Tech’s next disruption target: The coronavirus. Volunteers from the tech world are pitching in on hundreds of hastily assembled projects, but it’s not clear how agile best works during a pandemic, The Wall Street Journal’s Asa Fitch, Rolfe Winkler and Deepa Seetharaman report.
They know viral. Leaning on his experience watching Instagram’s viral growth Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom built a model to predict the spread of the virus and published it online. According to Mr. Systrom’s model, cases of coronavirus in the U.S. will surpass China’s total 81,000 cases by midweek and 250,000 by the beginning of next week.
But ventilators? Silicon Valley investor Sam Altman is helping organize an effort to build a million low-cost ventilators in three months. “What we do best is mobilize, invent and move incredibly fast,” said Neil Thanedar, a startup chief executive working on the million-ventilator project. “I think we have an opportunity here to really help save lives and to change people’s perceptions.”
Check your ego. “We should acknowledge how difficult [this problem is]. We should listen to the experts, not be the experts,” says Harper Reed, a computer scientist by training who was chief technology officer of Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign.
Facebook usage soars. Facebook in a post Tuesday said total messaging across the platform’s services has increased 50% in countries hit hard by the virus. In Italy, group video calling is up by more than 1000% from a month ago and usage of all Facebook apps is up 70%. The company didn’t provide official earnings guidance, but said “our business is being adversely affected like so many others around the world.” (WSJ)
Huawei CEO looks beyond coronavirus. More than 90% of its approximate 150,000 China-based workforce is now back to work, Chief Executive Ren Zhengfei tells The Wall Street Journal’s Dan Strumpf.
Sign of the times. Covid Symptom Tracker, an app created by researchers at Guy's and St Thomas' hospitals and King's College London university is the third most popular app in Apple's U.K. store. It launches in the U.S. today (BBC News)
TripActions lays off hundreds of employees. The corporate-travel startup laid off hundreds of employees to save cash because its business has slowed due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a person familiar with the situation. (WSJ)
RBC’s alternative data + machine learning track China’s rebound. Royal Bank of Canada was one of the first to spot China’s recovery in early March, tapping a variety of alternative data sets, including shipping transponder data, traffic data and anonymized cellphone pings that, when combined with geolocation data, provide an idea on the number of people traveling through airports. (WSJ)
Cyber firm detects rise in China cyber activity. Fireye Inc. in a report said Chinese state-backed hacker group APT41 has targeted more than 75 of its customers in a campaign that began on Jan. 20. (Reuters)
A weather map for coronavirus. IBM and its subsidiary The Weather Channel created a new online map tracking the spread of the coronavirus in the U.S. on a state-by-state and county-by-county basis. The map scans government websites, using computer vision to help identify the most relevant data. (Fortune)
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