Cowboy Who?

In an act of solidarity amid social distancing and the coronavirus pandemic, residents of a Dallas apartment complex leaned out of their windows to sing "Lean on Me."

(Image credit: Claudio Furlan/AP)

You need to stay at home most of the time these days, but what if you don't have a car and need to travel across town? Thankfully, there are options to keep your social distancing intact without hopping on a bike. Wellbots is offering Segway's Ninebot Kickscooter Max for $700 ($100 off the usual price) plus a $100 Visa gift card if you use the code ENGADGETRIDE. You won't get the gift card in the box -- instead, you can either wait for an email from Segway with instructions on how to redeem the card or visit a special redemption site and input your information to redeem it. Still, that could be helpful for getting a helmet and other accessories to go with the folding electric scooter.

The deal will only continue as long as supplies last, so you'll want to act quickly if you're in the market. This isn't the lowest price we've ever seen for the scooter, but the combination of the upfront discount with the gift card makes it a better deal than usual.

It's easy to be skeptical of scooters, especially if you've used not-so-sturdy examples from rental services. However, the Kickscooter Max does address some of those concerns. It has a claimed 40.4-mile range, or enough to take you into town and back without worrying about your battery. It can handle 20 percent inclines, and its IPX5 rating should help you get home even in a downpour. And importantly, it has self-healing tires to keep you going in the event of a puncture. In other words, this should be a scooter you can depend on at a time when recharge points and repair centers may be hard to find.

Source: Wellbots

The White House has announced a flurry of actions it says are making a difference against the coronavirus pandemic, but a closer look finds some aren't what they seem and others remain to be executed.

(Image credit: Evan Vucci/AP)

Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.

In a week where very few things felt normal, sitting down with a new laptop is one of the most regular things that happened. Our review of Apple's new MacBook Air won't be ready until next week, but even just a few hours is enough time for Editor-in-Chief Dana Wollman to have some opinions about its upgraded new keyboard.

Give that a read right here, check out the latest Ghost in the Shell SAC_2045 trailer to see if its new CG-style works and then check out other highlights from this week below.

-- Richard

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Inevitable.Google I/O 2020 is canceled

After initially shifting its annual developer event to an online-only affair, Google announced Friday afternoon that "we sadly will not be holding an I/O event in any capacity this year." For the time being, Google plans to share details about upcoming Android updates in blog and community forum posts.

---

On non-race weekends, fans will go head-to-head with drivers.Real F1 drivers will compete in an esports series

Starting Sunday, several drivers will square off in the F1 Esports Virtual Grand Prix series, using the PC version of F1 2019 and playing remotely for safety reasons. First up is the Virtual Bahrain Grand Prix on what was supposed to be the second weekend of the actual F1 season. You'll be able to watch it all go down live on the F1 YouTube, Twitch and Facebook channels at 3PM ET.

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Plus Moog and Korg synthesizer apps for free.The best deals we found this week: 'The Sims 4,' Fire TV Sticks and more

Digital deals dominated this week, but there are also numerous deals on gadgets as well. Square Enix cut the prices of all of its Nintendo Switch games, so now's the time to grab a Final Fantasy title (or three) while they are up to 50 percent off. Amazon Prime members can also snag a Fire TV Stick 4K for only $25.

Here are all the deals from this week that you can still get today.

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Should've seen that coming.'Sonic the Hedgehog' movie gets an early digital release on March 31st

The new Sonic movie had an unusual path to release that included a delay to change the hedgehog's computer generated look. But the final product was better than most expected, and now the movie will be available to watch at home much sooner than expected. The digital release will come through on March 31st, just over a month after it hit theaters.

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Dolores is in control.'Westworld' remembers that TV is supposed to be fun

Season two of Westworld was all over the place, and not always in a good way. Devindra Hardawar explains why the premiere of season three is a welcome return to form for HBO's robots-in-the-big-city cyberpunk tale.

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Can telehealth save us?The Engadget Podcast

This week, many of us found out exactly which meetings could've been emails. On the podcast, Cherlynn and Devindra explore the rise of telehealth during the global coronavirus pandemic. It's not all serious conversation; our hosts also dive into the gaming hardware news from this week, as well as a few fun recommendations to help you hold it together.

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, Pocket Casts or Stitcher.

But wait, there's more...

• 'Half-Life: Alyx' is proof Valve answers to no one
• SpaceX aborts Falcon 9 launch with rare 'Liftoff! Disregard' sequence
• PlayStation 5 will feature a 10.2-teraflop GPU and a speedy custom SSD
• Samsung Galaxy S20 and S20+ review: Smaller is better
• 'World of Warcraft' keeps players indoors with a 100 percent XP bonus
• 'Call of Duty: Warzone' hits 30 million players in 10 days

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The Morning After is a new daily newsletter from Engadget designed to help you fight off FOMO. Who knows what you'll miss if you don't Subscribe.

Craving even more? Like us on Facebook or Follow us on Twitter.

Have a suggestion on how we can improve The Morning After? Send us a note.

Known for ballads including The Gambler, Rogers "left an indelible mark" on music, his family says.

Piled Higher & Deeper by Jorge Cham		www.phdcomics.com
title: "The Muon g-2 Anomaly Explained" - originally published 4/7/2021 For the latest news in PHD Comics, CLICK HERE!

Shoutout to my friend, Seb, who's doing his best.

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
You can also do this by making up titles of novels or songs for people who claim to hate everything by a particular artist.

Today's News:

In case you wondered why people really take photos of cats.

The Houston-based company says affected employees will work one week on, followed by one week off. The company says employees will maintain their benefits throughout the period but will not be paid during their off weeks.

“Okay, let’s get started, folks. We’re trying to keep you in the loop—”
“Wait, there’s a lot of background noise. You need a mic.”
“I’ve lost all sound since a minute after joining the group.”

“Reload the page, everyone! That way, we can recoup—”
“Someone tell the IT guy reloading isn’t working. It’s like…”
“Okay, let’s try again, folks. We’re trying to close the loop—”

“Wait, I don’t have sound, but I don’t know how to unmute!”
“Press the little icon at the corner until there’s no strike…”
“I’ve lost sound again since coming back together as a group.”

“Tell IT I can hear nothing.” “Did you mute?” “I didn’t mute”
“I’ve logged back in and now can’t see video. And move closer to the mic.”
“Okay, folks—one more time. Log out, then log in again and reboot.”

“So, leave the meeting, rejoin, then turn off the computer? Shoot!”
“No, no. Just reboot the program” “It’s not rebooting right.”
“I’ve lost sound again since coming back together as a group”

“I can hear nothing” “Refresh the page” “Uncheck the boxes.” “Reboot”
“Bye. That was confidence-building.” “No, don’t go—just uncheck your mic!”
“Let’s try this again, folks. I’ll send a new meeting link. Meanwhile, reboot”
“I lost sound again since coming back together as a group.”

Facebook was quick to say that it would fight coronavirus misinformation, but yesterday, one tool appeared to go haywire. Users reported that Facebook was marking posts with legitimate information and articles about the coronavirus as spam. According to The Verge, Facebook has resolved the issue and restored the posts that were incorrectly removed, but this is a serious glitch at a time when so many people are looking for accurate information on the coronavirus and COVID-19.

According to Guy Rosen, vice president of integrity at Facebook, the issue was due to a bug in an anti-spam system. It did not have to do with the fact that Facebook is leaning more heavily on its machine learning systems for content moderation, a strategy Google has also resorted to. Apparently, the bug removed non-coronavirus posts, too. All of which have been restored.

We're on this - this is a bug in an anti-spam system, unrelated to any changes in our content moderator workforce. We're in the process of fixing and bringing all these posts back. More soon.

— Guy Rosen (@guyro) March 17, 2020

As the pandemic continues, fighting misinformation will be an even bigger challenge than it normally is. Facebook has already offered free ads to reputable sources like the World Health Organization and banned ads promoting false "cures." Google has a multi-faceted approach, and Apple is rejecting coronavirus apps to limit misinformation. While these efforts are necessary, they could be undermined by bugs like the one Facebook just encountered.

Via: The Verge

Source: Guy Rosen

Arsene Wenger, Jose Mourinho and Mauricio Pochettino offer advice on how to help prevent the spread of coronavirus in a video published by Fifa and the World Health Organization.

Why Swiss drugs giant Novartis was prepared to take a chance on a young American.

A group of protesters are angry about the use of facial recognition cameras by police in London.

The BBC’s Laura Foster explains how you can recognise the symptoms of coronavirus.

Despite beginning this venture with the highest aspirations, we are announcing the closure of our beloved homeschool after less than 24 hours.

Our principal, your mother, would have delivered this news in person. Unfortunately, she was up late commiserating over homeschool duties with the other neighborhood homeschool principals and was unable to get out of bed for morning announcements.

At this time, we believe she is suffering from a major hangover and not the coronavirus despite the two ailments sharing identical symptoms. She is self-quarantining for the remainder of the week, just to be safe, and not fielding any bullshit questions about Latin verb conjugation or meals.

We know there are parents out there who can both love their children unconditionally and also teach them Common Core mathematics. If this global pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that we are not those parents. Just because we chose to close our homeschool, it does not mean your mother and I do not love you. It means we love you enough to know we can either love you or teach you algebra, not both.

Take your friend, Billy Mathers. His parents took a six-month hiatus from their jobs to attend to his homeschooling. They devised a curriculum, including zero screen time, covering every aspect of his education. They then live-streamed their homeschool to help other parents set up their own homeschools, proving to us how stupid we were to even attempt homeschooling.

The Mathers care deeply about Billy’s long-term education, which is why Billy will go to a better college than you and earn more money over the course of his lifetime. But the Mathers don’t love Billy the way we love you, which is why we plan to allow you as much screen time as you want during the next three months of quarantine.

Always remember, at some indeterminate point in the future, when you despise your job and are barely able to cover the mortgage, that we loved you with your very own iPad. We admit we are failures with the schooling thing, but know we were always prepared to throw money at our failure.

We are Costco parents. We are Amazon Prime progenitors. Come to us when you need something that can be summoned out of the smallest factory in the feeblest country on the planet during any hour of the day. But expecting us to spend all our time teaching you the finer points of our cultural and historical norms is not what we signed up for.

What holds us together as a family is that we look down on the educational system. You kids despise getting up every morning and spending your lives being told what to do by underpaid teachers. We hate packing lunches, gathering supplies, and tarrying you to and from school whilst being judged through your performance by those same underpaid teachers. But when we, your parents, become the underpaid teachers, our faith in the system falters. In order that we survive as a family, we must have something to blame. And that is the teachers.

The Mathers are live-streaming a lesson on the American Revolution in an hour. Join the webcast if you’re bored, or don’t, whatever. Text us if you need anything. Your mother and I will be in the bedroom self-quarantining because we love you and don’t want to pass along any of our germs or failures.

There have been more closings, cancellations, and postponements from museums and galleries across Texas since we published our first updating list less than a week ago. As of this writing, there have been a couple of hold outs (the Rubin Center for the Visual Arts in El Paso was still open to visitors as of Monday, and Flatbed Press in Austin announced Tuesday that it will remain open). UPDATE: March 18: Flatbed Press is now by appointment only (4 people or fewer).Even as we continue to talk about it, and share an evolving list of resources for artists affected, Glasstire is actively exploring ways we continue to be a resource for artists, collectors, museums, and galleries alike.

Adding to our list of news coming out of  the Texas art world: All major museums in the Houston Museum District Association announced closures yesterday. See our news on that here. Since Monday, Houston Center for Photography has closed and moved classes online. Also closed in Houston and the Houston area: The Printing Museum; Houston Asia Society; Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (HCCC); and Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Arts. Austins’s Mexic-Arte Museum and The Witte Museum have all closed until further notice. San Antonio’s Ruby City and The McNay are closed. (SAMA had already announced.)

Expanding this list to West Texas: The Old Jail Art Center has shuttered for now, and so has the Contemporary Art Museum Plainview.

Glasstire has also received dozens of commercial and non-profit gallery and art-space closures, partial-closures, and postponement notifications. We still recommend going directly to galleries’ websites for info, or contacting galleries for by-appointment visits, but here is a partial list of notifications we have received:

Foltz Fine Art Gallery, Houston: Closed/ Open by appointment.

Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, San Antonio: Some Programs Canceled, others postponed.

DiverseWorks, Houston: Closed. Project Freeway Fellowship Talk scheduled for March 18 is canceled. 2020 Fellowship will as planned, with online application portal opening at 5 pm on Wednesday, March 18.

Artspace 111, Fort Worth: Artspace111 has decided to cancel the 2020 Spring Gallery Night celebration at Artspace111 and all other social events until further notice.

Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino, Houston: Open by appointment only until further notice.

Women & Their Work, Austin: Closed, effective March 17.

Bihl Haus Arts, San Antonio: Closed: The organization will be moving some programs online.

Wally Workman Gallery, Austin: Open by appointment only until further notice.

Holly Johnson Gallery, Dallas: Open by appointment only until further notice.

Cris Worley Fine Arts, Dallas:In response to the ongoing developments surrounding COVID-19, Cris Worley Fine Arts will be temporarily open by-appointment-only beginning Tuesday, March 17^th. We will continue to see to daily operations as well as be available to assist with inquiries.

MATCH, Houston: On Monday Harris County and the City of Houston updated their guidelines for everyone to avoid groups of 10 or more people.  Accordingly, MATCH will be closed to the public until further notice.

 

Two major arts festivals, scheduled for Austin and in Houston plus one parade, were also canceled:

A Houston and Texas favorite, The Art Car Parade, 2020 has been canceled. From the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art:

“Due to the ongoing impacts of COVID-19, and the restrictions currently in place by the City of Houston and Harris County regarding public events, the Board of Directors of the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art has decided to cancel the 2020 Houston Art Car Parade.  This will include all events associated with Houston Art Car Parade Weekend scheduled to take place April 16-19, including the Main Street Drag, the Sneak Peek at Saint Arnold Brewing Company, The Legendary Art Car Ball, The VIPit Experience, and the Houston Art Car Parade Awards Ceremony.”

Austin’s annual Fusebox Festival, scheduled for mid-April, is being reconsidered as an online-only experience. Its statement reads in part: “After much thought and conversation with our team, board, stakeholders, and community over the past week, as well as the recent guidelines released by the C.D.C., we’ve decided that we cannot move forward with hosting Fusebox Festival in April as originally conceived. That said, in this moment it feels important to offer a creative response, and so we are currently re-imagining our 2020 festival as a virtual experience that will take place online in April.”

Houston’s CounterCurrent Festival, also scheduled for mid-April, has been canceled. As with Fusebox, CounterCurrent is looking for ways to present the festival online. From Karen L. Farber, Director, Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts, Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts, University of Houston:

“In light of the concerns about public events due to COVID-19, we have no choice but to cancel this year’s CounterCurrent festival scheduled for April 14-19. Your health and safety, as well as the well-being of our staff, artists, and other stakeholders, are central to this determination. We will be working with our colleagues at the University of Houston and partner institutions to reschedule everything we can for future dates. We are also exploring which events could be transferred to virtual platforms. Please stay tuned to our website, social media channels, and emails for updates.”

The post More Cancellations, Closures, and News From Texas Art Institutions appeared first on Glasstire.

Note: the following is part of Glasstire’s series of short videos, Five-Minute Tours, for which commercial galleries, museums, nonprofits and artist-run spaces across the state of Texas send us video walk-throughs of their current exhibitions. This will continue while the coronavirus situation hinders public access to exhibitions. Let’s get your show in front of an audience.

Katja Loher’s solo exhibition What happens to the swallows that are late for spring? at Anya Tish Gallery, Houston. Dates: March 6-April 4, 2020

 

 

 

The post Five-Minute Tours: Katja Loher at Anya Tish Gallery, Houston appeared first on Glasstire.

This feels like the longest episode. I hope everyone is staying safe, taking all the necessary precautions and being kind and compassionate. Sending lots of love to all of you and to the very brave people who have to continue working, who are unable to stay home and are risking their own health to help others. ❤︎

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
Hey everyone stuck at home - for the duration of Covid Party 2020, I'm making a bunch of ebooks free. Just click the link in the below-comic blog.

Today's News:

Clique!

Glasstire is still on, still working, still publishing, and as of right now, busier than ever. Glasstire’s staff held one last comprehensive in-person meeting at the Houston office yesterday before shutting down our headquarters for the time being. (We office in a midtown high-rise with a lot of active medical practices.)

But Glasstire’s role in Texas art, as we work to expand the conversation about art across the state, is to be responsive. We did it during Hurricane Harvey, and we’re doing it now. We, the staff, are in touch with each other all day, every day, and we are thinking of how to best serve you.

The wave of Texas art-world closures and cancellations that we’ve been reporting on since last week is as upsetting as any news in my 25 years as someone who makes a living and stays sane though art and the greater art economy. We are all — non-profits, artists, gallerists, curators, educators, arts journalists, and collectors — bracing for an immediate future of not only the loss of life, but also a long and deep recession. The coming months will test all of us in ways we can’t even predict.

But artists are responsive, and survivors, and will make art. For the sake of our own well-being and humanity, we need to see that art. Glasstire can and does show it.

A couple of points, then:

One: Glasstire is and has always been a non-profit, for its nearly 20 years of publishing. We are a low-overhead, high-impact resource. If you’d like to support us, you can go here to do so, and we will be profoundly grateful that you have enabled Glasstire to continue to shine a light on Texas art.

Two: If you are a gallery, non-profit museum, art space, or an artist-run organization, and you have an exhibition you’d like to get online and in front of a Texas audience (and well beyond!), we will host your video walk-through, for free, on our site. As a community, we may not be able to “Go see some art” at the moment, but we can still  “See some art.” Let’s get it up on the site. We’re waiting for you.

-Christina Rees

 

If you would like to see Glasstire’s weekly Letter From the Editor (not usually published to our homepage), please subscribe to our regular newsletter here. It’s free.

The post A Letter From the Editor: The Pandemic appeared first on Glasstire.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news.”
I live for this kind of thing.

“I’m sure they’re doing everything they can.”
I haven’t read a single reputable source about this.

“Your uncle is susceptible, I hope he doesn’t get it.”
He would deserve it after what he did to our mother.

“I’ve been in self-quarantine.”
I’m on my way to mass.

“If I contracted it, I wouldn’t expect you to take care of me.”
I made your stepfather clear your childhood bedroom.

“How are you, sweetheart?”
Have you heard from your brother?

Have you heard from your brother?
He never calls and you will forever bear the burden for it.

“We’re keeping you in our prayers.”
Rough time to be an atheist, isn’t it?

“Just a little short of breath, nothing to worry about.”
I have COVID-19.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”
I’m scared.

The man, in his late 90s, had symptoms consistent with the new coronavirus, and a test later came back positive for COVID-19, officials said.

The president urges Americans to avoid gatherings, bars, restaurants, gyms and crowds.