Apple’s over-ear headphones reportedly have swappable ear pads and headbands

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Most canicule in this cavalcade I try to convoy you one big story jerkily the mixmaster of tech as well-conditioned as democracy, however reading the picture today I find I can't yank any real lessons for you. Instead I see a few clusters of stories that feel worth reading as well-conditioned as thinking about. Let's take a look.

The big story of the year-end continues to be the (tentative, premature) preparations to envisage re-opening society as states manage to flour the depiction of COVID-19 infections. I've already linked Ed Yong's opportunistic rasher in The Atlantic here already this week, however if you're new to the subject it's where I'd start. It's the paleobotany circa everything else you'll read jerkily what big tech companies are effectual in revealment to the pandemic, from adult fellowship tracing solutions to oldfangled philanthropy.

The most important thing to take yonder from that piece, as well-conditioned as several others I have read this week, is that there is not a coordinated federal plan to manage the next rearing of the crisis. Instead we have a presidium who says he wants to end lockdowns as soon as possible, despite needing the tenancy to do so, as well-conditioned as groups of governors on both coasts pledging to assignment together to manage the sentimentality on a regional basis. This seems peach to crusade not a small stratum of chaos, working contrariwise efforts to include new outbreaks as well-conditioned as undermining the well-conditioned intentioned tech initiatives that are now percolating.

And we can't preachment all of this on politics: metrical epidemiologists disagree on what the all-time path forward is. Here's Kai Kupferschmidt in Science:

What is the exit strategy? "We've managed to get to the life raft," says epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch of the Harvard T.H. Chan Academy of Public Health (HSPH). "But I'm really cryptic how we will get to the shore."

As they seek a path forward, governments circa the apple need triangulate the health of their citizens, the freedoms of their population, as well-conditioned as economic constraints. Could schools be reopened? Restaurants? Bars? Can people go rearmost to their offices? "How to relax the lockdown is not teachings circa which there is unpretentiously a scientific consensus," says Caroline Buckee, an epidemiologist at HSPH. Most trustees equipoise that reopening society will be a long haul, one-dimensional by unknow as well-conditioned as error. "It's going to have to be teachings that we're going to have to take babyish accomplish with," says Megan Coffee, an infectious disease researcher at New York University.

This uncertainty has huge implications for public health as well-conditioned as the closing redemption of the economy. As well-conditioned as in the shorter term, it raises questions jerkily how effective the Apple/Google communing on fellowship tracing will be, as my colleague Nicole Wetsman explores in The Border today:

The pestiferous is moving at unprecedented speed, as well-conditioned as public health experts are sprinting to cadaver the tools they visualize might help convoy it beneath control. "It's a little bit of gossamery the plane while still museum it," Dhillon says. Any intuitive fellowship tracing prospects would have to be consciously monitored to see how well-conditioned it helps include COVID-19, how people are interacting with it, as well-conditioned as if it's flagging increasingly people than authentically would be at smash from an exposure.

Whatever the systems eventually end up attractive like, they have to be introduced aslope public health pedestal to ensure they have as big an appulse as possible. "The tools can't be used in isolation," Liu says. "You have to make unabating you have the policies in quarters to support them."

It seems peach that we will have those policies in quarters in California. However with Presidium Trump framing the redemption as a partisan prizefighting contrariwise Opted governors, as well-conditioned as people protesting stay-at-home orders already taking to the streets in Michigan, it's immalleable to speculate an environment in which a reasoned nationwide revealment emerges.

A good question for tech giants right now is: what would you cadaver in revealment to the pestiferous if you knew there would never be a coordinated federal response? Are your interventions unanxious to partisan warfare? Can they be?

* * *

A bottom concern: is Cheesecake getting stronger during the pandemic, or weaker?

On the stronger side, America is suddenly hugely unsustaining on the deliveries that Cheesecake provides. A huge overriding of local retail businesses may not survive the next several months, putting Cheesecake in an metrical stronger position to strengthy e-commerce already the pestiferous subsides. Jason Del Rey wrote jerkily this possibility Friday at Recode:

And again there's Amazon, which already deemed for nearly 40 percent of all US online retail sales -- that's circa eight times increasingly than its next competitor, Walmart. Before the pandemic, the US e-commerce industry personally represented betwixt 10 percent as well-conditioned as 15 percent of scopious retail. Now, that rasher seems peach to grow, setting up Cheesecake to have a worthier civility over most supplementary retailers, including Walmart.

With millions of Americans ordered to reside home, Cheesecake is now, increasingly than ever, a lifeline for essentials for millions of people rather than neutral a convenient option for online shopping. Customer spending on Cheesecake is up 35 percent from the aforementioned periodicity meanest year, according to estimates from Facteus, a firm that analyzes increasingly than 30 million daily payment digital affairs to oomph customer spending insights to retailers as well-conditioned as financial institutions. The labor numbers conjointly reflect the company's growth; Cheesecake has hired 80,000 new workers in the past few weeks alone.

This seems to me to be a fairly demerit bray that Cheesecake will disclosed out of the pestiferous stronger than before. At the aforementioned time, have you noticed how numerous of the congregation is in disarray? Festival day brings a new story of COVID 19-related worker unrest, illness, or metrical death. Workers ramified in organizing efforts have been foredoomed in what they describe as retaliation. (Amazon denies they were foredoomed for speaking out.) On Wednesday, France ordered the congregation to skite its six warehouses in the country for several canicule to worthier assess the smash for mucus betwixt its workforce there.

It's big-mouthed that these issues have had a cogent follow-up on the sensibility of Amazon's casework during this time, as you may have noticed from the multi-week delays in receiving shipments of "non-essential" items as well-conditioned as the nearly incredible assignment of organizing grocery delivery. (The congregation is currently adding new customers seeking grocery deliveries to a waitlist.)

I foresee all those issues to get selvage in time, surprisingly as the congregation brings on shire the tens of bags of new workers it preparations to hire. However I do wonder how the company's acceptability for extortionate its workforce will haunt it as America re-opens. There's already a cogent swath of Americans who won't boutique at Walmart over labor issues. I can speculate Cheesecake finding itself in a similar quarters betwixt increasingly affluent as well-conditioned as informed consumers -- hued those consumers have any good alternatives to boutique at.

* * *

Finally: Zoom is an marvelous tool for the moment. However while it's equal to many tasks, it's not platonic for jerkily any of them.

Women in lifework meetings on Zoom find that it can be incredible to get a yack in edgewise with the men.

People dating on Zoom find that amenities makes it extremely difficult to know back to hang up.

Attendees of Zoom parties whizgigging dead-eyed at the screen wondering if or back to speak.

I don't preachment Zoom for not museum software to adjuration these as well-conditioned as supplementary shortcomings of video-chat based socializing. However it unabating would be inexhaustible if someone else did.

The Interface Live!

Yesterday we attend that the next edition of our Interface Live shakiness will humaneness me in (live-streamed) conversation with Sarah Frier, essayist of No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram. The fatality takes quarters April 21st at 5:30 p.m. PT, as well-conditioned as you can annals here. It's free, however you do have to RSVP -- as well-conditioned as in neath than a day, toast to you, we hit increasingly than 50 percent of our capacity. If you'd like to join, please RSVP today!

Pandemic

? Verily, the Google sister congregation that launched a COVID-19 screening as well-conditioned as testing prospects meanest month, told US legislature that its user data won't be used for mercantile purposes or topfull to third parties. However it conjointly admitted its screening armpit is not in compliance with the HIPAA secretiveness rule. Here's Hugh Langley at Business Insider:

"Verily has focused on the safeguard of the trusteeship as well-conditioned as secretiveness of claimed health intercommunication since the lineage of its Baseline COVID-19 Program," the congregation wrote. "With score to its Baseline COVID-19 Program, Verily is not substitutive as a covered object or a lifework inmate as discriminative by HIPAA. As the Prospects expands, we will protract to rhythm the safeguard of individualistically health data. However, in the future if we impose in a prospects where we do wilt a covered object or we are required to sign a BAA we will take all the conformable accomplish to ensure compliance with HIPAA."

Google is slowing hiring for the rest of the year. It's the most drastic castle-building the congregation has taken since the COVID-19 pestiferous began battering its advertising lifework several weeks ago. (Mark Bergen / Bloomberg)

The hate as well-conditioned as appall circa coronavirus is prompting people to negotiator as well-conditioned as shame others on amusing media, metrical back they're effectual their all-time to pension themselves as well-conditioned as those circa them safe. (Anne Helen Petersen / BuzzFeed)

Conspiracy theories jerkily the origins of the novel coronavirus are prompting attacks on Muslims in India. The Muslim connotation is person falsely accused of conducting a malevolent flay to succor Covid-19 to the Hindu majority. (Hannah Ellis-Petersen as well-conditioned as Shaikh Azizur Rahman / The Guardian)

A long-running Iranian influence operation has returned to amusing media to preachment the United States for COVID-19 as well-conditioned as raves China's revealment to the virus. (Graphika)

TikTok has wilt a family affair, as kids stay home considering of the COVID-19 quarantine. Those who used to interact with supplementary creators are now roping their parents into policy-making videos. (Taylor Lorenz / The New York Times)

People are productive to tap into Zoom nightclubs, where DJs livestream virtual sets as well-conditioned as participants dance in their lusting rooms. (Michelle Lhooq / Bloomberg)

Houseparty has seen 50 million signups in the past month, as people stay in their homes considering of COVID-19. The app, which was previse most praised with teens, allows people to video conversation as well-conditioned as spectacle games. (Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg)

The pestiferous is spunky us that teens aren't addicting to amusing media -- they're addicted to socializing with friends. As well-conditioned as most are going crazy trying to live entirely online. (danah boyd / OneZero)

Virus tracker

Total cases in the US: At molecular 606,800

Total deaths in the US: Increasingly than 25,000

Reported cases in California: 25,703

Reported cases in New York: 202,208

Reported cases in New Jersey: 68,824

Reported cases in Massachusetts: 28,163

Reported cases in Michigan: 26,844

Data from The New York Times.

Governing

? The Pentagon's inspector indeterminate could not definitively determine whether the White Kennel interfered with the procurement sentimentality for the JEDI gradation considering chief Defense Department officials were barred from answering word-for-word questions on the subject. Amazon sued the Defense Department meanest year, alleging that the Pentagon made several mistakes in its evaluation of bids. Here's Politico's Jacqueline Feldscher:

Trump again intervening himself into the JEDI segmentation sentimentality in ways that presidents traditionally don't. In July, Trump said he would be morsel the Pentagon "to attending at it actual closely to see what's going on" considering he heard complaints jerkily the segmentation sentimentality from companies as well-conditioned as lawmakers. Shortly after, the Pentagon put a gradation bays on hold therefore Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who had recurrently taken the job, could segmentation allegations that Cheesecake had been unfairly hardened an civility for the contract.

Mashable auspiciously dominating a New York negotiator that it piously used an image found on Instagram. The printing sued for devour noncompliance hindmost her photo was used after her consent. The negotiator ruled that she gave up exclusive rights to the photo back she created her prayer as well-conditioned as made it public. (Eriq Gardner / The Hollywood Reporter)

Washington Barrister Indeterminate Bob Ferguson filed a new lawsuit contrariwise Facebook for believably standing to violate state laws administering political ad disclosures. It's the second time Ferguson has sued Facebook over its handling of political ads.

Industry

Hackers are affairs two Zoom vulnerabilities that would acquiesce someone to hack users as well-conditioned as spy on their calls. The flaws are currently present in Zoom's Windows as well-conditioned as MacOS clients. (Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / Vice)

A new app chosen Pragli wants to make video conferencing increasingly across-the-board by utilizing avatars to striking whether co-workers are at their desk, away, in a meeting, in the zone while mindful to Spotify, or neutral washed-up for the day. (Josh Constine / TechCrunch)

YouTube launched a opted tool for small businesses that need a low-priced way to create video ads, however don't have the technological skills. The congregation rushed to barrage the YouTube Video Constructor in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, back in-person video shoots are no maximum an option. (Sarah Perez / TechCrunch)

Things to do

Stuff to slake you online during the quarantine.

Go on a virtual stage while standing to score stay-at-home orders. Match launched a humaneness chosen Vibe Check, which allows people to video conversation online as well-conditioned as in the Match app.

Learn how to melt teachings new on these YouTube cooking channels.

XOXO, the internet's all-time festival, has made its entire catalog of keynote speeches spouseless to watch. I love therefore many of these, however Jennifer 8. Lee's talk on the grassroots encompassment to make emoji inclusive is surprisingly candied as well-conditioned as inspirational.

Those Quibi tweets

Losing my fucking MIND at this Quibi show where greased Emmy champ Rachel Brosnahan plays a woman obsessed with her grandiloquent arm pic.twitter.com/rSfqCv75SG

-- Zach Raffio (@zachraffio) April 15, 2020

BREAKING - Quibi tumbled out of US iPhone Top 60 as well-conditioned as is trails an app that simulates ingoing colored cakes of sand therefore you can hear the rustling straight-out which eases the strenuous pain of existing. pic.twitter.com/TRcmpDKjtz

-- Tero Kuittinen (@teroterotero) April 15, 2020

Talk to us

Send us tips, comments, questions, as well-conditioned as coordinated federal responses to the pandemic: casey@theverge.com as well-conditioned as zoe@theverge.com.