Month: May 2020

Enlarge / WUHAN, CHINA - MAY 11: Residents wears face masks while riding their bicycles and scooters. The government has begun lifting outbound travel restrictions after almost 11 weeks of lockdown to stem the spread of COVID-19. (credit: Getty | Stringer)

The World Health Organization on Monday called for continued vigilance as several areas that have eased lockdown restriction began to see a resurgence in COVID-19 cases—and the United States begins unbuttoning as well.

The Chinese city of Wuhan—where the pandemic began last December—saw its first cluster of cases in at least a month. The city began reopening in early April.

The cluster was just six cases: an 89-year-old symptomatic man and five asymptomatic cases. All of the infected lived in the same residential community. However, it was enough to spook government officials.

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  Mitch Evans celebrates winning in Mexico City in February 2020. It was his second win for the Jaguar Racing team since being signed in 2016. [credit: Formula E ]

Until COVID-19 turned up and ruined things, Formula E's sixth season was going pretty well for Jaguar Racing and driver Mitch Evans. Because the series started its season in November, there were already five races in the books by the time the real-world action had to be suspended. When it's safe to start up again, Evans will do so from second place in the championship, in part thanks to a win in Mexico in mid-February. More recently, he's been stuck at home, like many of the rest of us. And the last few weeks have involved learning a whole new set of skills as Formula E has temporarily decamped to the world of rFactor 2 to keep fans entertained until the real cars are safe to dust off again.

Unlike some of his contemporaries, the switch to esports wasn't something Evans has been training for this whole time. "I've not being a huge gamer before, so this is new territory, and it's taken me a long time to get used to it," Evans told me. In fact, he didn't even have a gaming rig at home until Formula E supplied all its drivers with identical Playseat rigs, gaming PCs, and Fanatec wheels and pedals.

That's meant quite the learning curve. "There's a lot of guys out there that are really quite experienced in that field, and honestly, they are extremely fast on it. So a lot of it is obviously trying to work out how the game works and the physics around it to try and get around certain things which wouldn't really correlate into reality," he explained.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | metamorworks)

A proposed US law would make it illegal for telecom providers to terminate Internet or phone service during the COVID-19 pandemic. The bill was submitted in the Senate today by Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).

"Now—as millions of Americans hunker down, work from home, and engage in remote learning—would be the absolute worst time for Americans to lose a critical utility like Internet service," Merkley said in an announcement.

Separately, House Democratic leadership today unveiled a $3 trillion relief package that includes at least $4 billion for an "emergency broadband connectivity fund." That money, if approved, would be given to ISPs that provide discounts to low-income households and people who lose their jobs. Subsidies would be up to $50 a month for most low-income households and up to $75 for households in tribal areas. Another $1.5 billion would be allotted to Wi-Fi hotspots and other telecom equipment for schools and libraries.

Enlarge / Dr. Anthony Fauci testifying from home to an extremely sparsely populated Senate chamber during a May 12 hearing on how safely to reopen US schools and businesses. (credit: Win McNamee | Getty Images)

Months after schools and businesses nationwide shut down to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and most of America started hunkering down at home, we're all left with one common question: now what? When can we send our kids to school again? Can those who have lost jobs start looking for new ones? How will we know when it's safe to do... well, anything?

We need to be careful and patient to avoid massive new outbreaks as states and cities begin to come back online, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease expert and director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told Congress. "My concern is that we will start to see little spikes that might turn into outbreaks," Fauci testified to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) in a hearing today.

Fauci was the star witness at the hearing, testifying alongside Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield, and Adm. Brett Giroir, Assistant Secretary in the Department of Health and Human Services.

Enlarge / Please don't hurt our music collections, Google. (credit: Google Play Music)

It's been two years since Google put Google Play Music on death row, and today Google finally announced the major step that will let it kill Google Music: YouTube Music library imports. People who were using Google Play Music as an online music locker can now import their uploaded music collections to YouTube Music, letting them leave Google Music behind forever. Leaving Google Music behind is going to be a non-optional situation, too: today's blog post includes the news that Google Play Music will be shut down "later this year" and Google says it will provide "plenty of notice" before the axe falls. RIP Google Music.

YouTube's Official Blog has the details on how exactly this is going to work, saying "Starting today, we're excited to officially begin inviting Google Play Music listeners to effortlessly transfer their music libraries, personal taste preferences and playlists to YouTube Music." YouTube's language that it's going to "begin inviting" people should let you know that this feature is on Google's frustrating "rollout" system, meaning it announces features and services before they are ready to be used by consumers and then takes weeks to deliver them to every Google account. If you can't transfer your music yet, keep waiting! Google says you'll get an email when the transfer process is enabled for your account.

If you have access to the feature, you'll be able to go to music.youtube.com/transfer (or hit a pop-up in the YouTube Music app) and begin the transfer. Google says "your uploads, purchases, added songs and albums, personal and subscribed playlists, likes and dislikes, curated stations and personal taste preferences will move right over." Apparently it's a one-click process, but in a video, Google says the transfer could take "A few seconds, or a few days, depending on how much content you have to move over."

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  Tony Hawk is back. Again. [credit: Activision ]

Imagine it: the skating, levels, mechanics, and pro skaters that you fell in love with from the first two Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games on PlayStation 1 are coming back in remastered, higher-definition format.

It's probably easy to imagine, because Activision already did this at the tail end of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 life cycle. This year, the company is doing it again—though unlike the last re-release, this one will include every level from the first two games, as opposed to a limited slew of "favorites."

This year's "Summer Game Fest," the veritable replacement for the usual E3-affiliated game hype cycle, kicked off on Tuesday with Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2, coming to current-gen consoles (Xbox One, PlayStation 4) and Windows PC (as a timed Epic Games Store exclusive) on September 4 for $40. Players on Xbox One X and high-spec PCs can expect to crank the game's resolution to 4K, while PlayStation 4 Pro's max resolution hasn't yet been confirmed.