When COVID-19 hit Washington, D.C., and health officials said people had to stay 2 meters apart, Broad Branch Market owner Tracy Stannard knew it meant an end to business as usual.Customers had been packing the store to stock up.”We realized that it was getting a little too risky to have so many people in the market,” Stannard said. “We wanted to keep people outside.”But she also wanted to keep selling groceries.So she turned to Starship Technologies’ delivery robots.”The bots seemed like a great option,” she said.At a time when human contact is considered a health hazard, robots may be more useful than ever. Though their potential is huge, robots are not quite ready to take on the role, experts said.WATCH: Delivery robotsSorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
FILE – A six-wheeled ground delivery robot from Starship Technologies shares the sidewalk with pedestrians at DuPont Circle in Washington, Feb. 20, 2017.But they’re a help, she added. Without them, “it would be harder. I would be driving a lot, for sure.”And customers appreciate that the bots let them keep their distance.”I love the fact that it’ll come right to my house and that I don’t even have to go into the store,” customer Rob Okum said. “It’s actually super easy and it makes it a lot safer to keep social distancing.”Elsewhere, Starship’s robots are delivering restaurant takeout. Other companies, including Kiwibot, Postmates and, of course, Amazon, are also doing various kinds of robot deliveries.Though this seems like an opportune moment, automated deliveries are not taking off.”There’s a lot of use for robotics right now, but I’m not seeing a tremendous growth in that particular application,” said Jeff Burnstein, president of the trade group Association for Advancing Automation.Robot deliveries are only available in a few small areas where the sidewalks and streets aren’t too bumpy and the local authorities don’t mind letting them share the pavement. There are also plenty of other ways to have stuff delivered, Burnstein said.Dirty and dangerousRobots have always been best-suited for dirty and dangerous work, he said, and the COVID-19 pandemic is providing some new opportunities.Disinfecting robots are zapping germs in a Belgian hospital and spraying disinfectant in the Hong Kong subway.”If you are in a hospital or office or a warehouse, you probably would like to have a robot do the disinfecting so that people don’t have to go in there and do that,” Burnstein said. “(The robot) makes it safe before the people come into work.”Robots are helping health workers stay healthy by limiting their interactions with sick patients.They are delivering food and medicine in India and Thailand.In Italy, a robot with a camera and touchscreen sits by a patient’s bedside, keeping an eye on them so nurses can keep their distance. Limited applicationsBut these remain isolated examples. Experts say robots could be doing much more.”There’s so much potential you can do here,” Carnegie Mellon University robotics professor Howie Choset said. “Unfortunately, we have not had the resources to develop robots that are needed for this particular pandemic.”Choset said interest in developing tools waxes and wanes with the latest crisis. For example, he said, his research group developed a snake-like robot that could move through tight spaces to search for victims in collapsed buildings. It helped the Red Cross in Mexico City after the 2017 earthquake.”But we were doing that on a shoestring budget. That robot, no pun intended, was on its last legs” until the earthquake hit, he said. Then, “everybody wanted that robot. And then a couple of weeks after that, people forgot.”Choset said the robot needs more work, but it’s been hard to find the funding.It’s not just academics. The robotics industry as a whole is struggling.”I’m seeing robotics companies shut down, even in the last month, but particularly in the last year, because they were too early for the markets,” said Andra Keay, managing director of trade group Silicon Valley Robotics.Investors are looking for big returns fast, but many companies are not making money yet. It may be 10 or 15 years before they perfect their technology and business models.”We really needed patient capital in this new wave of robotics,” she said.For now, however, these futuristic workers remain in the future.”Yes, this is robots’ moment,” Choset said, “but we’re going to make do with what we have.” 
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At a time when human contact is considered a health hazard, robots may be more useful than ever. From helping with the shopping to keeping healthcare workers safe, the COVID-19 pandemic could be the moment for robots to shine. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more.
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U.S. lawmakers and rights groups are raising concerns about privacy protections and civil liberties as health authorities study China, South Korea and other nations for insights into deploying big data in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.  So far, the United States has made limited use of available data to fight the outbreak. Instead of using cell phone location data to track down individuals exposed to the virus, public health officials have relied on such data to monitor trends and hot spots.  But once the number of new COVID-19 cases levels off and the Trump administration and governors move to lift lockdowns and other social distancing measures, the contact tracing techniques used with varying degrees of success in other countries are likely to gain currency in the U.S.   
 
Contact tracing is a public health procedure of identifying people who have come into contact with an infected person and follow-up gathering of additional information on these people.   Jennifer Granick, the surveillance and cybersecurity counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, said contact tracing could be useful when testing for exposure to the virus becomes  more widely available. But she warned that any use of phone records must be transparent and voluntary, and the data must be destroyed once the crisis is over.“When data collection is useful for an important public good, we have to make sure we can protect privacy as much as possible and get effective use of the tool or the data,” Granick said during a press call with reporters last week.  In the two years since the European Union implemented a landmark privacy regulation known as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Republican and Democratic U.S. lawmakers have been pressing for similar protections for American consumers. Now, the heightened focus on the use of data in the fight against the COVID-19 virus has pushed concerns about privacy protections to the forefront.  Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee Chairman Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., asks a question during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 5, 2020.On Thursday, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation convened the first congressional “paper hearing” via the internet on big data and the coronavirus. In his opening statement, Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the committee chairman, said any use of personal data must come with privacy protections.  
 
“Reducing privacy risks begins with understanding how consumers’ location data — and any other information — is being collected when tracking compliance with social distancing measures,” Wicker said. “Equally important is understanding how that data is anonymized to remove all personally identifiable information and prevent individuals from being re-identified.”Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee ranking member Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., asks a question during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 5, 2020.Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington State, the top Democrat on the panel, warned against “hasty decisions that will sweep up massive, unrelated datasets.” “And we must guard against vaguely defined and non-transparent government initiatives with our personal data,” Cantwell said.  “Because rights and data surrendered temporarily during an emergency can become very difficult to get back.” Last year, both Wicker and Cantwell introduced privacy bills that would give American consumers privacy protections similar to the EU’s GDPR.  
 
The U.S. drive to make greater use of cell phone location data to contain the virus stems in part from similar efforts in China, South Korea, Singapore, Israel and elsewhere.  People wearing face masks look at their cellphones at Beijing Capital International Airport, as the country is hit by an outbreak of the novel coronavirus, in Beijing, China March 16, 2020.In China, the government collected cell phone location data on millions of residents with the goal of identifying individuals exposed to a person infected with the virus.  Using the infected people’s location records, the government then identified, tested and, if necessary, quarantined people.   This was one of several methods China used to bring the virus outbreak under control.  “This kind of tracking is part of what China has been doing in its seemingly successful effort to suppress the virus, which has fed the appeal of such tracking,” the ACLU said in a white paper released last week.  In the paper, the ACLU highlighted several problems with this method.For one, cell site location information and GPS data are not accurate enough to pinpoint whether two people were recently in “close contact” with each other.    As the Chinese discovered, cell site location data “generated too many false positives,” said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the ACLU.  GPS data “is probably good enough to tell you that you were near a mosque or an abortion clinic … but not good enough to figure out who you were close enough to potentially be exposed to COVID,” Stanley said. Other problems: computer algorithms are not always reliable and cell phone location data are scattered among “a whole ecosystem of privacy-invading companies,” Stanley said.   Lee Nak-yon, South Korean former prime minister and a ruling Democratic Party candidate for the parliament, wears a mask to prevent contracting the coronavirus disease as he poses for a selfie in Seoul, April 10, 2020.In South Korea, officials took a different approach to deploying big data.  They used an infected person’s cell phone location data to retrace his or her steps and then published their “anonymized” or anonymous location histories through phone apps and websites. Residents who learned through the apps they may have been exposed to the virus were quickly tested.    But while effective in containing the outbreak, South Korean authorities “are not doing a good job anonymizing the data,” the ACLU said.     “One alert informed the public, for example, of a ’43-year-old man, resident of Nowon district’ who was at his work in Mapo district attending a sexual harassment class,” the report said.   In the U.S., authorities have shunned such intrusive techniques. Instead, they have largely relied on aggregate cell phone location data to monitor trends and people’s movements in and out of hot spots.   Experts say such aggregate location data usually don’t present privacy concerns as they involve information about large groups of people rather than individual location histories.    Yet contact tracing by both individuals and health authorities is likely to grow in use once the COVID-19 infection curve is flattened and the virus becomes more geographically localized.   Contact tracing apps use a combination of self-reported health status and location history and allow users to avoid exposure to the virus. FILE – A Google logo is seen at the company’s offices in Granary Square, London, Nov. 1, 2018.Apple and Google on Friday announced plans to develop a joint contact tracing app using Bluetooth technology.  The app allows users to report their positive diagnosis and to receive alerts when they’re in close contact with an infected person.  Ryan Calo, a law professor at the University of Washington, warned that digital contact tracing of the kind used in Singapore, South Korea and Israel has significant potential for “unintended consequences, misuse, and encroachment on privacy and civil liberties.”  To the extent that contact tracing efforts have been effective in these countries, “they have not been voluntary, self-reported, or involved self-help,” Calo said in written testimony to the Senate Commerce Committee. “Rather, public officials have forced compliance and dispatched investigators to interview and, if necessary, forcibly quarantine exposed individuals. I see it as an open question whether Americans would be comfortable with this level of state expenditure and intervention.”  
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The internet is playing a special role in the coronavirus pandemic, allowing billions of people sheltered at home to communicate. A global event is underway online to seek creative ways to deal with the crisis. Mike O’Sullivan has more on the Hack the Crisis movement and its worldwide Global Hack this weekend.
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With billions locked down at home by COVID-19, the internet is a lifeline, allowing people to work, study and share ideas online.It also presents opportunities, say the organizers of the Global Hack, a virtual gathering of hundreds of thousands of people in 50 nations taking place Thursday through Saturday, April 9-11. Prizes for the best ideas for new platforms, applications and innovations will be awarded April 12.Hackathons are usually mass gatherings of software developers and graphic designers who tackle problems in a competitive setting. With the Global Hack now under way, creative teams are working remotely to come up with solutions to problems raised by the COVID-19 pandemic and future crises.“We gather people together, with very different skills, different competencies,” said Kai Isand, a leader of the technology collective Accelerate Estonia and head organizer for this weekend’s Global Hack.“We brainstorm ideas, and we actually build them into working prototypes,” she said. A hackathon March 13-15 created a map of COVID-19 cases in Estonia, the country in northern Europe where the online movement Hack the Crisis started. Other teams developed a health questionnaire and a site to link volunteers with medical backgrounds. FILE – An Estonian police officer checks documents at the border crossing point as Estonia reintroduces border control and a ban to enter Estonia for foreigners as a preventive measure against the coronavirus in Valga, Estonia, March 17, 2020.Dozens of nations are now involved.“People said we were in lockdown, and we knocked down the lockdown and we felt so connected with everyone,” said Payal Manan Rajpal, who heads Hack the Crisis, India. She said her country has a huge pool of technology talent, and among the innovations that emerged from a recent Indian hackathon was “an AI (artificial intelligence) enabled robot, which will be very helpful to disinfect via UV (ultraviolet) rays in quarantine wards.” The movement has drawn support from the business community and IT sector.Estonia, where the Hack the Crisis movement started, is a nation of 1.3 million people that embraced the digital revolution early, said Viljar Lubi, Estonian vice minister for economic development for the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications.“We thought we could use IT in order to make our government leaner and smoother and bring it closer to its citizens,” he said.Estonia has pursued the concept of digital government, and in last year’s parliamentary election, 44% of Estonian voters cast their votes online. The Hack the Crisis movement began with a call for creative ideas from an Estonian government official. In response, international startup consultant Calum Cameron made a few phone calls and the concept was hammered out, with organizers quickly securing government backing.Within days, the March 13 online hack was under way.The online movement quickly spread to Latvia, Germany, Belarus and dozens of other countries. “Everybody in the region was thinking about it. Everybody had the same idea, but Estonia was the only country that was ready to actually go,” Cameron said.The online hacks are not just for IT experts, said Isand, of the Global Hack, and they welcome educators, designers, marketers and anyone with ideas. Online mentors include Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov and former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves. Cameron said that for the first time in history, humanity has been able to come together virtually to address a common problem, “and do something about it … using digital, using internet,” to mitigate this and future crises. 
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The Department of Defense has issued new guidance on the use of the popular videoconferencing application Zoom following a week-old FBI warning about security issues and a FILE- A Zoom app logo is displayed on a smartphone in Arlington, Virginia, March 30, 2020.The federal government has been no different, despite an FBI announcement April 1 that hackers could exploit weaknesses in videoconferencing software systems like Zoom to “steal sensitive information, target individuals and businesses performing financial transactions, and engage in extortion.”The security concern is much greater than “Zoom bombing” attacks reported by users whose chats have been infiltrated by hackers shouting profanities or posting lewd images.Experts say the teleconferencing app may introduce security risks not only to government employees during Zoom sessions but also to data that reside on government computers.“If there are vulnerabilities, the app can jeopardize the security of data on the computer on which it is installed, or even potentially on other computers on the same network,” Joseph Steinberg, a leading cybersecurity expert and the author of Cybersecurity for Dummies, told VOA. “Such vulnerabilities have been discovered — and more may exist.”Some unaware of risksVOA reporting after the FBI warning on April 1 showed that Zoom remained a popular videoconferencing application for U.S. government employees from the Pentagon to Capitol Hill, not all of whom were aware of its potential risks.A Zoom spokeswoman said Thursday that Zoom takes user security “extremely seriously.”“A large number of global institutions ranging from the world’s largest financial services companies to leading telecommunications providers, government agencies, universities and others have done exhaustive security reviews of our user, network and datacenter layers and confidently selected Zoom for complete deployment,” the spokeswoman said.
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U.S. military and government employees continue to use the popular videoconferencing application Zoom for official business, despite FBI warnings about privacy and security issues, an action experts fear is increasing the risk of government data breaches.  Zoom has seen a surge in activity during the coronavirus pandemic as office workers across the country have turned to the free app to quickly arrange video calls with dozens of participants. The federal government has been no different, despite an FBI announcement April 1 that hackers could exploit weaknesses in videoconferencing software systems like Zoom to “steal sensitive information, target individuals and businesses performing financial transactions, and engage in extortion.”  The security concern is much greater than “Zoom CEO Eric Yuan attends the opening bell at Nasdaq as his company holds its IPO, April 18, 2019, in New York.Zoom CEO Eric Yuan said in an April 1 blog post that the company was freezing work on new features to focus on fixing its privacy and security problems.   In the meantime, VOA reporting shows that Zoom remains one of the most popular videoconferencing applications for U.S. government employees from the Pentagon to Capitol Hill, not all of whom are aware of its potential risks.  “I’m not aware of any issues with Zoom,” a senior official in the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told a small group of reporters a day after the FBI guidance was issued. The U.S. defense official said he was using Zoom to videoconference amid the need to social distance, but when pressed by VOA about the potential security risks, the official added that every discussion his team had while on Zoom was “at the unclassified level.” Government employees can use Zoom for Government, a paid tier service that is hosted in a separate cloud authorized by the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program. It is unclear, however, how many government employees have differentiated between the two services thus far. To date, Zoom remains on the approved list of mobile phone applications for U.S. Department of Defense employees, according to multiple officials. However, one senior defense official said the Pentagon was currently looking into “guidance adjustments” for the application. Multiple employees at the State Department have also been using Zoom for official business. One staff member said he and his colleagues have daily Zoom meetings and have not received any guidance against using the app for internal and external communication. Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs R. Clarke Cooper last week tweeted about his department’s use of a “Zoom Room.” Be it via “Zoom Room,” WebXing, or VTC, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper gestures during a news conference at the Pentagon, March 5, 2020.Concerns of Chinese cybertheft  Scott Stewart, vice president of Stratfor’s Threat Lens and a former diplomatic security service special agent, told VOA a “good portion” of Zoom’s development team is in China, and the videoconferencing company’s failure to use end-to-end encryption could allow an employee under pressure by the Chinese government to access and share private conversations.  Defense Secretary Mark Esper has repeatedly said maintaining a military advantage over China is the Pentagon’s “highest priority,” and for years top military officers have warned of China’s use of forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft and cyber-espionage to expand their military capabilities. Steinberg told VOA he would not recommend Zoom use on military or government computers. “Other apps are more time tested,” he said. Nike Ching, Katherine Gypson, Michelle Quinn and Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.  
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U.S. military and government employees continue to use the popular videoconferencing application Zoom for official business, despite FBI warnings about privacy and security issues, an action experts fear is increasing the risk of government data breaches.  Zoom has seen a surge in activity during the coronavirus pandemic as office workers across the country have turned to the free app to quickly arrange video calls with dozens of participants. The federal government has been no different, despite an FBI announcement April 1 that hackers could exploit weaknesses in videoconferencing software systems like Zoom to “steal sensitive information, target individuals and businesses performing financial transactions, and engage in extortion.”  The security concern is much greater than “Zoom CEO Eric Yuan attends the opening bell at Nasdaq as his company holds its IPO, April 18, 2019, in New York.Zoom CEO Eric Yuan said in an April 1 blog post that the company was freezing work on new features to focus on fixing its privacy and security problems.   In the meantime, VOA reporting shows that Zoom remains one of the most popular videoconferencing applications for U.S. government employees from the Pentagon to Capitol Hill, not all of whom are aware of its potential risks.  “I’m not aware of any issues with Zoom,” a senior official in the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told a small group of reporters a day after the FBI guidance was issued. The U.S. defense official said he was using Zoom to videoconference amid the need to social distance, but when pressed by VOA about the potential security risks, the official added that every discussion his team had while on Zoom was “at the unclassified level.” Government employees can use Zoom for Government, a paid tier service that is hosted in a separate cloud authorized by the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program. It is unclear, however, how many government employees have differentiated between the two services thus far. To date, Zoom remains on the approved list of mobile phone applications for U.S. Department of Defense employees, according to multiple officials. However, one senior defense official said the Pentagon was currently looking into “guidance adjustments” for the application. Multiple employees at the State Department have also been using Zoom for official business. One staff member said he and his colleagues have daily Zoom meetings and have not received any guidance against using the app for internal and external communication. Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs R. Clarke Cooper last week tweeted about his department’s use of a “Zoom Room.” Be it via “Zoom Room,” WebXing, or VTC, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper gestures during a news conference at the Pentagon, March 5, 2020.Concerns of Chinese cybertheft  Scott Stewart, vice president of Stratfor’s Threat Lens and a former diplomatic security service special agent, told VOA a “good portion” of Zoom’s development team is in China, and the videoconferencing company’s failure to use end-to-end encryption could allow an employee under pressure by the Chinese government to access and share private conversations.  Defense Secretary Mark Esper has repeatedly said maintaining a military advantage over China is the Pentagon’s “highest priority,” and for years top military officers have warned of China’s use of forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft and cyber-espionage to expand their military capabilities. Steinberg told VOA he would not recommend Zoom use on military or government computers. “Other apps are more time tested,” he said. Nike Ching, Katherine Gypson, Michelle Quinn and Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.  
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Just as the coronavirus outbreak has boxed in society, it’s also squeezed high-flying tech companies reliant on people’s freedom to move around and get together.Since the beginning of March, for instance, Uber shares have lost a quarter of their value. Rival Lyft is down 28 percent. Over the same period, the S&P 500 has fallen just 10 percent, even with wild swings along the way. The picture is even less clear for other, still-private “unicorn” companies once valued at more than $1 billion, such as Airbnb and WeWork.“What market pressure will mean for all companies is survival of the fittest,” said Allen Adamson, co-founder of the marketing firm Metaforce and a business professor at New York University. “If you are going into this storm in a bad shape, it’s not going to be pretty.”Just few weeks ago, Airbnb was poised to cash in on a soaring stock market with its highly anticipated public offering. But with the market now reeling and few people looking to anywhere but home, Airbnb is reportedly racking up millions of dollars in losses while fending off a backlash from hosts who rely on its service to survive.FILE – An Uber sticker is seen on a car in Lafayette, Louisiana, U.S.on Feb. 16, 2020.Hosts were furious when the company told guests they could cancel their stays without penalties. Last week, Airbnb agreed to pay hosts $250 million to make up for some of the money lost to cancellations.AirDNA, a data firm that helps property owners set rental rates, says the impact on U.S. Airbnb hosts has been mixed. In New York City, bookings dropped 66 percent in March, but in outer suburbs they were up as people fled the city. Bookings in Westhampton Beach, N.Y., jumped sixfold. Similarly, bookings in the city of Chicago fell 11 percent last month, but in St. Joseph, Michigan — a lakeside community within driving distance — they were up by a factor of four.Cary Gillenwater, who has an attached guest suite in Amsterdam listed on Airbnb, said 20 guests have canceled reservations between March and June, costing him nearly $11,000. He had hoped for compensation from the company but was told that only reservations canceled through Airbnb that specifically mentioned the coronavirus would qualify. Several of his would-be guests contacted him directly to cancel; he refunded their money but may be out of luck when it comes to reimbursement. Airbnb didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.The company got a lifeline of sorts on Monday, when two private equity firms — Silver Lake and Sixth Street Partners — invested $1 billion in debt and equity in the company. The firms said they expect Airbnb to emerge from the crisis in a stronger position.The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, however, that the company will pay interest of more than 10 percent on those loans and that it has made a “verbal commitment” to reduce fixed costs and to bring in supplemental management — terms that often mean layoffs and other cost-cutting. Airbnb didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the Journal report.FILE – Supporters of Airbnb stand during a rally at City Hall in New York in 2015.Uber, meanwhile, is trying to reassure jittery investors than its aggressive expansion plans for ride-hailing remain on track. Like its rival Lyft, it has seen ride demand hit a wall as states ratchet up stay-at-home orders. Both companies are trying to conserve cash so they can weather the pandemic’s fallout, in part by emphasizing deliveries of food and other goods.Even in its worst-case scenario — an 80 percent decline in ridership through 2020 — the company said it would end the year with $4 billion in cash. That would still mean burning through almost $7 billion this year, which could create problems for Uber’s larger ambitions such as self-driving cars and air taxis.Analysts, however, remain largely bullish. “We believe both Uber and Lyft will come out the other side still well placed to capture growth and opportunity,” said Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives.Drivers are another story. San Diegan Christopher Chandler, who’s been driving for both companies for two years, said he’s lost more than 80 percent of his income since riders all but vanished. “I’m going to have to make some hard choices about what bills I won’t pay this month,” said Chandler, who has switched to deliveries that don’t come close to covering his former ride income.Other lesser-known companies, however, have benefited from the pandemic. Zoom, the video conferencing provider, has seen its stock soar to new highs in recent weeks; shares have nearly quadrupled compared to their IPO price just 11 months ago.FILE – Blue Apron CEO Matthew B. Salzberg, center, poses with employees in front of the New York Stock Exchange before the company’s IPO in New York, U.S., in 2017.Not so long ago, the meal-kit maker Blue Apron was threatened with delisting from the New York Stock Exchange after its shares fell below the exchange minimum of $1. Since the beginning of March, however, company shares have more than tripled after it reported a sharp increase in consumer demand fueled by stay-at-home orders.CB Insights lists more than 450 startups worldwide valued at $1 billion or more. While it can be hard to paint these unicorns with a broad brush because of their variety of business models and leadership styles, co-founder and CEO Anand Sanwal said that what COVID-19 is doing to the economy will be “tough for any company to weather, startup or not.”Sanwal said he’s already seeing a decline in early-stage seed investments that help launch new tech startups. But he said investors who have poured big sums into unicorn startups will likely try to do what they can to help keep them healthy, at the very least by grooming them for sale rather than standing by as they collapse.“Investors are going to make some hard decisions about whether this is a temporary downturn, or a company that doesn’t have a shot,” he said. 
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In the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, one sign that social distancing measures may be working is that people’s temperatures — a symptom of the virus — are dropping in some cities in the U.S., according to a smart thermometer company. The data could give health officials an early look into how the virus is progressing. Michelle Quinn takes a look.
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Habbo Hotel, a hit online networking game more than a decade ago, is drawing back hundreds of thousand of players as locked-down millennials look to rediscover a childhood favorite, its Finnish maker said.   “Our traffic has tripled over the past month. The exact user number growth figure is 213% since February 25,” game maker Sulake’s Chief Executive Valtteri Karu told Reuters, adding that this included hundreds of thousands of new and returning users.   Launched 20 years ago, Habbo Hotel gained a strong following among children and teenagers before it was eclipsed by social media sites such as Facebook by 2010.   With a layout reminiscent of classic video games, Habbo Hotel consists of rooms that players can decorate and where they can meet other players to chat or play games. They can also join virtual parties in search of new acquaintances.   One returning user is Pilvi Pitkaranta, a 23-year-old University of Tampere student who was an active player with her classmates about 10 years ago.   With all student events canceled because of the coronavirus, Pitkaranta decided to organize a virtual party at Habbo Hotel. About 30 of her fellow students joined the party at the end of March.   “I thought it was a fun idea to organize a party there, also out of nostalgia,” Pitkaranta said.   “Some people are finding it very distressing that they have to be home alone and are finding it hard to get things done when stuck indoors.”   Habbo Hotel has versions in nine languages, attracting most users in the Americas and Europe, Sulake’s Karu said.   “As the world has shut down, the more users have come along,” he added.   The game’s Finnish maker is jointly owned by private Dutch advertising group Azerion and Finnish telecoms operator Elisa.   It remains to be seen if Habbo’s renewed popularity will last only as long as the virus.   As welcome a diversion as Habbo may be, Pitkaranta and her fellow students are looking forward to when they can enjoy some real-life partying, she said. 
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Ceri Weber had just begun to defend her dissertation when the chaos began: Echoes and voices interrupted her. Someone parroted her words. Then Britney Spears music came on, and someone told Weber to shut up. Someone threatened to rape her. Hackers had targeted the meeting on the video conference platform Zoom while Weber was completing the final step of her doctoral degree at Duke University. The harassment lasted 10 minutes — the result of an increasingly common form of cyber attack known as “Zoom bombing.” As tens of millions of people turn to video conferencing to stay connected during the coronavirus pandemic, many have reported uninvited guests who make threats, interject racist, anti-gay or anti-Semitic messages, or show pornographic images. The attacks have drawn the attention of the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. “It seemed like someone was just being silly,” but then the intrusions “started to get more serious and threatening,” Weber recalled. “I was really in the zone and kept presenting.” She said she was more concerned about others in the chat who could have been scared. She was interrupted despite having selected “mute all” in the settings for the meeting she conducted from her home in Durham, North Carolina. A Massachusetts high school reported that someone interrupted a virtual class on Zoom, yelled profanity and revealed the teacher’s home address. Another school in that state reported a person who accessed a meeting and showed swastika tattoos, according to the FBI. The agency’s field office in Boston recommended that users of video-teleconference platforms prioritize their security by ensuring that hosts have sole control over screen-sharing features and meeting invitations. In New York, Attorney General Letitia James sent a letter to Zoom with questions about how users’ privacy and security are being protected. In a separate later, Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut sought information about how the company handles users’ personal data and guards against security threats and abuse. Zoom has referred to trolls as “party crashers,” which some critics have taken as a sign the company is downplaying the attacks. In a statement issued last week, the company told The Associated Press it takes the security of meetings seriously and encourages users to report any incidents directly to Zoom. The company suggested that people hosting large, public meetings confirm that they are the only ones who can share their screen and use features like mute controls. “For those hosting private meetings, password protections are on by default, and we recommend that users keep those protections on to prevent uninvited users from joining,” the company said. Zoom recently updated the default screen-sharing settings for education users so that teachers are by default the only ones who can share content. Despite the update, Nevada’s Clark County School District, which includes all public schools in Las Vegas, and the New York City Department of Education, which is responsible for the largest school district in the U.S., have told teachers to stop using Zoom. Zoom-bombing was always a threat given how the video conferencing app was configured — geared more toward user-friendliness than privacy, said Justin Brookman, director of privacy and technology policy at Consumer Reports. When shelter-at-home mandates suddenly converted Zoom into a lifeline for tens of millions of families, it became a juicy target for mischief, he said. For years, “the usability issues outweighed the potential security issues because society was less reliant on them. Obviously, that has changed dramatically over the last month,” Brookman added. Some Zoom-bombers have been able to randomly guess meeting IDs and crash conferences not configured to keep out interlopers, he said. In other cases, inexperienced users have exposed meeting IDs online, including U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who tweeted a screenshot of a Zoom Cabinet meeting that showed the ID and everyone’s screen name. Brookman said Zoom can do more to boost privacy protections for a massive user base that now ranges from elementary school children to senior citizens discussing their wills with attorneys. “A lot of people, including us, are critical of how they enable hosts to surveil users to make sure they are paying attention to the screen, or reading DMs or recording the call when it’s not entirely clear,” Brookman said. A mother in Georgia told a local TV station that her son was “embarrassed and a little hysterical” after someone hacked into his online class and showed pornography to the children and teacher. The Rev. Jason Wells was holding a publicly advertised forum recently on Zoom when a troll entered and used the chat box to post a racial slur so many times that it made the feature unusable for other participants. “I would not say this was a random vandal hoping to interrupt somebody,” said Wells, who is executive director of the New Hampshire Council of Churches in Concord and co-chair of a state chapter of the Poor People’s Campaign, part of a movement pioneered by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The intruder was eventually removed and blocked. As the Rev. Laura Everett delivered a sermon via Zoom for Boston’s First Baptist Church, a user who had seen the church service advertised entered the video conferencing session and shouted homophobic and racist slurs. Everett said she had tweeted the link to the sermon because she wanted “the doors of the church to be open to every weary soul who is looking for a word of comfort.” “This was, for all intents and purposes, a house of worship that was violated,” she said. “Zoom and every other business bears the primary responsibility for users’ safety.” In Oakland, California, Malachi Garza reported an attack on a Zoom conference she hosted for roughly 200 participants, including formerly incarcerated people who have experience with solitary confinement and are struggling with the pandemic’s stay-home orders. The conference organized by the philanthropic Solidare Network was interrupted by racist, anti-transgender language, and pornographic images were flashed on a shared screen.  Zoom needs to “tell the truth and call this what it really is,” Garza said. “It’s racial terror, not party crashers.”   
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Taiwan’s cabinet has told government agencies to stop using Zoom Video Communications Inc’s conferencing app, the latest blow to the company as it battles criticism of its booming platform over privacy and security.Zoom’s daily users ballooned to more than 200 million in March, as coronavirus-induced shutdowns forced employees to work from home and schools switched to the company’s free app for conducting and coordinating online classes.However, the company is facing a backlash from users worried about the lack of end-to-end encryption of meeting sessions and “zoombombing,” where uninvited guests crash into meetings.If government agencies must hold video conferencing, they “should not use products with security concerns, like Zoom,” Taiwan’s cabinet said in a statement on Tuesday. It did not elaborate on what the security concerns were.The island’s education ministry later said it was banning the use of Zoom in schools.Zoom did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Taiwan would be the first government formally advising against use of Zoom, although some U.S. schools districts are looking at putting limits on its use after an FBI warning last month.Zoom Chief Executive Officer Eric Yuan last week apologized a-message-to-our-users to users, saying the company had fallen short of the community’s privacy and security expectations, and was taking steps to fix the issues.Zoom competes with Microsoft’s Teams, Cisco’s Webex and Google’s Hangouts.Taiwan’s cabinet said domestically-made conferencing apps were preferred, but if needed products from Google and Microsoft could also be considered.Zoom’s shares dipped 1% in premarket trading on the Nasdaq. They have lost nearly a third of their market value since touching record highs late March. 
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As the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to overwhelm doctors and hospitals throughout the country, medical technology firms and health centers are trying to gain “situational awareness” — giving doctors what they need to know about the sick patients filling emergency rooms.For doctors and staff, “it’s really hard to know what sorts of patients are coming,” said Warren Ratliff, the chief executive of MDmetrix, a software firm that provides analysis of health care inside hospitals.The staff “can see they’re backing up,” he said. But they have few tools to compare patients showing up today with those admitted yesterday, or to show what treatments might be working on certain groups of patients, he added.A frustrated doctorMDmetrix was created by a doctor frustrated that he couldn’t analyze data across patients. With electronic medical records, which have been in use in the U.S. for years, mostly for tracking and billing, physicians typically view one patient’s record at a time.   Enter medical technology firms like MDmetrix, which offer information dashboards and apps so that doctors and hospitals can look for trends and insights across patient outcomes. The technology pulls data from patients’ electronic medical records.As they deal with the patients in front of them, hospitals and doctors are struggling to answer what may seem like simple questions, Ratliff said. How many ventilators are being used? Is low oxygen an indicator of COVID-19? Has anyone followed up on patients who were tested and sent home?The demand for information extends to whether there are different treatments for different groups, he said.Different patients, different treatments“Is there a difference in the treatment between smokers or nonsmokers?” Ratliff said. “In a couple of years, an after-action report will come out. But that’s way too late if you’re fighting a battle right now.”With the push of a button, clinicians and hospital administrators get MDmetrix’s COVID-19 dashboard of charts and graphs that they can view to improve patient care. The information is a real-time snapshot of “whether treatment protocol A is working better than protocol B for any subset of patients,” Ratliff said.As for privacy concerns, data pulled from patient records is stripped of its identity and aggregated, complying with health care privacy laws, Ratliff said.MDmetrix is being used at the University of Washington Medical Center and Harborview Medical Center, both in Seattle. The company is providing its “COVID-19 Mission Control” software for free to hospitals and medical centers.Leveraging the electronic health recordA recent paper in the Journal of American Medical Informatics Association outlined efforts at the University of California San Diego Health to quickly build new dashboards based on electronic health records to manage the growing crisis.  The authors conclusion: Electronic health records “should be leveraged to their full potential.”Over the past several years, there’s been an explosion of technology tools to analyze and aggregate data drawn from electronic health records, said Julia Adler-Milstein, an associate professor of medicine at the University of California-San Francisco. But the COVID-19 pandemic is pushing hospitals and companies to find ways – sometimes in just days – to analyze data and get critical information to decision-makers.“This has been a pressure test,” she said. “How can we get cuts of our data for the new disease?”Figuring out trends inside a hospital is also the work of TransformativeMed, an electronic record-keeping application that tracks a patient as he or she moves through the hospital. It is being used at the University of Washington Medical Center and Harborview Medical Center; MedStar Health in the Washington, D.C., area; and VCU Health Center in Richmond, Virginia.Tracking a patient — from symptoms, lab results and treatments — can help a hospital understand how a disease is progressing through a community, how effective treatments are and what isn’t working, said Dr. Rodrigo Martinez, chief clinical officer at TransformativeMed and an ear, nose and throat doctor.A generational opportunityThe battle against COVID-19 could be a once-in-a-generation opportunity to greatly improve the health care system, he said. The social distancing requirements will boost telehealth, with patients and their health care providers likely to appreciate how much can be accomplished through video chat, he said. 3-D printing, which is being used to repair and create ventilators, will help the medical supply chain. And home lab tests will also likely grow.Add to the list companies such as TransformativeMed and MDmetrix, which are finding trends in patients’ electronic health records.“It’s not that we are creating new technologies,” Martinez said. “We’ve had technologies waiting in the wings, waiting for the opportunity to be applied.”
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With “Social Distancing” now the mantra to keep the coronavirus from spreading further, more American consumers are turning to online delivery apps to get their food and household products. Yet as VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo reports, not everyone can avoid going to stores and if you must go, experts advise people to observe some basic precautions.
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Twitter said Thursday it has removed thousands of accounts in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Honduras, Indonesia and Serbia that allegedly took direction from governments or pushed pro-government content.A network of accounts associated with Saudi Arabia and operating out of multiple countries including KSA, Egypt and UAE, were amplifying content praising Saudi leadership, and critical of Qatar and Turkish activity in Yemen. A total of 5,350 accounts were removed.— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) April 2, 2020″We removed 2,541 accounts in an Egypt-based network, known as the El Fagr network,” the San Francisco-based tech firm posted in a series of tweets.”The media group created inauthentic accounts to amplify messaging critical of Iran, Qatar and Turkey. Information we gained externally indicates it was taking direction from the Egyptian government.”El Fagr’s online managing editor Mina Salah vehemently pushed back.”Yes we are loyal to the state but we don’t receive instructions from anyone. We’re merely defending our country and its position is clear vis-a-vis Iran, Qatar and Turkey,” he told AFP.He said Twitter was effectively censoring the newspaper’s content and that journalists were banned from even creating new personal accounts.The platform also deleted 5,350 accounts from regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia for “amplifying content praising Saudi leadership, and critical of Qatar and Turkish activity in Yemen”.Rights groups have accused the conservative kingdom of spying on dissidents and critical online users on Twitter.The Saudi-linked accounts were run out of the kingdom and the United Arab Emirates, where Twitter’s Middle East headquarters is based, as well as Egypt.Toward the end of last year, we identified clusters of accounts engaged in inauthentic coordinated activity which led to the removal of 8,558 accounts working to promote Serbia’s ruling party and its leader.— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) April 2, 2020After an internal investigation, Twitter also removed clusters of accounts in Honduras allegedly propagating pro-government content, in Serbia promoting the “ruling party and its leader” and Indonesian accounts pushing information targeting the West Papuan independence movement.Earlier this week, it removed two of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s tweets questioning quarantine measures aimed at containing the novel coronavirus on the grounds that they violated the social network’s rules.
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A California hydrogen fuel cell company is now repairing and updating old ventilators, answering a challenge by the state to address a shortage of the life-saving equipment needed to help coronavirus patients breathe. Bloom Energy manufacturing director Joe Tavi told the Associated Press news agency state officials reached out to the Silicon Valley firm asking for its help in refurbishing old ventilators the state had on hand. Tavi said he downloaded a 300-page operating manual for the ventilators, and his co-workers developed a plan to fix the machines.  Since then, the company has fixed more than 400 ventilators and averages about 100 a day.  California Governor Gavin Newson says the state — with a population of about 40 million people — needs about 10,000 ventilators. Nationwide, the Society of Critical Care Medicine tells AP there could be a need for as many as 900,000 ventilators, while only about 200,000 are currently available. Other U.S. companies, such as garment and automobile manufacturers, have been shifting their focus to address the shortage of medical gear and protective equipment due to the coronavirus pandemic.  
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Google on Thursday said it is pumping $6.5 million into fact-checkers and nonprofits as it ramps up its the battle against coronavirus misinformation.   Fact-checking organizations, which often operate on relatively small budgets, are seeing a surge in demand for their work as mistaken or maliciously false information about the pandemic spreads, according to Alexios Mantzarlis of the Google News Lab.   “Uncertainty and fear make us all more susceptible to inaccurate information, so we’re supporting fact-checkers as they address heightened demand for their work,” Mantzarlis said.   A Poynter Institute report last year on the state of fact-checking indicated that more than a fifth of fact-checking organizations operated with annual budgets of less than $20,000.   “We are supporting fact checking projects around the world with a concentration on parts hardest hit by the pandemic,” Mantzarlis told AFP.   “This can be a noticeable infusion of additional support at a time of stress.”   Google is also looking to use its products and “ecosystem” to bolster the battle against COVID-19 misinformation.   The Google News Initiative is increasing its support for nonprofit First Draft, which provides a resource hub, training and crisis simulations for journalists covering news during times of crisis, according to Mantzarlis.   Google is also supporting the creation of a public health resource database for reporters.   “We also want to do more to surface fact-checks that address potentially harmful health misinformation more prominently to our users,” Mantzarlis said.   “We’re experimenting with how to best include a dedicated fact-check section in the COVID-19 Google News experience.”   Google is conducting a test in India and Africa to explore how to use trends in what people are asking or searching for online to let fact-checkers know where a lack of reliable answers may invite misinformation.   “Unanswered user questions — such as ‘what temperature kills coronavirus?’ — can provide useful insights to fact-checkers and health authorities about content they may want to produce,” Mantzarlis said.   That test compliments an effort to train 1,000 journalists across India and Nigeria to spot health misinformation, according to the California-based internet titan.   “There is definitely an appetite for this stuff,” Mantzarlis said.   “We grasp for certainty, a glimmer of something we can do to protect ourselves and those we care about. It makes us more vulnerable to this kind of misinformation.”   Facebook has also supported fact-checking operations with AFP and other media companies, including Reuters and the Associated Press, under which content rated false is downgraded in news feeds so that fewer people see it. 
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Huawei’s chairman warned Tuesday that more U.S. moves to increase pressure on the Chinese tech giant might trigger retaliation by Beijing that could damage its worldwide industry.  Huawei Technologies Ltd., which makes smartphones and network equipment, reported that its 2019 sales rose by double digits despite curbs imposed in May on its access to U.S. components and technology. But the chairman, Eric Xu, said 2020 will be its “most difficult year” as Huawei struggles with the sanctions and the coronavirus pandemic.  Huawei is at the center of tensions with Washington over technology and possible spying that helped to spark Trump’s tariff war with China in 2018.Xu said he couldn’t confirm news reports President Donald Trump might try to extend controls to block access to foreign-made products that contain U.S. technology. Xu said Huawei can find other sources but warned more American action might trigger Chinese retaliation against American companies.”I think the Chinese government will not just stand by and watch Huawei be slaughtered,” Xu said at a news conference. He said U.S. pressure on foreign suppliers “will be destructive to the global technology ecosystem.”  “If the Chinese government followed through with countermeasures, the impact on the global industry would be astonishing,” Xu said. “It’s not only going to be one company, Huawei, that could be destroyed.”  Huawei, China’s first global tech brand, denies U.S. accusations the company is controlled by the ruling Communist Party or facilitates Chinese spying. The company says it is owned by the 104,572 members of its 194,000-member workforce who are Chinese citizens.Chinese officials say the Trump administration is abusing national security claims to restrain a rival to U.S. tech companies.  Last year’s sales rose 19.1% over 2018 to 858.8 billion yuan ($123 billion), in line with the previous year’s 19.5% gain, the company reported. Profit increased 5.6% to 62.7 billion yuan ($9 billion), decelerating from 2018’s 25% jump.  Huawei has had to spend heavily to replace American components in its products and find new suppliers after Trump approved the sanctions on May 16, Xu said.  The controls, if fully enforced, could cut off access to most U.S. components and technology. Washington has granted extensions for some products, but Huawei says it expects the barriers to be enforced.  The company, the world’s No. 2 smartphone brand behind Samsung, said 2019 handset sales rose 15% to 240 million units.  Xu said it was impossible to forecast this year’s handset sales until the spreading coronavirus pandemic is brought under control.Huawei phones can keep using Google’s popular Android operating system, but the American company is blocked from supplying music and other popular services for future models.  Huawei is creating its own services to replace Google and says its system had 400 million active users in 170 countries by the end of 2019. That requires Huawei to persuade developers to write applications for its new system, a challenge in an industry dominated by Android and Apple’s iOS-based applications.  Huawei hopes Google applications can run on the Chinese company’s system and that its apps can be distributed on the American company’s online store, Xu said.  Huawei also is, along with Sweden’s LM Ericsson and Nokia Corp. of Finland, one of the leading developers of fifth-generation, or 5G, technology. It is meant to expand networks to support self-driving cars, medical equipment and other futuristic applications, which makes the technology more intrusive and politically sensitive.  The Trump administration is lobbying European governments and other U.S. allies to avoid Huawei equipment as they prepare to upgrade to 5G. Australia, Taiwan and some other governments have imposed curbs on use of Huawei technology, but Germany and some other nations say the company will be allowed to bid on contracts.  The company has unveiled its own processor chips and smartphone operating system, which helps to reduce its vulnerability to American export controls. The company issued its first smartphone phone last year based on Huawei chips instead of U.S. technology.  Huawei also is embroiled in legal conflicts with Washington.  Its chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, who is Ren’s daughter, is being held in Vancouver, Canada, for possible extradition to face U.S. charges related to accusations Huawei violated trade sanctions on Iran.  Separately, U.S. prosecutors have charged Huawei with theft of trade secrets, accusations the company denies.  The company, headquartered in the southern city of Shenzhen, also has filed lawsuits in American courts challenging government attempts to block phone carriers from purchasing its equipment.   
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Spain will delay a planned auction of 5G spectrum due to the coronavirus outbreak, the government said on Monday.
 
As part of a Europe-wide drive to speed up the roll out of fast Internet and broaden coverage, Spain had been due to free up space in the 700 MHz band of its network by switching from analog to digital terrestrial television by June 30.
 
One of the world’s worst national outbreaks of the virus, which had infected 85,915 people and killed 7,340 as of Monday, constitutes force majeure, making it impossible to stick to that deadline, the government said in a statement.
 
Madrid has told Brussels it will set a new deadline for the 700 MHz band depending on the eventual end-date for emergency measures including restrictions on people’s movements, it added.
 
Austria postponed a planned 5G auction last week, and the CEO of French group Iliad said one coming up in France would likely meet the same fate. 
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In Madrid only a few weeks ago, thousands of demonstrators took part in a women’s march, defiant or unaware of calls for social distancing to stop what then appeared to be the distant threat of coronavirus. Now, Spain is one of the biggest battlegrounds in the global war against the pandemic.Spain’s health system is stressed to the breaking point. Coronavirus information hotlines have been jammed by frightened people desperate for information.Madrid city leaders launched a web and mobile service modeled after ones that South Korea successfully used to track those infected.
 
“Our sole objective at this time is to save lives,” explains Isabel Diaz Ayuso, President of the Community of Madrid.The CoronaMadrid website and the App – is a public-private initiative that involves giving citizens’ personal information to the government and to various companies whose names are not disclosed.  In these times of fear, few ask questions. 
“We are immersed in a state of extreme urgency or extreme need, that is when at least we begin to understand these rather awkward actions of various public administrations when developing technological solutions,” says Enric Lujan, a politics professor at the  Universitat de Barcelona. “The application of the Community of Madrid does not specify data protection clauses, of transfers to third parties and, it seems, these data can be transferred to companies.”South Korea’s tracking measures helped the government there flatten the contagion curve – and other countries have followed.  Israel has approved the use of counterterrorism technology to track the virus, and Iran’s official coronavirus app was recently pulled by Google from its Play Store, amid privacy concerns.
 
“Medical data is classified as highly sensitive,” Lujan says.  “The transfer to third parties of medical data is being left in the background when what is prioritized is the fact of having a lower number of deaths.”The coronavirus pandemic has made many people across the world feel afraid, helpless, and desperate for solutions.  It has also raised new questions about how much of their personal freedom and privacy they are willing to sacrifice.     
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On the streets of Barcelona, a few lone shoppers and dog walkers, their faces obscured by masks, are the only signs of life in this once-vibrant city — but online it’s a different story.   In Spain, as in the rest of the world, increasing numbers of people are going digital to keep community spirits up and avoid feelings of isolation during the coronavirus crisis, which has infected about 725,000 people and killed more than 34,000 worldwide.   Since Spain’s population of 47 million went into lockdown on March 14, there has been a flourishing of virtual parties, online classes and remote cultural events as people rush to find new ways to stay connected during the pandemic.   On any given day, Barcelona residents can look at a list called #ElBarriDesdeTuCasa (“The Neighbourhood On Your Doorstep”), posted on the online community platform Nextdoor, and find five or six events in their neighborhood alone.   These kinds of online activities are useful for “keeping people motivated and giving them a reason to get out of bed in the morning,” Joana Caminal, head of community at Nextdoor Spain, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.   They are a good way of “getting people to interact more  at such a complicated time,” she stressed.   The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Spain has reached more than 80,000, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.   Since the start of March, 10 times more neighborhood groups than usual have been created on Nextdoor Spain, with the site’s number of global daily active users soaring by 80% in March from the previous month.   On Tuesday, California-based Nextdoor launched a “Solidarity Map,” letting registered users worldwide ask their neighbours for help or offer to help someone local in need.   FILE – The dating app Tinder is shown on an Apple iPhone in this photo illustration taken Feb. 10, 2016.Online dating app Tinder is also finding new ways to bring people together at a time when everyone is keeping apart.   The company has announced it is making its “Passport” feature free until April 30, meaning non-premium users, who can usually only connect with people in their current location, can “transport themselves out of self-quarantine to anywhere in the world.”Health experts say that the internet could be a useful tool for staying positive during the pandemic.   “In this unprecedented time, we are all, in most cases, very, very isolated from the world … never in our lifetime have we experienced isolation like this,” said Nathan L. Vanderford, an assisant professor at Kentucky University’s medical school.   “While the potential negative aspects of the internet still apply in our current situation, we can use these platforms to enhance our wellbeing,” he added.   However many elderly people are not plugged into social media and online activity also means we are “bathed in communication” about the pandemic, which could enhance stress, noted Sara Thomee, an assistant professor of psychology at Sweden’s University of Gothenburg.  Virtual socializing  Many people are also finding solace in virtual socialising, with colleagues and friends the world over raising a glass via video-conferencing platforms like Zoom and Microsoft Teams.   A man walks past hanging Koinobori during a snowfall in Tokyo, March 29, 2020. Tokyo governor has repeatedly asked the city’s 13 million residents to stay home this weekend, saying the capital is on the brink of an explosion in virus infections.In Asia, these sessions have become so popular they have given rise to a Japanese phenomenon called “on-nomi,” or online drinking.   With so many people working from home, virtual get-togethers are key to boosting team spirit, said Kate Walton, head of Steyer Content, a Seattle-based content agency.   “People crave connection. It’s a fundamentally human instinct,” she said, noting that since her 100-strong team began working remotely a month ago, it has bonded over drinks in several so-called “virtual happy hour” sessions.   Some online gatherings go beyond after-work drinks. In Malaysia, which imposed a partial lockdown on March 18, locals are organising online poetry readings, as well as a Stay at Home music festival to raise funds to buy food for medical workers.  Jabier Grey, a languages teacher in Madrid who participated in another online music festival, CoronavirusFest, in March, said the thriving digital scene is giving people the chance to experiment with different ways of coming together.   “It’s a great opportunity for everybody … I think some of the online [gatherings] are likely to remain online after [the crisis],” said Grey, who livestreamed a singing session from his flat via Instagram.   In Germany’s capital Berlin, the city’s famous nightlife has gone digital, with about 250 nightclubs joining forces on the website United We Stream to livestream DJ sets into people’s homes every evening from 7 p.m. until midnight.   In Italy, which has registered more coronavirus deaths than any other country, a group of artists and social media users have launched an Instagram account called My Sweet Quarantine to provide followers with a daily schedule of classes and performances.   Self-improvement  While many people are going online to meet up without leaving their homes, others are using the web to learn something new. In Wuhan, the epicentre of China’s coronavirus outbreak, 24-year-old Zhao Xiaowei has discovered a new culinary passion after the country’s lockdown prompted him to start watching cookery classes on livestreams and the popular video app Douyin. “It’s easier to pass time with technology during lockdown, or our day can be very dull,” he said by phone.   Over in the United States, Valerie Canon, a 38-year-old ballet teacher from Kentucky, said she has been inundated with responses since starting a Facebook page called “My Friends Do Awesome Things. Let’s Learn from Them.”  The mother-of-three, who began by posting classes to keep her students fit during lockdown, said that within three days 1,500 people were using the page, giving her and others the chance to learn a host of “awesome and useful things.”   “In the past few days, I have learned how to put victory rolls in my hair, make a Manhattan [and] how to make an at-home cleaner with citrus fruit and apple vinegar,” she said.   A view shows the deserted area in front of the glass Pyramid of the Louvre museum in Paris as a lockdown is imposed to slow the rate of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in France, March 18, 2020.Museums from Paris to Tbilisi have also moved online, providing virtual tours of their collections or letting artists film live performances in empty rooms.   “We wanted to show that even though we are physically closed, we remain open as an institution that produces culture, disseminating experiences and knowledge,” said Stefano Boeri, president of the Triennale Art & Design Museum in Milan.   Malaysian yoga instructor Susan Tam, who has moved her classes online, said staying digitally active is important for bridging the gap between people caused by self-isolation and social distancing.   “We are used to having these social connections,” she said.   “Doing live online classes means we can still have the community connection without the risk — it’s good for our health.”
   
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Jeff Kao is a ProPublica reporter who FILE – In this Feb. 16, 2020, photo, a policeman stands guard at Tiananmen Gate following the coronavirus outbreak, in Beijing.Twitter continued, “Based on our intensive investigations, we have reliable evidence to support that this is a coordinated state-backed operation. As Twitter is blocked in PRC, many of these accounts accessed Twitter using VPNs.”The accounts belonged to a “larger, spammy network of approximately 200,00 accounts” that the platform suspended for violating a range of rules covering all users.“I think when social media was created, people in general hoped that it would encourage a more open civil society, discussion of opinion would be easier,” said Vincent Wang, dean pf the College of Arts and Sciences and political science professor at Adelphi University in Garden City, New York.“But the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took advantage of the open society and freedom of speech in the West and made it a tool for its own propaganda against democracy,” he said.Kao told VOA Mandarin that he noticed the accounts tweeting about Hong Kong changed.  As the coronavirus spread, the accounts focusing on Hong Kong changed to focus on the epidemic initially covered up by Beijing after it was linked to a market in Wuhan selling wildlife, such as bats, for human consumption. Many coronaviruses, such as COVID-19, start out in animals and jump to humans.As the epidemic raged through China, many of the accounts “became cheerleaders for the government, calling on citizens to unite in support of efforts to fight the epidemic and urging them to ‘dispel online rumors,’” wrote Kao. As the epidemic spread worldwide and became a pandemic, the accounts pointed out China’s response at home.FILE PHOTO: Employees wearing face masks work on a car seat assembly line at Yanfeng Adient factory in Shanghai, China, as the country is hit by an outbreak of a new coronavirus, February 24, 2020.“We were not scared during the outbreak because our country was our rearguard. Many disease fighting warriors were thrust to the front lines” said one. Others pointed out Beijing’s aid to countries such as Italy to ensure Staff members move barriers in front of a railway station of Wuhan on the first day of inbound train services resumed following the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Wuhan, China, March 28, 2020.“So, it’s a pretty vast effort, and it really makes it pretty difficult for people to understand what’s the truth, particularly if the whole thing is just designed to create one narrative.”Calls to the Chinese Embassy in Washington for comment Friday evening were directed automatically to an operator, then went to music before cutting off.Wang called for congressional hearings on nations’ use of Twitter and other platforms to spread disinformation. He wants lawmakers to find a way to protect the principle of freedom of speech while stopping the Chinese Communist Party from “making negative use of the technology for its own propaganda.”He said he believes it would be futile to block China’s accounts.“If you do that, China would have a lot of ways to cope with it by setting up even more new accounts.Wang told VOA Mandarin the best way to combat China’s disinformation efforts is “to raise (the) public’s awareness, so that people using social media can understand that if a so-called news (item) is bad quality information, a lie or disinformation, no matter how many times it is repeated, even if thousands times, it still will not become truth.”Yuwen Cheng and Zhan Qiao of VOA Mandarin contributed to this report.   
    
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Before the coronavirus outbreak, a Beijing technology company was already working to integrate autonomous vehicles into daily life in China. They produced pint-sized sidewalk sweepers and delivery robots, but there is now a demand to repurpose the technology to take the place of workers who are staying home in the hopes of containing the virus. Matt Dibble reports.
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The coronavirus pandemic has forced many office workers to do their jobs from home. And they are using technology like never before to stay connected to their colleagues and get their work done. But getting remote teams functioning isn’t like flipping a switch. Michelle Quinn reports.
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A Virginia man has come up with a way to help medical workers caring for people with COVID-19. Jeremy Filko is using his 3D printer to create plastic mask shields for doctors, nurses and other first responders. VOA’s Shih-Wei Chou reports.
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A U.S. cybersecurity firm said Wednesday it has detected a surge in new cyberspying by a suspected Chinese group dating back to late January, when coronavirus was starting to spread outside China.
FireEye Inc. said in a report it had spotted a spike in activity from a hacking group it dubs “APT41” that began on Jan. 20 and targeted more than 75 of its customers, from manufacturers and media companies to healthcare organizations and nonprofits.
There were “multiple possible explanations” for the spike in activity, said FireEye Security Architect Christopher Glyer, pointing to long-simmering tensions between Washington and Beijing over trade and more recent clashes over the coronavirus outbreak, which has killed more than 17,000 people since late last year.
The report said it was “one of the broadest campaigns by a Chinese cyber espionage actor we have observed in recent years.”
FireEye declined to identify the affected customers. The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not directly address FireEye’s allegations but said in a statement that China was “a victim of cybercrime and cyberattack.” The U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined comment.
FireEye said in its report that APT41 abused recently disclosed flaws in software developed by Cisco, Citrix and others to try to break into scores of companies’ networks in the United States, Canada, Britain, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and more than a dozen other countries.
Cisco said in an email it had fixed the vulnerability and it was aware of attempts to exploit it, a sentiment echoed by Citrix, which said it had worked with FireEye to help identify “potential compromises.”
Others have also spotted a recent uptick in cyber-espionage activity linked to Beijing.
Matt Webster, a researcher with Secureworks – Dell Technologies’ cybersecurity arm – said in an email that his team had also seen evidence of increased activity from Chinese hacking groups “over the last few weeks.”
In particular, he said his team had recently spotted new digital infrastructure associated with APT41 – which Secureworks dubs “Bronze Atlas.”
Tying hacking campaigns to any specific country or entity is often fraught with uncertainty, but FireEye said it had assessed “with moderate confidence” that APT41 was composed of Chinese government contractors.
FireEye’s head of analysis, John Hultquist, said the surge was surprising because hacking activity attributed to China has generally become more focused.
“This broad action is a departure from that norm,” he said.
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