Business, Financial & Legal News - Page 97

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has explained in a letter to all staff that there will be no job losses at any level of the company during the COVID-19 outbreak, and instead will be getting raises to staff faster than before.

There are 13,775 employees that work for NVIDIA, so there would be a lot of happy people and families in Team Green now -- especially in the wake of millions of job losses and the further fear of industry-wide job losses in the near future. NVIDIA is doing some great work here for its staff.

In the letter, Huang writes: "Immediately I received questions about whether we are also planning a layoff. NO - precisely the opposite. We are accelerating your raise to put some extra money in your hands. We can put tens of millions of more dollars in the hands of our families in the coming months".

The Tor Project has been around since the mid-1990s and started with people who had a common belief that all Internet users should be allowed to have private access to an uncensored web. The project focused on onion routing, which is a way for people to use the Internet with as much privacy as possible. This routing process sends the traffic through multiple servers and encrypts it at each step of the way. The Tor Project says that is still a straightforward explanation of how Tor works today. As with other companies around the world during the coronavirus pandemic, Tor has announced that it has been forced to make cutbacks with its staff.

The Tor Project has announced that the coronavirus pandemic has forced it to let go of "13 great people" that it says help make Tor available to millions of Internet users around the world. Moving forward, The Tor Project will have a core team of 22 people that it says will remain "dedicated" to continuing to work on the Tor Browser and the Tor software ecosystem.

The project says that the world won't be the same after the coronavirus pandemic crisis passes, and the need for privacy and secure access to information will become "more urgent." The Tor Project says that being online is critical, and many people around the globe face obstacles getting to and sharing information. The layoffs were done to help "ensure the Tor Project continues to exist and our technology stays available."

We all know that crazy amounts of emails are sent around the world per day, with Gmail stopping a huge 18 million malware and phishing emails related to COVID-19 each and everyday.

This might sound like a lot, but it's nowhere near the number of emails that Google blocks from inboxes per day. This 18 million emails blocked for COVID-19 malware makes up around 20% of the total number of phishing emails that Gmail blocks each day, as over 100 million emails per day are blocked by Gmail.

Automated systems filter out another 240 million emails that are coronavirus-related spam, but there are some slipping through the cracks. But what are the phishing emails masquerading as? Well, some are impersonating the World Health Organization (WHO) asking people to donate to them in Bitcoin.

Activision has just stepped up in a really big way with its 10,000 strong staff, with CEO Bobby Kotick giving all 10,000 of his employees his personal phone number -- imploring them to call him directly over any concerns about healthcare given the COVID-19 outbreak.

Kotick says: "So far, that's been working well" and that hundreds of employees have already personally called him. The Activision CEO was quick to say that "very few" have tested positive for COVID-19 so far, and sees a new world where people will continue to work from home for forseeable future.

He said that many employees had parents that were tested positive for COVID-19, with Kotick also announcing Activision Blizzard is working on a new trial for a blood serum, something that he said would be cheap and easy to access.

The future of travel might involve something that some governments are already discussing, a new COVID-19 "immunity passport". This immunity passport would certify you, the traveler, as immune to COVID-19 and approved to travel.

Germany, Italy, the UK and the US are already considering a COVID-19 immunity passport, which would acknowledge that you've had the disease and are now immune to it. You won't be able to infect others if you travel to foreign countries, and it would give a government stamp of approval to those working in critical sectors and essential workers.

While a COVID-19 immunity passport would be super beneficial to those in specific industries like healthcare workers (nurses, doctors, surgeons), police, army, first responders, and other essential and emergency services, it isn't all good. How long does COVID-19 immunity last? Will it mutate like the flu does every year, requiring up-to-date vaccinations to comply with your COVID-19 immunity passport.

According to a new report from research firm Canalys, PC shipments are way down this quarter and it's all because of COVID-19.

The report sees companies shipping 53.7 million PCs (desktops, notebooks and workstations) worldwide in Q1 2020, which is an 8% drop in same period of 2019. But Q1 2020 and its 8% drop is the largest decline in PC shipments in a few years now, with the above chart from Canalys showing a 12% drop in Q1 2016.

The data shows that Lenovo came out on top with 12.8 million systems shipped, HP wasn't far behind with 10.4 million, and Dell in third place with 10.4 million. Apple is a huge drop below that with 3.2 million shipped, while Acer shipped 3.1 million -- "others" covers all the other brands and makes up 12.3 million systems shipped in Q1 2020.

Japan has announced a large $2.2 billion stimulus package that will help companies with production in China, bring it back home to Japan -- all because coronavirus is wrecking havoc on supply chains worldwide.

The Japanese government announced the new 220 billion yen ($2 billion) to see companies shift production back into the country, while 23.5 billion yen was put aside to help companies move production to other countries (not in Japan, but still out of China).

The news couldn't come at a more critical time as Chinese president Xi Jinping had a visit to Japan inked on his calendar for earlier this month, this trip would've been the first visit from Xi in over 10 years but it was delayed over the coronavirus outbreak.

MAINGEAR is known in the United States as one of the highest-end custom gaming PC makers, but the company has quickly pivoted to respond to the novel coronavirus pandemic with the release of the LIV -- a new ventilator being made on the cheap.

MAINGEAR is shifting over a certain allocation of its manufacturing capabilities, to help New York City and its overwhelmed intensive care units. MAINGEAR developed the new LIV ventilator in-house with medical advisers in just a matter of weeks, all while using off-the-shelf parts that can be "produced for approximately a quarter of the price" of a regular ventilator.

The company is now awaiting FDA clearance, with MAINGEAR ready to start delivering its new LIV ventilator in as little as two weeks from now. MAINGEAR is using an "easy to use touchscreen interface", where the company has used an NVIDIA Shield rocking custom software and "redundant power supplies".

Can you believe Wuhan, China has been under extreme lockdown for 76 days -- the largest lockdown in human history. But now, the people of Wuhan are enjoying a post-lockdown lifestyle... for now.

Wuhan has re-opened its highway tolls, flights and train services are leaving the city -- and to make it more personal, I'm based in Australia and we just had a flight from Wuhan land at the Sydney Airport. As for Wuhan residents, they are free to travel throughout China as long as they are not infected with COVID-19.

Jia Shengzhi, a delivery driver in Wuhan, told the BBC: "During the past two months, almost no-one was on the streets. It made me feel sad. We sometimes received phone calls from customers asking for help such as sending medicines to their ageing parents".

You might remember Martin Shkreli from headlines a few years ago, someone who was quickly nicknamed "Pharma Bro" after his company Turing Pharmaceuticals acquired the manufacturing license for antiparastic drug Daraprim, and raised its price 56x from $13.50 to $750 per pill.

Well, Pharma Bro is back in the headlines after he has said he wants to get out of prison so he can research a treatment and cure for coronavirus. The news is coming directly from his defense attorney Ben Brafman, who has said he will be filing court papers requesting authorities to release Shkreli for 3 months so he can do the required laboratory work, but "under strict supervision".

Brafman said: "I have always said that if focused and left in a lab, Martin could help cure cancer. Maybe he can help the scientific community better understand this terrible virus".