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The Teeny-Tiny Flying Dino With a Mouth Full of Needle Teeth

The Teeny-Tiny Flying Dino With a Mouth Full of Needle Teeth

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Some 100 million years in the past in a seaside mangrove swamp in what we humans now contact Myanmar, a certainly bizarre dinosaur flitted about, stalking its insect prey. Its head was just a half-inch long, producing it smaller than the smallest residing fowl, the bee hummingbird. Its mouth was packed with needle teeth, which hung above its lessen beak, providing it a little bit of a derpy vibe. For a fowl-like predatory dinosaur, its eyes were oddly positioned on the sides of its head, indicating it possibly didn’t have binocular eyesight.

The tiny traveling dino snagged a bug listed here, and snagged a bug there. Then it perished in some way. And thankfully for paleontologists, it got included in sap that hardened into amber, preserving its skull in amazing depth. But in spite of it remaining a speck among its lumbering dinosaur peers, it has persisted on by way of the ages. Now that it has been unearthed by a staff of paleontologists, it’s offering them tantalizing clues to how it lived the most miniature of lives.

Courtesy of Li Gang

It’s also boosting a lot of issues, for the reason that, in technical conditions, it is also just … bizarre. “It just has morphologies that are all more than the area, and also has morphologies that are compared with any hen or dinosaur at all,” says paleontologist Jingmai O’Connor of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, who coauthored a new paper describing the specimen in the journal Character. “Because it really is so odd and because we only have a skull, it’s seriously difficult to understand. It really is this actually bizarre evolutionary puzzle.”

Let us try out to place some pieces together. To start off with, O’Connor and her colleagues had to make sure the specimen was not so modest simply because it was a child. “Only irresponsible paleontologists identify species from juveniles,” O’Connor claims. “The morphology is heading to improve.” If you feel about human toddlers, for case in point, we start out with disproportionately large heads and eyes. We end up expanding into them. But an significant clue about this new dinosaur was that the bones of its skull were being fused with each other when it died. (As with individuals, some species are born with skulls that are not absolutely joined in infancy, enabling the brain to improve. The skull later on fuses all-around it.) So in this article was proof that the new dino was an exceedingly tiny grownup, not a newborn.

Courtesy of Han Zhixin

Yet another piece of the puzzle was that tooth-packed beak. Present day birds lack enamel, of course, mainly because of an evolutionary quirk of their lineage. In the time of the dinosaurs, the Cretaceous period of time, there have been many fowl lineages with all sorts of unique enamel. But the just one that gave rise to modern-day birds didn’t have them, so chickens and ostriches absence them as well—even species like falcons that try to eat meat. Fish-ingesting birds, however, are likely to have hook-like projections in their mouths that assistance them keep on to their wiggling prey. “You can just Google search ‘penguin mouth,’ and it truly is actually gross and strange,” claims O’Connor.



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The new Land Rover Defender is a case study in modernizing classic design

The new Land Rover Defender is a case study in modernizing classic design

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How do you modernize a typical?

Raymond Loewy, just one of the 20th century’s most thriving designers, would offer people a item that was new, but not much too new. Loewy referred to as his theory MAYA, limited for “most sophisticated nevertheless acceptable.” In his 2017 guide Hitmakers, Atlantic editor Derek Thompson summarizes the concept: If you want to sell a little something astonishing, make it acquainted to market a thing common, make it astonishing.

Designers at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) confronted a incredibly practical take a look at of that concept numerous yrs back, when the company made the decision to resurrect the Defender, the 4-wheel travel workhorse which is defined the brand for generations. JLR unveiled a radically redesigned model of the Defender at the Frankfurt motor clearly show in September. The new model, which requires a star turn in this trailer for the new James Bond motion picture No Time to Die, is scheduled to go on sale globally this spring.

Not everyone is delighted, but the vehicle push appears to be to like it. 

Additional than 2 million Defenders have been created due to the fact the first Land Rover Collection 1 debuted in 1948. They are large, boxy, approximately indestructible gas guzzlers. Rechristened as the Defender in 1990, an approximated 80% are even now on the street. The retro design has amassed a sort of cult pursuing the automobile of preference for Britain’s military services, it’s beloved by standard farmers as well as Winston Churchill, Sean Connery, and the Queen.

A reluctance to evolve was part of what built the Defender so cool—and just about did it in.

The new Defenders (there are two models) are unabashedly modern-day. They appear with heated seats, clever LED headlamps, and a matrix of personal computers, cameras, and digital sensors. Price ranges will start at close to $50,000 and operate up to $81,000 for the most costly package. In a push release, Land Rover’s main structure officer Gerry McGovern explained the new Defender as “respectful of the past but not harnessed by it.”

But in a current interview with GearPatrol, McGovern went additional, essentially dismissing Loewy’s incremental approach—and the oft-read assertion that designers will have to defer to what clients say they want. The total job interview is well truly worth looking at, but here’s my favourite little bit:

“I really do not get men and women coming up to me expressing, ‘Oh, could you make it more retrospective?’ I never get marketing coming up to me stating, could you do this, could you do that? I’m the non secular leader for the model. I outline what that vision is, and my crew executes it &#8230 Style and design is a self-discipline, and anyone who just criticizes design and looks at structure, they’re not authorities. I have put in my entire lifetime creating things.&#8221

More design and style news under.

Clay Chandler
@ClayChandler
Clay.Chandler@Fortune.com



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You Can’t Fight City Hall. But Maybe You Can Fight Google.

You Can’t Fight City Hall. But Maybe You Can Fight Google.

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TORONTO — The announcement was massive ample for Primary Minister Justin Trudeau to fly down to Toronto and deliver. A corporate sibling of Google had been picked to change a mostly deserted port area in Toronto into an innovative, sensor-laden, tech-centric town of tomorrow.

But pretty much from the time of its unveiling, the project — which blended environmentally sophisticated construction with a strategy for sensors to keep track of residents’ movements and actions — was strike by formidable opposition. Critics forged it as a recipe for a surveillance-driven, corporate controlled urban dystopia, and objected to turning about public areas to one of the world’s wealthiest firms.

Now, almost two and a half yrs later, the opponents have revealed that even if you just cannot fight metropolis corridor, you can get on Google and triumph.

Immediately after admitting that it had underestimated privacy concerns with its original prepare, the Google sibling, Sidewalk Labs, has retreated. A pair of months ago, it unveiled particulars of a much watered-down system alongside with new privateness protections. But some critics keep on being unconvinced. Waterfront Toronto, a governing administration company, will announce in May well if the venture will progress.

“This issue has blown up on them,” claimed a person of the plan’s top critics, Jim Balsillie, who as a co-main government of Investigate in Movement, aided make the BlackBerry the world’s to start with productive smartphone and himself into one particular of Canada’s biggest names in tech. “I smoked them out. They were being actively playing us like a bunch of colonial supplicants and suckers.”

The tale of how Toronto walked again the Google prepare is in section a tale of locals using on a large firm. But it also displays a expanding pushback all around the planet in opposition to large tech that has accelerated since Sidewalk Labs unveiled its proposal.

“I consider there is been a considerable shift in attitudes and general public knowledge of what is at stake and the issues with these tech giants,” explained Andrew Clement, professor emeritus at the College of Toronto’s faculty of facts who experiments electronic surveillance and infrastructure.

“To allow in an huge organization that I would say has not proven substantially regard for governmental establishments even in the United States, one particular that has a somewhat expansive vision of its purpose as a political and financial actor, strikes me as a kind of Faustian cut price,” he claimed.

The concept of Mr. Balsillie and other well known critics is blunt: Overseas tech expenditure in Canada finally sucks know-how out of the country generating a web drain on the economic system, they argued. Mr. Balsillie described Sidewalk’s Toronto prepare as a shift by Google to use details from people’s life in the actual physical planet in the identical way it now exploits their on the net lives — an assertion that Sidewalk vigorously denies.

“This is the mom lode,” Mr. Balsillie reported. “Your offline facts is way extra worthwhile than your on line facts — and your on the net information is genuinely beneficial.”

Sidewalk, started by Google in 2015 to acquire technologies to increase city life, won the first round of the contest. Its strategy was to make a so-termed “city of the future” that would marry technological innovation to condition urban arranging and layout.

Superior-rises built from engineered wood would exchange weed a lot and underused warehouses along streets. Bike paths would soften snow. Big awnings would shelter pedestrians from rain or blazing summer time sunshine. Sensors would track residents’ each individual movement to enhance all the things from targeted visitors signals to underground armies of robots providing parcels and discarding trash.

And all of it would fulfill ambitious environmental criteria.

Critics pounced. How would Sidewalk use the facts it collected from the streets, washrooms and even the rubbish bins, they asked. Who would individual the info? How would it be stored?

Various people today, which includes Mr. Balsillie, turned down Sidewalk’s elementary premise that algorithms, relatively than politics, are the most effective way to design and run a city. And some argued that the challenge appeared to be a suggests of marketing concepts these as self-driving autos and other interests of Google, which like Sidewalk is a subsidiary of Alphabet.

“This is about company capture of governance and privatizing governments,” mentioned Bianca Wylie, who has lengthy pushed for citizen accessibility to information and who co-started End Sidewalk, the most significant group opposing the prepare.

Sidewalk, she said, has “wonderfully intelligent people today doing work there and they care about towns.” But, she additional, “The difficulty is that no person will get to acquire democracy and governance.”

Mr. Balsillie took an unlikely top position in the opposition, showing up frequently on tv and radio, composing newspaper op-eds and consulting with the Canadian federal government on the project.

Dan Doctoroff, Sidewalk’s main government, can make small effort to disguise his irritation when introduced with Mr. Balsillie’s oft-repeated argument that the challenge was a back again door for Google to use facts from the bodily planet in the way it utilizes on the web information.

“That is totally untrue,” Mr. Doctoroff reported. “He has never ever uncovered a shred of proof of that becoming the situation. And so I feel that allegation is irresponsible. We have constantly mentioned that there is no connection to Google.”

The reduced place for Sidewalk came last June when it launched countless numbers of internet pages of its grasp advancement strategy, blindsiding a lot of people in Toronto with a a lot more expansive vision than initially proposed.

In its place of a 12-acre project, the learn program covered the entire 800 acres adjacent to the initial parcel. Sidewalk proposed acquiring a cut of long run home taxes from the neighborhood in exchange for constructing a rail transit line there. That funding plan was in the long run withdrawn.

While Mr. Doctoroff mentioned Waterfront Toronto had requested a broader eyesight, he acknowledged that Sidewalk had overreached.

“It was just way too huge definitely right until we have confirmed ourselves at a scaled-down scale,” he mentioned. “But while we still have negotiations to arrive, we consider that a substantial percentage of what we hoped to do will even now be feasible.”

But right after sturdy public blowback, the system is back to 12 acres. The super awnings are long gone. The self-heating paving stones that have been to be utilised to build snow-melting bicycle lanes may also be deserted, a spokeswoman acknowledged, specified that any route will run only for a pair of blocks.

The trash robots? They may well not be feasible with the smaller sized scale. The large engineered wooden beams will continue to be made use of but initially they were being to appear from a manufacturing unit that Sidewalk would aid set up, an investment decision that the scaled-down challenge are unable to justify on its own.

Following negotiations, Sidewalk proposed that Waterfront Toronto alone established the guidelines masking details use and that the information be saved in an open up “data trust” managed by the agency.

But the firm has but to persuade a wide variety of critics that the revised proposal imposes suitable limitations on the use of the information, or even the have to have to gather it.

Previous month a panel of technology industry experts assembled by Waterfront Toronto, which includes Professor Clement, introduced a report on Sidewalk’s proposal questioning “whether ample added benefits experienced been discovered to justify the proposed collection or use of facts.”

The group also raised problems about the principles surrounding info ownership and use, and about “the accountability” of Sidewalk, provided that it has Alphabet’s methods behind it.

However Sidewalk does have a lot of boosters, like Richard Florida, an urban scientific studies professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman University of Enterprise.

“I think they produced the challenge much better,” explained Professor Florida, who acknowledged that he had finished some operate for a organization that is advising Sidewalk. “When I go to American towns folks go crazy on me and say: ‘Please bring it listed here, can we please have it right here?’”

But Mr. Balsillie hopes the city rejects even the mini-model of Sidewalk’s city potential.

“It’s a mangled and failing venture, it is 90 % lifeless,” he mentioned. “What I’ve termed for is to restart it and do it correct.”



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The top 10 questions on diversity to ask during the hiring process

The top 10 questions on diversity to ask during the hiring process

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We are all variety pros now. This, as it turns out, is a new competitive advantage.

Recent assessment from the career and recruiting web-site Glassdoor reveals that workers in the U.S. and the U.K. are increasingly pessimistic about the point out of variety at their corporations. Analysis into employee critiques from 2018, the most the latest quantities readily available, uncovered that some 32% of staff members centered in the U.S. spoke negatively about diversity at their corporations, the greatest variety given that 2008. 

Enter the range and inclusion choosing increase.

By mid-2019, Glassdoor documented a 30% enhance in variety and inclusion career openings in the U.S., a considerable bump in an now crowded discipline. Personnel skepticism is driving the market place. “Overall, the balanced progress signals that businesses are taking a major look at investing in range and inclusion efforts,” writes Daniel Zhao, Glassdoor senior economist and info scientist.

That perception turned into a prediction in Glassdoor’s Job & Using the services of Tendencies for 2020 report. “In 2020 and over and above, as companies carry on to usher in a new period of hiring action-oriented variety and inclusion groups, we expect to see a wave of using the services of for leaders and managers that will support have forward the mission of building a a lot more diverse and inclusive workforce,” wrote Glassdoor main economist Andrew Chamberlain in the report. 

Erin Thomas, PhD, is section of that wave. The inclusion qualified was tapped previous December to be the initial-ever global head of variety, inclusion, and belonging for Upwork, the world freelancing system.

The investigate scientist and self-described pragmatist recently tweeted some superb assistance for any one trying to find or remaining recruited for a career in the field—or even reassessing in which they are performing now. Now is the time to make confident you comprehend where any organization that is caught your eye truly is in their range, inclusion, and equity (DEI) journey. “If you’re on the industry,” she states, “be picky.”

With her permission, we’ve recreated her leading 10 inquiries to inquire through the hiring approach under, in her text.

***

1. “Why me?”’ 

I adore asking this in the course of 3rd interviews. It provides you instant perception into how an business has branded you, provides you a likelihood to very clear up any misconceptions they have about you, and can warn you to a massive likely dilemma: Is it really about me, or will I be a token? At best, it turns interviewers into your hoopla team.

2. “What have you finished to put together for this job?”

While this is primarily related to positions that are new to the corporation, it will explain to you a whole lot about how they’re considering about it. Hear for actions they’ve taken to put together important stakeholders to function with the particular person in this position and especially for how they are making the situation for society adjust. If you get blank stares in reaction to this problem, they ain’t completely ready.

3. “Why now?”

This relates to concern #2. Listen for thoughtfulness regarding in which the organization’s interest is. What difficulty is this new role really made to address? Are there crimson flags, like another important initiative that’s in the operates? Are they planning to go public? Pay attention for any priority that may contend with the enormous transform in the management course of action that you need to lead.

4. “What’s the objective?”

Try to uncover a apparent position of check out about what good results appears like. Are they centered on equality? Fairness? Is absolutely everyone utilizing the exact same terms the very same way? What other fundamentals—like the unique value proposition or benchmarks—are top of brain? Assume about how these could affect your conclusion. You’re looking for (at the the very least) the opportunity to align their plans with your own personal types.

5. “How do you define variety?”

The elegance and complexity of diversity is that it can literally indicate something. Are they targeted on social variety, diversity of assumed, introverts/extroverts, do the job styles—everybody, all over the place? This matters to the extent that you are a DEI purist.

6. “Who &#8216counts&#8217?”

This is an extension of query #5. This is the time to gauge who’s regarded as a “marginalized” demographic and who is currently getting counted. Are they thinking along gender and race? What additional info will you require to collect? What may possibly reduce you from accumulating it? This is the time to assess any hurdles ahead to accomplishing your very best operate. 

7. “What’s the salary?”

You should not have to check with this query but do get obvious on this early on. (And don’t give your current salary—just your compensation anticipations.) Do your research and know your really worth. You can do justice operate and be paid out perfectly for it.

8. “What’s my budget?”

This requirements to be discussed before you take an present. If the organization wants another person who will modify the world, and your price range is a lot less than 4 times your salary, run—don’t walk.

9. “What’s my headcount?”

This builds on issue #8. Do you have an sufficient staff? Are you authorized for new hires if you have to have them? Are they earmarked in the annual workforce system? Once more, you will need to know what you are performing with prior to you sign on the dotted line.

10. “What’s the progress prepare for this position?”

So, you’re sold on the existing position. Good! Is there a put for you to develop in the business? Hear for the organization’s eyesight for this role or your division about the next two to three decades, the typical change management cycle. If you have acquired a fireplace in your belly, possibilities are you are going to be on the lookout to grow into what’s following. Can they expand with you?

***

Thomas finishes by quoting Maya Angelou. “When an individual displays you who they are, think them,” she suggests. These issues are designed to help the organizations that are courting you better show by themselves.

 “I hope they enable you look at what issues most to you as you embark on a new enterprise or study your present scenario,” she claims. “Go in eyes large open up and don’t forget: You need to be in a very good area to do fantastic for other people. You got this.”

Ellen McGirt
@ellmcgirt
Ellen.McGirt@fortune.com





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The Final 'Black Widow' Trailer Is Epic

The Final ‘Black Widow’ Trailer Is Epic

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Greetings, and welcome to yet another edition of The Check, WIRED’s leisure news roundup. Now, we have additional updates about how the novel coronavirus is impacting the planet of society. There’s also a new Black Widow trailer. Oh, and James Wan is reportedly operating on a monster film and Taika Waititi is bringing Roald Dahl to Netflix. Listed here we go.

The Ultimate Black Widow Trailer Is Epic

Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) has normally referred to The Avengers as her loved ones. But just before that she had another 1: She was an assassin trained in the Pink Space. Now, the Crimson Space has a new leader—Taskmaster—and in accordance to her sister Yelena (Florence Pugh) he’s manipulating its recruits. So, in a natural way, she’s heading to stop him. To do so, she receives assist from Yelena, Alexei/The Red Guardian (David Harbour), and Melina (Rachel Weisz). Black Widow—the 1st movie of Marvel’s Phase Four, even while it will take area soon after the events of Captain The united states: Civil War—hits theaters on May perhaps 1.

Sport of Thrones Star Max von Sydow Lifeless at 90

Max von Sydow, the male regarded for playing everyone from Father Merrin in The Exorcist to the 3-Eyed Raven in Recreation of Thrones has died. The Swedish actor was 90 a long time old. “It is really with a broken heart and with infinite unhappiness that we have the extraordinary discomfort of announcing the departure of Max von Sydow on March 8, 2020,” his spouse, French documentary filmmaker Catherine von Sydow, reported in a statement today.

Pixar’s Onward Leads the Weekend Box Business office

It’s not a big range, specially for a Pixar motion picture, but Onward direct the box workplace this weekend bringing in $40 million domestically. (Internationally, it created $28 million for a all over the world complete of $68 million.) Even although that complete looks lower, the studio hopes very good phrase-of-mouth will give it a lengthy shelf-everyday living in theaters. Also, if you are questioning if fears about the new coronavirus are retaining men and women out of theaters, that might not be the case. “I believe there was zero impact,” Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian instructed Range. “With $40 million for Onward, a modest drop off for The Invisible Man, and The Way Back again acquiring stable scores from audiences, it appears to be like persons are in the routine of going to the flicks.”

South By Southwest Cancelled Thanks to Coronavirus Fears

Adhering to in the footsteps of the Video game Builders Conference, F8, Google I/O, and other conventions, this year’s South By Southwest will not happen as planned thanks to considerations more than Covid-19. In a statement posted to Twitter on Friday, organizers stated “the Metropolis of Austin has cancelled the March dates for SXSW and SXSW EDU. SXSW will faithfully stick to the City’s directions. We are devastated to share this news with you.” In another undesirable bit of information for the meeting, the cancellation will reportedly not be covered by coverage. Speaking with The Austin Chronicle, SXSW co-founder Roland Swenson explained, “We have a lot of coverage (terrorism, injuries, house destruction, temperature). Even so, bacterial bacterial infections, communicable disorders, viruses, and pandemics are not coated.”

James Wan Is Manufacturing a New Universal Monster Film

Not also extensive ago, Common jettisoned an concept to build an interconnected cinematic universe primarily based about its classic monsters (Dracula, The Wolf Male, The Mummy, and so on.). Now, with the success of The Invisible Gentleman, it appears as however the studio may possibly be willing to make monster movies soon after all—although not in a related universe. According to The Hollywood Reporter, James Wan is heading to generate a new monster pic for Universal. The report does not specify precisely which monster the motion picture will concentrate on, but it does sound a bit like Frankenstein. “With shades of Disturbia, the tale will target on a group of teens who find out that a neighbor is constructing a monster in his basement,” the report states. “Spoiler: The monster gets free.” Wan isn’t set to direct the film Supernatural writer Robbie Thompson is established to do the job on the script.

Taika Waititi Is Creating Two Roald Dahl Animated Series for Netflix

As if he was not fast paced adequate, Taika Waititi just made a deal to make a pair of animated collection for Netflix centered on the performs of Roald Dahl. The initial will be dependent on Charlie and the Chocolate Manufacturing unit and the 2nd will be based on the Oompa-Loompas. Waititi will produce, direct, and govt generate the sequence, which Netflix statements will retain the spirit of Dahl’s is effective “while developing out the planet and people far outside of the pages of the Dahl book for the really initial time.”

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Empty offices, full homes: Coronavirus might strain the internet

Empty offices, full homes: Coronavirus might strain the internet

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Subscribe to Fortune’s Outbreak newsletter for a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on global business.

With more people working from home to avoid coronavirus, will the internet break? The short answer is probably not. The longer answer is that there will be disruptions.

To protect workers and help stem the spread of Covid-19, companies like Twitter and JPMorgan Chase are telling employees who can work from home to stay home. In all, 42 million Americans, about 29% of the U.S. workforce, are able to work from home. And as schools close to keep kids out of harm’s way, the pressure on home networks will grow.

“The weak link in the chain, where the system could get overloaded, is going to be the home broadband network,” said Lisa Pierce, a network expert with Gartner. “People will hit congestion, just like a highway, where the speed goes from 60 miles an hour to 20.”

Residences and neighborhoods served by lower bandwidth cable and copper-wire connections will be among the first affected. Whole families sharing a single Wi-Fi signal, all logging in at once to work or firing up TVs and tablets to stay connected and entertained, should also expect delays.

Strong backbone

On the whole, the big networks of fiber-optic cable that crisscross the country will continue to operate, hauling internet traffic between cities, according to U.S. phone service giants AT&T and Verizon Communications.

“As an engineer, I will tell you that we will have the capacity in our system that employees and customers need access to, at times like this,” said Jeff McElfresh, chief executive officer of AT&T, which oversees landline, wireless and TV services. “We can provide the ability to work where customers need to work and help them continue to be productive. It’s something I’m proud of. This is something we do right.”

The phone companies’ underlying confidence in their networks is due, in part, to the fact that the volume of traffic won’t necessarily change. What will change are the patterns. Traffic will originate less from offices with powerful connections and more from residential areas. Cable and phone companies that provide home broadband might develop bottlenecks at network nodes where multiple lines converge.

Among the biggest network cloggers, or bandwidth hogs, will be popular video and social-media services, like Netflix, YouTube, Facetime and Skype, according to Roger Entner, an analyst with Recon Analytics.

“Video is already 70% of all network traffic,” he said. “The moment you add in videoconferencing to all the shows the kids are watching because schools are closed, it could be a problem if everyone is trying to get on at the same time.”

Diffuse impact

Problems are likely to range from dropped connections to slow downloads or loss of video feeds. These are familiar conditions in climates where snow days keep folks at home and can test the limits of home broadband capacity.

They’ll vary by region and time of day, depending on traffic patterns, unlike single events that we all experience, for example the disruptions caused by the recent launch of Walt Disney’s Disney+ or glitches on Amazon Prime Day.

Even if home connections are robust, not every company is ready to handle a sudden surge of employees trying to log in to the office network from outside.

Many employers use virtual private networks, or VPNs, as secure, dedicated channels for remote users to access the same network they normally have at work.

Typically businesses allocate enough network capacity to accommodate the everyday needs of a small number of employees working remotely, but a large-scale shift could cause temporary trouble. Adding VPN capacity could take hours or days or maybe even weeks for some companies, according to networking experts.

Preparation can help. For a decade or more, big employers have been developing contingency plans and business-continuity strategies. Information-technology departments have developed checklists or backup procedures and employees have been briefed, or even participated in mock emergencies, to test remote connections at home or in temporary offices.

“We’re in a far better place than we were five or 10 years ago, in terms of network preparedness,” Pierce said.

More must-read stories from Fortune:

—Testing for coronavirus should be free, but it’s not always that simple
—Coronavirus is mutating: Chinese scientists find second strain
—Coronavirus is giving China cover to expand its surveillance. What happens next?
—The coronavirus is officially claiming its first corporate casualties
—Why the U.S. is so far behind other countries in coronavirus testing
—Travel insurance is booming, even though it doesn’t help flight changes and cancellations
—Six states are still not testing for coronavirus

Subscribe to Fortune’s Outbreak newsletter for a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on global business.



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South by Southwest Is Canceled as Coronavirus Fears Scuttle Festival

South by Southwest Is Canceled as Coronavirus Fears Scuttle Festival

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The 34th annual edition of South by Southwest, the sprawling festival of music, technology and film in Austin, Texas, that has become a highlight on the global cultural calendar, was canceled by city officials on Friday over fears about the rapid spread of coronavirus.

Festival organizers and government officials had come under intense pressure in recent days to pull the plug on South by Southwest, with more than 50,000 people signing an online petition and a growing list of tech companies — among them Apple, Facebook, Twitter and TikTok — announcing their withdrawal.

The decision was announced at a news conference by city and county officials who declared a “local disaster,” even as they stressed that Austin has not had an outbreak and that the number of confirmed cases in Texas was relatively small.

Yet they noted that South by Southwest tends to draw many thousands of attendees from all over the world, including from areas affected by coronavirus.

“After careful deliberation, there was no acceptable path forward that would mitigate the risk enough to protect our community,” said Dr. Mark Escott, the city’s interim health authority and public health medical director.

No one representing South by Southwest spoke. In a statement, festival organizers said: “We are devastated to share this news with you. ‘The show must go on’ is in our DNA, and this is the first time in 34 years that the March event will not take place. We are now working through the ramifications of this unprecedented situation.”

“As recently as Wednesday,” the statement continued, “Austin Public Health stated that ‘there’s no evidence that closing SXSW or any other gatherings will make the community safer.’ However, this situation evolved rapidly, and we honor and respect the city of Austin’s decision.”

The festival was to have run from March 13 to 22, with events planned throughout bars and party spaces across Austin, and at a crowded convention center. In their statement, organizers said they were working to reschedule the events, but the complex planning and tour routing that goes into putting on the music festival may make that very difficult.

Globally, more than 100,000 people have been infected by the coronavirus and more than 3,000 have died in an epidemic that began in China but has spread widely, including in South Korea, Italy, Iran and the United States, where more than 300 people have caught the virus and 17 have died.

The cancellation of South by Southwest is perhaps the largest collateral damage of the virus so far on the international cultural calendar.

On Friday, organizers of Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle, a city in the midst of an outbreak, announced they were postponing the event, which was to begin next Thursday; and Miami officials said that this month’s Ultra Music Festival, a long-running dance event with an international audience, had been canceled. Other events are still going on — if perhaps with more hand sanitizer flowing — including this weekend’s Armory Show art fair in New York.

Originally a scrappy showcase for new bands, South by Southwest — or “South By,” as it is widely known — has long since morphed into a vast mix of media, marketing and pop culture, where major brands intermingle with tech start-ups and independent musicians to mutually drum up buzz.

The dozens of scheduled events this year included the premiere of the “Beastie Boys Story” documentary and an appearance by its director, Spike Jonze; the comedy writer and director Judd Apatow interviewing Stephen Colbert; and Kim Kardashian West discussing her criminal justice work. Among the big musical names were the producers Pharrell Williams and Benny Blanco; Kim Gordon, formerly of Sonic Youth; and a keynote speech by Roger Waters of Pink Floyd.

Last year, South by Southwest’s various events had a combined attendance of 417,000, including 159,000 who came to the music portion, according to festival figures.

The cancellation of the festival now raises questions about reimbursements for festival tickets, which can cost upward of $1,700, as well as travel reservations. The festival’s statement did not address whether refunds or exchanges would be offered for tickets.

Several hotels, including the Holiday Inn Express in downtown Austin, the Fairmont Austin and the Driskill, said that they would give refunds to anyone whose reservations were affected by the cancellation. Southwest Airlines said it had a standard policy of letting passengers exchange tickets, and other airlines have instituted more flexible exchange rules since the beginning of the outbreak.

Many performers and presenters had already sunk money into the event. As news of the cancellation spread on Friday, musicians and others planning to attend were left to wonder whether they could recover any lost costs.

Prentice Robertson, the lead singer of the Scottish indie-rock band Vistas, which was going to be making its United States debut at South by Southwest, said in an interview this week, before the event was canceled, that his band was eager to go but also nervously considering the safety risks of travel. It had spent more than 6,000 pounds (about $7,800) on travel and other expenses in anticipation of going to the festival.

Mr. Robertson said on Friday that when the news arrived, he was looking over a payment invoice from the band’s equipment rental in Austin.

“I was just about to click ‘pay,’” he said.

The cancellation also raises questions about the many ancillary events, like brand-sponsored parties, that are not part of the official festival calendar but are a vital and inseparable part of the spectacle and attraction of South by Southwest. These take place in bars and restaurants around Austin, as well as in seemingly every open spot available — parking lots, yards, industrial buildings.

Alan Miller, the owner of the marketing company Collide, which produces a series of such events each year, said that his company was planning on moving forward unless “told by the rule of law that we are not allowed to be there anymore.”

“South by Southwest is not like any other festival, any other conference,” Mr. Miller said. “This entire festival grew because of people taking chances. We are brave people and we need to represent culture and stand strong in this time.”

Local officials said events with 2,500 or more people would need “mitigation plans for infectious diseases” in order to proceed, a rule that would appear to include sporting events. The University of Texas men’s and women’s basketball teams are playing their final home games of the season this weekend; a statement from the university said the games would be played as scheduled.

The lost festival traffic is sure to be a blow to local businesses that have long seen South by Southwest as the high point of the year. Michael Graham, the co-founder of the brewery Austin Beerworks, said the cancellation was “inevitable and unimaginable all at the same time.”

He said that the brewery could typically expect orders of hundreds of cases of cans for the festival, orders that will no longer come in. A large company had already ordered 100 kegs, worth about $10,000, but he assumed the order would be canceled.

Mr. Graham said local business owners were hoping that people would still travel to the city for a vacation — even if there was no festival. “We are still expecting a large influx of people to town who will still eat food and drink beer,” he said.

Last year, the various events associated with South by Southwest — which also include programs on gaming, comedy and education — contributed $356 million to the Austin economy, according to figures circulated by the festival. As South by Southwest has grown, it has helped elevate Austin’s reputation worldwide as not only a music destination but also a home for technology and innovation.

Addressing the economic effects, Mayor Steve Adler said: “All ramifications are secondary to helping to ensure we are safe as a community. We will deal with and work our way through all the other ramifications.”

For the larger concert industry — a primary source of income for many artists — what happens at South by Southwest may be an indicator of the year to come. Some major acts, like Green Day and Avril Lavigne, have canceled Asian tour dates. But the rest of the business has, at least so far, been little affected, with major tours by Lady Gaga and Enrique Iglesias and Ricky Martin being announced in recent days.

The live music industry’s next major event is the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, set to run April 10 to 19. The promoters of the festival — one of the music world’s biggest, which also tends to draw an international audience — have not commented on whether any changes are expected.

Austin effectively canceled South By Southwest with declarations of disaster from Austin’s mayor and Sarah Eckhardt, the Travis County judge, a position akin to chief executive of the county. Ms. Eckhardt said she signed a declaration disallowing festival gatherings that attract people from areas with documented cases of person-to-person transmission of the virus. Another qualification is that participants of the festival are expected to be in “close and sustained proximity to one another.”

“Clearly,” she said, “South by Southwest would fall under that criteria.”

Tiffany Hsu and Jaclyn Peiser contributed reporting.



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Connected vehicles will make our roads safer—but only with regulators’ help

Connected vehicles will make our roads safer—but only with regulators’ help

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In
2018, an estimated 40,000 Americans died in traffic accidents. Sadly,
an estimated 94% of these accidents are due to human error, according to a 2015 study
by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

Thankfully,
an innovation that could significantly reduce the number of traffic deaths
isn’t too far down the road.

Connected
vehicles—vehicles with on-board sensors and advanced software that communicates
with drivers, other vehicles, road infrastructure, and the cloud—have the
potential to not only dramatically improve traffic safety, but also reduce
congestion on our roads.

This
technology should become increasingly common in the coming years. According to
research firm IHS Markit, 72.5 million connected
cars
will be sold globally in 2023 (24 million were sold in 2015), which would make
up almost 70% of all passenger vehicle sales.

That’s
great news. And once the federal government provides certainty there will be
adequate radio spectrum for connected vehicles, the technology will have the
chance to fully excel.

Tech
and automobile companies, as well as some states, are already making major
strides with V2X technology. My company, Panasonic, is deeply invested: Through
partnerships with the Colorado, Utah, and Georgia transportation departments,
we’re already operating an advanced transportation data network and cloud
platform.

Connected
vehicles work by collecting information from their surroundings and
communicating it to each other, as well as intelligent transportation
infrastructure that uses sensors installed alongside roads, on utility poles,
on large gantries along highways, and on poles dedicated for traffic cameras or
lights. This vehicle-to-everything, or “V2X,” communication, as it’s called,
delivers practical information to drivers and workers coordinating road
traffic.

Widespread
V2X deployment will have a major impact on road safety. According to the NHTSA, connected cars could
prevent up to 80% of multi-vehicle crashes involving unimpaired drivers.

Connected
vehicles are able to send and receive immediate warnings or guidance based on
road conditions. For instance, a connected vehicle could send data to roadside
sensors when it rapidly changes speed, which would then communicate to traffic
operators that an abnormal situation might be occurring. Operators could then
dispatch emergency personnel if necessary, depending on data shared by other
vehicles in the vicinity.

As
connected cars spread across the driving fleet, machine-learning platforms can develop
models from the data over time and begin predicting conditions and incidents.
Such platforms, managed by traffic administration agencies, could suggest
improvements to road infrastructure at points on the road that can be
particularly hazardous, such as sudden sharp turns on rural freeways or slick
pavement due to poor weather.

Connected
vehicle technology can address traffic congestion too. In addition to costing
the U.S. economy an estimated $87 billion in 2018, per INRIX data, congestion
also reduces the productivity of workers idling in traffic, adds costs and
length of time for transporting goods, and increases air pollution.

Sharing
real-time traffic data can prevent jams before they impede traffic flow. The
state of Utah has built one of the first operational connected-vehicle
corridors in the U.S. in Salt Lake City and Provo. Its buses are equipped with
radios that “talk” to traffic signals. If the bus is running behind schedule,
the signal can extend the length of the green light without any action taken by
the bus driver.

Some states have already begun
deploying connected car technology in
roadway infrastructure. In addition to the aforementioned Utah program, states like Colorado, New York, and
Wyoming,and many others,
are using connected vehicle technology to gather and send vital safety
information directly to roadway infrastructure users.

Auto manufacturers are also embracing
this innovation. Ford, for example, announced earlier this year that all 2022 models in the U.S. will be equipped with an advanced V2X system. Cadillac is working to enable its cars with V2X capabilities by 2023. And most
of Volkswagen’s 2020 European models will be equipped with
V2X.

But in order to expand connected
vehicles nationwide, the federal government needs to create certainty in the
market. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently proposed changes
that would allow part of the radio spectrum allocated for transportation safety
to be used for communications unrelated to transportation. The FCC’s proposed
plan would allow harmful interference from adjacent Wi-Fi bands, similar to
having a noisy neighbor move in next door. This interference would threaten to
disable the benefits of deploying V2X’s lifesaving technology, and could impel
some vehicle manufacturers that had previously committed to deploying V2X
technology on the radio spectrum to pull back.

To provide certainty that connected
cars can directly share data between vehicles to improve safety, the FCC should
continue to work with the U.S. Transportation Department to ensure enough
interference-free spectrum is available for transportation safety.   

Improving regulations around V2X will
help the technology mature faster. By combining smart government efforts like
this with private innovation, connected vehicles will soon be making all of our
lives safer and more convenient.

Michael Moskowitz is chairman and CEO of Panasonic Corporation of North America.

More opinion in Fortune:

—Coronavirus shows why we need vaccines before, not after, an outbreak
—How Democrats’ impeachment campaign helped Trump
—Being a CEO is more tenuous than ever. How I survived 30 years at Aflac
—How Warren Buffett built Berkshire Hathaway
—Are the Houston Astros irredeemable cheaters? Or are they all of us?

Listen to our audio briefing, Fortune 500 Daily



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An Unfixable Flaw Threatens 5 Years of Intel Chips

An Unfixable Flaw Threatens 5 Years of Intel Chips

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As the novel coronavirus continues to propagate, phishing scams that pose as Covid-19 advice do as well. The trend started over a month ago, but it’s only going to get worse. Abide by these tips to avoid them, and also please keep washing those hands.

In non-pandemic news, researchers figured out how to clone the mechanical keys of tens of millions of cars from Toyota, Hyundai, and Kia, making theft a much simpler matter. Some recently released Russian disinformation shows how the Kremlin’s professional trolls are adapting to Facebook’s defenses. And a very bad bill called the EARN IT act represents the most serious threat to strong end-to-end encryption in years.

We took a look at how North Korea launders cryptocurrency, and how they recently got caught. (And yes, they go after traditional banks too). We recommended our favorite virtual private networks, with the usual caveats that you shouldn’t put too much trust in any VPN. Although new open source VPN software called WireGuard has a chance to change our minds.

Plus, there’s more! Every Saturday we round up the security and privacy stories that we didn’t break or report on in depth but think you should know about. Click on the headlines to read them, and stay safe out there.

Ever since speculative execution bugs Spectre and Meltdown upended security for the majority of computers a little over two years ago, newly discovered hardware flaws seem to bedevil Intel every few months. This time it’s a flaw in Intel’s Converged Security and Management Engine’s mask ROM, a particularly nasty spot for a bug because it can’t be patched with a firmware update. “Because this vulnerability allows a compromise at the hardware level, it destroys the chain of trust for the platform as a whole,” wrote security firm Positive Technologies in a blog post announcing the issue. Intel argues that pulling off an attack would require local access, specialized gear, and a high level of skill, making it relatively impractical in the real world. Given the potential impact, though, it’s still a concerning flaw—one that affects every Intel CPU and chipset released in the last five years.

Leaving a database exposed on the internet is bad enough as it is. It’s worse when that database includes personally identifiable information, like home addresses and emails. And worse still when someone outside the company actually finds and accesses those details. Verizon Media has checked all three, with a database of 900,000 customers left vulnerable. Data breaches happen all the time, but that by no means excuses them. There are some steps you can take to protect yourself when they happen, but the onus is on corporations to make sure they don’t in the first place.

Oh, hello again. Nearly a year ago, J. Crew suffered a so-called credential stuffing attack that impacted the the online accounts of fewer than 10,000 customers. It did, though, include some payment information, like the type of credit or debit card used and the last four digits of the card numbers, plus expiration dates and associated addresses. Not ideal! Regulators may raise an eyebrow at how long it took J. Crew to come forward with this one.

Visser Precision provides precision parts for the aerospace and automotive industries, with heavy hitters like Tesla, SpaceX, and Lockheed Martin on its client list. It also reportedly got hit by a ransomware attack that resulted in the theft of at least some of its data. The ransomware reportedly involved, DoppelPaymer, doesn’t just encrypt files; it steals them first so that hackers can retain a copy. Increasingly, ransomware attacks include a threat of leaking that privileged info if companies don’t pay up.



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Tesla sent incomplete worker safety injury reports, California regulator says

Tesla sent incomplete worker safety injury reports, California regulator says

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