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Riots break out in cities across US, including fires, violence near White House

05/31/20 7:57 PM

New story in Technology from Time: After Anonymous Promises Retribution for George Floyd’s Death, Minneapolis Police Website Shows Signs It Was Hacked

The Minneapolis Police Department’s website has shown signs of a hack since late Saturday, days after a video purported to be from the hacktivist group Anonymous promised retribution for the death of George Floyd during an arrest.

Websites for the police department and the city of Minneapolis were temporarily inaccessible on Saturday as protesters in cities around the U.S. marched against police violence aimed at black Americans.

By Sunday morning, the pages sometimes required visitors to submit “captchas” to verify they weren’t bots, a tool used to mitigate hacks that attempt to overwhelm pages with automated requests until they stop responding.

Officials with the police department and the city didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Anonymous posted a video on their unconfirmed Facebook page on May 28 directed at the Minneapolis police. The post accused them of having a “horrific track record of violence and corruption.”

The speaker, wearing a hoodie and the Guy Fawkes mask that’s a well-known symbol of the group, concludes the video with, “we do not trust your corrupt organization to carry out justice, so we will be exposing your many crimes to the world. We are a legion. Expect us.”

The video was viewed almost 2.3 million times on Facebook over the weekend, during which violence swept the U.S. as protesters clashed with law enforcement and National Guard troops.

While many demonstrations have been peaceful, others have devolved into rioting. Several cities issued curfews and police have at times turned their rubber bullets and mace on the activists and on journalists covering the protests.

President Donald Trump on Sunday cast blame on the media for stoking the violence that’s followed the death of Floyd, an unarmed black man, in Minnesota police custody.

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Semitrailer speeds into crowd of protesters on Minneapolis bridge; injuries unclear

05/31/20 4:29 PM

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NASA astronauts board Space Station in historic SpaceX mission

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President Trump says US to designate Antifa group as a terrorist organization amid ongoing riots

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SpaceX spacecraft docks with space station on historic NASA mission

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Watch Sunday Mass live from St. Patrick’s Cathedral in NYC at 10:15 am on FoxNews.com

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Los Angeles mayor calls for National Guard help

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Minneapolis mayor says 'white supremacists,' 'out of state instigators' behind protests, but arrests show otherwise

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WATCH LIVE: Two NASA astronauts are awaiting liftoff in a historic flight on a SpaceX rocket to the International Space Station

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Supreme Court rejects challenge to limits on church services; Roberts sides with liberals

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At Trump request, Pentagon puts military police on alert to combat riots

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White House briefly locked down as unrest reported in Atlanta, Washington and New York City in wake of George Floyd's death

05/29/20 5:38 PM

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Summary, details of phone conversations between Michael Flynn and then-Russian envoy to US Sergey Kislyak made public

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DNI Ratcliffe sends declassified transcripts of December 2016 Michael Flynn phone calls with then-Russian envoy to Congress

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Trump announces US ‘terminating’ relationship with World Health Organization, says agency has not made 'greatly needed reforms'

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President Trump holds news conference in White House Rose Garden

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New story in Technology from Time: Twitter Flags President Trump’s Tweet About Shooting Minneapolis Looters for ‘Glorifying Violence’

Twitter, which this week earned U.S. President Donald Trump’s ire by posting fact-check notices next to some of his tweets, has put up a rule-violation notice on one of his most recent missives.

Saying that the president’s comments about protests in Minneapolis glorified violence and were thus against its rules, the social media company has obscured the offending message on his profile with the following warning:

“This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying violence. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible.”

….These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 29, 2020

A spokesman for Twitter didn’t immediately respond to an email and phone call for comment.

A “View” option to open and read the tweet is made available alongside the warning. The president’s comments, concluding with the words “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” incited a strong response from other Twitter users, but those replies have since been hidden or removed by the company. The options to reply and like the tweet have also been disabled, while the retweet and quote-tweet functions have been left active.

We have placed a public interest notice on this Tweet from @realdonaldtrump. https://t.co/6RHX56G2zt

— Twitter Comms (@TwitterComms) May 29, 2020

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Trump vows military support to Minnesota governor

05/28/20 11:30 PM

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Protesters Breach Police Station

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Feds, law enforcement call for calm in Minnesota amid violent unrest in George Floyd death

05/28/20 3:59 PM

New story in Technology from Time: Trump Signs Executive Order Targeting Protections for Social Media Companies Amid Escalating War With Twitter

(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump escalated his war on social media companies, signing an executive order Thursday challenging the liability protections that have served as a bedrock for unfettered speech on the internet.

Still, the move appears to be more about politics than substance, as the president aims to rally supporters after he lashed out at Twitter for applying fact checks to two of his tweets.

Trump said the fact checks were “editorial decisions” by Twitter and amounted to political activism. He said it should cost those companies their protection from lawsuits for what is posted on their platforms.

Trump and his allies, who rely heavily on Twitter to verbally flog their foes, have long accused the tech giants in liberal-leaning Silicon Valley of targeting conservatives on social media by fact-checking them or removing their posts.

“We’re fed up with it,” Trump said, claiming the order would uphold freedom of speech.

It directs executive branch agencies to ask independent rule-making agencies including the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission to study whether they can place new regulations on the companies — though experts express doubts much can be done without an act of Congress.

Companies like Twitter and Facebook are granted liability protection under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act because they are treated as “platforms,” rather than “publishers,” which can face lawsuits over content.

A similar executive order was previously considered by the administration but shelved over concerns it couldn’t pass legal muster and that it violated conservative principles on deregulation and free speech.

Two administration officials outlined the draft order on the condition of anonymity because it was still being finalized Thursday morning. But a draft was circulating on Twitter — where else?

“This will be a Big Day for Social Media and FAIRNESS!” Trump tweeted.

Press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the Twitter fact checks reflected “bias in action” and Trump aimed to sign the order by the end of the day.

Trump and his campaign reacted after Twitter added a warning phrase to two Trump tweets that called mail-in ballots “fraudulent” and predicted “mail boxes will be robbed.” Under the tweets, there’s now a link reading “Get the facts about mail-in ballots” that guides users to a page with fact checks and news stories about Trump’s unsubstantiated claims.

Trump accused Twitter of interfering in the 2020 presidential election” and declared “as president, I will not allow this to happen.” His campaign manager, Brad Parscale, said Twitter’s “clear political bias” had led the campaign to pull “all our advertising from Twitter months ago.” In fact, Twitter has banned political advertising since last November.

Late Wednesday, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted, “We’ll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally.”

Dorsey added: “This does not make us an ‘arbiter of truth.’ Our intention is to connect the dots of conflicting statements and show the information in dispute so people can judge for themselves.”

Fact check: there is someone ultimately accountable for our actions as a company, and that’s me. Please leave our employees out of this. We’ll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make.

— jack (@jack) May 28, 2020

On the other hand, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Fox News his platform has “a different policy, I think, than Twitter on this.”

“I just believe strongly that Facebook shouldn’t be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online,” he said.

The president’s critics, meanwhile, scolded the platforms for allowing him to put forth false or misleading information that could confuse voters.

“Donald Trump’s order is plainly illegal,” said Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat and advocate for internet freedoms. He is “desperately trying to steal for himself the power of the courts and Congress… All for the ability to spread unfiltered lies.”

Trump’s proposal has multiple, serious legal problems and is unlikely to survive a challenge, according to Matt Schruers, president of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, a Washington-based organization that represents computer and internet companies.

It would also seem to be an assault on the same online freedom that enabled social media platforms to flourish in the first place — and made them such an effective microphone for Trump and other politicians.

“The irony that is lost here is that if these protections were to go away social media services would be far more aggressive in moderating content and terminating accounts,” Schruers said. “Our vibrant public sphere of discussion would devolve into nothing more than preapproved soundbites.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said it was “outrageous” that while Twitter had put a fact-check tag on Trump’s tweets asserting massive mail-in election fraud, it had not removed his tweets suggesting without evidence that a TV news host had murdered an aide years ago.

“Their business model is to make money at the expense of the truth and the facts that they know,” she said of social media giants, also mentioning Facebook. She said their goal is to avoid taxes “and they don’t want to be regulated, so they pander to the White House.”

The order was also expected to try to hold back federal advertising dollars from Twitter and other social media companies that “violate free speech principles.”

The president and fellow conservatives have been claiming, for years, that Silicon Valley tech companies are biased against them. But there is no evidence for this — and while the executives and many employees of Twitter, Facebook and Google may lean liberal, the companies have stressed they have no business interest in favoring on political party over the other.

The trouble began in 2016, two years after Facebook launched a section called “trending,” using human editors to curate popular news stories. Facebook was accused of bias against conservatives based on the words of an anonymous former contractor who said the company downplayed conservative issues in that feature and promoted liberal causes.

Zuckerberg met with prominent right-wing leaders at the time in an attempt at damage control, and in 2018, Facebook shut down the “trending” section,.

In August 2018, Trump accused Google of biased searches and warned the company to “be careful.” Google pushed back sharply, saying Trump’s claim simply wasn’t so: “We never rank search results to manipulate political sentiment.”

Experts, meanwhile, suggested that Trump’s comments showed a misunderstanding of how search engines work.

Last year, Trump again blasted social media companies after Facebook banned a slew of extremist figures including conspiracy peddler Alex Jones from its site and from Instagram.

Meanwhile, the companies are gearing up to combat misinformation around the November elections. Twitter and Facebook have begun rolling out dozens of new rules to avoid a repeat of the false postings about the candidates and the voting process that marred the 2016 election.

The coronavirus pandemic has further escalated the platforms’ response, leading them to take actions against politicians — a move they’ve long resisted — who make misleading claims about the virus.

Last month, Twitter began a “Get the Facts” label to direct social media users to news articles from trusted outlets next to tweets containing misleading or disputed information about the virus. Company leaders said the new labels could be applied to anyone on Twitter and they were considering using them on other topics.

The Democratic National Committee said Trump’s vote-by-mail tweets should have been removed, not just flagged, for violating the company’s rules on posting false voting information.

“After taking too long to act, Twitter once again came up short out of fear of upsetting Trump,” the party said in a statement.

___

AP writers Amanda Seitz, Barbara Ortutay and David Klepper contributed.

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Trump signs social media executive order, calls for removal of liability protections over 'censoring'

05/28/20 1:51 PM

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DOJ says investigation into George Floyd’s death is a ‘top priority’

05/28/20 7:36 AM

New story in Technology from Time: Yes, Your iPad Can Replace Your Desktop or Laptop. Here Are 5 Things to Know First

Apple’s latest souped-up iPads, along with accessories like the Magic Keyboard and software enhancements in iPadOS, have turned the company’s tablets into bona-fide desktop and laptop replacements.

But if you really want to use your iPad as your primary computing device, there are a few things you should keep in mind. Here are five tips for replacing your PC or Mac with one of Apple’s tablets, whether for work, school, or just day-to-day usage.

Get a real keyboard (and a mouse)

Lack of mouse support was long the main hurdle preventing the iPad from operating as a PC replacement. But Apple’s latest iPadOS update gives the iPad external mouse and trackpad support, giving you a desktop- or laptop-like cursor for the first time.

But before you get a mouse to go clicking away, you should probably get a keyboard, too. You can pair your own Bluetooth keyboard to your iPad and get your typing done that way, but you can also get yourself a keyboard cover that doubles as a case, and makes your iPad look more laptop-like than usual. Apple makes its own keyboard covers with different features depending on the iPad you’re using: iPad Pro users can grab the trackpad-free Smart Keyboard Folio, or the trackpad-equipped Magic Keyboard Cover. iPads lacking the Pro moniker have an Apple-provided option when it comes to keyboards: the Smart Keyboard uses the tablet’s embedded Smart Connector, and doubles as a cover when not in use, but doesn’t feature any flexibility in terms of viewing angles.

You can also look to third-party keyboards for added functionality. Keyboards like Logitech’s backlit Combo Touch turn your iPad into the closest thing to an iPad Pro without the added cost. It adds a detachable keyboard and trackpad cover to the iPad, along with an adjustable kickstand akin to the Microsoft Surface — arguably more useful than Apple’s own Magic Keyboard and its inflexible posture. There’s also the series of wireless keyboards from Brydge, which affix to your iPad to turn it into a facsimile of a laptop. The new Brydge Pro+ works with the iPad Pro and includes an integrated trackpad, while the Brydge Pro fits on the lower-end iPad, but lacks a trackpad.

Find substitutes for your go-to apps

Some things are just easier to do on a PC—but that doesn’t mean they’re impossible to do on an iPad.

Need to send specific files or open certain links in particular apps and web browsers? Check out Opener, an app that lets you take advantage of the iOS share sheet (indicated by the box with an arrow sticking out of it). Use an app like 1Password to access your protected online accounts on any device, on iOS, Mac, or PC. TextExpander can save you time typing repeated email responses, names, addresses, or forms by creating shortcuts corresponding to their longer stored sentences and paragraphs.

Need a more powerful to-do list? Apple’s integrated Reminders app is free and suitable for day-to-day tasks, but apps like Todoist or Omnifocus offer multiple ways to restructure your priorities and projects you want to accomplish whether on the job or around the house. What about a word processor? Google Docs, the minimalist iA Writer, and the organization-friendly Scrivener all offer different takes when it comes to writing, drafting, and organizing text. For a more powerful text editor, check out Drafts, which can send the text you write to other apps, boosting your productivity and saving you time in the process.

Learn how to manage your “windows”

Understanding how to manage your app windows is perhaps the most frustrating part of using an iPad as a replacement for your PC.

Whereas window management is a snap on a PC, on an iPad, you’ll be dragging apps, holding them in place, and swiping them to certain parts of the screen to keep your multitasking habits alive. The iPad’s Split View feature puts two apps side-by-side, while its Slide Over feature will overlay an iPhone-shaped version of your app on a section of either your home screen or atop the app you’re already using. You can operate up to three apps at a time, and drag and drop items like photos and email attachments between them.

To start using the iPad’s multitasking feature, open an app or place it in your iPad dock. From there, you can select another app in the dock, long press it, and drag it up either on top of the current app, or next to it, enabling its Split View mode. You can adjust the real estate each app takes up by sliding the central divider left or right. By repeating the process with a third app, you can layer it on top of either of the two apps, letting you have a word processor on one side, a calendar on the other, and your messaging app of choice on top of that.

While slick, it’s still not perfect. Using the keyboard in Split View gets a bit frustrating if you keep switching between apps, and not every app supports every multitasking mode.

Get a stand, too

If you’re using your iPad as your primary machine these days, you’re probably suffering from some pretty poor posture—you’re more hunched over with your neck tilted downward, perhaps. Working that way for a few days might be well and good, but for longer periods of time, you’re just asking for a strained neck, uncomfortable back, and generally unpleasant feeling.

But an iPad on a stand? That’s a game-changer. Not only will a stand help correct your bad posture, but with the right model—either one attached to an articulated arm or with a swiveling head—you can use your iPad in either portrait or landscape mode, and pair it with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse (or trackpad) to gain even more control.

For more versatility, you need a hub

If you need to connect lots of devices to your iPad, you’ve probably already encountered a problem: it only has one port. The solution? A USB-C hub, which allows you not only to connect devices like flash drives or digital cameras to your iPad, it also supercharges your tablet when paired with the right external accessories.

Streaming video for a conference call? Connecting your iPad to a hub with an Ethernet port gives you a wired connection for lag-free calls. Need to offload some photos from your digital camera? A hub with an SD card slot, combined with Apple’s Files app, makes short work of getting your pictures off the card and into your app of choice (or the cloud). You can even connect your favorite wired keyboard rather than spend money on a wireless model.

A hub can also give you some much-needed screen space by connecting your iPad to a second display. Depending on the app you’re using, your iPad will either mirror your screen or offer you a secondary monitor to display images, keynote presentations and more unencumbered by your user interface or editing tools. Apps like Photos, Keynote, and Procreate can use a second display to show off larger versions of whatever you’re viewing on your iPad, too—it’s great for displaying presentations or photo slideshows.

Still, iPad second screens aren’t perfect. When viewing a photo in an app like Photos, the image itself will be showcased in an awkward 4:3 aspect ratio, with the image taking up the entirety of the monitor only after you do a little zooming in with your fingers.

Even better is the ability to send video to your second, larger display when connected. The iPad retains its 4:3 aspect ratio when plugged into an external display, even if it’s a widescreen monitor. But when watching video from, for example, your favorite streaming app, the iPad will take advantage of the entire monitor, providing you with a proper 16:9 aspect ratio and viewing experience.

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More than 2.1M Americans filed for unemployment last week

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Barr asks US Attorney John Bash to review 'unmasking' before and after 2016 election, DOJ tells Fox News

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Fugitive UConn student wanted in 2 killings is caught in Maryland after manhunt, police say

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Heated protests, reports of looting as tension builds in Minneapolis over George Floyd death

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New story in Technology from Time: ‘We Will Strongly Regulate, or Close Them Down.’ Trump Threatens to Shutter Social Media Platforms After Twitter Fact-Checks Him

(Washington D.C.) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened social media companies with new regulations or even shuttering a day after Twitter added fact checks to two of his tweets.

The president can’t unilaterally regulate or close the companies, which would require action by Congress or the Federal Communications Commission. But that didn’t stop Trump from angrily issuing a strong warning.

Claiming tech giants “silence conservative voices,” Trump tweeted, “We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen.”

Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen. We saw what they attempted to do, and failed, in 2016. We can’t let a more sophisticated version of that….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 27, 2020

And he repeated his unsubstantiated claim — which sparked his latest showdown with Silicon Valley — that expanding mail-in voting “would be a free for all on cheating, forgery and the theft of Ballots.”

Trump and his campaign angrily lashed out Tuesday after Twitter added a warning phrase to two Trump tweets that called mail-in ballots “fraudulent” and predicted that “mail boxes will be robbed,” among other things. Under the tweets, there is now a link reading “Get the facts about mail-in ballots” that guides users to a Twitter “moments” page with fact checks and news stories about Trump’s unsubstantiated claims.

Trump replied on Twitter, accusing the platform of “interfering in the 2020 Presidential Election” and insisting that “as president, I will not allow this to happen.” His 2020 campaign manager, Brad Parscale, said Twitter’s “clear political bias” had led the campaign to pull “all our advertising from Twitter months ago.” Twitter has banned all political advertising since last November.

….happen again. Just like we can’t let large scale Mail-In Ballots take root in our Country. It would be a free for all on cheating, forgery and the theft of Ballots. Whoever cheated the most would win. Likewise, Social Media. Clean up your act, NOW!!!!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 27, 2020

Trump did not explain his threat Wednesday, and the call to expand regulation appeared to fly in the face of long-held conservative principles on deregulation.

But some Trump allies, who have alleged bias on the part of tech companies, have questioned whether platforms like Twitter and Facebook should continue to enjoy liability protections as “platforms” under federal law — or be treated more like publishers, which could face lawsuits over content.

The protections have been credited with allowing the unfettered growth of the internet for more than two decades, but now some Trump allies are advocating that social media companies face more scrutiny.

“Big tech gets a huge handout from the federal government,” Republican Sen. Josh Hawley told Fox News. “They get this special immunity, this special immunity from suits and from liability that’s worth billions of dollars to them every year. Why are they getting subsidized by federal taxpayers to censor conservatives, to censor people critical of China.”

New story in Technology from Time: In a First, Twitter Adds ‘Unsubstantiated’ Warning to 2 of President Trump’s Tweets

President Trump started off his Tuesday as he does most days, with a series of tweets, the content of which many often find counterfactual. And for the first time, the social media company responded in a new way.

On Tuesday morning, the President declared in a pair of tweets that supplying voters with mail-in ballots, a move rising in popularity amid the coronavirus outbreak and one several states already employ, would be “substantially fraudulent.” Later on Tuesday evening, Twitter added a label to the posts with a blue exclamation point symbol and a warning that Trump was making an “unsubstantiated claim.”

“Trump falsely claimed that mail-in ballots would lead to ‘a Rigged Election.’ However, fact-checkers say there is no evidence that mail-in ballots are linked to voter fraud,” a statement from the company read once users clicked on the alert.

There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent. Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed. The Governor of California is sending Ballots to millions of people, anyone…..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 26, 2020

….living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there, will get one. That will be followed up with professionals telling all of these people, many of whom have never even thought of voting before, how, and for whom, to vote. This will be a Rigged Election. No way!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 26, 2020

The platform noted that only registered voters will receive ballots, and that mail-in ballots are already in use in several states. Twitter confirmed to TIME that it was the first time the company had put the warning on one of the President’s tweets.

The warning appears to be a significant change for the social media company, which has previously deflected calls to address several of the President’s tweets that critics said violate the company’s policies. After the President apparently made a violent threat against North Korea on the platform in 2017, the company implied that Trump’s tweet had not been deleted because it is newsworthy.

The new warnings on Trump’s tweets are aligned with the company’s updated policy on misinformation. On May 11, the company announced that it would add “new labels and warning messages that will provide additional context and information on some tweets containing disputed or misleading information related to COVID-19.”

On Tuesday evening, President Trump returned to Twitter to criticize the platform, accusing the company of “interfering in the 2020 Presidential Election.”

“Twitter is completely stifling FREE SPEECH, and I, as President, will not allow it to happen!” Trump said.

.@Twitter is now interfering in the 2020 Presidential Election. They are saying my statement on Mail-In Ballots, which will lead to massive corruption and fraud, is incorrect, based on fact-checking by Fake News CNN and the Amazon Washington Post….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 26, 2020

….Twitter is completely stifling FREE SPEECH, and I, as President, will not allow it to happen!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 26, 2020

The President’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale, also released a statement criticizing Twitter’s policy.

“We always knew that Silicon Valley would pull out all the stops to obstruct and interfere with President Trump getting his message through to voters,“ the statement said. “Partnering with the biased fake news media ‘fact checkers’ is only a smoke screen Twitter is using to try to lend their obvious political tactics some false credibility. There are many reasons the Trump campaign pulled all our advertising from Twitter months ago, and their clear political bias is one of them.”

The warnings materialized the same day a letter criticizing Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey went viral over conspiratorial tweets Trump sent, suggesting former GOP Rep. Joe Scarborough was responsible for a young woman’s death. In the widely-circulated letter, widower Timothy Klausutis asked Dorsey to remove tweets by the President and Donald Trump Jr. that he said promoted a conspiracy theory that his deceased wife, was murdered. Klausutis cited that the statements are a violation of the company’s community rules and terms of service.

A Twitter spokesperson said to TIME that the company is “not taking action on the tweets at this time,” although the company is “working to expand existing product features and policies so we can more effectively address things like this going forward, and we hope to have those changes in place shortly.”

As of this writing, Twitter did had not yet removed the three tweets cited by Klausutis.

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4 Minneapolis police officers fired in death of man in custody caught on video, mayor says

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Trump threatens to find new GOP convention site if North Carolina governor won't allow full attendance

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Biden expresses regret after telling interviewer that African-Americans unsure about who to vote for in November 'ain't black'

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FOX NEWS POLL: Biden more trusted on coronavirus, Trump on economy

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New story in Technology from Time: Apple and Google Release Smartphone Technology to Notify People of Possible Coronavirus Exposure

Apple and Google on Wednesday released long-awaited smartphone technology to automatically notify people if they might have been exposed to the coronavirus.

The companies said 22 countries and several U.S. states are already planning to build voluntary phone apps using their software. It relies on Bluetooth wireless technology to detect when someone who downloaded the app has spent time near another app user who later tests positive for the virus.

Many governments have already tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to roll out their own phone apps to fight the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of those apps have encountered technical problems on Apple and Android phones and haven’t been widely adopted. They often use GPS to track people’s location, which Apple and Google are banning from their new tool because of privacy and accuracy concerns.

Public health agencies from Germany to the states of Alabama and South Carolina have been waiting to use the Apple-Google model, while other governments have said the tech giants’ privacy restrictions will be a hindrance because public health workers will have no access to the data.

The companies said they’re not trying to replace contact tracing, a pillar of infection control that involves trained public health workers reaching out to people who may have been exposed to an infected person. But they said their automatic “exposure notification” system can augment that process and slow the spread of COVID-19 by virus carriers who are interacting with strangers and aren’t yet showing symptoms.

The identity of app users will be protected by encryption and anonymous identifier beacons that change frequently.

“User adoption is key to success and we believe that these strong privacy protections are also the best way to encourage use of these apps,” the companies said in a joint statement Wednesday.

The companies said the new technology — the product of a rare partnership between the rival tech giants — solves some of the main technical challenges that governments have had in building Bluetooth-based apps. It will make it easier for iPhones and Android phones to detect each other, work across national and regional borders and fix some of the problems that led previous apps to quickly drain a phone’s battery.

The statement Wednesday also included remarks from state officials in North Dakota, Alabama and South Carolina signaling that they plan to use it.

“We invite other states to join us in leveraging smartphone technologies to strengthen existing contact tracing efforts, which are critical to getting communities and economies back up and running,” said North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, a Republican.

North Dakota had already launched a location-tracking app that about 4% of state residents are using, higher than other U.S. states with similar apps but falling far short of the participation rate that experts say is needed to make such technology useful.

Tim Brookins, the CEO of ProudCrowd, a startup that developed North Dakota’s app, said Wednesday that North Dakotans will now be asked to download two complementary apps — his model, to help public health workers track where COVID-19 patients have been, and the Apple-Google model, to privately notify people who might have been exposed to the virus.

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New story in Technology from Time: 3 Stress-Free Ways to Share Your TV or Computer With Your Quarantine Companions

Thanks to COVID-19, many people are spending a lot more time inside with their fellow housemates, be they spouses, children, or just friends they’re splitting the rent with. That also means more sharing, both of the chores and of the TV.

But just because you’re all stuck inside with one TV to share among yourselves, doesn’t mean you’ve got to sit there and fume while your significant other watches fan-free German soccer when you’d rather be watching movies or gaming. Thanks to some clever streaming technology embedded in your gadgets, you’ve got options to enjoy the content you want while letting others keep their fun going, too.

Here are three ways to share your TV and other tech without letting the stress of quarantine overwhelm you.

Turn your laptop into a lap TV

While Netflix is usually best enjoyed on a big screen, let’s not forget that you can watch your favorite shows on devices with smaller screens. That includes your smartphone, laptop, and tablet. Of course, your favorite streaming service (be it Spectrum, Crunchyroll, CBS All Access, Amazon Prime Video, or myriad others) can stream media whether you’re using an app or just your web browser. But a consequence of streaming your favorite shows during the workday or weekend is reduced bandwidth for everyone else at home, an unnecessary hobbling of your internet connection when the alternatives can leave everyone satisfied.

A little proactive planning goes a long way to keeping everyone satisfied, online, and occupied. If you know you’re gonna spend a few hours watching your current television obsession, why not download the episodes to your device beforehand? Not only will it spare you the lamentations of your spouse or kid over what a terrible internet connection they’re dealing with, it’ll give you instant access to high-quality episodes instead of the variable quality associated with streaming content. Downloading episodes or films to your device usually requires you to use your streaming service’s app of choice, so be sure to download it from your operating system’s respective App Store.

Stream your video games

Thanks to the prevalence of streaming games and media, both locally and over the web, gamers can have their cake and eat it too, preferably in the other room while someone else watches TV. Depending on your console, you’ve got yourself a compromise waiting to happen.

PlayStation 4’s Remote Play, which basically streams your PS4 game to the device of your choice, is perfect for letting someone else binge something on the big screen while you enjoy some much-needed gaming time either in another room or right next to them on the couch.

To run Remote Play, you’ll need a PC, Mac, iOS, or Android device running the PS4 Remote Play app, your PS4’s controller, and either a steady wired or wireless internet connection. You need to enable Remote Play on your console, which you can do from the Settings app. In the Remote Play app, you’ll need to login with your PlayStation account, and locate your console on your home network. You’ll be able to adjust settings like resolution and frame rate from the app, while you can modify the remote play settings on your PlayStation to instantly play remotely just by opening the app (which starts your console without you touching it). One caveat: Your PlayStation will be tied up while using Remote Play, meaning your housemates will need to use another device to watch Netflix or anything else.

More of an Xbox player? Well, you can still avoid hogging the TV, you’ll just need to jump through a few more hoops. Currently, Microsoft’s Console Streaming service is in beta, and rolling out to select members of Microsoft’s Xbox Insider program. You’ll need to sign up for the company’s (free) Xbox Insider program and download the Xbox Game Streaming app. You’ll also need a Bluetooth-friendly Xbox Wireless controller, a 5GHz Wi-Fi or LTE mobile connection, and a compatible Android device, the only platform currently supported.

Free up your PC (or at least your monitor)

What about PC game streaming? It works a little differently, especially if you’re using Valve’s Steam, a marketplace and library for PC and Mac games. On a PC or Mac, you just need to download the Steam app from Valve. If you’re using a mobile device or Apple TV, you’ll need to use the Steam Link app. From there, you can log in to your Steam account, enter the code to link your primary gaming computer to the streaming client device, and get going.

While streaming using Steam Link lets you game while socially distancing from your PC, it takes over your computer during use, meaning you can’t hand it off to your kids or spouse to use while you stream to another device. For PC gamers who simply can’t give up their monitor so their partner can be productive, here’s a clever workaround: You can get Steam Link up and running on your gaming PC and client device, then — if your monitor has multiple input options — simply connect their laptop to the monitor, leaving you free to play in another room while your PC continues to stream your game to your laptop or tablet and they use your monitor to get some work done.

For a more streamlined and polished version of streaming PC games to your devices, check out Nvidia’s GeForce Now streaming service, a subscription service that allows you to stream your library of owned games to a laptop, Mac, Android device, or the big screen using Nvidia’s SHIELD TV. If you sign up for the free version, you’ll be limited to an hour of playtime, while the $4.99 per month option nets you unlimited playtime and improved streaming quality.

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New story in Technology from Time: ‘It’s a Race to the Bottom.’ The Coronavirus is Cutting Into Gig Worker Incomes as the Newly Jobless Flood Apps

For years, Jennell Lévêque has been getting up early and swiping through her phone in the hope that Amazon Flex would drop some shifts for delivery drivers and that she’d be quick enough to nab one. But since the COVID-19 pandemic, even with six apps open for various delivery platforms, Lévêque has gotten barely any jobs delivering packages, meals, or groceries. The Facebook group she runs for Instacart workers, meanwhile, is deluged with requests from new shoppers who want to join.

Before the pandemic, there were millions of people like Lévêque who could make a living, or at least earn decent pocket money, off gig work: driving people from the airport to distant homes, delivering dinners, designing logos for strangers half a world away. But as the U.S. unemployment rate approaches 15% and as the International Monetary Fund predicts a 3% contraction in the global economy, people who have relied on gig work for income are seeing their earnings plummet as more people compete for jobs.

“Each week is getting worse and worse with every platform,” says Lévêque, who is in her forties and whose lament is borne out by company numbers. Upwork says it has seen a 50% increase in freelancer sign-ups since the pandemic began. Talkdesk, a customer service provider that has launched a gig economy platform, got 10,000 new applications for gig work in 10 days. Instacart hired 300,000 additional workers in a month and said in late April it planned to add 250,000 more.

Though more people are having food delivered, receiving packages from Amazon and searching online for their graphic design and customer service needs, the surge of new workers has upended the law of supply and demand in the gig economy. Put simply, with at least 36 million newly jobless people in America alone as of mid-May, there are now too many would-be workers to make the gig economy viable for many of them, and this may be irreversible as companies adapt to the reality of a global recession. By keeping head counts low, they’ll drive more desperate people into the gig economy, expanding the potential labor pool for jobs and driving down the prices that workers can command.

“The rates on DoorDash and Uber Eats are the lowest I’ve ever seen, but they’re all bad right now,” says Lévêque, who’s watched the trend unfold in recent weeks. Apps like Amazon Flex, whose drivers use their personal vehicles to make deliveries for the company, “drop” or release jobs at a certain time, and Lévêque and other drivers say that these jobs are snapped up within seconds. Some Amazon Flex drivers have taken to sitting in parking lots near Amazon warehouses in hopes this will help them beat the competition.

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Apps like Instacart send “offers,” which let workers see how many groceries a customer has ordered, how much they’ll get paid, and what the tip will be. On some apps, these offers are lower than ever, Lévêque says. (Instacart says its shoppers are earning 60% more per batch of orders they complete in part because tips have nearly doubled, and that while they may not see the same volume of orders as they did before, the average number of batches has stayed essentially the same.) As we talked, Lévêque turned down a food delivery offer for $3 because it wasn’t worth the gas she’d have to use. Another driver named Kevin, 43, who didn’t want his last name used because he doesn’t want his full-time job to know that he drives on the side, says Amazon Flex shifts now pay around $18-20 an hour, down from $28-$32 an hour before the pandemic.

As more workers rush to apps, there’s also a rise in people trying to take advantage of their desperation. Hustlers are launching bots that use algorithms to grab jobs before humans can and then charge potential workers to use these bots, says Matthew Telles, a longtime Instacart shopper who has been outspoken about the platform’s flaws. The so-called “grabber bots” take a bunch of jobs as soon as they come out, which means only people who have the bots installed can find work. Instacart shoppers pay a fee to use the bots, which are also a problem on services like Amazon Flex. Instacart in particular “has become a target for these exploitative apps that force laborers to pay just to get them access,” Telles says. (Instacart says that using unauthorized third parties in an effort to secure more batches is not permitted and that anyone found to be doing so will be deactivated.)

Delivery drivers like Lévêque have one advantage—they are only competing for jobs with people from their own geographic area. On sites like Fiverr and Upwork, where people can sell services as diverse as logo design, digital marketing and voice acting, workers are competing with others from around the world. Anyone with an internet connection can vie for these gigs, and the worse the global economy gets in the wake of COVID-19, the more people will stream on these sites looking for work. The World Bank estimates that COVID-19 will cause the first increase in global poverty since 1998.

Bill O’Leary—The Washington Post/Getty ImagesA crowd of delivery drivers waits to pick up orders from &Pizza on March 19, 2020 in Washington D.C.

“It’s a race to the bottom, honestly,” says Melanie Nichols, a 40-year-old marketer who has been freelancing for tech startups in Los Angeles for seven years. With business slowing in the wake of the pandemic, Nichols created an Upwork account from England, where she was staying with family, and tried to earn some extra money. Before the pandemic, she could charge between $100 to $150 an hour to clients, whom she’d meet in person or through referrals. On Upwork, she says, clients advertise jobs that require the same amount of work but pay $50 an hour, or less. Getting those jobs is nearly impossible—Nichols says she’s applied for 20 since March and heard back from four. One led to an actual paying gig, which ended up being more work than she was pitched, and so Nichols did 25 hours of work for 10 hours of pay. “Upwork seems to be such a good idea,” she says, “but I’d be curious to find people who are actually making money from it.”

Steven Lee Notar, 24, is in the same situation. He worked as a graphic designer at a media agency in Germany until the company first reduced his hours and then laid him off. He started advertising on Fiverr for services like designing online ads, posters and business cards, but says he has to set his prices low to get any orders. “A lot of people in my field have turned to the website,” Notar says. “It is a lot of supply but not a lot of demand.”

Sites like Upwork and Fiverr say the demand is still there. Adam Ozimek, the chief economist at Upwork, says that a third of Fortune 500 companies now use the platform, and that client spending has been stable since the pandemic hit. Upwork has not tracked whether freelancer pay rates have gone down, but Ozimek argues that Upwork’s borderless business model is good for gig workers because it gives them the freedom to find employers anywhere, not just in their city or country. “This is where the U.S. has the advantage,” he says. “The U.S. leads the world in skilled services, and our freelancers do find work all over the world.”

What worries some workers is that this scramble of competing with more people for lower-paying gigs is going to become the new normal as businesses try to stay lean by spending as little as possible. Twitter said Tuesday that going forward, employees could work from home forever if they so desired. But once people are working from home, what’s the incentive to keep them on as salaried employees? Arguably, companies could save money and balance their budgets by hiring overseas marketers or coders willing to work for less money and no benefits. Nearly half of the world is now connected to the Internet, up from just 15% in 2007.

Giant marketing companies like WPP and Omnicom have already talked about significant headcount reductions going forward and restructuring—they could turn to online freelancers once business starts up again. One survey found that as early as 2017, average hourly earnings on some platforms like Clickworker and Amazon’s Mechanical Turk were as low as $2 to $6.5 an hour.

There are signs this transition is already happening. Companies that are trying to grow online are hiring many gig workers on Fiverr, and Fiverr has seen an increase in demand for these workers, the company said on its earnings call in May. Fiverr hit all-time daily revenue records four times in April, CEO Micha Kaufman said. Nichols, the marketer, says she has seen big advertising agencies that have laid off hundreds of people hiring gig workers for marketing jobs on Upwork. Upwork said on its May earnings call that a multinational cybersecurity company used Upwork to find designers and developers, and a sports marketing agency hired software developers and animators on the site for projects. Aside from a moral obligation to treat workers well and pay them a living wage, there’s nothing to prevent more companies from jettisoning full-time employees and shifting to lower-paid gig workers.

They’d just be following what has been happening for decades in other fields. Just as manufacturing shifted overseas for cheaper labor and as gig economy apps drove down wages for taxi and delivery drivers, the pandemic has hastened the gig-ification of white-collar jobs. The gig economy might have been a crowded space before COVID-19, but the booming economy masked its workers’ struggles because many of them could find other jobs to supplement their income. Now, that extra work has dried up, and their desperation is more evident than ever. When gig work is the only pie that’s available to millions of people, sharing it means that some don’t even get crumbs.

New story in Technology from Time: Taiwanese Chipmaker Plans to Build $12 Billion Factory in Arizona

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing plans to spend $12 billion building a chip plant in Arizona, a decision designed to allay U.S. national security concerns and shift more high-tech manufacturing to America.

TSMC said Friday it will start construction of its next major fabrication facility in 2021, to be completed by 2024. While the investment falls short of its previous expenditure on cutting-edge factories, it’s a shift for a company that now makes semiconductors for major names like Apple and Huawei Technologies mainly from its home base of Taiwan.

As the world’s largest and most advanced maker of chips for other companies, TSMC plays a crucial role in the production of devices from smartphones and laptops to servers running the internet. Its decision to situate a plant in the western state comes after White House officials had warned repeatedly about the threat inherent in having much of the world’s electronics made outside of the U.S. TSMC had negotiated the deal with the administration to create American jobs and produce sensitive components domestically for national security reasons, according to people familiar with the situation.

The Asian chipmaker’s U.S. investment underscores the delicate balance it needs to strike between its huge roster of American clients and China, which views independently governed Taiwan as part of its territory. Beijing’s ambition of creating a world-class domestic semiconductor industry has unnerved Washington, which fears the country’s technological ascendancy may pose a longer-threat. Executives at TSMC, which operates plants in Nanjing and Shanghai and makes chips that go into everything from 5G networks to American fighter jets, have emphasized the company is neutral.

“The scale & technology is similar to what TSMC did in China, suggesting a balance between the U.S. & China,” Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. analysts led by Mark Li wrote after the announcement. “Overall, this is probably the minimal price to stay neutral. TSMC needs both U.S. & China to maintain scale & stay competitive and this is probably the minimal cost to keep this strategy.”

The envisioned facility represents a small step in global industry terms. Upon completion, it will crank out 20,000 wafers a month, versus the hundreds of thousands that TSMC’s capable of from its main home base. And it will employ 5-nanometer process technology, a current standard that will likely become a few generations old by the time output begins in a few years.

The higher cost of operating in America may have been a factor ahead of the decision. A true cutting-edge fab is expensive to build: The company spent NT$500 billion ($17 billion) to build an advanced facility in the southern Taiwanese city of Tainan that will supply new iPhones this year. It plans another $16 billion in capital spending in 2020. The Arizona plant still requires approval from TSMC’s board, which may hinge on incentives.

“There is a cost gap, which is hard to accept at this point. Of course, we have — we are doing a lot of things to reduce that cost gap,” TSMC Chairman Mark Liu said on a recent analyst conference call.

If the federal government provides cash for a U.S. plant, it’ll mark a shift in policy and rhetoric from a Republican administration. Trump’s White House has rarely supported such direct industrial intervention, favoring market dynamics. A similar government-backed effort with Foxconn — Apple’s main iPhone assembler — in Wisconsin has so far not created as many jobs as expected.

However, emerging trends may be forcing a reconsideration. The U.S. government is already giving or lending billions of dollars to keep companies afloat in the midst of a pandemic-fueled recession. The crisis has also highlighted how vulnerable global supply chains are to such shocks.

The White House may also be motivated by broader political factors. Trump has attacked international trade deals and tried to limit China’s access to semiconductor technology, seeking to contain the country’s technological ascent. TSMC said its Arizona facility will create 1,600 jobs and a deal to bring highly skilled work to Arizona may help Trump’s re-election prospects this year.

“TSMC’s plan to build a $12 billion semiconductor facility in Arizona is yet another indication that President Trump’s policy agenda has led to a renaissance in American manufacturing and made the United States the most attractive place in the world to invest,” U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross said in a statement.

By producing chips for many of the leading tech companies, TSMC has amassed the technical know-how needed to churn out the smallest, most efficient and powerful semiconductors in the highest volumes. It manufactures important components designed by Apple and most of the largest semiconductor companies, including Qualcomm Inc., Nvidia Corp., Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and China’s Huawei. Shares of Applied Materials Inc., Lam Research Corp. and KLA Corp. rose on optimism that these U.S.-based providers of chipmaking equipment may face fewer export controls when supplying TSMC.

Concentrating such valuable capabilities in the hands of one company in Asia is a concern for the U.S., especially when, across the Strait of Taiwan, China is rushing to develop its own semiconductor industry.

TSMC’s local rival, GlobalFoundries Inc., has given up on advanced manufacturing and Intel Corp., the world’s largest chipmaker, mainly manufactures for itself. Its attempt to become a so-called foundry for external clients has failed to gain major customers. TSMC’s only other significant challenger is South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co., which is investing more than $116 billion in its effort to keep up with the leader.

“TSMC welcomes continued strong partnership with the U.S. administration and the State of Arizona on this project,” the company said in a statement. “This project will require significant capital and technology investments from TSMC. The strong investment climate in the United States, and its talented workforce make this and future investments in the U.S. attractive to TSMC.”

–With assistance from Jenny Leonard, Daniel Stoller and Vlad Savov.

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New story in Technology from Time: Facebook to Pay Content Moderators $52M for Psychological Damages

Facebook has agreed to pay $52 million to its content moderators whose job has them viewing graphic and disturbing posts and videos on its platforms.

In a 2018 lawsuit, third-party contractors for the company said that Facebook failed to properly protect them against severe psychological and other injuries that can result from repeated exposure to graphic material such as child sexual abuse, beheadings, terrorism, animal cruelty and other disturbing images.

The settlement grants U.S. moderators who were part of the class action lawsuit $1,000 each. Those who have been diagnosed with conditions related to their work will be able to get medical treatment and damages of up to $50,000, according to the preliminary settlement filed in the Superior Court of California for the County of San Mateo.

In a statement, Facebook said it is “grateful to the people who do this important work to make Facebook a safe environment for everyone. We’re committed to providing them additional support through this settlement and in the future.”

New story in Technology from Time: Microsoft’s Pint-Sized Surface Go 2 Is a Deceptively Cheap Budget Laptop

Microsoft’s done a good job when it comes to reclaiming its position as a contender in personal computers. What was once missing from its line of Surface notebooks, its creation-focused Surface Studio, and its tablet-adjacent Surface Pro convertible notebooks, was a more budget-friendly version, solved by the introduction of the Surface Go in 2018. Microsoft’s refreshed version, the new $399 Surface Go 2, is a welcome addition to the lineup. But that budget price comes with a few caveats — caveats that make its selling point feel too good to be true, and make you frustrated enough to abandon the tiny laptop entirely. The worst part? More Windows 10 confusion.

But it’s so cute it’s almost worth it.

The Surface Go 2, all sleek and silvery, looks and feels like a winner at first glance, starting with its 10.5-inch touchscreen display. With a 1920 x 1280 resolution, it’s got more than enough pixels to show off 1080p videos with ease, and leaves your text clear and crisp when cranking out words or browsing the web. That high resolution also makes drawing using the pressure-sensitive Surface Pen a real delight, with lines looking smooth and fluid on what could be the perfect size for a portable, pen-friendly tablet. That screen is also equipped with a front-facing five-megapixel and rear-facing eight-megapixel camera, both of which support 1080p video streaming, beating other devices like Apple’s own MacBook Pro and their 720p cameras. Furthermore, it supports Windows Hello, the company’s take on biometric security (using, in this case, your face) and what should be considered the gold standard in speedy logins. It’s a great device for someone who needs to show their mug while they work from home, at least if that’s all you need it for. It also has that sweet kickstand found on the Surface Pro, for adjusting the display’s angle from ramrod straight to nearly flat.

But the Surface Go 2 does a disservice to its potential customers by making the backlit keyboard cover another pricey accessory rather than a standard feature. While you can use it as a tablet, the Go 2’s tablet interface leaves a lot to be desired, and having a keyboard and trackpad really help. Even so, the keyboard might be more suited for smaller hands, as its cramped spacing makes long bouts of typing particularly frustrating.

When it comes to budget devices, you’re making sacrifices no matter how you slice it. While the Surface Go 2 has a pretty stellar display and camera setup, it has to take a hit somewhere. In terms of processing power, you’ll find an underpowered Intel processor paired with an abysmal 4GB of RAM, along with 64GB of internal storage. While an extra $150 doubles both the RAM and internal storage, you’re still stuck with a processor designed for efficiency and longevity rather than high performance.

At least you won’t have to worry about gaming, because you won’t be doing much of it. The innards of the Go 2 are not the most powerful, nor will they make activities with a focus on graphics particularly appealing. But its updated wireless connectivity options (including LTE support) make streaming games to the Go 2 a real cinch, using software like Steam.

Granted, the budget convertible notebook isn’t designed for high performance, but for staying alive for as long as you need it — up to ten hours, in this case. In order to achieve such stellar battery life, the Surface Go 2 runs Windows 10 S Mode, a variant of Windows 10 the company claims achieves more battery life, better performance, and improved security. The catch? You’re limited to using apps available exclusively in the Microsoft Store. The other catch? Should you choose to install an app outside the Microsoft Store, you’ll need to “switch out” of S Mode, without the option to return to the battery-saving, performance-boosting version.

The additional operating system variant, coupled with the inscrutable instructions, create a formula for confusion that benefits no one. In the Windows world, many popular or downright essential apps exist outside the boundaries of the Microsoft Store, including web browsers like Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome, communication and streaming apps, and utilities made by developers unwilling to participate in Microsoft’s marketplace. Many users will sooner or later realize that S Mode is more trouble than it’s worth. And the inability to return to S Mode, even when you’re done using the app in question, makes it all the more likely users will simply throw their hands in the air and forget about this nonsense entirely.

The Surface Go 2, like its Pro counterparts and Go predecessor, nails the looks that makes the Surface lineup so iconic. But that doesn’t mean its masquerade is worth the price of admission. It does manage to strike an unusual balance between budget tablet and lightweight laptop. It doesn’t feel thrown together; it’s solid as a rock, and the perfect size to carry around the house for some reading, watching, or general doodling. Its battery-friendly processors and Windows 10 S Mode software grant it pretty lengthy uptime for such a small laptop. Its USB-C port, headphone jack, MicroSD card slot, and delightfully modern cameras beat those on certain high-end laptops.

But to get a decent processor, be prepared to ditch that $399 price point. Want to do some actual typing? Get ready to add another $130 for a keyboard cover too essential to forego, yet too tiny for its own good. Doodling with a Surface Pen will tack on another $80 to $100 to the mix. Bundling all these in a slightly more expensive package would alleviate the issue without resorting to this nickel and dime approach on what’s marketed as a budget-minded device. Why not include the keyboard, bump the price up a few bucks, and call it a day so I can just grab it and, you know, go?

New story in Technology from Time: Video Chat Is Helping Us Stay Connected in Lockdown. But the Tech Was Once a ‘Spectacular Flop’

What reporters witnessed in a New York City auditorium on April 7, 1927 was a fundamentally startling notion: seeing someone speak—from hundreds of miles away—in real time. When then-Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover appeared on screen from Washington, D.C., he declared that “human genius has now destroyed the impediment of distance in a new respect, and in a manner hitherto unknown.”

“It was as if a photograph had suddenly come to life and begun to talk, smile, nod its head and look this way and that,” the New York Times marveled.

In retrospect, we might deem that the moment video calling was born.

But few conceived of the technology being utilized by average Americans. Sure, it was a “phenomenal feat,” according to the Boston Globe—but one with “no definite purpose.” Nonetheless, AT&T president Walter Gifford, who received the call from Hoover, confidently predicted that “in due time it will be found to add substantially to human comfort and happiness.”

Courtesy AT&T Archives and History CenterThe first Public one-way TV Demo call, with Herbert Hoover in Washington, D.C.

He likely could not have imagined just how right he was. The world has turned to modern iterations of that first video call to connect socially during COVID-induced quarantine. Daytime teleworkers transition seamlessly into happy hour revelers; birthdays are celebrated and lost ones mourned on virtual platforms. Zoom, the video-meeting platform that has come to symbolize this shift, says the company added 100 million participants in just the first three weeks of April. The pandemic has further entrenched our digital saturation.

“People were already incorporating these technologies into their everyday life before COVID-19 in a way that made everything seem kind of ready-made for the current crisis,” says Lisa Parks, a professor of media studies at MIT.

But the concept of video chatting has not always been embraced. In fact, most of its history is a story of failure.

After that public debut in 1927, work continued at AT&T’s Bell Labs. (The company had monopolistic control of the nation’s incipient phone services, giving it primacy in research and development.) But the research could only go so far. At the time, even if there had been demand for the product, networks lacked the carrying capacity needed to transmit visual calls with desirable resolution.

“The idea of visual communications was still alive at Bell Labs, but waiting for the right moment technologically, socially, culturally,” says Jon Gertner, author of The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation.

That moment—or so researchers hoped—arrived in 1964, when AT&T introduced the Picturephone at the World’s Fair in New York City, complete with a promotional cross-country call to Disneyland. Streams of visitors could try the devices, while market researchers gauged interest.

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Soon after, the company opened Picturephone rooms in New York, Washington and Chicago. Lady Bird Johnson did the inaugural honors, “with the smiling ghost of Alexander Graham Bell looking over her shoulder,” as the Palm Beach Post noted with flourish. Hoping to build on this momentum, the service was introduced into offices in select markets in 1970, but AT&T was unable to garner a sufficient number of users to make the idea work. The effort sputtered out in 1973.

“It was such a spectacular commercial flop, it’s almost kind of hard to imagine today,” says Gertner.

Courtesy AT&T Archives and History CenterLady Bird Johnson at the Picturephone booth at the New York World’s Fair in 1964

Why was such a novel product doomed commercially? One reason was what Sheldon Hochheiser, Corporate Historian at the AT&T Archives and History Center, calls “that chicken-and-egg problem: in a network technology, there’s a disincentive to be an early adopter, because your being able to use a Picturephone is dependent on people you wish to contact also having one.” The steep price tag—Hochheiser estimates device and minimal usage costs as equivalent to $1,000 today—put it out of reach for many consumers. High-cost, cumbersome calls yielded blurry images. In the end, the reward failed to outweigh the inconvenience.

But another reason came as a surprise, and it had nothing to do with technology: “It turns out people don’t want to be routinely seen on the telephone,” says Hochheiser. One columnist raised the specter of a call “every time we allowed ourselves to relax in our tired old bathrobe.” Such fears undoubtedly resonate with many quarantined teleworkers today.

“For an innovator, being early is pretty close to being wrong,” says Gertner. “To have an innovation that scales, that makes an impact on society or business, you really have to check a lot of boxes.”

In the 1980s, video phones—launched by domestic and international competitors getting in on the game—inched forward. In 1992, AT&T tried again with the VideoPhone 2500, which was compatible with existing phone lines. In 1995, it too was discontinued, seemingly vexed again by a reluctant market.

Yet despite years of defeats, “the idea, the lure of telephony endured,” says Hochheiser.

An accidental breakthrough hastened video calling’s trajectory—and shifted it to an entirely different medium.

In 1993, a University of Cambridge scientist was tinkering with a camera used to monitor coffee pot levels, and connected it to the fledgling world wide web. Surprisingly, it gained millions of fans. Commercial webcams followed soon after, paving the way for services such as Skype to connect PC users in the early 2000s.

Then in 2010, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone 4’s FaceTime. “I grew up…dreaming about video calling, and now it’s real,” Jobs told an enthusiastic audience, recalling futuristic depictions of video calls on The Jetsons during his childhood.

The proliferation of smartphones and built-in cameras served as an accelerant. “A host of video-based platforms have all emerged along parallel tracks over the past 15 years, and they’ve had a way of reinforcing one another’s success by normalizing online video interactions,” says Parks. Once perceived as invasive, cameras in personal space became mainstream.

It may have taken longer than innovators of the pre-Internet era expected, but the ubiquity of visual calls proves—and perhaps exceeds—their audacious goals. “Every great fundamental discovery of the past,” Hoover predicted back in 1927, “has been followed by use far beyond the vision of its creator.”