Universal's "Trolls World Tour" debuted on premium video-on-demand platforms on Friday and was the No. 1 movie on iTunes on Sunday.The movie is the first from a major studio to break the traditional theatrical window and premiere day-and-date on digital or streaming platforms during the coronavirus pandemic.Experts say the rise of digital releases right now is just a short-term solution to the current situation as movie theaters across the US remain closed.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

"Trolls World Tour" has made a splash with its debut on digital platforms, but that's not necessarily bad news for movie theaters.

The animated sequel from Universal Pictures and DreamWorks was the No. 1 movie on iTunes on Sunday. It premiered on premium video-on-demand platforms on Friday as a $20 digital rental, the same day that it was slated to hit theaters. With most theaters closed across the US due to the coronavirus pandemic, "Trolls World Tour" is the first movie from a major studio to break the traditional theatrical window and premiere on digital platforms day-and-date with its theatrical release.

It won't be the last movie to break theatrical traditions.

Disney announced earlier this month that "Artemis Fowl," based on the book series by Eoin Colfer, would premiere on its streaming service Disney Plus on an undisclosed date. The movie was originally slated for release to theaters on May 29. Former Disney CEO Bob Iger, who is transitioning into an executive chairman role to focus on Disney's creative endeavors, told Barrons last week that "there may be a few more [movies] that we end up putting directly onto Disney Plus."

But Iger also noted that Disney will wait for release slots for its big tentpole movies and its this sentiment that suggests that the current popularity of digital releases won't have long-term consequences for movie theaters.

Other movies that were released to digital platforms after a short stint in theaters, like "The Invisible Man" and "Bloodshot," were also popular on iTunes and Fandango Now (though they have already dropped out of the top 10 on iTunes). But experts say this is because it's the only option at the moment.

"The measures being taken right now are because of the unforeseen circumstances," Paul Dergarabedian, the Comscore senior media analyst, told Business Insider. "And consumers have an appetite for new content. We are literally stuck at home."

Technology and media research firm Lightshed Partners pointed out in a recent report that for studios to replace the profits they make with high-grossing movies through premium video-on-demand services, tens of millions of units would have to be sold. 

"You quickly realize just how big the PVOD transactions need to be for the math to work for a studio," the report said.

In another report, Lightshed Partners did credit Universal for dropping "Trolls World Tour" on digital but said that it's a low-risk experiment for families stuck at home. Long term, PVOD could struggle once theaters reopen, especially given that audiences can watch movies on Netflix at no extra cost, the firm said.

Original author: Travis Clark

Business Insider spoke with Melinda Gates about COVID-19, the prospect and timeline of making an effective vaccine, and how the world will be permanently changed by the coronavirus.Gates said it would likely take about 18 months for a vaccine to become widely available, and that it should first go to healthcare workers to help them keep others safe.She said this pandemic was not a once-in-a-century situation, like the Spanish flu. Because the world is now a global community, we're likely to see other pandemics in our lifetimes, Gates said.Even after things get back to normal, "our psyches are going to permanently changed ... I hope we change to realize that we're a global community."Read the full interview below.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Melinda Gates is the cochair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has donated more than $45 billion to tackle some of the world's toughest problems, including vaccination research and combating pandemics, from coronavirus to Ebola.

Gates and her husband have long been concerned about a pandemic and have warned that we need to be more prepared at a global level.

In a wide-ranging interview with Gates on Thursday afternoon, she gave her thoughts on the coronavirus pandemic, the inequality of it all, and how the world can go back to semi-normal. The highlights:

The world needs a vaccine delivered at mass scale to go back to "normal." A realistic timeline is about 18 months, the same time it took to create an Ebola vaccine.It is possible we won't be able to find an effective vaccine for coronavirus, although Gates thinks that is highly unlikely.The idea of herd immunity solving coronavirus is far-fetched. Gates said that would require more than half the population to get coronavirus (which isn't anywhere close to happening) and a lot of death along the way.To effectively roll out a vaccine, Gates believes you need to first give it to health workers, then to high-risk groups, then distribute it equitably to different countries and communities. The vaccine also has to cost very little with a fund to cover it for everyone. What the US is doing right now, pitting states against each other for supplies and allowing wealthy individuals to access tests first, would be disastrous for a vaccine rollout.To prepare for the second wave of coronavirus this fall, or even a next pandemic, we need mass testing from the get-go, voluntary data sharing from people so that we can trace who has been tested and where they have been, and vaccine stockpiles so that you can distribute those as soon as you see signs of an outbreak.Gates said there would "absolutely" be more pandemics in our lifetime. Coronavirus is not a once-in-a-century occurrence like the Spanish flu.If you want to help vulnerable, poor communities survive coronavirus, Gates recommends giving to the WHO COVID Solidarity Fund, United Way, or America's Food Fund.

This is a transcript of Business Insider Editor-in-Chief Alyson Shontell's conversation with Melinda Gates, cofounder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

We need a vaccine to be widely distributed before the world will start to feel normal again. Gates says we won't get that for at least 18 months.

The Gates family. Bill Gates/Facebook

Alyson Shontell: How is it going in the Gates household?

Melinda Gates: Like all other families, it's been a complete change of life for all of us. But we are also incredibly privileged, and we know that, and our kids know that. But yes, life has changed drastically. The kids are studying online. Bill and I are doing all of our meetings via video teleconference. I'm a terrible cook, so I'm heating things up a lot more, and everybody's trying to pitch in to do what needs to get done in terms of things around the house.

And the other thing I would just say is every night, we've had this tradition for a long time of saying grace before meals. And what that looks like is that we all go around and say something we're thankful for. Pretty much every night what comes up from the kids and us is we're thankful for our health and for the fact that we're not going hungry and the fact that we can still do our work and the kids can still learn. It's kind of amazing.

Shontell: We heard Dr. Fauci say earlier this week that things probably won't return to normal until we have a vaccine. What do you think is a realistic timeline for a wide distribution of a vaccine? Is anything faster than 18 months really safe?

Gates: I think it's likely 18 months. Just from everything we know from working with our partners for many, many years on vaccines, you have to test the compounds. Then, you have to go into preclinical trials, then full-scale trials. And even though I'm sure the FDA will fast-track some of these vaccine trials like they did with Ebola, still by the time you get it through the trials safety- and efficacy-wise, then you have to manufacture the vaccine and manufacture at scale. I think it really is 18 months.

The good news that I'm seeing on that front, though, is so many scientists are coming forward, and I'm seeing CEOs come forward and say, "I have this platform we can use." Pharmaceutical companies are coming together already to say, "How do we build up the manufacturing capacity so it's there when we get a vaccine and we can basically just run it through the manufacturing process?" I'm seeing lots of good things come forward, but it's a process that needs to run its full course, because you don't want to put something in someone's body that is harmful.

Shontell: Right. It seems like, in addition to creating something we've never had before, you do really have to do these human tests in a way that's safe so that you're not creating a vaccine that maybe cures coronavirus but gives you something else.

Gates: I'd add also that we need to know who it's safe to give the vaccine to and in what dosages. We know COVID-19 is affecting people who are particularly vulnerable health-wise if they have diabetes, or a heart condition, or they have asthma. You have to make sure that, safety-wise, you're not giving somebody a vaccine that's going to affect their heart. So yeah, there are lots of issues there that have to be tested.

It's possible we won't be able to create a coronavirus vaccine, although Gates thinks that's highly unlikely. Also, herd immunity is not the solution.

Gates with students at the Solar Preparatory School for Girls in Dallas, May 3, 2019. Pivotal Ventures

Shontell: If at the end of this 18-month period, or however long it is, we do feel like we've got a vaccine, what do you think that vaccine will actually look like? Is it possible that we actually won't be able to create a vaccine at all? Could that be one scenario?

Gates: Well, it's possible. We have to look at how far science has come even in the last five years. And the number of compounds we have, there's something like 14,000 compounds that we, with our partners alone, have. And there are many, many, many others testing compounds that we're looking at to see, "Is this promising?" Could that one be promising? And we have high throughput screening now of compounds. I really think we're going to find a vaccine.

We found a vaccine for Ebola, right? And we did that in about an 18-month time frame, and that was hard. When I see the scientific community all coming together the way they are around the globe and sharing data and sharing information, we're going to get a vaccine.

Shontell: OK, so you'd say that it's a high likelihood.

Gates: High likelihood.

Shontell: That's very, very good to know.

Gates: The other thing to think about is, in the meantime, there's another whole strand of work going on, which is the therapeutics accelerator. Through the accelerator, we're trying to find medicines so that if you get COVID-19, hopefully we can boost your immune system or tamp down the effect of the disease on you. So again, hopefully, we'll come up with some medicines that will also help so people don't get as sick as they're getting and landing in the ICU, which is what's truly tragic.

Shontell: Is there anything to this idea of herd immunity? Could we be closer than we think on that, or is that far-fetched thinking?

Gates: That's still very far-fetched today. You don't get herd immunity until you have a huge percent of your population that has had the disease. We know that from all the diseases in the past that humans have had. So no, we're still a long way from herd immunity. And you can't count on that because a lot of people are going to die in the meantime if you let the experiment run and you just let the disease run its course in communities. Sure, we could get herd immunity and we will get so much death. That's why it's so important to remind people the only tools we have today are physical distancing, handwashing, and wearing masks in public. We have to go with what we know works.

How to distribute a coronavirus vaccine to the masses: 1. Make it cheap and buy it for everyone. 2. Give it to healthcare workers. 3. Give it to the highest-risk people. 4. Come up with an equitable way for everyone else to get it (the US is screwing that up right now).

Gates in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Pivotal Ventures

Shontell: Once we have a vaccine, what do you think is the best way to distribute it to the masses? Who should get it first? How would we do it on such a big scale?

Gates: We have to make sure that the vaccine is very low priced and that there's a fund for buying it for everyone, whether you're in a low-, middle-, or a high-income country. And that's doable. We've done that with the Vaccine Alliance that exists today. That's been in existence since 1990, so we know how to do that piece.

But we also have to distribute very carefully. The very first people that need to get this vaccine are healthcare workers, because if you can keep them safe, they can help keep others safe. Then you need to distribute it to the people who are the very most vulnerable. That is, they have underlying health conditions, some of the ones that we've talked about before. And from there, you then make it distributed completely equitably across society.

And even the United States is going to have to really work at that. COVID-19 is exposing all the inequities we have in our healthcare system. And so we need to look at, OK, does Mississippi get this vaccine at the same time California gets it and New York gets it? We can't do this game that we're playing right now where you have 50 different states competing for resources for masks and PPE, that makes zero sense. You need a national strategy that will equitably distribute this vaccine and we first look at the vulnerable populations.

Shontell: To touch on that point, as you mentioned, there are so many inequalities coming to light with this pandemic, from who has been able to get initial testing on to how it's affecting different genders in different ways, to more African Americans in the US dying of this than other races. When you think about it, social distancing, stocking up on food, and handwashing are all privileges that some of the poorest communities don't have.

You've done a lot of work on equality efforts, and you've said it's the best way to fix everything in society is to level the playing field. How do we start leveling the playing field so the next time it's better for everybody? How do we help the people who are in the poorest, most vulnerable communities right now?

Gates: We have to start by remembering that COVID-19 anywhere is COVID-19 everywhere. And if we keep that front and center in our minds, then we will start to think really deeply about these most vulnerable populations.

The thing that keeps me up at night — because I've traveled to Africa so many times and been in so many townships and slums — is if you are a person living in those conditions, you can't begin to handwashing or social distance. In those situations, we need to start with food. People need to be able to feed themselves. And then if they feel like they have COVID symptoms, then they don't have to go out of the house looking for food.

When I think forward about how we would do this, right now, we have to focus on the pandemic today right in front of us. We have to take the tools we have and try and distribute them as equitably as we possibly can. That means a national response that is thought out and strategic. So you start there.

When you plan for the future, you start to plan it out the way we did for other diseases that came into the world. You would create a vaccine stockpile. We've actually been quite involved with that for cholera, which we don't get much in the United States anymore, but you get in a lot of places in the developing world or in refugee camps. And when there's a stockpile of vaccine, then when you see an outbreak or a vulnerable population get it, it's already basically paid for and you ship the vaccines out.

We have to have not a national stockpile of vaccines but an international stockpile of vaccines for something like COVID. We can predict some of these types of disease outbreaks; we just haven't been planning it. We plan for things like an earthquake or a fire. We need to plan for disease. We are a global community. People travel. We've just learned that New York mostly got infected from people coming back from Europe. We have to plan for these things as a global community in the future.

How to be ready for the 2nd wave to hit this fall: Are you ready to give up your personal data and get tracked?

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Shontell: Clearly, we were caught flat-footed and unprepared here in the US especially. There's talk of a second wave of coronavirus potentially hitting in the fall. What are the things we need to do to plan for it? What has to be done by the end of the summer to put us all in a much better shape for it? And then I'm curious what we need to have in place to prevent something like this moving forward, if that's even possible.

Gates: In terms of what we need to do to prepare ourselves this fall, first of all, all the way through this, we need to listen to the medical experts and the science experts. They know what's real. We need to do the disease modeling to see where the outbreaks are going. We need to plan resources appropriately and share them in the United States with all the states in an equitable way.

And then we need to do massive testing. We have to have testing at wide scale so that you can get a test and you can know if you're positive. And if you're positive, then you self-isolate. Unless you get further disease, you then get telemedicine. You figure out if you need to go to the health system. And you have different tiers of the health system, places people can go for oxygen versus people who go to the ICU.

We can do that, kind of. You can do that triage of people if you have a test. To be frank, we also need to be able to share all that testing data so that eventually the US would be a place like South Korea, where I can literally prove on my phone "I took a test this morning — I'm COVID-free" or "Guess what? I had COVID before and I tested for antibodies in my system. I can be out in society working maybe now." You could literally have a code on your phone that says, "Tested this morning" or "See? I have a COVID antibody."

And so we can start to see who can be in society versus who needs to self-isolate. But without testing and contact tracing and some way of being able to prove to one another we're safe, you can't plan for a full eventual reopening of society. We need to do get that up and running at scale at a national level.

Preparing for the next epidemic is a whole different conversation. You'd have tests available from the get-go. You would have fought through the civil-liberties issues of people sharing their health information willingly or not willingly. Am I willing to share my health data so that you know if I got it?

Early on, people with COVID had symptoms we didn't know to track. If we had known that from the get-go because they were able to share their information into a national database voluntarily, we would have known to tell people, "Look for these symptoms. Self-isolate just in case you have it." We have to be able to start thinking through those types of systems as a country so that we're prepared for whatever comes next.

Whose job is it to solve a pandemic, the elite's or the government's?

Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, and Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and cofounder, attend the annual Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference, July 7, 2016, in Sun Valley, Idaho. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Shontell: Yes to all of that. Edelman put out on their annual Trust Barometer in January. They found that trust in media is really low right now. Trust in the government is really low too. But trust in business leaders is the highest group, and people seem to put the most faith in business leaders to solve some of society's biggest problems.

You and Bill have done a tremendous amount with the foundation. You're seeing Mark Zuckerberg giving a ton of money toward this. Sheryl Sandberg is doing the same. Jack Dorsey just pledged a big chunk of net worth to help fight COVID. Lots of people are stepping up. Bezos as well.

Is it the responsibility of business leaders to do this versus the government? Is this something we should come to expect? How do you kind of view the responsibility of the people who are in positions of the most privilege as we tackle something as wide-scale is this?

Gates: What I'm seeing is people stepping up. I sometimes wish people could see the number of emails we're receiving daily at the foundation, not just Bill and me, but our scientists and our head of global health. We're seeing CEOs come forward. We're seeing philanthropists come forward. We're seeing people who have knowledge and data saying, "Should we look at this? What should we do?" I am seeing the best of humanity come out right now in some of these leaders who are stepping forward and doing the right thing.

"Is this the responsibility of business?" was your question. It's the responsibility of all of us. Business won't be able to solve this. There's no way business or philanthropy can solve this alone. It takes the government. It's government who puts out huge amounts of money into our healthcare system to take care of everybody, to take care of the most vulnerable. It's philanthropy and business and nonprofits coming together with government to have a national response. That is the only way we're going to be able to care for all Americans.

But what I see is amazing scientists like Dr. Fauci stepping up and giving all the right messages. Those are the people we should be listening to, and I am seeing so many people come together behind the scenes to try and do the right thing. While the vulnerable is what keeps me up at night, one of the things that keeps me encouraged when I wake up in the morning is seeing so many people doing the right thing.

This is not just a once-in-a-century pandemic. 'We are absolutely going to have more of these.'

Shontell: Is this a once-in-a-century pandemic like the Spanish flu, or do we need to expect to face more pandemics like this moving forward?

Gates: This is not a once-in-a-century pandemic. We are absolutely going to have more of these. This thing is highly infectious, COVID-19. But it is not nearly as infectious as measles. And we dealt with measles in the world. We know how to deal with measles. We're going to see more, so we need to plan for them. And we haven't planned for them as a global community.

Shontell: Why do you think we'll see more pandemics?

Gates: We'll see more because of all kinds of reasons, but mainly because we're a global community and we travel and we spread disease.

Alyson: To end on a positive note, we are going to get through this, right? It will be hard, but we will get through this. I'm curious from your estimation: What timeline are we looking at for life to feel normal again? Or are we in a new normal, and are there things that we should expect to be permanently changed?

No one really knows when things will feel normal again. But be prepared for some permanent changes, including to your psyche.

REUTERS/Rick Wilking

Gates: I definitely think there are going to be things that are permanently changed. Our psyches are going to be permanently changed. We are learning some things about how to do more meetings online. We're learning how to take care of each other online. People are reaching out to the elderly in their homes and doing video calls and sending emails or dropping a meal off. What's going to change is our psyche, and I hope we change to realize that we're a global community.

To the question of when does society reopen in what we think of as our normal form, nobody really knows the answer to that. It really is when we get a vaccine at scale.

Will we get, over time, probably some partial reopenings of society where you can do certain smaller group things or be out walking with one friend or two friends? I think we will start to see some partial reopenings.

We have to follow the data, though, of how is that working in Wuhan right now? How did it work in South Korea? How does it work in Germany? The places that are kind of ahead of us on both their response and when they got the disease? And then, we'll start to be able to see, OK, where can we open up pockets of society over time? For right now, we need to be physically distant from one another.

Shontell: If the average person wants to give to help a vulnerable person or community, what's the best way to do that other than social distancing? Is there some cause to give to or something that's most helpful?

Gates: Yes. You could go globally. You could go to the WHO COVID Solidarity Fund. Locally, you could go to United Way. America's Food Fund is another place you can go. I would give also to local domestic-violence organizations. We see domestic violence on the rise for many, many people, particularly women. Any of those would be amazing places to go and to give, even if you only give $10 — $10 or $100, it all makes a difference.

Shontell: I'm leaving this conversation very hopeful. Thank you for all efforts you and Bill and the foundation are doing in helping fight this. You were early to realizing the problems of pandemics, and we are grateful that you're on it.

Gates: Thanks, Alyson. Be safe. Be well.

Original author: Alyson Shontell

Apple's Face ID doesn't work when your face is obstructed, making it difficult to quickly unlock your iPhone while wearing a protective face mask.There is no easy, convenient way to get around this, but one trick discovered by the Tencent Security Xuanwu Lab worked for me, but only under specific circumstances.A more practical solution may be adjusting your notifications settings so that you can view incoming alerts without unlocking your iPhone.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

If you're an iPhone owner, you've probably recently dealt with the inconvenience of having to type in a passcode to unlock your iPhone. 

Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended wearing face coverings in public places where standing six feet apart from others may be difficult — like the grocery store, for instance.

That means you probably won't be able to unlock your iPhone using Face ID, Apple's facial recognition system, while running errands. It's not by any means the most important coronavirus concern right now, but it can be a minor annoyance.

That may be especially true for those looking to reduce the number of times they touch their phone's screen while out in public to avoid the spread of germs. 

If you're hoping to find a way around this, I have some good news and some bad news.

First, the bad: There doesn't seem to be any easy, foolproof way to get Face ID to work while wearing a mask.

That's because Face ID creates a depth map by projecting and analyzing more than 30,000 invisible dots over your face, so it's looking for areas like your nose and mouth every time it attempts to unlock your phone. Even if you try wearing a mask during the setup process, your iPhone will notice if your face is partially obstructed and will urge you to remove any coverings before proceeding.

Now the good news: I did manage to find one approach that worked for me. It's based on a tutorial from the Tencent Security Xuanwu Lab, first discovered by Abacus News, a tech site specializing in coverage of Chinese gadgets. That method involves re-enrolling your face with Face ID while holding your mask over half of your face.

But even so, it only works under very specific circumstances, and I had to try enrolling my face a few times before I managed to get it working. It's also worth noting that others have tried this method and found it unsuccessful.

The effectiveness may also vary depending on the type of mask you're wearing. For this test, I wore a homemade mask that covers the bottom portion of my face — from the tip of my nose and below — that I created using a folded bandana and two hair ties. 

Here's a look at how I got Face ID to work for me while wearing a mask. 

Original author: Lisa Eadicicco

Hello!

It's been a dark few weeks, but there's been some light in the past few days, as the number of patients in New York ICUs dropped for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began, and there was some promising data on a potential treatment. 

As Andrew Dunn reports, more than two-thirds of hospitalized COVID-19 patients improved in condition after receiving remdesivir, an experimental antiviral treatment from Gilead Sciences. More tests are needed, as the study had no control group, but the lead author called the observations "hopeful." You can read Andrew's story on remdesivir and 14 other leading treatments that are now being tested against COVID-19 here. 

Here are the 15 leading coronavirus treatments already being tested in COVID-19 patients, and the major trials now underway to see if they work

The pandemic is upending medical research across the board, as big pharma mobilizes to find a treatment. GSK for example is betting $250 million on buzzy biotech Vir as the two team up to hunt for coronavirus treatments and vaccines. In related news, Blake Dodge reported this week that Alphabet's life-sciences firm Verily may use its giant patient registry to help sign people up to test coronavirus treatments.

And Blake separately reported that tests that can tell if you're immune to the coronavirus are on the way. She breaks down the companies racing to bring them to the US healthcare system here. 

The flip side here, as Andrew and Blake report, is that dozens of biotechs are putting clinical trials on hold as the search for a coronavirus vaccine makes it harder to find cures for cancer, heart disease, and neurological disorders. 

(For more on how Andrew is covering the high-stakes race for a coronavirus vaccine, he talked to deputy executive editor Olivia Oran about his reporting.)

Meanwhile, Apple and Google on Friday announced they are building a system to track COVID-19 cases. But as Rob Price reported, the plan is let down by America's testing failures.

Samantha Lee/Business Insider

Startups to watch

From Melia Russell and Paayal Zaveri:

The coronavirus outbreak has changed not only where people work from, but how they work and what tools they use.

Already, apps like Zoom and Slack have seen huge increases in usage in the past few weeks, as users grab onto ways to stay connected in their work and personal lives while social distancing.

The urgent need for better work tools could catapult some enterprise startups into the pantheon of unicorn startups, as their users multiply and venture capital investors jump to fund them.

They asked VCs to tell them about one startup in their portfolio, and one where they have no financial interest, and came up with a list of 30 startups to watch. You can read more here. 

30 startups creating the future of work that will prosper in 2020, according to VCs

Elsewhere in startup news:

Eduardo Munoz/Reuters

A real estate meltdown

The week started with the news that WeWork board members are suing SoftBank for backing out of its plan to buy $3 billion of shares. Meghan Morris reported that former CEO Adam Neumann is still weighing legal options.

Meghan and Dan Geiger then revealed that WeWork rival Knotel is scrambling to pay millions in bills that started stacking up before the coronavirus hit, and hasn't paid April rent at some locations. They also got leaked Knotel financials, which show it struggled to hit sales targets.

Elsewhere:

Below are headlines on some of the stories you might have missed from the past week. Stay safe, everyone.

-- Matt

Original author: Matt Turner

Silicon Valley billionaires are collectively pledging billions of money from their personal fortunes towards relief funds against the devastating impact of the coronavirus.This week, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced he was donating $1 billion towards a relief fund, which he said is roughly 28% of his net worth.Other execs have pledged hundreds of millions of dollars, but compared to their net worth this may not be as much as it seems.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

As the coronavirus outbreak has spread, tech companies and their executives have hastened to donate medical supplies and cash. 

Companies including Facebook, Apple, and Tesla have pledged millions of dollars in the form of both cash and medical resources like masks, protective gear, and ventilators.

Individual executives are also kicking in. Bill Gates, who founded his philanthropic organization the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation 20 years ago, has been particularly vocal about the crisis, and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey this week announced he was setting up a $1 billion fund.

But to Silicon Valley billionaires, who make up some of the world's richest individuals, even enormous sums of money can make up only a fraction of their net worth.

Here is a breakdown of how much money four tech billionaires have pledged versus how much their estimated net worth is, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Original author: Isobel Asher Hamilton

Stick-shifts are disappearing from the automotive landscape.But one can still option a manual on some performance cars and pickup trucks.Here's a disputatious ranking of my favorites, with appearances from MINI, Mazda, and Jaguar.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Time was when many vehicles offered a manual option, either because customers wanted performance, or because they wanted better fuel-economy — or because they just wanted a cheap option.

While one can still find manual transmissions on vehicles in Europe and South America, automatics are the rule in the US.

Even some performance cars have dropped the manual options, most notably Ferrari. Most people no longer learn to drive on a stick-shift, and for the most part, automatics yield good fuel economy and can be had on inexpensive cars.

So the stick-shift is dying out. But one can still find it on a decent number of cars. 

Here's a rundown of some of my favorites, ranked from most satisfying to least:

Original author: Matthew DeBord

The first round of coronavirus stimulus checks started hitting people's bank accounts Friday afternoon.Mobile banking startup Current has already seen about 10,000 accounts credited by the IRS, the company told The Wall Street Journal.Americans who qualify for automatic stimulus payments will receive them this week, the IRS said Friday.People who don't have direct-deposit info on file with the IRS will receive a check by mail, sent out any time between early April through early September.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Some people have already received their coronavirus stimulus checks from the federal government, according to mobile banking startup Current.

The company told The Wall Street Journal that roughly 10,000 accounts received stimulus payments from the Internal Revenue Service starting Friday afternoon. The one-time payments are part of the government's stimulus package meant to help Americans recover from the financial shock of coronavirus shutdowns.

Most people received $1,200 payments, the minimum amount, according to Current. Others, who qualified for more money because they have children or for other reasons, received payments of up to $4,700.

The IRS announced on Friday that people who already have direct deposit information on file from filing their taxes will receive payments in the coming week. Up to 70 million Americans will be paid by April 15, a Treasury spokesperson told The Washington Post.

For everyone else, paper checks will arrive by mail any time between now and early September.

New filers are urged to use a new IRS tool to submit their bank details in order to get their one-time payments as soon as possible.

Original author: Aaron Holmes

WeWork competitor Knotel missed financial targets as recently as the fourth quarter of 2019, well before the coronavirus hit, according to a leaked document seen by Business Insider. The company's once-surging flex-space business has been hit hard by the coronavirus crisis, which has left tenants unable to occupy workspaces and prompted many to cease payments. Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Flexible-office provider Knotel struggled to hit financial targets well before the coronavirus hit, its internal financial reporting viewed by Business Insider shows.

Financial data reviewed by Business Insider shows the WeWork competitor had substantially missed sales targets as recently as the fourth quarter of 2019 and had accrued hundreds of thousands of square feet of vacant space months before the economic crisis touched off by the coronavirus began.  

Knotel has said publicly that it had $350 million in annual revenue lined up at the start of 2020. According to internal documents seen by Business Insider, the company had $335 million of annual revenue signed on near the end of the fourth quarter of 2019, $80 million short of its $422 million forecast.

In New York, Knotel signed just $5.8 million in net new contracts in the fourth quarter, compared with a goal of $51.5 million. Across the 15 cities globally where the company operates, it added about $50 million of new revenue in the quarter, $50 million short of its target.

Flex-office companies generally saw a slowdown in leasing activity in the fourth quarter, per CBRE data. Much of that industry-wide decline was driven by WeWork, though Knotel's drop in leasing – 70,000 square feet of new deals in the fourth quarter, a decline of 80% from its quarterly activity over the previous year – was much more precipitous than competitor Industrious, which was down 6.5%. 

The leaked financial documents also showed that Knotel had about 500,000 square feet of vacancy in its portfolio in December, a number that is projected to grow to 1.5 million square feet as it takes possession of additional spaces it has committed to lease.  

Read more: Knotel is scrambling to pay millions in bills that started stacking up before the coronavirus hit, and it's late on payments to some of New York's biggest brokerages

Knotel was, until recently, one of the fastest-growing brands in the booming coworking and flex-space field, emerging as a chief competitor to WeWork.

Covid-19 has upended the soaring sector as small businesses, startups, and entrepreneurs that flooded into flexible workspaces in recent years have shed those locations or have stopped paying rent, leaving companies such as Knotel, in turn, with less cashflow to pay landlords.

Knotel has stopped paying some rent and vendors – and it has a backlog of payments that predates the coronavirus by many months, Business Insider reported.

"Given the unprecedented times we are witnessing due to the effects of Covid-19, the Knotel team is focused on balancing the interests of customers, partners, and investors, in efforts to build a sustainable, long-term business," Ivy Chiou, a spokeswoman for Knotel, said in a statement. "We are taking these steps to ensure we are well-positioned for both current times of great crisis, as well as when business returns to a new normal.

-Alex Nicoll contributed reporting. 

Have a tip? Contact Dan Geiger at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or via encrypted messaging app Signal at +1 (646) 352-2884. Contact Meghan Morris via encrypted messaging app Signal at +1 (646) 768-1627 using a non-work phone, email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., or Twitter DM at @MeghanEMorris. (PR pitches by email only, please.) You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

Original author: Daniel Geiger and Meghan Morris

 

Welcome to Wall Street Insider, where we take you behind the scenes of the finance team's biggest scoops and deep dives from the past week. 

As the coronavirus shuts down industries and keeps consumers at home, companies have been scrambling for cash to cope. We took a look at the advisers and investors who are gearing up amid the chaos. 

Alex Morrell listed top restructuring bankers who will help companies navigate the crisis. From Casey Sullivan and Bradley Saacks, here's a look at 10 Wall Street power players picking through up to $1 trillion in distressed debt to bag huge returns. And in case you missed it last week, Casey wrote about 10 lawyers who have navigated the biggest bankruptcies in history.

If you aren't yet a subscriber to Wall Street Insider, you can sign up here.

I also wanted to give a warm welcome to Dan Geiger, who joined the team as real estate correspondent on Monday. He's already broken big news about how real-estate tycoon Aby Rosen is abandoning $600 million worth of acquisitions in New York City. And he teamed up with Meghan Morris to report that WeWork competitor Knotel has stopped paying some rent and vendors (plus, they got a look at Knotel financials showing how it's fallen far short of sales targets.) 

Have a safe and healthy weekend. As always, my line is open at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. 

-Meredith

Fintech winners and losers

Original author: Meredith Mazzilli

Offices, hotels, and malls have been emptied by the coronavirus, which could lead to more than 18 months of disruption in our day-to-day lives. Flex-space providers like Knotel and Convene, short-term rental operators like Sonder and Zeus Living, and brokerage Compass have laid off or furloughed staff. The coronavirus has also provided the largest experiment ever in remote work. Some experts think it could forever change our relationship with the physical office.Click here for more BI Prime stories.

The coronavirus has thrown the real estate world into disarray, as people empty out of offices, hotels, and malls and work from their homes. The spread of the virus and the economic disruptions that have followed are transforming how people finance, operate, and occupy real estate. 

We've been tracking a slew of layoffs in the venture-backed real estate world, as empty short-term rentals and coworking spaces have hit once-buzzy industries hard. We are also keeping tabs on what experts are saying about the industry, and the future of offices as the virus has created the biggest experiment in remote work ever.

Have a tip about layoffs or major changes in this space? Contact this reporter through the secure messaging app Signal at +1 (646) 768-4772 using a non-work phone, email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., or Twitter DM at @AlexONicoll. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

Here's everything we know right now: 

Original author: Business Insider

Richard Couch and Martin Pichinson are in the business of figuring out what to do with distressed companies, particularly venture-backed startups that are in crisis or nearing their endgame.Both are fielding a flood of calls these days from venture investors worried about their portfolio companies as the coronavirus-related economic downturn deepens.Some venture are using the crisis to cull underperforming companies from their lineups, others are still assessing which companies they will continue to support and which they'll cut lose, the consultants said.Both Couch and Pichinson are expecting the downturn to last for a while and to lead to widespread destruction in the startup world.Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Richard Couch and Martin Pichinson get called some unflattering names — Dr. Death, Darth Vader, the undertakers of Silicon Valley.

But when times get tough at startups, they're often the ones who get called to try to salvage something out of the situation. And right now, as the coronavirus pandemic has spurred a sharp and what's starting to look like a calamitous economic downturn, they're fielding lots of calls.

"We are on more conference calls now than we probably ever have been," said Pichinson, co-president of Sherwood Partners, a Silicon Valley-based consulting firm. "People are absolutely trying to figure out what to do," he continued.

Pichinson and Couch, CEO of Diablo Management Group, which is also based in the Bay Area, specialize in finding resolutions for distressed companies, particularly venture-backed startups — ones that are running out of cash or prospects or are at some crisis point in their life cycle. Sometimes that means restructuring them. Sometimes that means selling them off. Sometimes that means shutting them down and getting what they can for the pieces that are left.

Even in good times, many startups don't pan out and lots of other companies fail, so Couch and Pichinson's services are constantly in demand. But in the wake of the economic shutdown due to the coronavirus, both have become popular figures in Silicon Valley.

"There's a pick-up in conversations, that's to be sure," said Couch, who is perhaps best known for being the person who shut down Pets.com after its business failed.

Some VCs are using the crisis to cull underperforming companies

Venture capitalists are talking to Couch and Pichinson's consulting firms about what to do with their struggling startups. The investors are using this moment to re-evaluate their portfolios, the consultants said.

Pichinson's firm is already getting calls from venture capitalists who want to cull their weaker and underperforming startups. These are companies they'd been thinking about ridding themselves of even before the crisis, he said. But the downturn has made that job more urgent. They want to clear things out so they can focus on their successful companies and are ready to invest in new ones after the crisis ends, he said.

Richard Couch, the CEO of Diablo Management Group, put Pets.com to sleep after it failed. Diablo Management Group "They're saying, 'OK, let's get the low-hanging fruit," Pichinson said. "'This is not what we're going to go ahead and really invest in anymore.'"

The venture investors Couch is talking to aren't yet at that stage. Instead, they're combing through their portfolios and assessing the status of their companies, he said. 

Startups can be assigned a status of red, yellow, or green, depending on their health and outlook, Couch said. Green companies are those that are doing fine and can be left alone. Yellows are those that investors are watching frequently and that they know they're going to need to make decisions about soon, because the companies are going to need financing in the near future.

"There are a lot more yellow deals out there than there have been," Couch said.

New funding for many of those companies — at least from the venture industry — may not materialize, he said. The venture capitalists he's talking to are wary of investing more money in startups that are looking to raise a B, C, or D round at a flat or lowered valuation.

"People are reluctant to throw good money after bad," he said.

Cash preservation is paramount

Part of what's making these kinds of decisions — whether to shut companies down, whether to invest more in them — more pressing is that with the economy in turmoil, cash is starting to be harder to come by, Couch and Pichinson said. Some limited partners at venture firms are refusing to pony up money when the general partners put out a call for cash, Couch said. Meanwhile, some corporate venture offices are shut down and unable to follow through on investment commitments, he said.

While the federal government is offering loans to help small businesses and larger corporations get through the crisis, there are concerns that venture-backed startups may miss out on some of the aid. In recent weeks, numerous starts have been slashing jobs and cutting back on expenses.

"What's going on right this second is cash preservation," Pichinson said.

Both expect there to be widespread devastation ahead in the startup sector. The pandemic isn't likely to end any time soon and even when it does, it will be months, perhaps years before things return to any semblance of normal, they said.

And what will be normal after the crisis may not resemble what was the norm before it, Pichinson said. Few people are likely to want to attend a football game or a concert or even a movie in a theater anytime soon, he said. Those changing societal norms are going to have an impact on companies and investors.

"Where they may have invested a company yesterday, they may not tomorrow, because some new rules are being written," Pichinson said.

For the companies that get handed over Pichinson and Couch's firms, some will end up being sold to private equity firms after a restructuring. Some will see their teams join other companies as part of acqui-hire deals. And some will see their assets — everything from their patents and other intellectual property to their office furniture — sold off, in many cases, likely for pennies on the dollar.

"The market will develop over a three-to-six month period to one where there's a fair amount of turmoil," Couch said. Right now, he continued is the "calm before the storm."

Got a tip about startups or the venture industry? Contact this reporter via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., message him on Twitter @troywolv, or send him a secure message through Signal at 415.515.5594. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

Original author: Troy Wolverton

Zoom never predicted any of this.

Once just a firmly corporate-focused video chat app, the service has gone gangbusters in recent months — boosted by unprecedented demand sparked by the pandemic, and the resulting human lockdowns across the globe. In the space of four months, it has soared from 10 million users to 200 million, hosting quiz nights, karaoke, virtual happy hours, and a million other unanticipated uses.

As CEO Eric Yuan wrote in an open letter to users at the beginning of April, "our platform was built primarily for enterprise customers – large institutions with full IT support ... we did not design the product with the foresight that, in a matter of weeks, every person in the world would suddenly be working, studying, and socializing from home."

It has risen to the challenge, but the strain is clear. It's facing numerous security scares, and organizations from Google to NASA have banned workers from using it, sending the company into damage control. 

But an unconventional solution presents itself. Zoom should consider allowing itself to be acquired by another company that is experienced in growing services rapidly, well-versed in the social web, and no stranger to weathering controversy: Facebook.

Hear me out.

First, there's the question of cost. As of this writing, Zoom's market cap is around $34.7 billion. There'd be a significant premium on that for any buyout, but it's still eminently doable for Facebook, which had $54.9 billion in cash on hand as of the end of 2019, and a market cap of almost $500 billion. (Facebook's also not afraid of splashing the cash: It spent almost $22 billion to acquire WhatsApp in 2014.) But what's the upside of absorbing Zoom?

Well, it makes total sense for Facebook.

Acquiring Zoom would help it stay on top of how people are interacting online today, giving it direct ownership of what is suddenly the hottest new social networking app on the planet. Facebook could funnel these users back into its other services, while enriching Zoom with its sophisticated augmented reality filters, video-chat games, and other features that fall outside of Zoom's traditional expertise. 

Similarly, buying Zoom would give Facebook its excellent underlying video-conferencing technologies, which the merged companies could then implement elsewhere. 

Zoom would also provide Facebook with an extraordinary boost to Workplace, its work platform targeted at businesses. Every corporate Zoom subscriber could be given access to new tools, growing Facebook's userbase and in turn (theoretically) enriching the business users' experience. And the acquisition would help further build out Facebook's enterprise sales team, lessening the company's still-overwhelming reliance on advertising revenue, a model that has been shaken by the pandemic.

There's also a clear benefit to Zoom. For years, growth has been Facebook's north star. While Zoom has held up extraordinarily well over the last few months' growth, all things considered, Facebook's experience in growing services to the point of billions of users is almost unparalleled. The much larger company could share invaluable lessons with Zoom. Facebook has also learned the extremely hard way about the underbelly of the internet — from hacking and data misuse to failures of content moderation — and it could help Zoom avoid the same mistakes.

It's not a perfect match, of course.

Facebook, like other big tech firms, is already facing increased antitrust scrutiny — and snapping up a $30 billion company would only intensify this. Facebook might decide the potential fight isn't worth its time right now, especially as it focuses on coronavirus-related initiatives and manages existing projects like its ambitious "pivot to privacy."

But the fact that Zoom isn't a traditional social networking firm means its purchase would set off fewer alarm bells than if Facebook were to buy another consumer app like Snapchat. Facebook is nowhere close to dominant in the enterprise software space where Zoom originated. And Facebook would still face weightier competitors in that space, such as Cisco and Google.

There are also redundancies with what Facebook is already building, and the company might view that duplication as outweighing the value Zoom could bring to the company. 

Also, Facebook has been battling scandals for years, from Cambridge Analytica to its role spreading hate speech that fueled genocide in Myanmar. It might simply decide that it doesn't want to unleash any self-inflicted demons right now.

If Facebook decides it's up to the challenge, though, it would be one of the most audacious tech deals of the decade — and one that could propel both firms to new heights.

Do you work at Facebook or Zoom? Contact this reporter via encrypted messaging app Signal (+1 650-636-6268), encrypted email (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), standard email (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), Telegram/Wickr/WeChat (robaeprice), or Twitter DM (@robaeprice). Use a non-work device to reach out. We can keep sources anonymous. PR pitches by standard email only, please.

Original author: Rob Price

Production companies have been forced to shift to remote work as the coronavirus has shut down commercial shoots around the world.Tool of North America, which has worked with Google, Uber, HBO, and Verizon, created a new deck pitching its ability to provide services like livestreaming, AR, and dynamic video remotely.Tool said brands now care less about making projects perfect and more about getting them done.The company hopes the deck will help it win new contracts when production picks up post-pandemic.Click here for more BI Prime stories.

The COVID-19 lockdown has turned advertising into an almost entirely virtual industry, and it's especially challenging for the production companies that cast, shoot, and edit ad campaigns.

25-year-old Tool of North America has produced videos, digital tools, and events for clients from Airbnb and Planned Parenthood to HBO's "Game of Thrones" and Amazon Prime's "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel."

Tool has gone through four economic downturns, and president Dustin Callif told Business Insider that experience prepared his company for the tough months ahead. Its new pitch deck, which follows below, promotes its ability to produce different kinds of work remotely.

COVID-19 shut down all commercial shoots, and the business won't be the same after the pandemic

Production companies can no longer do in-person shoots for ads, and the pitch deck reflects Tool's plan to keep business running until things return to normal.

Production companies are scrambling to present clients with the right mix of services, and commercial production won't be the same when the lockdown ends.

Nancy Hacohen, Tool's managing director, said social distancing will probably remain in place for months, which means production teams will have to be smaller and shoots more spaced out.

Callif also said clients have already grown less precious about the work; they're more interested in completing projects and moving on than making a video look perfect.

As brands plan their post-pandemic strategies, Tool is pitching itself for the short and long term

Most brands are just beginning to plan their post-virus strategies, but production continues nonetheless, and the average time from concept to execution has shrunk from two to six months to two weeks as brands release quick-hit work to show how they're responding to the pandemic.

Most of Tool's efforts involve either content filmed on webcam in someone's home or prep work for commercial shoots that will happen weeks or months from now.

Callif said Tool has many marketers and agencies reaching out for advice, and Tool is approaching business development calls with an educational rather than a sales approach.

Its deck focuses on campaigns that can be finished without shooting new footage using techniques like crowdsourcing, livestreaming, AR, and dynamic video, or repurposing existing material. It also positions Tool as a provider of everything from standard production to "celebrity integration" and legal services like FTC compliance.

When brands and agencies are ready to re-enter full production mode, Tool's hope is that presentations like the one below will help make it stand out.

Got more information about this story or another ad industry tip? Contact Patrick Coffee on Signal at (347) 563-7289, email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., or via Twitter DM @PatrickCoffee. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

Original author: Patrick Coffee

Oracle recently raised $20 billion in corporate debt through convertible note offerings.Analysts expect that with that influx of fresh cash, Oracle could be gearing up for a big acquisition as the coronavirus crisis drives down market caps.It's known for making bold M&A moves after a downturn, like when it scooped up PeopleSoft, Sun Microsystems, and NetSuite. Business Insider talked to analysts about which companies Oracle could be planning to acquire. See the list of seven companies below.Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Oracle just raised $20 billion in corporate debt, setting off speculation the tech giant may be mulling a big purchase as the coronavirus crisis drives down market caps. 

"We believe the company could be preparing to make a significant acquisition given the likelihood that COVID-19 continues to pressure valuations in enterprise software," RBC Capital Markets analysts wrote in a recent note to investors.

Oracle is known for making bold M&A moves, especially after a downturn, when big tech mergers typically take place. Shortly after the dot-com crash, the company launched a hostile take-over of rival enterprise software maker PeopleSoft, which it acquired in 2005. Oracle also bought server giant Sun Microsystems and cloud software company NetSuite after the Great Recession.

Business Insider asked experts which companies Oracle could be eyeing for an acquisition. Here are the seven companies they said would be a good fit:

Original author: Ashley Stewart and Benjamin Pimentel

Zoom has skyrocketed in popularity over the past month, but a slew of security issues have come to light during its rise.Zoom is taking measures to address concerns like 'Zoom-bombing' and other recent issues.But a key challenge for the company, according to some experts, is maintaining Zoom's ease-of-use while ratcheting up security.That's because often times, tighter security means more steps for the user. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Zoom has become nearly synonymous with office meetings and socializing as people around the world have adapted to life at home amid the coronavirus outbreak. That has put the roughly 9-year-old company in the spotlight more than ever before — for both the good and the bad, as an onslaught of security issues have come to light. 

The biggest hurdle for Zoom moving forward, according to some security experts, isn't just fixing those issues. It's doing so in a way that enables Zoom to maintain the convenience that has made it so popular in the first place. 

"There are different security measures that you can implement, but again it comes back to this pendulum of security versus usability," said Etay Maor, chief security officer at cyber threat protection firm IntSights. "Where do you feel comfortable and where do your users feel comfortable?"

Zoom's security troubles

The teleconferencing app has surged in popularity over the last month, as it's hosted 200 million chat participants throughout March, compared with its previous all-time high of 10 million as of December 2019.

That has made the platform a ripe target for internet trolls. A new form of harassment known as Zoom-bombing has emerged in recent weeks, which is when intruders infiltrate a Zoom meeting and bombard participants with offensive content. The FBI has said that it received two reports of such incidents occurring in Massachusetts schools.

But that's just one of the security woes that have troubled Zoom over the past month. The company was hit with a class action lawsuit over accusations that it shared analytics data with Facebook without properly alerting users. Zoom also said that some calls were mistakenly routed through China as the company beefed up its server capacity in the country at the start of the outbreak.

The list of companies and organizations banning Zoom has continued to grow along with the security issues. Schools in New York City, the Taiwanese government, and Google have suspended usage of the popular video service. Singapore also recently told teachers not to use the service.

Security versus convenience

Enhancing Zoom's security while keeping the service as frictionless and accessible as it has been could be a particularly challenging balance for the company to strike. Joining a Zoom meeting can be as simple as clicking a link from your email or calendar invite. But adding layers of security often means implementing more steps for the user. 

"There's always a trade off between ease-of-use and usability," said Rob Davis, CEO of cybersecurity firm CriticalStart.

Two-factor authentication, for example, adds more security but also means the user needs to take that extra step of typing in the code sent to his or her phone. Enforcing tighter controls around how participants join a meeting could also make the process of adding colleagues or friends at the last-minute slightly longer. 

Stronger end-to-end encryption could also make it harder to maintain high call quality, one of the characteristics that makes Zoom so appealing, according to Satya Gupta, chief technology officer at web application security company Virsec.

"I suspect that this is going to be a serious problem for Zoom to be able to solve because, you know, when you encrypt and decrypt, it introduces lag and latency into a call," Gupta said.

For its part, Zoom has been quick to react to the myriad of issues that have emerged. It outlined a 90-day plan to make Zoom a security- and privacy-first product. As part of that plan, it's committed to freezing the development of new features to focus on increasing security, publishing a transparency report with information about data requests, and bringing in outside experts to evaluate its security practices among other measures.

The company recently tapped Alex Stamos, Facebook's former security chief, as an external consultant to help it ramp up its security. It has also made security settings easier for users to access, and now requires additional password settings for users on basic, free accounts and accounts with a single licensed user.

Still, Zoom could be more transparent about the measures it's taking, which makes it easier for other security professionals to assess the company's approach to security, Davis said.

"That allows other people to more easily ascertain, 'Have you taken the right steps?' Davis said. 

Zoom has said it will consult external security experts and form a council of chief information security officers from across the industry to discuss best practices when it comes to security. 

But the experts seem to agree that trading some conveniences for security is worth it. And juggling the two, especially within 90 days, will be a challenge.

"It's a hard balancing act that has to be performed," said Maor. "It's not an easy task." 

Original author: Lisa Eadicicco

US Navy Vice Adm. Bill Merz, the commander of the United States' largest forward­-deployed fleet, visited the USS Theodore Roosevelt to speak to its crew, CNN reported."There was lots of anxiety about the virus," Merz reportedly said. "As you can imagine the morale covers the spectrum, considering what they have been through."Merz, who saw the videos of Capt. Brett Crozier's rousing send-off, said his immediate reaction was "our job just got harder for us."Merz said he believed Crozier's "motives were pure" when he emailed his letter and that "he was looking out for his crew."Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

US Navy Vice Adm. Bill Merz, the commander of the United States' largest forward­-deployed fleet, visited the aircraft carrier reeling from a coronavirus outbreak and admitted the morale for some of its crew was negatively impacted by recent events.

"There was lots of anxiety about the virus," Merz told CNN. "As you can imagine the morale covers the spectrum, considering what they have been through."

The nuclear-powered USS Theodore Roosevelt, which is currently stationed in Guam, has been beset with a range of recent problems — including the firing of its commander, Capt. Brett Crozier.

On April 2, Crozier was relieved of command by the then-acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly after he emailed a four-page letter to over 20 people, warning about the coronavirus outbreak aboard his ship. The letter was eventually leaked to the San Francisco Chronicle, which published its contents.

Jackie Hart/US Navy

It was not immediately clear how the letter was leaked, but Navy leaders said they recently completed an investigation into the matter.

Modly scrutinized Crozier's decision to email the letter to the group and accused him of circumventing the service's chain of command. In a leaked 15-minute speech directly to the crew aboard the ship, Modly went on to suggest that Crozier was either insubordinate or "too naïve or too stupid."

Modly apologized for his remarks and resigned on Tuesday.

Crozier, who was hailed as a benevolent commander by many aboard the ship and Democratic lawmakers, has since been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus. As Crozier left his ship, dozens of crew members, in close proximity with each other, saw him off by cheering him on.

Vice Adm. Merz, who saw the videos of the send-off, said his immediate reaction was "our job just got harder for us" because of the lack of social distancing. 

Merz told CNN the ship's crew was "struggling in the wake of losing their [commanding officer] and their perception of the lack of activity regarding fighting the virus."

Merz cited an apparent disconnect between information about the coronavirus and the USS Theodore Roosevelt.

"I think we could have told them earlier what we knew," Merz said. "The degree of accuracy against the virus at any level is a little sketchy, but I think we could have at least bought [sic] them in earlier and started having this dialogue up front."

"I certainly don't think it was malice by the ship or the leadership" Merz added. "I think it was just a matter of getting their arm around what they could and could not tell them."

Merz, like Modly and other Pentagon leaders, said he believed Crozier's "motives were pure" when he emailed his letter and that "he was looking out for his crew."

More than 2,300 of the carrier's roughly 4,800 crew members have been evacuated, and many of them are under quarantine in hotels in Guam. Over 445 crew members had tested positive for the coronavirus as of Friday.

Original author: David Choi

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said that people are now realizing that a viral outbreak similar to COVID-19 will likely happen "every 20 years or so." Speaking to the Financial Times earlier this month, Gates said that COVID-19 was the "biggest event that people will experience in their entire lives" and said world leaders and global policymakers have "paid many trillions of dollars more than we might have had to if we'd been properly ready."The 67-year-old billionaire has been warning about the risk of a pandemic disease for years, stating that a global health crisis like coronavirus could wipe out 30 million people in less than a year. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said that this coronavirus pandemic was the "biggest event that people will experience in their entire lives," and warned that a viral outbreak will likely happen "every 20 years or so." 

Gates discussed the global fight against the novel coronavirus with the Financial Times via Skype on April 2. FT posted the interview and transcript online on April 8.

He said world leaders and global policymakers have "paid many trillions of dollars more than we might have had to if we'd been properly ready."

"This is the biggest event that people will experience in their entire lives," Gates told FT. 

He said that in response to this outbreak, future governments will have "standby diagnostics, deep antiviral libraries, and early warning systems."

"The cost of doing all those things well is very small compared to what we're going through here," he said. "And so now people realize, 'OK, there really is a meaningful probability every 20 years or so with lots of world travel that one of these [viruses] will come along.' And so the citizens expect the government to make it a priority." 

He said he was confident that lessons learned from this outbreak will encourage people to better prepare for next time, but lamented that the cost this time around was too high. 

"It shouldn't have required a many trillions of dollars loss to get there," he said. "The science is there. Countries will step forward."

The 67-year-old billionaire has been warning about the risk of a pandemic disease for years, stating that a global health crisis like coronavirus could wipe out 30 million people in less than a year. 

In 2015, Gates gave a Ted Talk warning that the world was "not ready" for an impending pandemic. 

"There's no need to panic ... but we need to get going," he said in 2015.

In February, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pledged $100 million last month to fight the coronavirus outbreak, designating money towards vaccine research, frontline responders, prevention measures, and treatment efforts around the world.

Original author: Rosie Perper

Update (9:52 p.m. ET): The White House on Thursday reversed its decision to cut federal resources for testing sites, according to NPR. A bipartisan group of lawmakers wrote a letter opposing the federal pullback to Alex Azar, secretary of Health and Human Services, apparently prompting the change in plans. Some of the information below may no longer be current.

The Trump administration is cutting federal support for coronavirus testing sites and prompting states to take control of them, according to CNN.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has helped states create and run "community-based testing sites," or CBTSs, by providing nasal-swab testing kits, financial support, personal protective equipment, and other resources. But a number of sites are now reportedly transitioning to state-managed operations, and some are closing down entirely.

"Many states have already begun transitioning these programs, and other states have implemented testing sites based on the CBTS model," a FEMA spokesperson told Business Insider in an emailed statement. "Transitioning fully to state-managed operation creates an opportunity for the states to better serve their own communities, while leveraging federal support to augment their state's success."

States that transition "can choose to source testing kits and supplies through their standard ordering process or to request assistance from their FEMA Region," according to a policy the agency updated following the initial publication of this story.

The community-based testing sites were meant as only a temporary effort to jump-start testing in parts of the country hit hardest by the pandemic, CNN reported the agency said. However, some testing sites will be closed, apparently as a result of the change in federal support, including locations in Pennsylvania and Colorado, NPR reported — two states where cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, continue to grow.

"While I'm grateful to have had federal and state support for our successful community-based testing site, I am understandably disappointed that the supplies and the federal contract for lab testing are ending just as we are heading into the surge here in southeastern Pennsylvania," Dr. Valerie Arkoosh, chair of the Montgomery County Commissioners, reportedly told CNN.

The decision by the Trump administration to withdraw federal support was met with criticism from some, given that it comes as public-health experts say widespread testing is critical. The US has managed to increase testing capacity recently — with nearly 2.2 million tests completed nationwide — but efforts still lag in many areas, including some with widespread outbreaks.

"The idea of cutting funding to testing in any way right now? We should just be ramping up as much testing as humanly possible," Phil Petit, the national director of the International Association of EMTs and Paramedics, told Business Insider.

Even though the US missed its chance to contain the coronavirus by not testing enough people early on, experts say the country still needs to test as widely as possible, not just to isolate and treat those who are sick but also to find people who have recovered and may have developed immunity.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Wednesday that his playbook for preparing the US for future waves of COVID-19 infections, which could come after lockdowns lift, depends on the US developing its capacity for widespread testing, contact tracing, and case isolation.

"The keys are to make sure that we have in place the things that were not in place in January, that we have the capability of mobilizing identification — testing — identification, isolation, contact tracing," Fauci said.

Government agencies have been criticized for rolling out testing and isolation policies too slowly. Errors and delays in producing the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's coronavirus test led to dangerous shortages, and decisions about lockdowns have been left to states in piecemeal fashion.

Several governors have also sparred with the administration over the federal government's response to the virus, criticizing the lack of a coordinated response, testing kits, and critical medical supplies.

Morgan McFall-Johnsen and Dave Mosher contributed reporting to this story.

This story has been updated with new information. It was originally published at 4:08 p.m. ET.

Original author: Tyler Sonnemaker

Foreign intelligence agents are using online platforms and videoconferencing apps to spy on Americans, TIME reported.Chinese spies, in particular, have exploited the coronavirus pandemic to get information about American companies as they take their operations digital and offices across the US shut down amid stay-at-home orders.The app Zoom has proven especially susceptible to cyber intrusions because of its popularity and lack of encryption.A research group at the University of Toronto found that some of Zoom's encryption keys are routed through Chinese servers. Zoom also owns three companies in China, at which at least 700 employees are paid to develop its software.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Foreign intelligence agents are using online platforms and videoconferencing apps to spy on Americans, TIME reported, citing several US intelligence officials.

Chinese spies, in particular, have exploited the coronavirus pandemic to get information about American companies as they take their operations digital and offices across the US shut down amid stay-at-home orders.

The video conferencing app Zoom has proven particularly susceptible to cyber intrusions because of its popularity — Zoom's CEO said the number of people using the app jumped from 10 million in December to 200 million in March — and lack of encryption.

Hackers targeting the platform, dubbed "Zoombombers," have disrupted events like doctoral dissertations, Sunday school, city council meetings, online classes at universities, and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

Even the FBI weighed in on the matter, warning schools, in particular, to be wary of hackers infiltrating online meetings and calls to post pornographic imagery and hate speech.

Now, TIME reported, Zoom is becoming a playground for foreign spies, as operatives from countries like Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea target Americans' video chats.

"More than anyone else, the Chinese are interested in what American companies are doing," one official told the outlet.

Zoom, moreover, is more vulnerable to intrusion by Chinese cyberspies because some of its encryption keys are routed through Chinese servers, according to a report this month from The Citizen Lab, a research group at the University of Toronto.

The report also found that Zoom owns three companies in China, at which at least 700 employees are paid to develop Zoom's software.

"This arrangement is ostensibly an effort at labor arbitrage: Zoom can avoid paying US wages while selling to US customers, thus increasing their profit margin. However, this arrangement may make Zoom responsive to pressure from Chinese authorities," the report said. 

Indeed, the coronavirus pandemic is a blessing in disguise for intelligence agencies in China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and other rogue regimes, many of whom have adapted to using cyberwarfare to carry out their objectives.

As people across the world are forced to stay home and work remotely, they're increasingly vulnerable to cyberattacks and disinformation — two tools that are more useful than ever to foreign spies.

These methods are also cheaper to employ and require less financial investment than traditional methods of intelligence gathering, giving countries like China and Russia a leg-up as they compete against more financially stable countries like the US.

Zoom, for its part, has said it will work to enhance its security over the coming months.

"For the past several weeks, supporting this influx of users has been a tremendous undertaking and our sole focus," Zoom's CEO, Eric Yuan, wrote in a blog post. "However, we recognize that we have fallen short of the community's — and our own — privacy and security expectations."

Yuan announced that the company will freeze its feature updates for 90 days while it addresses privacy and security issues. He said Zoom will also conduct a "comprehensive review with third-party experts" to ensure it's taking the necessary steps to protect user privacy.

In the meanwhile, several US lawmakers have called for investigations into Zoom's security, and some state attorneys general are examining the matter as well.

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Original author: Sonam Sheth

If you're old enough to remember Vine, you've probably heard of its spiritual successor, TikTok. TikTok is a social media app that has gained popularity in recent years. TikTok users can film videos and overlay sound to achieve specific effects.

The social media aspect of TikTok includes the ability to comment on other users' videos. As long as a user's video has been made public, any TikTok user can post a comment on that video. But what if you want to delete a comment after you've made one? Don't worry, we've got you covered.

Here's how to delete a comment on TikTok. 

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How to delete a comment on TikTok

Once a TikTok comment has been posted, you cannot edit it. However, deleting a comment is simple.

1. Open the TikTok comment thread that includes the comment you wish to delete. Note that you can only delete comments you have made; you cannot delete other users' comments.

Open up the comment you want to delete. Chrissy Montelli/Business Insider

2. Tap and hold on the comment that you want to delete.

3. Tap "Delete." 

Tap "Delete." Chrissy Montelli/Business Insider

Your comment should no longer be visible on the thread. You cannot retrieve a comment once it has been deleted, so if you simply made a typo and just want to edit your original comment, tap "Copy" before you tap "Delete." Then, you can paste the text of the original comment into a new comment and edit the text before reposting.

 

Original author: Chrissy Montelli