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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
As many of us expected after numerous conferences and gatherings cancelled due to coronavirus, Apple did not find it responsible to fly hundreds of people to attend its annual developer conference.
Apple doesn't exactly call WWDC cancelled, since it is planning to organize a purely virtual conference, but the physical part, the one that people were excited to once again attend, is not going to happen.
Apple joins the list of cancellations with Microsoft and Google, who've just recently announced the cancellation of their physical developer events, as well as other conferences, such as world's largest mobile conference MWC, Game Developer Conference, and E3.
As mentioned, WWDC 2020 will still happen virtually and Apple promises both keynote speeches as well as panels for software developers. They promise that the announcements will be major even though they couldn't invite people at their campus this time around.
Pokemon Go is still one of the most popular mobile games in the world. The very core of the game involves wandering around your community, pushing your walking mileage and catching pokemons that appear while you're walking around.
Now, due the coronavirus pandemic, such activities are less and less popular around the globe. Game developer Niantic has now reacted to this situation.
Starting last night, players of the game can get almost-free bundle of so-called incense items to the game. The bundle costs only one pokecoin (the currency used in the game, equaling roughly to $0.01 or €0.01) and contains 30 incense units.
With incense, players can stay at home and use the incense to attract pokemons to their home that wouldn't appear there otherwise. The incense unit has been part of the game since the very beginning, but it has always cost much more - and is typically considered most useful for those players in rural areas, where there aren't very many places where pokemons spawn on their own.
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.
This weekend we were supposed to have Game Developers Conference with possibly some juicy details about next-gen consoles and games, although Microsoft at least has their own virtual conference. Now even the most anticipated game conference of the year, E3, has been cancelled.
As you might imagine, the cancellation of E3 2020 is coronavirus, which has shut down most of early 2020's events, including the likes of MWC, Google I/O, and others. According to Entertainment Software Association, or ESA, that is responsible for the annual game conference, this is the first year since 1995 that the E3 conference has not been held.
The organizer has announced that it is "exploring options with our members to coordinate an online experience to showcase industry announcements and news in June."
Google in planning to update their media streaming device Chromecast soon, 9to5Google reports. The search giant has made some interesting improvements to both software and hardware, report claims.
The new Chromecast Ultra is said to come with an improved software package that turns the dongle into a full-fledged media device. No longer is Chromecast Ultra going to run the simplified Android (or perhaps Chrome OS) but instead will be running Android TV.
This means that unlike the current generation Chromecast Ultra (pictured), the upcoming streaming stick is able to no only stream but act as a standalone media device. Essentially this turns your dumb TV into a Android TV, like the ones from Sony, Sharp, Philips and others.
As you'll be interacting with the Chromecast Ultra itself, not just which ever device is streaming content to it, Google is going to include a remote. This is perhaps one of the biggest gripes about Chromecast for some, although personally it never has been an issue.
According to the rumors, the remote has taken some influence from both the Daydream View remote and an Apple TV remote. It includes a microphone, which allows voice commands via Google Assistant.
The electric car company founded in 2003 by a PayPal co-founder Elon Musk has passed an impressive milestone. Musk announced on Twitter earlier this week that the company has made their millionth car.
Musk's original Master Plan included creating an electric car, which was the 2008 Roadster, use the money to develop more affordable and popular electric car, ie. Model S, finally make a widely accessible mass-produced vehicle, which was released in 2017.
It also included developer solar power, which has been taken care of by Musk's other venture, SolarCity, which merged into Tesla in 2016.
Obviously Tesla isn't done now that the initial Master Plan has been concluded for years. In fact, Musk blogged about "Master Plan, Part Deux" in 2016.
For the car business part of Tesla, the plan is to provide electric vehicles to all automotive segments, and offer both autonomous driving as well as car-sharing capabilities.
Neither of these aspect have advanced as fast as we, or Elon Musk for that matter, would hope for, but that's what we're looking at.
However, many analysts would probably agree that making self-driving quickly isn't actually the most pressing issue, instead the company needs to get the volume up. Luckily for Tesla, they've managed to up the production quite a bit, hoping to make around 500,000 cars this year.
As coronavirus is wrecking havoc and spreading panic around the world, most of the conferences that we're to be held in the first half of 2020 have been cancelled.
This includes not only the leading smartphone and mobile conference, Mobile World Congress, and upcoming Microsoft and Google developer conferences but also Game Developers Conference which was supposed to be held starting next Sunday.
This means that there's no vessel to many of Microsoft's plans, and the company has to talk about the product releases and news in another way.
Microsoft has announced that it will have a two-day streamed event, called Game Stack Live, which is aimed at developers interested in upcoming products, most importantly Xbox Series X as well as their cloud gaming platform Project xCloud.
The virtual conference is likely to include a lot of details that are essential to the game developer community but the company might share some interesting tidbits even for us non-developers.
If nothing else, we'll learn what type of tools Microsoft has created for the content creation, and how exactly is it going to combat Sony's supremacy this time around.
Exclusive titles are a must in fighting the console behemoth Sony, and this is one of the more important ways Microsoft might win developers over.
The Redmond software giant has notified customers that its stores will be shut while the world deals with the spread of the ongoing pandemic.
Uber users will not have the option to pool rides with others riders headed in the same direction for the time being.
Online retail giant will create 100,000 more roles to meet significant jumps in demand amidst the global coronavirus pandemic.
