News written by James Delahunty (March, 2020)

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk has tweeted that the carmaker can make ventilators at its factories if there is a shortage.

The Tesla and SpaceX boss has tweeted a bit recently about the COVID-19 pandemic and seems to have taken some flack for suggesting the panic over the virus will do more damage than the virus.

Whether true or not, Elon responded to a tweet asking him if Tesla's factories could make ventilators.

"We will make ventilators if there is a shortage," Musk responded. Later he was told there was a shortage now and he replied by asking for the details of hospitals currently experiencing a shortage.

Tesla makes cars with sophisticated hvac systems. SpaceX makes spacecraft with life support systems. Ventilators are not difficult, but cannot be produced instantly. Which hospitals have these shortages you speak of right now?

-- Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 19, 2020

Tesla's main Fremont factory has been impacted by a "shelter in place" order in the Bay Area that seeks to slow the spread of the coronavirus causing the COVID-19 pandemic.

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As Internet Service Providers note an increase in Internet usage during the COVID-19 pandemic, the EU is suggesting you lower your resolution.

European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services Thierry Breton is urging streaming providers to act to keep the Internet working smoothly as more people depend on it to work or learn from home.

The Frenchman has already reportedly spoken to Netflix chief Reed Hastings about the concerns of high demand on Europe's Internet infrastructure. Breton also is urging Europeans to #SwitchToStandard - to watch videos in standard definition and not high definition or UltraHD 4K.

In comments to the Financial Times, Hastings pointed out that Netflix has adaptive streaming technology that automatically adjusts the resolution of streaming video depending on the available bandwidth in a local area.

Important phone conversation with @ReedHastings, CEO of @Netflix

To beat #COVID19, we #StayAtHome

Teleworking & streaming help a lot but infrastructures might be in strain.

To secure Internet access for all, let's #SwitchToStandard definition when HD is not necessary.

-- Thierry Breton (@ThierryBreton) March 18, 2020

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Microsoft's Teams service has seen its daily users skyrocket as more employees take their work home.

Teams is a group chat and conference app that is suited to an online work environment. In November, Microsoft revealed that it had 20 million users. Businesses are charged for full-featured access to Teams, but it is also available for free for consumers.

Rival Slack had reached 12 million active users by October. COVID-19 pandemic is sending a lot of workers home and services like Slack and Teams are indispensable tools.

Discord also saw a surge in use over the past month and increased its live streaming limits to address it.

Microsoft also said Teams is helping in the medical field too.

It cited St. Luke's University Health Network in Pennsylvania which will start using Teams for videoconferencing with patients, including those in high-risk groups with regard to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

We now know the final specs of what's under the hood of Sony's PlayStation 5 (PS5) console, which will launch later this year.

Sony wants the specs of the PlayStation 5 to enable a step up worthy of being called next-generation, though it stresses that something like the total TFLOPs figure won't necessarily tell the full story in terms of performance. However, it is still worth taking a look at the raw hardware specs to see what they are packing into this new system.

Mark Cerny is demonstrating PS5 system architecture as I type, but the raw details of the hardware are already online thanks to Digital Foundry. In a nutshell, here is what the PS5 will pack under the hood:

• CPU: 8x Zen 2 Cores at 3.5GHz (variable frequency)
• GPU: 10.28 TFLOPs, 36 CUs at 2.23GHz (variable frequency)
• GPU Architecture: Custom RDNA 2
• Memory/Interface: 16GB GDDR6/256-bit
• Memory Bandwidth: 448GB/s
• Internal Storage: Custom 825GB SSD
• IO Throughput: 5.5GB/s (Raw), Typical 8-9GB/s (Compressed)
• Expandable Storage: NVMe SSD Slot
• External Storage: USB HDD Support
• Optical Drive: 4K UHD Blu-ray Drive

PlayStation 5, like Xbox Series X, will support ray-tracing which makes the propogation of light and its interaction with objects in-game more realistic. For example, water becomes transparent and light sources will be distorted under way. Also, light passing through a colored semi-transparent object will cast a colored shadow.

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The streaming giant is being sued for defamation by a prosecutor involved in the infamous 1989 case.

A four-part mini-series about an infamous criminal case in 1989 is the subject of a defamation lawsuit targeting Netflix. The 'Central Park jogger case' emerged from the sexual and physical assault of a 28-year-old lady who was jogging in central park, and numerous other assaults, on April 19, 1989.

The case resulted in the conviction of five youths - the "Central Park Five" - who received sentences ranging from 5-15 years in prison. Prosecution of the teens relied on confessions made by the boys to police, which were later withdrawn.

In 2001, serial rapist and convicted murderer Matias Reyes confessed to the attack on the woman in the case. His DNA matched with samples taken from the scene and he also provided additional confirmatory evidence. The convictions of the Central Park Five were vacated in 2002.

Now a former prosecutor in the case is suing Netflix over a miniseries - When They See Us - based on the case. Linda Fairstein filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. It alleges that the Netflix series depicts her as a mastermind of a racist plot. The victim in the case was white, while four of the convicted teenagers were black and one was Hispanic.

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A demo for the remake of 1999 hit Resident Evil 3 will be available for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One from tomorrow, March 19.

The remake has been in development for three years and will follow the remake of Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2 which both rolled out in the past couple of years. The return of the critically acclaimed survival horror series has been a success and Resident Evil 3 is eagerly anticipated.

In Resident Evil 3, players will follow Jill Valentine's escape from Racoon City, which was overcome by zombifying viruses produced by the nefarious Umbrella Corporation.]

The game will be released in full on April 3 and will also include multiplayer Resident Evil Resistance, which lets players join a group of survivors or as a mastermind who sets traps to kill other players.

An open beta for Resident Evil Resistance will be available from March 27.

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Fox buys ad-supported movie and TV show streaming service and funds it by selling its stake in Roku.

Fox Corp has announced that it sold its five percent stake in Roku, which it first invested in back in 2013, and has acquired Tubi TV for $440 million. It may also pay up to an additional $50 million in deferred considerations and unvested options.

Tubi TV is an ad-supported streaming service. According to Tubi, its users spend 160 million hours per month watching content on the service, which features movies and television shows.

In swapping its investment in Roku for the Tubi TV acquisition, Fox said it was "essentially exchanging a passively held minority investment for full ownership and control of a leadership position in the free ad-supported streaming market."

Tubi TV will continue operations as an independent subsidiary of Fox, retaining founder Farhad Massoudi in the role of CEO.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Authorities say that Tesla cannot continue normal operations at its primary production plant in the United States.

The all-electric car maker employs more than 10,000 at its plant in Fremont, Alemada County. The plant has produced more than 415,000 electric vehicles as of the end of December 2019.

Alameda is under order to "shelter in place" along with eight other counties to limit activity as COVID-19 cases increase in California. Only essential businesses can continue normal operations during the lockdown.

"Tesla is not an essential business as defined in the Alameda County Health Order. Tesla can maintain minimum basic operations per the Alameda County Health Order," a county sheriff's office spokesman said, reports Reuters.

Under the order, non-essential businesses can only maintain basic operations which including things like maintaining the value of inventory or processing payroll.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk had already urged employees who felt unwell in any way to stay at home, but Tesla had planned to continue production.

NBCUniversal announced that Universal Pictures will make movies available for digital rental on the same day as a theatrical release.

The news comes as coronavirus fears have shut theaters in countries around the world. The Hunt, The Invisible Man and Emma, will be available on a wide variety of the most popular on-demand services for a 48-hour rental period at a suggested retail price of $19.99 in the U.S., from this Friday, March 20.

DreamWorks Animation's Trolls World Tour has its opening on April 10 and will be available for digital rental the same day.

"Universal Pictures has a broad and diverse range of movies with 2020 being no exception. Rather than delaying these films or releasing them into a challenged distribution landscape, we wanted to provide an option for people to view these titles in the home that is both accessible and affordable," said Jeff Shell, CEO, NBCUniversal

"We hope and believe that people will still go to the movies in theaters where available, but we understand that for people in different areas of the world that is increasingly becoming less possible."

Movie studios have considered releasing movies online during their theatrical run for years, only to be pushed back by theater chains who see it as an obvious threat to their revenues.

The Redmond software giant has notified customers that its stores will be shut while the world deals with the spread of the ongoing pandemic.

The company e-mailed customers to explain to them that it has made this decision and why.

"We are closing Microsoft Store locations to help protect the health and safety of our customers and employees. During this unprecedented time, the best way we can serve you is to do everything we can to help minimize the risk of the virus spreading."

Microsoft will continue to pay its store employees for their scheduled hours as the premises are closed, however. Rival Apple closed all of its stores outside of mainland China starting several days ago.

Advice from governments in North America, Europe, and around the world is to limit gatherings of people to slow the spread of the virus and take pressure off of health authorities who face a struggle to deal with the serious cases.

Source: Engadget

Uber users will not have the option to pool rides with others riders headed in the same direction for the time being.

Uber riders can typically choose to share a ride with up to three other passengers who are headed in the same direction. It is a way to cut costs and for the service to be more efficient. However, due to the spread of the novel coronavirus, Uber has decided to disable the option for customers in Canada and the United States.

"Our goal is to help flatten the curve on community spread in the cities we serve," senior vice president Uber Rides and Platform Andrew Macdonald said, reports Reuters.

Decisions on whether to limit the service in countries outside of the U.S. and Canada will be made on a case-by-case basis as more data emerges on the spread of the novel coronavirus.

According to the same report, the Uber app will also prompt users only to travel when it is necessary. Users are also asked to clean or sanitize hands before and after a ride, to sit in the backseat and to keep windows lowered for ventilation to reduce the chance of transmitting the virus.

Online retail giant will create 100,000 more roles to meet significant jumps in demand amidst the global coronavirus pandemic.

It will create the 100,000 new positions for warehouse and delivery workers in the United States to begin with. It is targeting people who have recently been laid off due to the closure of restaurants, bars, stores and so forth. The company says that online orders are spiking are more people are practicing social distancing to thwart the spread of the novel coronavirus.

"We also know many people have been economically impacted as jobs in areas like hospitality, restaurants, and travel are lost or furloughed as part of this crisis. We want those people to know we welcome them on our teams until things return to normal and their past employer is able to bring them back," Amazon's press information states.

In addition to the 100,000 new roles, Amazon is also bumping hourly pay a little. It is increasing hourly pay by $2 in the U.S., £2 in the UK, and €2 in the EU through to April as workers deal with the heavier demand.

"This commitment to increased pay through the end of April represents an investment of over $350 million in increased compensation for hourly employees across the U.S., Europe, and Canada."

Microsoft has revealed what will power its next generation Xbox Series X console when it is launched later this year.

According to Microsoft, three things that will define the new Xbox Series X will be power, speed, and compatibility. To that end, it has revealed a lot of details about the upcoming next generation console and how it will deliver more power, and also allow Xbox gamers to play their favorite titles going back 15 years of Xbox consoles.

In terms of power, the Xbox team wants to ensure that developers can easily produce games that will run comfortable at a 4K resolution at 60fps. In fact, the goal is to go beyond 60fps to 120fps if developers wish. Previous consoles can support 4K at 60fps, but developers often have to be creative with solutions like dynamic resolution scaling to keep image quality up without sacrificing frame rates.

In the context of power, the history of gaming consoles has revolved around graphical performance, from 8-bit to 16-bit graphics and then from standard definition TV resolution, to 4K UltraHD. Microsoft doesn't think this will define power with the next generation, but the console will have what it needs to raise the bar regardless. Let's take a look at the technical specs we have been given today.

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Microsoft's Windows 10 operating system is installed on over one billion active devices, according to the Redmond giant.

Windows 10 launched in 2015 after the lackluster Windows 8/8.1 effort failed to dethrone its previous Windows 7 iteration. Almost five years on, it is now installed on over a billion active devices, in over 200 countries in the world. The devices it powers includes PCs, laptops, tablets, gaming devices, and more.

Microsoft notes that Windows 10 is used by the entirety of the Fortune 500, making it a critical platform for driving business transformation in the enterprise and beyond. One factor driving more recent transitions to Windows 10 is the end of support for Windows 7 last month, which launched in 2009 and was very successful.

Windows 10 is on over 80,000 models and configurations of different laptops and 2-in-1s from over 1,000 different manufacturers globally, but it also powers Microsoft's Mixed Reality and HoloLens products. Additionally, while Windows 10 is the most popular platform for PC gaming, it is also on modern Xbox consoles and will be on the Xbox Series X when it launches later this year.

In other news, Microsoft also announced that the Windows Insider program has reached 17.8 million participants. The Insider Program lets Microsoft roll out feature changes and updates early to participants and get feedback before a more general release. Scheduling of Windows 10 revamps has also changed compared to older systems.

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Due to the spread of the novel coronavirus, EA has announced that it will suspend all events for EA's competitive gaming series.

This includes Apex Legends Global Series, EA SPORTS FIFA 20 Global Series, FIFA Online 4 Live Events and Madden NFL 20 Championship Series. All third-party events held under license with EA are also included in this suspension. Naturally, all events that are held online will continue because participants and staff operate remotely.

"Our priority is protecting our competitors, our employees, our partner's employees and our communities. As we continue to monitor the situation around the coronavirus and receive updated guidance from health officials around the world, we will use this time to determine next steps for moving forward with all of EA's Competitive Gaming live events and online broadcasts," a statement from EA reads.

EA previously closed several international offices and is encouraging its staff to work from home in North America, Europe, and Australia, at least until early April.

Read more: EA

Apple has been hit with a huge €1.1 billion fine by French authorities, while two wholesalers were also targeted with large fines in the country.

The iPhone-maker was investigated for anti-competitive behavior in its product distribution by the French competition watchdog. It also was accused of abusing the economic dependence of its re-sellers, and agreeing on prices with wholesalers.

Tech Data was fined €76 million for its part in the activity by the watchdog, while Ingram Micro was also hit with a €63 million fine.

"Apple and its two wholesalers have agreed not to compete with each other and to prevent distributors from competing with each other, thereby sterilizing the wholesale market for Apple products," said Isabelle de Silva, head of France's competition authority, according to the Reuters News Agency.

Apple told AppleInsider that it disagrees with the decision and plans to appeal it.

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Bill Gates revealed that he will leave the two public boards he serves on to focus his efforts on philanthropy.

The world's second wealthiest man will step down from the Microsoft board almost 45 years after he founded the company with Paul Allen. He had left the day-to-day operations of Microsoft in 2008 and has focused primarily on the work of the Bill & Malinda Gates Foundation ever since. Gates will also be departing the Berkshire Hathaway board.

Despite leaving the Microsoft board, Gates says he will always be close to the company. "Microsoft will always be an important part of my life's work and I will continue to be engaged with Satya and the technical leadership to help shape the vision and achieve the company's ambitious goals."

Gates also nodded to Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffet, saying they were the best of friends before he joined the board and will remain that way long after. "I look forward to our continued partnership as co-trustees of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and co-founders of The Giving Pledge."

Ultimately Gates is leaving the two boards as he wants to focus his efforts more on philanthropic priorities including global health and development, education, and climate change.

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Global disruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic is sending people online to work and network remotely.

In efforts to slow the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus at the center of the COVID-19 pandemic, many workers and students are being sent home to carry out their work and studies online. Others are self-isolating due to symptoms or concerns over the spread of the virus in their region.

This is resulting in heavier demand on web services to enable work, education and continued communication between colleagues, family, and friends. Discord has recognized that some people are relying on its services for continuity during the coronavirus pandemic.

"People -- particularly in regions harder hit by COVID-19 -- are already using Discord to keep in touch and stay on track with their everyday lives, from attending classes remotely to working from home," wrote Jason Citron, on the Discord website.

The service will temporarily up its Go Live streaming limit from 10 to 50 participants. Go Live is free to use and lets people privately stream or screen share apps from a computer while others watch on any device. Using Go Live, teachers/professors can conduct classes, co-workers can collaborate on work from their homes, and so on.

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