Month: March 2020
Tesla created a ‘public health risk’ by keeping car factory open, local official said
Tesla announced on March 19th that it would temporarily shut down its electric car factory in California, after back-and-forth with local officials about whether the plant was subject to a county-wide coronavirus shelter-in-place order. But the Silicon Valley automaker fought to keep the factory open after that announcement as well,…
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Stocks post worst quarter since 2008 financial crisis
The first quarter of 2020 ended with a whimper — with the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and NASDAQ posting their worst quarter in decades — as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to cause uncertainty and volatility across all major stock market indices. At the beginning of the quarter, we…
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We need to start modeling alternative futures
We’re continuing our Vergecast interview series remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic and this week, Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel sits down via Skype with Amy Webb, the founder and CEO of The Future Today Institute. Amy is also a professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business and recently came out with…
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Movie advertising is now just making Zoom backgrounds
Movie posters and billboards are useless right now, so marketing teams all seem to have landed on the same solution: Zoom backgrounds. Yesterday, Pixar tweeted out backgrounds for Toy Story, Cars, and Up. The Twitter accounts for the Top Gun sequel, the Spongebob movie, and the Quiet Place sequel offered…
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OrbitFab secures National Science Foundation funding to propel its satellite refueling tech to space
On-orbit satellite refueling technology is closer than ever to a practical reality, which could help immensely with the cost and sustainability of orbital businesses. Startup OrbitFab, a 2019 TechCrunch Battlefield finalist, is one of the companies working to make orbital refueling a reality, and it just secured a new contract…
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FCC mandates strict caller ID authentication to beat back robocalls
The FCC unanimously passed a new set of rules today that will require wireless carriers to implement an tech framework to combat robocalls. Called STIR/SHAKEN, and dithered over for years by the carriers, the protocol will be required to be put in place by summer of 2021. Robocalls have grown…
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