schools should also remain closed physically but open virtually at least until the fall term. At the same time, childcare and youth centers, vital to America’s ability to get working again, could gradually reopen under CDC guidelines to accommodate parents who must go back to work.
For this approach to be successful, it must also include federal government relief targeted to those individuals and companies that remain adversely affected by COVID-19. The federal and state governments should also help expand access to broadband, as the economy and education are relying on it heavily right now.
Fourth, the federal government must provide clearer guidelines for employers so they can develop their business plans to reopen with the best advice from public health officials. Employers are the sentinels for tracking the spread of the disease and can help us prevent a widespread recurrence.
Employers need clearer guidance on what workplace policies the government wants them to develop and implement. These include providing health screenings, performing temperature checks, enforcing social distancing in the office, workforce contact tracing, provision of personal protective equipment, cleaning protocols, and procedures for handling employees who become sick with COVID-19.
By the government issuing clear standards, businesses can reopen with greater confidence that they will not be held liable for any unfortunate outcomes that may occur. Ideally, the government could soon develop comprehensive safe harbors, adaptable to firms in different industries, that establish standards for conscientious businesses to safeguard their employees and customers.
Finally, federal and state government leaders need to help strengthen our most vulnerable communities that are taking the brunt of this economic and health crisis. They can accomplish this by ensuring that small- and minority-owned businesses receive the economic relief promised to them and that health institutions serving diverse populations most urgently receive financial support.
Americans have proved over recent weeks that democracies can effectively and responsibly respond to a pandemic threat. We can likewise effectively and responsibly reopen our economy as we race to develop effective treatments or a vaccine.
To achieve this objective, the U.S. must apply a wartime approach, relying on stronger federal, state, and private sector leadership to gradually achieve a peacetime, post-COVID-19 economy.
W. Bowman Cutter is senior fellow and director of the Next American Economy project at the Roosevelt Institute. He was director of the National Economic Council and deputy assistant to the President in the Clinton administration. He is cochair of the ad hoc subcommittee on COVID-19 for the Committee for Economic Development of the Conference Board (CED).
Joseph E. Kasputys is chairman and CEO of Economic Ventures. He was assistant secretary of the Commerce Department in the Ford administration. He is cochair of CED’s ad hoc subcommittee on COVID-19.
Joseph J. Minarik is a senior vice president with CED. He was chief economist at the Office of Management and Budget in the Clinton administration.
Lori Esposito Murray is president of CED. She is a former adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and previously held the national security chair at the U.S. Naval Academy.
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More opinion in Fortune:
—How the U.S. should invest in public health before reopening the economy
—Why the coronavirus crisis makes moral leadership more important than ever
—Want gender balance in boardrooms? Here are 3 alternatives to quotas
—A.I. will be crucial to non-tech companies—and they need a new playbook for it
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEOs
—WATCH: The CEO of Canada’s biggest bank on the keys to leading through the coronavirus pandemic
Listen to our audio briefing, Fortune 500 Daily


fortune--2020-04-28--France announces its plan to reopen shops, restaurants, and beaches

France announced an array of measures to begin easing a strict lockdown and reignite an economy battered by the coronavirus, with plans to reopen shops starting May 11 one of the first steps toward normalization.
Prime Minister Edouard Philippe outlined the measures in a speech to parliament, as President Emmanuel Macron’s government moves to match steps taken by European peers in tentatively trying to end weeks of virtual lockdown. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez plans to announce loosening measures later on Tuesday, while in Greece, Premier Kyriakos Mitsotakis told citizens that some stores will reopen May 4.
European leaders are eager to restart economies after lockdown measures shuttered factories, halted travel and kept millions of people largely confined to their homes. The fallout is spurring talk of recovery efforts on the scale of the post-World War II reconstruction. But after more than 120,000 deaths on the continent, policy makers are wary of decisions that could see them risking lives for the sake of securing jobs.
Philippe said French restaurants and cafes may be allowed to reopen from June 2, and pupils can start returning to school from May 11 but with strict rules. Public events of more than 5,000 people are outlawed until September and working from home is encouraged for at least three more weeks, he said.
The tourism industry is likely to continue to suffer, as beaches won’t reopen until at least June 1, parks and gardens will be accessible only where virus infections are low, and inter-regional travel will be discouraged.
“We must protect French people without immobilizing France to the point of collapse,” Philippe told lawmakers in the lower house of parliament in Paris Tuesday.
“We must follow a fine line: too carefree and the epidemic restarts; too cautious and the entire country sinks,” he said. “The strategy I have announced allows us to stick to this fine line.”
The lockdown has helped to contain the virus in France, with admissions at intensive-care units declining, according to the authorities. The disease has so far killed more than 23,000 people there, with almost 200,000 infected.
‘Proceed Cautiously’
The easing steps come as new cases trend lower across the continent. Earlier Tuesday, Spain recorded a drop in the number of new infections and deaths, and Germany’s daily increase in cases fell below 1,000 for the first time in more than five weeks. Italy on Monday reported 1,739 infections, its lowest daily number in seven weeks.
But it’s not all good news. Germany’s reproduction factor — a means of gauging how successfully countries have kept the virus in check — edged up to 1.0 on Monday from 0.9 the previous day.
“I plead for understanding that now when contagion rates have again increased that we need to proceed very, very cautiously so that we don’t have to take back all the easing steps,” German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said in a TV interview with ARD.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—What the law says about forcing employees back to the office
—Alphabet and Facebook earnings are expected to be bad. The question is how bad?
—How the U.S. should invest in public health before reopening the economy
—Tech issues and backlogs hit the SBA’s second round of PPP loans
—There may be 22 hidden coronavirus hotspots in states poised to lift restrictions
—Coronavirus brought China’s travel industry to a standstill. Now it’s showing signs of life
—The coronavirus pandemic is impacting critical research into neuromuscular diseases
—PODCAST: How 2 CEOs outside of health care decided to pivot to fight COVID-19
—WATCH: Fortune’s top 10 heroes of the coronavirus pandemic
Subscribe to Outbreak, a daily newsletter roundup of stories on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global business. It’s free to get it in your inbox.


fortune--2020-04-28--How A.I. may make sense of 50,000 coronavirus research papers

This is the web version of Eye on A.I., Fortune’s weekly newsletter covering artificial intelligence and business. To get it delivered weekly to your in-box, sign up here.
A little over a month ago, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy enlisted several big research groups and companies to collaborate on a major A.I. project intended to help experts unravel the mysteries of COVID-19.
The project’s goal was to place thousands of medical papers related to the coronavirus into a single dataset, dubbed CORD-19. By making the collection of scholarly articles available for free, the hope is that A.I. researchers will be able to develop natural language processing techniques that can rapidly scan studies and retrieve valuable information that may be obscured.
As of last week, the CORD-19 dataset had ballooned to over 50,000 medical papers and has been downloaded over 75,000 times, the Allen Institute for AI (AI2) said in an updated paper. That A.I. research group, founded by late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, is among the firms working on the project.
Kyle Lo, an AI2 applied research scientist, told Fortune that one of the challenges was to consolidate tens of thousands of academic papers into something readable that neural networks—software used for deep learning—can understand. Each part of the document, from the chart captions to the annotations, must be preserved for the A.I. technologies reviewing them to work well. While this may seem trivial, anyone who has ever tried copy-and-pasting text from a PDF file into another document can likely tell you how that process introduces errors.
Rens van de Schoot, a professor specializing in statistics at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, explained that his research team is developing machine learning-powered search tools to help scientists retrieve information finely tuned to their specific inquiries. For instance, doctors who are intubating coronavirus patients (i.e., sticking breathing tubes into their throats) may have questions about whether the patients should lie on their backs or stomachs, which is known as prone positioning. Presumably, the search technology would retrieve the most relevant coronavirus-related research papers detailing prone positioning for doctors.
Currently, van de Schoot said that some European healthcare groups are testing his research team’s coronavirus search tools alongside their more old-school manual searching techniques. These healthcare professionals are still wary about having an A.I. system sift studies for them, partly due to the difficultly researchers have in explaining how exactly their A.I. technologies work.
Although it’s unclear whether the CORD-19 A.I. project will result in any immediate coronavirus breakthroughs, Lo said he hopes that at minimum, the project will lead to more A.I. researchers developing machine-learning tools for rapidly scanning medical literature. He’s also wishing that the CORD-19 project leads to more medical papers being released for free, an idea referred to as “open science.”
And if the project doesn’t lead to dramatic results for the current coronavirus pandemic, at least “we have the infrastructure for the next big event,” van de Schoot said. The same technology used to analyze the coronavirus papers could perhaps be applied to economic papers probing financial catastrophes.
“It’s not only the coronavirus crisis,” van de Schoot said. “The next crisis will be the recession.”
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A.I. IN THE NEWS
Spies on A.I. To deal with potential A.I.-powered cyberattacks from adversaries, government spies and intelligence officials in the United Kingdom will need to harness their own A.I. technologies, the BBC reported citing research from the Royal United Services Institute think tank. The report cited computer-generated deepfakes as a potential way U.K. adversaries could “manipulate public opinion and elections.” “It might also be used to mutate malware for cyber-attacks, making it harder for normal systems to detect - or even to repurpose and control drones to carry out attacks,” the report said.
Deepfake Anchorman. A State Farm commercial featured a computer-generated version of ESPN SportsCenter anchor Kenny Mayne, The New York Times reported in a story about the advertisement industry’s interest in deepfake technologies amid the coronavirus pandemic. From the story: “We’re so restricted in how we can generate content,” said Kerry Hill, the production director for the ad agency FCB in North America. “Anything that can be computer generated is something we’re going to explore.”
Come get some patents. IBM said it would let coronavirus researchers access thousands of patents and patent applications for free with the promise that it would "not assert IBM patents against entities using them in the fight against coronaviruses." The move is part of the company's participation in the Open COVID Pledge, in which firms make their intellectual property free so that people can use the technologies to aid coronavirus research and treatments. "IBM’s pledge will last for the life of our more than 80,000 patents and patent applications, and any new patent applications filed through the end of 2023 will likewise be covered by this commitment." the company said.
Cutting some A.I. ties. Massachusetts Institute of Technology has cut ties with Chinese A.I. startup iFlytek, which, as Wired reported, comes amid allegations that the startup is “supplying technology for surveilling Muslims in the northwestern province of Xinjiang.” MIT didn’t say why it is no longer collaborating with iFlytek, while an executive from the startup said the decision was disappointing, the report said.
Robots to the potential rescue. The Wall Street Journal examined how startups developing delivery robots or drones are faring amid the coronavirus pandemic. The report explains that some businesses and governments have fast-tracked their initial beta testing of delivery robots. But it’s not a financial victory for these startups yet. From the article: Yet what should be a windfall for startups may have arrived too early—before they are able to ramp up manufacturing of their delivery robots, and ahead of approvals by national and regional governments that determine where and how robots can be deployed.
EYE ON A.I. TALENT
Netflix hired Elizabeth Stone to be the video-streaming service’s vice president of data science and engineering. Stone was previously the vice president of science at Lyft.
Apple’s A.I. research chief Ruslan “Russ” Salakhutdinov left the iPhone-maker to rejoin academia full-time, tech news publication The Information reported. Salakhutdinov is a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He became Apple’s director of A.I. research in 2016.
OpenAI hired Kenneth Stanley to lead the research firm’s new group focusing on “achieving open-endedness in machine learning,” Stanley said via Twitter. Stanley is a computer science professor at the University of Central Florida and was a senior research manager at Uber.
Primer, a startup specializing in machine learning, has picked Sue Gordon to be a strategic advisor to its board. Gordon spent nearly 40 years at the Central Intelligence Agency and was the fifth principal deputy director of national intelligence. Brett McGurk, who served in senior positions in the George W. Bush and Barack Obama presidential administrations, has also become an independent board director for the startup.
Pactera EDGE hired Rajeev Sharma to be the enterprise software company’s global head of A.I. solutioning and delivery. Sharma was a former CEO of the software firm nova IQ and the senior vice president and chief solutions officer of Ness Digital Engineering.
EYE ON A.I. RESEARCH
About all that coronavirus misinformation floating around on Twitter. Researchers at the University of Southern California published a preprint about their work using machine learning to track bogus coronavirus-related information on Twitter. The researchers were able to discover how “a false claim circulated about Nevada Governor’s Chief Medical Officer banning the use of Hydroxychloroquine treatments” originated in the U.S., but spread “to other countries within minutes.”
From the paper:
Misinformation during pandemics can impact public health, intervention policies and future elections. Therefore, we maintain separate categories of unreliable, conspiracy, clickbait, political/biased, and provide the list of source tweets identified under each category on the dashboard. In the future, we will update our analysis to include detection based on source and social context information extracted from the network.
The coronavirus’s impact on mental health. Researchers from Yale University and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center in Spain published a non-peer reviewed paper about their work classifying coronavirus-related tweets “into the following emotions: anger, anticipation, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, surprise and trust.” The researchers wrote that tracking “the emotion trend” via Twitter hashtags and topics is important because “it potentially may show the public attitude change within a period of time.”
From the paper:
In the 1 million data, most tweets are classified into negative classes like fear, anger and sadness. But when people are talking about masks, more tweets are classified into anticipation and trust, which is sometimes more neutral and positive.
FORTUNE ON A.I.
A.I. will be crucial to companies outside of Silicon Valley—and they need a new playbook for it—By Andrew Ng
There may be 22 hidden coronavirus hotspots in states poised to lift restrictions—By Jeremy Kahn
Is A.I. better at diagnosing illnesses than doctors? Don’t believe all the hype—By Jonathan Vanian
Digital art banks on breakout moment with blockchain’s help—By Jeff John Roberts
BRAIN FOOD
So you want to buy some “A.I.”? Dr Hugh Harvey, the managing director at Hardian Health in the U.K., has posted a fascinating article detailing the kinds of questions healthcare organizations should ask when dealing with A.I. vendors. As Harvey notes, some companies that claim to specialize in A.I. embellish the capabilities of their technologies, which makes it difficult for healthcare companies to understand what exactly they are buying. He believes healthcare firms need to ask vendors how they intend for companies to use their A.I. software, what evidence is available that supports their claims, and what the companies’ “post-market plans” are.
As Harvey explains, “As a buyer of clinical AI software, you aren’t just buying a software product, installing it, and letting it run. You are entering into a partnership with the vendor, one that covers the lifetime of the software.” The advice is relatable enough for any industry.
More from Harvey’s post:
The most important thing to remember is that adding AI into the mix does not necessarily make anything easier in terms of procurement, and that deep due diligence into the value proposition and robust quality assurance should remain fundamental, just as they would for any purchase decision for any other medical product.
***
Note: Last week's newsletter was updated to correct the relationship between Pactera Edge and Pactera Technology International.


fortune--2020-04-28--Small business loans above $2 million will be audited, Mnuchin says

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said all loans of more than $2 million or more in a government relief program for small businesses will be audited to ensure they were justified after large public companies and big chains sparked outrage by taking funds.
Mnuchin said the loans of as much as $10 million meant to keep workers on payrolls under the Paycheck Protection Program were intended for small firms that lacked access to other capital, and the U.S. Small Business Administration will check that borrowers who took large loans properly certified it was needed because of the coronavirus outbreak.
“I want to be very clear it’s the borrowers who have criminal liability if they made this certification and it’s not true,” Mnuchin said Tuesday on CNBC.
Mnuchin said it was “outrageous” that the Los Angeles Lakers took a relief loan, and that it was inappropriate for other large public companies and big chains to get funding as well. A backlash has prompted companies including the Lakers to start returning the money.
More must-read finance coverage from Fortune:
—Why Goldman Sachs thinks Q1 GDP will be “worse than it looks”
—5 lessons for the coronavirus recovery, from an expert on success and failure in crisis
—What the law says about forcing employees back to the office
—This time, the banks were ready: How the Big Four prepared to survive the coronavirus
—Where investors can find income in a coronavirus-crushed market
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: Why the banks were ready for the financial impact of coronavirus
Subscribe to Fortune’s Bull Sheet for no-nonsense finance news and analysis daily.


fortune--2020-04-28--The venture capitalist at the center of the coronavirus fight

This is the web version of Term Sheet, Fortune’s newsletter about deals and dealmakers. Sign up here.
How do you get a message from liberal-leaning scientists into a flaming-red White House in the middle of the pandemic?
A group of scientists and billionaires that came together to fight coronavirus have managed to do so, per a fascinating read at the Wall Street Journal.
Scientists to Stop Covid-19 culled together a 17-page report for officials on how best to battle the virus. Unlike with other recommendations that fade into obscurity, government agencies appear to be actually reading and implementing guidance to lower manufacturing regulations around specific coronavirus drugs.
At the helm of the effort: The 33-year-old and very-much-under-the-radar venture capitalist Tom Cahill, who leads life sciences-focused Newpath Partners. Cahill completed his M.D. and PhD at Duke University a mere two years ago before landing at blue-chip investment firm Raptor Group through a friend. He went on to found Newpath with some $125 million after impressing well-connected names like venture capitalist Peter Thiel and Vista Equity Partners co-founder Brian Sheth.
As the pandemic spread, Cahill turned his attention toward fighting Covid-19, his connections now becoming his main asset in his efforts. It was through Sheth, for example, that Scientists to Stop Covid-19 connected with the co-chairman of the Republican National Committee, Thomas Hicks Jr.
Cahill and his group have also been in frequent contact with Nice Ayers, a longtime aide to Vice President Mike Pence. It was only following a call to Ayers that the FDA gave Regeneron—which needed to shift manufacturing abroad in order to produce its promising coronavirus treatment in sufficient quantities—permission to take production to Dublin, per the story.
Certainly a group to watch.
Deals drop off: EY released its first quarter survey of the private equity landscape Tuesday. Activity was strong heading into the year, but coronavirus (surprise) threw a wrench into those trends. Now PE firms are slowing down, as are LPs.
Global deal activity rose 9% in the first quarter compared to a year earlier. But investors have begun to shy away from large bets, with the volume of deals worth over $100 million, falling 10% year-over-year.
While fundraising in general declined from $182 billion a year earlier to $146 billion, the average size of each fund jumped 13% in the same period, suggesting investors are growing wary and moving toward big, well-known funds.
The majority of the industry appears to think it is better prepared than in 2008 for a coronavirus-induced downturn. But a still sizable 22% said they were perhaps less prepared than 12 years earlier.
Exits via M&A dropped off a cliff—falling 31% to $82 billion in the quarter on a year-over-year basis. Buuuuut sales between PE firms rose 53% in the quarter.
Tune in: Don’t miss Fortune executive editor Adam Lashinsky’s Zoom chat with longtime tech analyst Gene Munster about how he sees the investing environment playing out. Watch the conversation and join the Q&A Wednesday, April 29, at 10:00 Pacific/1:00 Eastern. Register here for free.
VENTURE DEALS
- Erasca, a San Diego, Calif.-based firm treating cancer, raised $200 million in Series B funding. Arch Venture Partners and Cormorant Asset Management led the round, and were joined by investors including EDBI, Invus, Terra Magnum Capital Partners, City Hill Ventures, Colt Ventures, and LifeSci Venture Partners.
- SkyCell, a Switzerland-based maker of container solution for pharmaceuticals, raised $62 million in growth funding. MVM Partners led the round. Existing investors including the Swiss Entrepreneurs Fund and BCGE Bank’s growth fund also participated.
- Oriente, a Hong Kong-based financial data science company, raised $50 million in its ongoing Series B funding round. Peter Lee, Co-Chairman of Henderson Land, led the round, and was joined by investors including Wix.com.
- Cheetah, a San Francisco-based ecommerce platform for food and supplies, raised $36 million in Series B funding. Eclipse Ventures led the round, and was joined by investors including ICONIQ Capital, Hanaco Ventures, and Floodgate Fund.
- Brain Corp., a San Diego, Calif.-based maker of autonomous systems for cleaning robots, raised $36 million. SoftBank led the round, and was joined by investors including ClearBridge Investments, Satwik Ventures, and Qualcomm Ventures. Read more.
- Avalyn Pharma, a Seattle-based biopharmaceutical company focused on therapies for pulmonary diseases, raised $35.5 million in Series B funding. Norwest Venture Partners led the round, and was joined by investors including Pivotal bioVenture Partners, and existing investors F-Prime Capital, Novo Holdings A/S, RiverVest Venture Partners, and TPG Biotech.
- LifeSprout, a Baltimore, Md.-based regenerative medicine company, raised $28.5 million in Series A funding. Redmile Group led the round, and was joined by investors including Nexus Management, LP, Emerald Development Managers, and the Abell Foundation.
- VELO3D, a Campbell, Calif.-based 3d printing startup, raised $28 million in a Series D funding. New investors Piva and TNSC joined the round, along with existing investors Bessemer Investment Partners, Playground, and Khosla Ventures.
- Medici, an Austin, Texas-based virtual healthcare company, raised $24 million in Series B funding. Existing investors including Barry Sternlicht, Chairman of Starwood Capital Group; Howard Jenkins of Publix; Kenneth Griffin, CEO of Citadel; and Nathan Kirsh, head of Jethro, participated.
- enVerid Systems, a Boston based maker of HVAC load reduction technology, raised $20 million in Series B funding. Breakthrough Energy Ventures led the round, and was joined by investors including Ajax Strategies, Building Ventures, and OurCrowd.
- Scopio Labs, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based digital microscopy company, raised $16 million in funding. Olive Tree Ventures led the round, and was joined by investors including Aurum Ventures, OurCrowd, and LR Group.
- Factorial, a Barcelona-based HR management platform, raised €15 million ($16 million) in Series A funding. CRV led the round.
- BrainBox AI, a Montreal-based autonomous building technology maker, raised $12 million in funding. Esplanade Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Desjardins Capital.
- Codota, an Israeli startup providing an AI tool to developers, raised $12 million in Series A funding. E.ventures led the round, and was joined by investors including Khosla Ventures, along with new investors TPY Capital and Hetz Ventures. Read more.
- Particle Health, a New York-based API that allows third party developers to access healthcare data, raised $12 million in Series A funding. Menlo Ventures led the round, and was joined by investors including Collaborative Fund, Story Ventures, and Company Ventures.
- Duolingo, a Pittsburgh-based language learning platform, raised $10 million in new venture capital from General Atlantic, per an SEC filing. Read more.
- Paytronix Systems, a Newton, Mass.-based customer loyalty platform, raised $10 million in funding. Great Hill Partners led the round.
- Glofox, a Los Angeles gym management software company, raised $10 million in funding. Octopus Ventures led the round, and was joined by investors including Notion Capital, Partech, Silicon Valley Bank, and Tribal VC.
- Tomorrow Health, a New York-based healthcare platform for home-based care, raised $7.5 million in funding. Andreessen Horowitz backs the firm.
- Orthogonal Thinker, a Kihei, Hawaii-based company focused on psychoactive compounds, raised $6 million in seed funding. Investors include Republic Labs and Pay It Forward.
- Accurics, a Pleasanton, Pa.-based cybersecurity firm, raised $5 million in funding. Investors include ClearSky, WestWave Capital, Firebolt Ventures, and Secure Octane.
- Corsight AI, an Israeli-based maker of facial recognition software, raised $5 million in funding to market and continue the development of its real-time facial biometrics platform, according to NoCamels. The funding round was led by Canadian intelligence and security technology-focused fund Awz Ventures.
- Walrus.ai, a code testing tool, raised $4 million in funding. Homebrew, Felicis Ventures, and Leadout Capital were the investors. Read more.
- BuyMed, a Vietnamese startup focused on Southeast Asia’s pharmaceutical distribution networks, raised $2.5 million in pre-Series A funding. Investors include Sequoia Capital India’s Surge, Genesia Ventures, and returning investor Cocoon Capital. Read more.
- Buymie, an Irish grocery delivery start-up, raised €2.2 million ($2.4 million) in funding. ACT Venture Capital Partners invested.
- Checkly, a Berlin-based active monitoring and testing platform for DevOps teams, raised $2.25 million in seed funding. Accel led the round. Mirko Novakovic, CEO of Instana; Guillermo Rauch, CEO of Vercel; and Ott Kaukver, former CTO of Twilio also joined.
- Muve, a London-based law firm using tech for property transactions, raised £1.1 million ($1.4 million). Investors include Origin Capital, The Angel CoFund, and MI Investment.
- Equilibria, a Chicago-based CBD company, raised $1.97 million in seed funding. Salveo Capital led the round, and was joined by investors including Hyde Park Angels.
- Okra, a Lagos, Nigeria fintech API developer, raised $1 million in pre-seed funding. from TLcom Capital. Read more.
- Docupace, a Los Angeles-based cloud-based software for wealth management firms, raised an undisclosed sum from FTV Capital.
PRIVATE EQUITY
- American Track Services, a portfolio company of Hilltop Private Capital, acquired Savage Industrial Rail Services’ track inspection, maintenance and repair services. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Aquiline Technology invested in Flueid Software, an Austin based real estate insurtech company. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Altair Acquisitions acquired Wildtree, a Lincoln, R.I.-based maker of organic spices, oils, mixes, sauces, and meal replacement products. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Computex Technology Solutions, backed by Navigation Capital Partners, has merged with American Virtual Cloud Technologies, a Houston-based integrated IT solutions provider. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Infracapital agreed to acquire a majority stake in Fortum Recharge, an operator of public electric vehicle charging points in the Nordics. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- KKR took a minority stake in o9 Solutions, a Dallas, Texas-based business planning platform. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Syndigo, a portfolio company of The Jordan Company, acquired Kwikee, a Peoria, Ill.-based distribution platform for branded product content, from sgsco. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Tecum Capital Partners invested in Midwest Equipment Sales, a Columbus, Oh.-based provider of tracks, tires, and undercarriage parts. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- thinkproject, a portfolio company of TA Associates, acquired RAMM Software, an Auckland, New Zealand-based asset management and operations platform for local and national governments. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- TSG, a portfolio company of Advent International, acquired TrueCoach, a Boulder, Colo.-based provider of online fitness software. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
OTHERS
- Google is in talks to acquire D2iQ, an enterprise cloud software company, per Axios. Read more.
- Tencent Music Entertainment (NYSE: TME) invested in Radio Music Warehouse, a provider of music streaming solutions for business use in China. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Proxy acquired Motiv, a San Francisco-based maker of a smart fitness ring. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Rapid7 (NASDAQ: RPD) agreed to acquire Divvy Cloud Corporation, an Arlington, Va.-based cloud security company. Rapid7 will acquire DivvyCloud for roughly $145 million in cash and stock.
- Scopely acquired PierPlay, a Los Angeles-based mobile game developer. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Starbucks struck a partnership with Sequoia Capital China to co-invest in technology businesses in the country. Read more.
IPOs
- Social Capital Hedosophia II, a Palo Alto-based partnership co-founded by the team that brought Virgin Galactic public, raised $360 million to fund a tech acquisition in the U.S. Read more.
- Shenzhen New Industries Biomedical Engineering Co., an in-vitro diagnosis biomedicine company, plans to raise 1.29 billion yuan ($183 million) on the ChiNext board in Shenzhen. Sequoia backs the firm. Read more.
EXITS
- NBC News sold its entire stake in Euronews, a pay TV news network, to Media Globe Networks. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
F+FS
- Constitution Capital Partners closed Ironsides V with a $1 billion in committed capital.
- Consonance Capital Partners closed Consonance Private Equity II, L.P. at its hard cap of $856 million.
- DeltaV, a venture capital firm founded by former Lyft COO Jon McNeil, launched after raising $40 million.
- Partech closed its seed fund with $100 million in commitments.
PEOPLE
- Atomico recruited Sasha Astafyeva as its new consumer-focused Partner and Terese Hougaard as principal. Read more.
- SignalFire hired Josh Constine as a Principal and Head of Content. He was previously TechCrunch’s Editor-at-Large.
- Andreessen Horowitz’s Ben Horowitz will not seek re-election on Lyft’s board, per a SEC filing. Read more.


fortune--2020-04-28--“Do-something-itis” is the impulse behind all these coronavirus projects

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.
There’s a certain repetitiveness to the coverage of the only story that matters right now. Perhaps that will change as companies quickly flood us with reports of their first-quarter earnings. The haves—grocers, tech companies selling digital products—will tell stories of surges among the wreckage of a global economy. The have nots—airlines and others in the travel or hospitality industry—will epitomize the wreckage itself.
I told you last week about Erika Fry’s spot-on coverage of how Seattle’s business community played its role in helping the city’s response. Now comes another several thousand words on the topic from Charles Duhigg in The New Yorker. Want more on Seattle? Watch Frontline’s “Tale of two Washingtons” comparing the response in Seattle with Washington, D.C.
Then there is the battle between surveillance and privacy. David Meyer explained last week that even privacy advocates may give a little so that governments can track the infected. Over the weekend, The Economist also noted that Europe’s privacy poo-bahs plan to give a bit. On Monday, The New Yorker asked: “Can We Track COVID-19 and Protect Privacy At The Same Time?” (The answer: Maybe.)
That article had a wonderful line, by the way. It quotes a Cambridge University researcher suggesting the Apple-Google contact tracing app project is an expression of “do-something-itis.” The impulse to do something is understandable. And we’ll look back on this as a time when much well-meaning spaghetti was thrown against the wall—and much didn’t stick.
Speaking of which, the U.K. appliance maker Dyson has cancelled a program to make ventilators after spending $25 million to develop them. It says the devices aren’t needed. That marks a tough stretch for Dyson, which last year terminated an even costlier electric car gambit.
Tough times, for sure. But interesting, too.
***
Tune in
Wednesday, I’m hosting another live Data Sheet conversation, this time with Gene Munster of Loup Ventures. He’s a longtime equity analyst and chock-full of ideas about tech investing. This call will be audio only, and I’ll take your questions via chat.
The call is at 10:00 a.m. Pacific/1:00 p.m. Eastern, April 29.
Register here for free, or watch out for a listen-only link.
Adam Lashinsky
@adamlashinsky
adam.lashinsky@fortune.com
This edition of Data Sheet was curated by Aaron Pressman.
NEWSWORTHY
Please please me. As it becomes clear that the pandemic will require longer shutdowns, Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and T-Mobile are extending customer protections through the end of June. The carriers are waiving some fees and data caps while pledging not to cancel service for customers who can't pay bills due to the outbreak.
Up, up and away. In another virtual product launch, drone maker DJI unveiled its upgraded Mavic Air 2. The new drone costs $800, can fly for 34 minutes (up from 21 minutes), and captures 4K video at 60 frames per second.
Pomp and happenstance. With so many senior graduation ceremonies cancelled, Facebook is stepping into the breech. The social network says it will hold a massive virtual graduation live on May 15 featuring speakers including Oprah Winfrey, Jennifer Garner, and Lil Nas X.
Stop in the name of love. With cars having become, in some sense, rolling computers, they can now get pretty impressive upgrades just in software. Tesla is offering an update that lets its cars autopilot program recognize stop signs and traffic lights. These cars will slow at lights and signs, requiring the driver to press a pedal to proceed. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it will "closely monitor" the program.
Rhapsody in bluetooth. Keeping up with the contact tracing app beat, Britain is following Australia's lead in not using the new Apple-Google tracing capability. Instead of relying on data stored on individual phones, as the tech giants suggest, the U.K. will centralize the information on government servers.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
The tech industry usually offers stories of A.I. projects succeeding, but a new study from Google shows the difficulty of using A.I. in the real world. The company trained an app with machine learning to diagnose diabetic retinopathy, which can cause blindness, from photos of patients eyes. It worked well in the lab, but less well in health clinics in Thailand, as Will Douglas Heaven reports for the MIT Technology Review.
Like most image recognition systems, the deep-learning model had been trained on high-quality scans; to ensure accuracy, it was designed to reject images that fell below a certain threshold of quality. With nurses scanning dozens of patients an hour and often taking the photos in poor lighting conditions, more than a fifth of the images were rejected.
Patients whose images were kicked out of the system were told they would have to visit a specialist at another clinic on another day. If they found it hard to take time off work or did not have a car, this was obviously inconvenient. Nurses felt frustrated, especially when they believed the rejected scans showed no signs of disease and the follow-up appointments were unnecessary. They sometimes wasted time trying to retake or edit an image that the AI had rejected.
ON THE MOVE
E-commerce site Wayfair named Jim Miller as its chief technology officer. Miller, who has worked at Google, Cisco, and Amazon, was named acting CTO in August after John Mulliken retired...Longtime Expedia board member and former Tribune CEO Peter Kern was named chief executive of the struggling travel site. Chair Barry Diller pushed out former CEO Mark Okerstrom in December...Super-hyped short video service Quibi is losing Megan Imbres, its head of brand and content marketing...Speaking of losing execs at super-hyped startups, fintech darling Bakkt is losing its second CEO in under six months. Mike Blandina, who replaced Kelly Loeffler in December, is jumping to JPMorgan Chase. VP of M&A David Clifton gets the CEO job now...Famed venture capitalist Bill Gurley will not be part of the next fund at his firm, Benchmark...Top privacy advocate Marc Rotenberg is stepping down as executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, known as EPIC.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Square to suffer a ‘steep drop’ as many customers struggle to survive, analysts say By Danielle Abril
Houseparty CEO Sima Sistani meets the ‘massive technical challenge’ of coronavirus video chat demand By Emma Hinchliffe
IRS stimulus check portal: Try this trick if you are still getting ‘payment status not available’ By Lee Clifford
‘Deeply frustrated’: Tech issues and backlogs hit the SBA’s second round of PPP loans 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
Maybe you weren't imagining it. The U.S. Navy released three previously classified videos of unidentified flying objects. Some think they constitute proof of alien visitors. Others just see a high-tech drone. What's your conclusion?
Aaron Pressman
@ampressman
aaron.pressman@fortune.com