Last year, Google pledged that, by 2022, it would include recycled materials in all of its Made By Google products, a list that includes Pixel phones, Pixelbooks, Google Home speakers, Nest devices, and accessories like phone cases and charging stands.
Today, the company announced it hit one of its goals ahead of schedule: all new Pixel and Nest products are now designed with recycled materials, according to Google sustainability systems architect David Bourne. That’s not to say its products are made entirely of recycled materials, but they at least include recycled materials somewhere in the product.
According to Google, the back cover of the Pixel 5 is made with 100 percent recycled aluminum, and the new Nest Audio has 70 percent...
Here's what medical and industry experts say you should know before booking travel.
Finally, the vaccine in response to the novel coronavirus is here. Reports show that half of all US citizens have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, and many are eagerly wondering: is it safe to travel right now?
The CDC says so, as you're fully vaccinated. The agency previously advised against all travel, even for vaccinated people, but the new guidance said that should vaccinated individuals want to travel domestically, they may do so without a quarantine period or testing.
Of course, without herd immunity, resuming travel comes with some level of risk. To answer the question, 'is it safe to travel?', Insider Reviews reached out to experts including infectious disease and ER doctors, cleaning specialists, travel industry professionals, and representatives from major rental cars, hotels, Airbnb, and transportation organizations, to reveal both the risks and best practices associated with various forms of travel during a pandemic.
Wherever you go, follow guidelines and advice set forth by organizations such as the CDC and WHO, and practice safety measures including wearing a mask, washing your hands, and maintaining social distancing. You should also consider whether you're leaving or traveling to a hotspot, so as not to contribute to infection spikes.
And if you need ideas on socially distant locations, we have inspiration for that below, too.
Is it safe to travel? Read on for expert advice on rental cars, flying, hotels, Airbnbs, and more.
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Are rental cars safe?
If you're among the many urban dwellers without a car of your own, you might be wondering if rental cars are safe to drive in a pandemic. For guidance, we talked to several experts, including Dr. Thomas Russo, chief of the division of infectious disease at the University at Buffalo.
"Remember that most of the transmission of the coronavirus is respiratory - it's not through inanimate objects," says Dr. Russo. "When you're in a rental car, the greatest risk is if you happen to be in the car with someone else and they could be infected."
When it comes to the car itself, the risk is reasonably low. "Even if there's an area you touch that wasn't properly wiped down and might have been contaminated, as long as you don't touch your mouth, nose, and face, and have good hand hygiene in between, you should still be protected," Dr. Russo says.
Additionally, rental car companies are taking rigorous new cleaning measures under recommendations from various health authorities to sanitize key high-touch areas.
Many regular travelers are long-time hotel devotees who adore a beautiful property or sprawling resort filled with high-end amenities and services. But even these frequent hotel guests are likely concerned that staying in one risks exposure to the virus.
Alistair Berg/Getty Images
After all, checking-into a hotel means mingling with other guests and staff in common spaces like the lobby, elevators, pool decks, spas, and golf courses. When it's time to eat, there are busy restaurants to consider, and that's all assuming your own guest room is properly cleaned and sanitized.
Hotel room objects and furnishings are shared and reused by visitors, sometimes with only hours in between. So, is it safe to stay in a hotel right now?
Dr. Russo says the answer is highly individual. "If it's a trip that is important and necessary, I feel relatively safe using the proper protective measures like wearing a mask, distancing, disinfecting, and hand hygiene."
We also asked him about the worst-case scenario, in which an infected person stayed in your room hours before you. If the housekeeping crew cleaned and sanitized according to guidelines, would you escape risk?
"The answer is probably yes," Dr. Russo says. But, "that's not an ideal scenario." You'd be better off specifically requesting a room no one has stayed in for a day or two."
He also adds, "Wear a mask during the check-in process, going in the elevator up to your room, or even the stairwell. I'm a big fan of mask use because this magical six-foot zone is based on probability. The closer you are to someone, and the longer you're close to someone that's infectious, the more likely you are to get infected."
Most major hotel chains have announced wide-reaching new cleaning policies made in combination with health experts. These policies also focus on social distancing and contact-free transactions such as virtual check-in and out, digital keys, limited dining, and more.
Dr. Robert Quigley, who serves as the senior vice president and regional medical director of global medical travel risk management company International SOS, spent four days and four nights transforming an Upper East Side hotel into a utilitarian home base for health care workers on the front lines.
Martinedoucet/Getty Images
"We came in and converted what was a very high end, very luxurious hotel into a laboratory with the objective to protect the health and safety of the employees that were willing to come in and work."
Now, that work is being replicated in hotels for regular guests, placing technology at the forefront. In addition to adhering to strict CDC guidelines on health and safety, some brands including InterContinental Hotel Group (IHG), Loews, and Best Western are adopting American Hotel & Lodging Association's (AHLA) StaySafe campaign to help facilitate everything from how to conduct a contactless check-in to a new set of cleaning standards and protocols.
Additionally, Marriott Bonvoy hotels rolled out the Marriott Global Cleanliness Council, focusing on treating high-touch surface areas with hospital-grade disinfectants, providing disinfecting wipes in each guest room, and reducing person-to-person contact by removing furniture and installing hand-sanitizing stations. More than 3,200 Marriott hotels will now allow guests to use their phones to check-in, access their rooms, make requests, and order room service without contact.
Similarly, Four Seasons worked with experts at Johns Hopkins Medicine International on its new Lead With Care program for cleanliness and safety. The program promises that restaurants and bars will operate with reduced capacity to allow for social distancing, and the hotel will leverage technology for safety, by way of its Four Seasons app and chat.
Just as some people have always preferred hotels, others choose Airbnb to enjoy more space in residential-style homes that are well-suited for longer vacations, or family and group stays.
These days, they may seem especially attractive given the fact that you are often booking an entire home that is protected from interaction with others. However, everything from kitchen utensils to linens were used by previous guests.
Dr. Russo says that staying in a private Airbnb is likely to be safer than a hotel, given there is generally less direct person-to-person contact. But he also encourages taking extra preventative measures such as running "utensils and dishware through the dishwasher when you get there" and laundering bed linens and towels "so you have control of what you want to be washed and cleaned." The CDC also has stated in its lodging guidelines that private home rentals like Airbnbs are safer than hotels, but only if your stay only includes those from your own household.
To be extra safe, Dr. Russo also suggests running a disinfecting wipe over all flat surfaces, phones, TV remotes, door handles, bathroom faucets, and toilet handles.
Of course, that also means you're now cleaning the home for which you already paid a lofty cleaning fee.
After breaking down the risks of both hotels and vacation rentals such as Airbnb or Vrbo, no matter the type of lodging you pick, the main factors to consider are the likelihood you'll encounter other people, the number and length of such encounters, and whether the location and region are experiencing high rates of infection.
"When booking any type of lodging, consider how many people you'll be surrounded by, when was the last time someone stayed in that accommodation, and how is the state or city doing in regards to flattening the curve," said Dr. Neil Brown, K Health's chief diagnosis officer.
With either choice, be aware of high-touch areas and flat surfaces that might facilitate virus transmission. If possible, book accommodations with a significant margin of time since the last guest stayed in the same space.
The doctors we spoke with agreed private vacation rentals, however, are likely safer than hotels because they come with fewer person-to-person interactions. And, as stated above, the CDC agrees on this point.
"While there is no question hotels are working diligently to keep their hotels clean and sanitized, Airbnb has a huge advantage given that the renter is generally the only one occupying the property," said Dr. Brown. "With Airbnb's new Enhanced Cleaning Initiative, the company provides a better option than public hotel spaces … Double-check to see if the host is participating in the program," he said.
Dr. Russo "absolutely agree[s]" that staying in a private Airbnb, especially one that allows no-contact check-in, such as through a lockbox, is the safer option.
But both doctors recommend seriously evaluating the risks versus rewards with either choice, with Dr. Brown noting, "Personally, I would do my best to avoid traveling altogether, but if it is necessary, I would feel more comfortable staying at an Airbnb after doing my own disinfecting upon arrival."
Entering an airport, waiting in long lines, and sitting next to strangers of unknown backgrounds, for a prolonged period, in a closed setting, all seems about as high-risk as it can get right now.
To determine if flying is safe, we turned to a diverse panel of experts including an infectious disease doctor, an ER doctor, a pilot, a medical advisor for an aviation trade association, and the founders of popular flight deal platforms to discuss the risks of flying during COVID-19, and precautions to mitigate those risks.
First the good news: airports are trying various tactics to minimize contact between people, promote social distancing, and conducting temperature checks. Additionally, airplanes are designed to clean and filter air quickly according to Dr. David Powell, a medical advisor for a trade group that represents most of the world's major passenger airlines and cargo carriers.
"Customers sit facing forward and not toward each other, seat backs provide a barrier, and the limited movement of passengers once seated adds to the onboard protection. Moreover, airflow is less conducive to droplet spread than other indoor environments: flow rates are high, directed in a controlled manner (from ceiling to floor), to limit mixing, and the use of High Efficiency Particulate Air filters ensures that the air supply is pure."
PeopleImages/E+/Getty Images
But while these features help reduce risks, they do not eliminate them. Commercial airplane travel still means flying in a confined space with other people. Another passenger's droplet can easily invade your personal space even with no one in the middle seat beside you.
Says Dr. Russo, "Once you're on the flight, you've been dealt a hand. Hopefully, everyone around you isn't infected, but you just don't know for sure. A longer flight is going to be a greater risk even though the air is handled pretty well because it's a close space, exposed to other individuals, and the time of exposure is longer."
If you must fly, wear your best mask, sanitize all surfaces, and try to avoid eating, drinking, or using the lavatory.
Trains offer another way to approach getting from point A to point B, for both regional and long-distance routes. For travelers who prefer to stick closer to the ground and avoid planes, or for those who would rather nap, read, and take in the sights over managing navigation and traffic, trains offer a solid alternate option.
And while you'll have more space to spread out than in an airplane, traveling by train still generally involves interfacing with many people - so, is train travel safe?
Like other facets of travel, the answer depends on your set of circumstances. However, there are ways to minimize risk.
Dr. Paz, VP of medical at the digital primary care provider K Health says, "By maintaining social distance from others, using face coverings, and frequent hand washing, you can drastically decrease your chances of contracting COVID."
It also helps to know that Amtrak has rolled out a host of new safety measures meant to facilitate safe travel that includes requiring masks, sanitizing surfaces, and limiting ticket sales on reserved services to allow for social distancing. Individuals traveling alone can now enjoy an empty seat guaranteed next to them.
Amtrak has also enhanced cleaning protocols at the station, with added measures for social distancing, and are repromoting their "private room" seating options on long haul routes. These come in a variety of sizes to accommodate solo travelers, couples, and groups of families or friends. A standard room features two seats that can be converted into beds and come with complimentary Wi-Fi, charging outlets and an expansive window for taking in the views. It's not unlike a moving hotel, both in terms of amenities and also potential risk exposure. It costs about the same as a flight, sometimes more.
But unlike planes, which have advanced airflow and filtration systems, trains are far more basic. Though, they're certainly roomier, and private, if you splurge for such accommodations.
With winter and peak ski and snowboard season in full swing, you may also be wondering if skiing is a safe COVID activity. The good news is that it can be a relatively low-risk option as long as you stay diligent and take proper precautions.
Dr. Russo notes that skiing would fall into the lowest risk category if guests physically distance, wear face masks, and avoid enclosed gondolas/trams or going indoors. "I perceive those two venues as the greatest risk," he says. "What makes me nervous about downhill skiing is the temptation to go inside and warm up and eat and drink is going to be high."
Additionally, most ski resorts have implemented a wide range of new policies this season. It's best to check each resort's website for details before you plan a trip, but new procedures to expect this ski season include requiring face coverings, physical distancing (including on chairlifts and in gondolas), advance reservations for lift tickets (often granting priority to pass holders), cashless transactions, limiting class size for lessons, and reducing restaurant seating. Many resorts are also limiting on-mountain capacity, especially for peak dates so it may pay off to plan and book early.
The National Ski Areas Association (NSAA) offers a state-by-state listing of links to COVID-related restrictions and rules, and the NSAA's "Ski Well, Be Well" campaign outlines best practices for ski areas, skiers, and riders to stay safe and healthy on the slopes this season.
And while outdoor activities, in general, are less risky, consider how you will get to the ski resort. "Getting to the ski lodge, I would suggest renting a car," Dr. Russo says. "I know in a lot of places you can take the hotel transportation or shuttle buses, but then you're going to see different people in a more fixed air space, so I don't recommend that; you increase your risk if you use shared transportation options."
But the good news is that once you're on the top of the mountain and wearing a mask, the risk of COVID-19 exposure is minimal. "It seems to me that actually on the slopes themselves [the risk has] got to be close to zero," Dr. Russo says.
How travel industry experts advise clients to book travel
While many travelers previously booked travel independently, some are returning to travel agents. These seasoned professionals have spent years in the business and are well-equipped to help clients identify viable locations with vetted, flexible policies. They may also have better insights into new practices at specific hotels to help determine how clean and safe they will be, and whether facilities and amenities may be impacted.
Their advice is to plan for future travel, book refundable options, travel domestically and take road trips, opt for socially distant places with access to nature, plan longer "workcations" that mix remote work with play, and don't forget about prioritizing your mental health.
Socially distant travel: safe vacations during COVID-19
As noted by various experts, no matter your destination, your risk of infection largely depends on factors such as whether you'll encounter other people, the intensity of such encounters, and if the location is experiencing high rates of infection.
While nothing can be guaranteed safe 100 percent safe, if you heed expert advice, take necessary precautions, and make informed decisions led by CDC and WHO guidance, you may be able to explore the world again soon.
If you find yourself in such a position, consider these locations within the United States that are well-suited to outdoor activities, offer socially-distant-friendly lodging, and remove the need for international travel.
When Viana Ferguson was a content moderator for Facebook, she came across a post that she immediately recognized as racist: a photo of a white family with a Black child that had a caption reading “a house is not a home without a pet.” But she had a hard time convincing her manager that the picture was not just an innocent photo of a family.
“She didn’t seem to have the same perspective, there was no reference I could use,” Ferguson said. She pointed out that there was no pet in the photo, but the manager also told her, “Well, there’s also no home in the picture.”
Ferguson said it was one of several examples of the lack of structure and support Facebook moderators face in their day-to-day jobs, a vast majority of which are performed for...
Marking its fifth acquisition this month, Accenture is investing billions around its new Cloud First initiative including Monday’s purchase of AWS consultant and cloud migration specialist Enimbos.
Microsoft is bringing mouse and trackpad support to its Office for iPad apps today. The software maker promised it would update its Office iPadOS apps earlier this year, and the updates are now live in the App Store for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
Office for iPad now lets you use the built-in trackpad on Apple’s Magic Keyboard to navigate around text, photos, and other objects in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The cursor is context aware, like other apps that have taken advantage of the Magic Keyboard, so you can highlight text in Word, resize images and charts in PowerPoint, and select multiple cells in Excel. It’s very similar to using Office on a PC or Mac.
In the wake of a $100 million Amazon bribery scandal, sellers say the tech giant deserves more scrutiny for suspending merchants with no warning and little explanation.
Last month, US federal authorities indicted six e-commerce consultants and former Amazon employees in a $100 million bribery scheme in which insiders allegedly accepted payments to help certain Amazon merchants on the platform and hurt others. In the close-knit world of top Amazon sellers and consultants, this was big news. But it was not a surprise. Rumors of such behavior are common in industry circles, and Amazon itself admitted in 2018 that it was investigating employees for reportedly leaking internal marketplace data to outsiders in exchange for cash.
In the weeks since the indictments, a half dozentop-earning Amazon sellers told Recode that the consultants and former employees indicted should face the legal consequences if they broke the law. But these same top sellers also argued that the problem is much bigger than a few bad apples and that Amazon deserves scrutiny for creating the fertile ground for bribery schemes to blossom. The reason? Amazon’s inability or refusal to consistently offer adequate support to its 1.7 million sellers when they have issues, especially when it comes to suspensions that Amazon hands down with little explanation and sometimes no warning. On top of these issues, it’s not uncommon for sellers to languish in Amazon purgatory for weeks or months trying to reinstate their business, either on their own or with the help of an ecosystem of consultants — some of whom prey on merchants’ desperation.
“With Amazon, you are guilty until proven innocent,” said Eytan Wiener, the co-founder and chief operating officer of the large Amazon seller Quantum Networks, who was once suspended by Amazon in the UK and has helped other suspended sellers in the US.
This reality — that Amazon sellers can have their livelihood snatched from them at any time — can benefit Amazon, too. The company introduced a premium seller program in 2018 that charges thousands of dollars a month to assign a dedicated Amazon representative that a seller can easily contact. While these reps do not oversee account suspensions and can’t directly reinstate a merchant, some large Amazon sellers pay the fee mainly so they have a person they can get on the phone in the event of a suspension or other severe penalty.
Amazon often boasts that the small and mid-sized merchants who help stock the virtual shelves of The Everything Store account for 60 percent of the company’s e-commerce sales worldwide. It has emphasized this as the company’s treatment of its sellers has come under scrutiny in the past few years, most recently during Jeff Bezos’s congressional testimony in July and in the wake of a House antitrust investigation report that followed. The tech giant has certainly created an efficient way for small merchants to build global e-commerce businesses with small teams and little overhead in ways that wouldn’t have been possible even 10 years ago. At the same time, as Amazon has aggressively recruited more sellers to its platform, it has been plagued by complaints about the support it offers them — most notably, the company’s penchant for suspending sellers from doing business on the site with no warning and nary an explanation.
This was the situation that Jacqueline Tatelman, the co-founder of the backpack brand State Bags, faced earlier this year. Her startup brand does most of its business through its own website but decided to start selling on Amazon earlier this year in order to expand its online presence before the back-to-school shopping season this fall. The company’s plans were delayed when the pandemic hit the US in March and Amazon prioritized essential goods in its warehouses. Then, as the company prepared to finally start selling on the platform in May, a shocking email from Amazon landed in its inbox:
“We have discovered information that indicates your Amazon seller account has engaged in deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity. ... As a result, we have closed your Amazon seller account to prevent harm to our customers, other selling partners, and our store.”
The email ended by saying that the brand should email Amazon if they thought the decision was an error. And State Bags did, repeatedly. The only thing that had changed between the time the company set up its Amazon storefront and when it received the suspension notice was a change of the business credit card on file, which was information Amazon had requested.
Amazon responded once more with a generic note saying that an internal case had been opened. Then silence, for months. No reason given, and no updates, as State Bags inventory with a retail value of $60,000 sat unsold in Amazon warehouses, with no guidance from the tech giant on if or how the brand could get the inventory out.
“It’s not ethically okay to do these things to these small brands who are in the middle of the ocean, in a storm, with a tiny boat and a broken paddle”
“It’s not ethically okay to do these things to these small brands who are in the middle of the ocean, in a storm, with a tiny boat and a broken paddle,” Tatelman told Recode. “That’s how small brands feel.”
After Recode notified Amazon of the State Bags suspension, Amazon spokesperson Cecilia Fan said the company would reach out to the brand “to address their concerns.” A day later, Amazon granted State Bags access to its storefront for the first time since May.
And the State Bags story is not a one-off. Talk to any Amazon seller that does significant business on the site and there’s a good chance they have a similar tale or know a peer who does. Just this August, a LinkedIn post detailing a similar suspension problem that was written by the founder of a car dashboard camera retailer was widely read in the Amazon seller community. Titled “Please Help! An Open Letter to Jeff Bezos, Amazon Leadership, and the Seller Performance Team,” it described how Amazon had suspended the seller out of nowhere and for six months had claimed that the seller forged documentation. Two days after the president of The Dashcam Store, Andrew Aboudaoud, posted the cautionary tale, Amazon reinstated his selling account with a boilerplate email. No explanation or apology was given.
“The way Amazon currently handles their relationships with third-party sellers is fundamentally broken (in a variety of ways),” Aboudaoud wrote in a message to Recode, “although it does appear Amazon is slowly taking steps to overhaul this system.”
Fan, the Amazon spokesperson, emailed Recode a statement that read in part: “Amazon’s Selling Partner Support team handled more than 51 million contacts from selling partners in 2019, and we strive to respond to and resolve every contact expeditiously.”
“Selling Partner Support responded to more than 90% of emails in under 12 hours; answered more than 96% of phone calls in under 90 seconds; answered more than 90% of chats in under 90 seconds; and fully resolved more than 85% of all seller issues in under 24 hours,” the statement added. Using that 85% figure, if every one of Amazon’s 1.7 million sellers has an issue at one point, that still means 255,000 of them — or 15% — could have to wait more than 24 hours for a resolution. I’ve been interviewing Amazon sellers for years, and it’s not uncommon for these cases to remain unresolved for weeks, if not months.
Amazon sellers acknowledge that scaling seller support at Amazon’s size is a challenge, and some say the seller support experience has gotten modestly better in recent years.
“They’ve done better and are a bit more explanatory, but still have a long way to go”
“They’ve done better and are a bit more explanatory, but still have a long way to go,” Wiener, of the Amazon seller Quantum Networks, told Recode. “But they should get some credit for what they’ve done because it’s a very hard task.”
Still, sellers argue that Amazon’s platform is so big, even a few percentage points of cases that slip through the cracks or are the result of technical errors can wreck many small businesses and the lives of the people who run and work for affected merchants.
Some sellers have turned to the paid seller support program that Amazon offers as a type of insurance against unexpected problems. Amazon charges a monthly fee of between $1,600 and $5,000 for the program, depending on the size of the seller’s business. Fan, the Amazon spokesperson, said the optional paid program provides sellers with “business guidance on topics such as inventory management, merchandising, and global expansion,” but “does not provide expedited account resolution” when Amazon suspends an account or takes other serious action against a merchant.
Sellers who use the program or are familiar with it agreed that the paid internal Amazon reps do not directly resolve suspensions or other major account issues. But these sellers said many merchants pay the fee simply so they have a specific person they can get on the phone to point them in the right direction when something big goes wrong.
“They’ve set up the exact same business model as Tony Soprano: pay us to help protect you ... from us,” said one Amazon merchant whose business sells more than $10 million of goods annually on Amazon. “It’s messed up.”
This seller doesn’t pay for the program today but said he probably would in the near future as he hears more firsthand stories of merchants getting penalized or shut down for reasons they say are unfair or unclear. Referencing one claim in the recent indictment of Amazon consultants, which alleged a large cash bribe delivered via an Uber, the seller added:
“If my business got shut down overnight and I could send $100,000 in an Uber to fix it, I’m probably not going to do it but I’m certainly going to consider it.”
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Viana Ferguson, a former Facebook content moderator, said during a panel hosted by the nonprofit the Real Facebook Oversight Board that users have become more vocal about the "violence they are willing to execute" toward people.
Ferguson said there would "definitely" be calls for violence after the election, regardless of the winner.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will appear before Congress on Wednesday to address a law that shields social-media companies from being held liable for the content of users' post.
"We've applied lessons from previous elections, hired experts, and built new teams with experience across different areas to prepare for various scenarios," a Facebook spokesperson told Business Insider.
Are you an insider with information to share? Email aakhtar@businessinsider using a nonwork device.
A person who was responsible for looking at some of the most hateful content on Facebook said she was sure there would be calls for violence after the US election — regardless of the winner.
Viana Ferguson, a former content moderator, joined the nonprofit the Real Facebook Oversight Board to discuss rising racism and hate speech on Facebook. Ferguson, who worked as a Facebook content moderator from 2016 to 2019, said through tears that users have become more vocal about the "violence they are willing to execute" toward people.
Content moderators are typically outside contractors who review flagged content on the site to determine whether it should be removed. They review posts that can be violent, pornographic, racist, and otherwise hateful.
"There's going to be a wave of hate speech. It's definitely going to be more violent," Ferguson said during the panel on Monday. "It's going to happen; it doesn't matter who wins. Facebook needs to be prepared for that."
Facebook has announced some actions it has taken to curb calls for violence on Election Day, including removing "thousands" of groups that could incite civil unrest. Nick Clegg, Facebook's head of global affairs, declined to share specific policies in September but said the company planned to "restrict the circulation of content" that could prompt civil unrest.
"We've applied lessons from previous elections, hired experts, and built new teams with experience across different areas to prepare for various scenarios," a Facebook spokesperson told Business Insider.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in an interview with Axios that false information about the election could spread on Facebook and acknowledged there could be "civil unrest" after Election Day.
"I just think we need to be doing everything that we can to reduce the chances of violence or civil unrest in the wake of this election," Zuckerberg said.
One other former content moderator joined Ferguson during the panel — in addition to a current worker who spoke anonymously — to discuss the difficulty in removing racist and hateful posts because of loopholes in Facebook's guidelines.
Facebook has come under scrutiny for its treatments of content moderators. Moderators have gone back to physical workspaces during the coronavirus pandemic, even as Facebook employees work remote. The company agreed to pay $52 million to current and former content moderators who developed mental-health conditions on the job, The Verge reported.
Zuckerberg will appear before Congress on Wednesday to address Section 230, a 1996 law that shields social-media companies from being held liable for the content of users' posts. Lawmakers say the measure disincentives firms from moderating hate speech.
Are you an insider with information to share? Email aakhtar@businessinsider using a nonwork device.
The pandemic has exacerbated many employees' physical and mental health problems.
Oliver Rossi/Getty Images
Working from home has brought on a slew of work-related health concerns for many employees, including back and joint pain, tooth fractures, and sleep deprivation.
Companies can better support their employees with regular check-ins, reminders to take time off, and resources to care for their mental and physical health.
Management should revise policies to incorporate ergonomics, offer stipends for home-office equipment, and plan virtual gatherings for added social interaction.
At first, everybody was fine working remotely, says Melissa Afterman, an ergonomics consultant and environmental health and safety specialist at the University of California, San Francisco. But after about three months, she said, "I started getting a lot of phone calls."
Since COVID-19 sent droves of office workers home, doctors and workplace safety experts have called attention to the risk of work-related injuries and health problems, from back pain to tooth fractures. Even as many remote employees have settled into a routine, it was only a matter of time before months of hunching over laptops — combined with the stress of living through a pandemic — started to take a toll on their health.
Forty-one percent of Americans have had new or increased back, neck, or shoulder pain since they began working from home, according to a survey commissioned by insurance company Chubb in May and June. And in a separate June survey of remote workers from digital health company Hinge Health, 45% reported back and joint pain — with 71% saying the pain was new or had worsened.
While being desk-bound in a traditional office can cause "micro-damage" to the body over time, Afterman says long periods of working in awkward positions — propped up in bed or perched at the kitchen counter, for instance — can heighten problems, leading to pain or even long-term damage.
Many ailments can be traced to extended laptop use, Afterman says. When the computer screen and keyboard are attached, the user has to look down at the screen, and the weight of the head pulls on the neck and back. Meanwhile, using a trackpad rather than a separate mouse can cause wrist pain.
These problems can be treated, and an ergonomic workstation and behavioral changes can resolve most of the causes, Afterman says. But how do you communicate this to a full workforce? Here's some advice:
1. Lead by example and give frequent reminders
While you can't force employees to swap out their loveseat for a desk chair, you can remind them that an unsupportive chair can contribute to back pain, Afterman says. Other helpful reminders: Place the top of the computer screen at eye level, use a separate keyboard and mouse at elbow level, sit with feet planted on the floor or on a footrest, and change positions throughout the day. Don't be afraid to check in regularly on employees' work-at-home ergonomics and be sure to lead by example, Afterman adds.
2. Revise remote-work policies to include ergonomics
Provide company-wide training sessions, as well as resources like self-assessment checklists or even one-on-one virtual appointments with an ergonomist, to help employees set up proper workstations and learn healthy habits.
3. Offer to foot the bill
And since investing in employees' health can actually be cheaper in the long run — as fewer sick employees can temper health insurance costs — it might behoove you to fund some home-office updates, particularly if you're thinking of keeping your company remote indefinitely. Of course, notes Afterman, stipends for home-office equipment aren't all that helpful if employees don't know what to buy. She suggests soliciting expert recommendations.
4. Don't ignore mental strain
With new or enhanced caregiving responsibilities, feelings of isolation, and the attendant concerns of a global pandemic and a tense political climate, remote employees may need a little mental TLC, too. PeopleG2, a background-check company in Brea, California, that's been fully remote since 2009, has seen new issues arise as a result of the pandemic, according to founder and CEO Chris Dyer. People who live alone or with only a partner tended to feel overworked and isolated, and were inclined toward unhealthy behaviors like drinking too much, he says; they were encouraged to join book clubs and virtual social gatherings, and some needed professional mental health care.
5. Invite people to tell you what they need
PeopleG2 employees with children and other family members at home struggled with distractions, sleep deprivation, and stress-induced teeth grinding. They needed more flexible schedules and coaching on balancing work with child care, as well as extra home-office equipment. "Our best people took a deep breath, asked for help, and made the adjustments to their life, schedules, and working space to make it work," Dyer said.
Showing emotions at work can actually make you a more powerful leader.
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Melody Wilding is an executive career coach who helps people navigate their careers confidently and find lasting work-life balance.
She says common myths about not expressing emotion at work may cause you to minimize your thoughts and feelings and stifle creativity.
Ignoring your emotions can backfire. Instead, learning how to express your feelings with intelligence and depth will make your colleagues feel safe to express their own, and create a more inclusive work culture.
Emotional depth is not something to be resisted in the workplace. It's a trait that makes you powerful. Consider this:
Research by Google shows that teams where the leaders and team members feel free and safe to express their emotions, fears, and concerns are more innovative and productive.
Being emotionally aware can put more money in your pocket. Some research indicates that people with higher EQ earn on average $29,000 more than people with lower EQ.
Put simply, embracing all of these skills and qualities — your emotional sensitivity, depth, and intelligence — can make you richer, happier, and more effective all-around.
Let's bust three of the most common myths about emotions in the workplace and replace them with facts.
Myth No.1: Emotions have no place at work.
You may have heard some variation of this belief pop up before. Sometimes you'll be told to take your emotions out of a situation. Or you have said to yourself that you don't want to come across as "too emotional" when giving someone feedback, for example.
However, ignoring your emotions is a mistake. There's a wealth of psychological research that points to the fact that suppressing your emotions isn't helpful and can backfire in a big way.
The easiest way to think about it is like trying to hold a beach ball underwater — when you try to hold the ball underwater, the surface of the pool is smooth and serene. But you're putting all your energy and effort into holding it down. And with only one hand free, your action is limited.
Then when you loosen your grip, the ball comes rocketing to the surface, making a big splash and smacking you in the face.
In the same way, pushing down your emotional reactions can be exhausting. It wastes valuable mental resources and energy you could be using in other ways. It also makes those negative feelings stronger and more influential. Most importantly, trying to tamp down your negative emotions also tends to mean losing access to positive ones like joy, excitement, and connection as well.
Fact: Your emotions are messengers. They give you important information about our needs or actions we can take. They are signals that indicate what's important to you. They're a valuable source of intelligence and insight.
At times, you may have felt like you were at the mercy of your feelings and felt like you had no control over them. What we sometimes forget is that our feelings don't always tell the entire truth. Sometimes our emotions get out of sync with reality.
Think back to your school days: did you ever have that experience where you took a test and felt certain that you bombed it only to find out later that you actually did okay?
When your feelings are especially strong, as they often are in the workplace, you can operate from old, outdated stories and beliefs that warp your ability to see the situation clearly. Your thinking gets distorted, and you have a hard time staying grounded in objective facts about the situation.
Fact: While it's true that you can't help how you feel and that your emotional experiences are 100% valid, you can control how you choose to respond. In other words, feelings are not facts. Your emotions are directions, not directives. Emotions can certainly influence your behavior, but they are not the total story. This is why it's really important to evaluate your feelings objectively and to curb the tendency to make negative mental jumps.
Many of my clients are sensitive people that put a lot of pressure on themselves and fear that crying will decimate their reputation. It makes sense because for decades emotional expression has been stigmatized in the workplace. But holding yourself to the standard of never getting emotional is unrealistic, and as we've talked about, it can also be damaging.
Fact: Full on sobbing regularly will not help your career, but breaking out into tears during the occasional emotional meeting or after getting harsh feedback isn't as career-damaging as you might think. Approximately 74% of CFOs who were surveyed in one study think that crying every so often is normal.
If you do get emotional, acknowledge it. You're usually better off acknowledging your reaction rather than trying to pretend it never happened. So in the moment, you can say something like, "As you can see, I'm feeling pretty invested in this," "This is hitting me pretty hard. Would you mind if I stepped out for a moment to get some water?" or "I realize I had a strong reaction while we were talking. I wanted you to know that I really appreciate the feedback you shared with me and I'm working on implementing it."
You don't need to — and shouldn't — apologize about your reaction.
It's human to have emotions. But what makes you a great leader is how you choose to respond and communicate when those emotional reactions do arise. If you take ownership of your feelings and reactions, it conveys strength and confidence that other people will respect.
SpaceX founder Elon Musk has called Starlink user terminals, which are designed to connect to the internet via a fleet of orbiting satellites, "UFOs on a stick."
Ashish Sharma/SpaceX
SpaceX has rocketed nearly 900 Starlink satellites into orbit to build a high-speed internet service.
Elon Musk, the company's founder, says Starlink will soon open for a public beta, followed by paid US service shortly thereafter.
Early results are promising, with high speeds and low latencies. SpaceX even gave Starlink terminals to Washington State emergency responders and the Hoh Tribe, which both lauded the technology.
SpaceX is on a winning streak with its ambitious plan to envelop Earth with broadband internet service, called Starlink, and shows no signs of slowing down.
But its mission isn't without controversy or opposition — including from astronomers and companies trying to launch rockets through an ever-crowded path to orbit.
The aerospace company, founded by Elon Musk in 2002, wants to launch nearly 12,000 Starlink satellites by mid-2027, though possibly up to 42,000. The goal is to nab $30 billion to $50 billion a year from a trillion-dollar global telecommunications industry, Musk has said.
To that end, SpaceX rocketed 60 more of its flat, desk-size satellites a few hundred miles above Earth on October 18, then another 60 on Saturday. The launches marked the project's 13th and 14th operational missions. SpaceX plans to fly Starlink-15 in early November, then batches of dozens more roughly every two weeks thereafter.
At the current rate of launch, SpaceX could get enough satellites in orbit for "significant" global service before 2020 is over.
"For the system to be economically viable, it's really on the order of 1,000 satellites," Musk told Business Insider during a press call in May 2019, adding: "[It] is obviously a lot of satellites, but it's way less than 10,000 or 12,000."
A record-breaking flight schedule that's building out an operational internet service is just one way SpaceX has hit a remarkable streak with Starlink over the past couple of months — though not without controversy.
SpaceX 'just catapulted us into the 21st century'
SpaceX's Starlink-12 mission lifts off during a sunrise over Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard a Falcon 9 rocket on October 6, 2020.
Some of SpaceX's biggest wins stemmed from a private beta test the company began this summer.
Testers, most of them remote residents of the US Northwest, were supposed to stay quiet, per nondisclosure agreements they had to sign. But some publicly tested their connections, allowing Reddit users to get ahold of the results and post them online.
The data revealed broadband-like internet performance not yet seen via a satellite system: Connections not only showed speedy download and upload rates, but also had a low ping — a measure of round-trip travel time for data, which is essential to fluid videoconferencing, voice calls, gaming, and other real-time applications.
The Federal Communications Commission, for its part, took notice of the new Starlink beta data. The regulatory agency initially doubted satellites could compete with fiberoptic and other ground-based broadband internet services in the agency's Rural Digital Opportunity Fund — a $20.4-billion subsidy program to shore up internet service in under-connected US areas. But on October 13, commissioners named SpaceX a "qualified bidder," which permits the company to compete in a reverse-auction process that starts October 29.
SpaceX also revealed in a recent FCC filing that it plans to increase its upload and download speeds 250% with a software update to its satellites and "UFO on a stick" user terminals. And, as if to spike the football, SpaceX also gave permission to first responders and the Hoh Tribe of Washington state to speak up about their experiences using Starlink. Both groups ravedabout the service.
"The last eight years, I feel like we have been paddling up river with a spoon and almost getting nowhere with getting internet to the reservation," Melvinjohn Ashue, vice chair for the Hoh Tribe, said in a video posted by Washington State's Department of Commerce. "It seemed like out of nowhere, SpaceX just came up and just catapulted us into the 21st century. Our youth are able to do education online [and] participate in videos. Telehealth is no longer going to be an issue."
An animation of SpaceX's Starlink satellite constellation providing internet coverage to the Americas.
Another element of Starlink's streak has been sudden progress toward international licensing, which is essential to the project's business case. Without an ability to beam down data to servers in foreign countries, the project would have to route its internet traffic through undersea fiberoptic cables instead of via lasers through the vacuum of space (which SpaceX apparently recently tested with great success).
Wireless signals are tightly controlled by government agencies to avoid interference problems, though, so Starlink can only be used in countries that explicitly authorize it. Gaining that permission has seemed sluggish, but SpaceX made significant progress in both Australia and Canada over the past few weeks. Although more steps remain before users can connect to Starlink in either country, both countries have awarded SpaceX basic operation licenses.
Sleuths have also discovered Starlink licensing efforts in Argentina, Austria, Chile, Colombia, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, and Spain, according to an unofficial roundup on Reddit and various news reports. In many cases, reporters found this month, SpaceX used a series of shell companies with the word "Tibro" in them — "orbit" spelled backward — to quietly advance regulatory applications.
And on Tuesday, Microsoft said SpaceX's Starlink will connect its new modular data center business and help expand the company's Azure cloud-computing business to remote areas, such as military bases and disaster areas. The scheme would compete with the plans of Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos, who wants to link AWS cloud-computing services using a forthcoming Kuiper satellite-internet constellation.
But Starlink is not without major challenges or controversy
An astronomer in the Netherlands captured the Starlink train zooming across the sky shortly after its launch.
While thousands of Starlink satellites orbiting Earth might seem like a great way to beam internet to anyone who wants it, analysts at the research firm Cowen suggest there are hard limitations ahead.
Cowen analysts said in a September 23 industry update, which focused on Starlink, that SpaceX's full 12,000-satellite network could support less than half a million users simultaneously using all of a 100 megabit-per-second connection speed.
That's not realistic, Cowen said, since all connections are never always in use. Yet even accounting for the industry-standard practice of "oversubscribing" an internet network's full capabilities, SpaceX may see a maximum of 1.5 million users in the US, LightReading reported — and that assumes people will consume bandwidth at current levels (which they won't, given the rising use of increasingly high-definition streaming video).
SpaceX might alleviate the problem by adding 30,000 additional satellites and upgrading its spacecraft every five years or so, as Musk said the company would do. But there is a limit to the wireless signals Starlink use.
"There's only so much data you can push through the license before you run out of the capacity to move information," Ernesto Falcon, a senior legislative counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who focuses on broadband access and competition policies, told Business Insider in September. "You can't rewrite rewrite the laws of physics."
There's also the issue of crowding in orbit by "megaconstellations" like Starlink, Kuiper, OneWeb, and others. Peter Beck, the CEO of the rocket-launch startup Rocket Lab, said it's increasingly difficult to find a clear path to orbit with the deployment of Starlink.
"This has a massive impact on the launch side," he told CNN Business earlier this month. "[Rockets] have to try and weave their way up in between these [satellite] constellations."
A heated debate has also emerged about whether or not huge fleets of satellites will trigger a crisis in orbit that could last centuries: the creation of orbital debris that can occur when satellites crash into each other or pieces of existing debris.
Starlink spacecraft can maneuver in space with a krypton-ion drive, so long as that engine and communication systems to control it work. But around 3% of the 835 Starlink satellites already launched to orbit have failed or stopped maneuvering, according to astronomer Jonathan McDowell.
While not out of line for the industry, and not a big problem now, he told Business Insider's Morgan McFall-Johnsen that it could become one with the deployment of thousands of spacecraft.
"I would say their failure rate is not egregious," McDowell said. "It's not worse than anybody else's failure rates. The concern is that even a normal failure rate in such a huge constellation is going to end up with a lot of bad space junk."
This story has been updated with new information. It was originally published on October 22, 2020.
Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-Virginia) speaks at a press conference on Capitol Hill.
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
US Rep. Denver Riggleman of Virginia on Sunday lamented the state of American politics on NBC's "Meet the Press," questioning the effectiveness of the current two-party system.
"I believe duopoly is really, the two-party system is really failing the American people right now," Riggleman said.
Riggleman, a Republican, has been highly critical of the QAnon movement and was a leader in passing a House resolution that condemned the movement.
GOP Representative Denver Riggleman of Virginia on Sunday lamented the state of American politics, questioning the effectiveness of the current two-party system.
On NBC's "Meet the Press," host Chuck Todd asked Riggleman if he was still a Republican. Riggleman said that it was "difficult" to be a part of any political party at the moment.
"I'm a Republican, what I thought a constitutional Republican was, but the way the GOP is going in Virginia, it's very difficult for me to stay with any party," he said. "I believe duopoly is really, the two-party system is really failing the American people right now."
In September, Riggleman introduced a bipartisan resolution with Rep. Tom Malinowski, a New Jersey Democrat, condemning the QAnon movement, which promotes an array of unfounded internet-based conspiracy theories.
The movement has gained a foothold among a growing number of Republican voters over the past few years, which Riggleman said Sunday he finds deeply concerning.
"QAnon and the conspiracy theories it promotes are a danger and a threat that has no place in our country's politics," Riggleman said at the time. "I condemn this movement and urge all Americans to join me in taking this step to exclude them and other extreme conspiracy theories from the national discourse."
The House overwhelmingly condemned QAnon by a 371-18 vote, with 17 Republicans and one Independent voting against the measure, according to the Washington Post.
Riggleman said on "Meet the Press" the measure was just a small part of addressing the conspiracy movement's presence among voters.
"If we're looking at the spread of misinformation as part of something just to pander to a certain subset of voters, I think we've lost our way, and that's the thing that I've been talking about," he said. "A lot of what President Trump has done in this district has been wonderful. But when we start to actually represent as a party...this antisemitic conspiracy theory that believes that there's some kind of pedophilia cabal on the Democratic side of the House, I think we're in for a rough ride."
"Like I said before, these are people that believe 'Lord of the Rings' is a documentary," he added. "And the fact that we're trying to appeal to them is just ridiculous to me."
Riggleman, a first-term lawmaker, was defeated in his renomination bid after an outcry arose among social conservatives after he officiated the wedding of two male campaign staffers in Albemarle County, outside of Charlottesville. Bob Good, who for years was affiliated with Liberty University's Athletic Department, won the nomination in an outdoor drive-through convention this past summer.
Over the past decade, Virginia has shifted from a Republican-leaning swing state to a Democratic-leaning state. Republicans have not won a statewide election in Virginia since 2009 and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is expected to cruise to an easy victory over Trump in the state in November.
Samsung would like you to believe its new 85-inch Interactive Display can bridge the gap between students in the classroom and students studying at home, now that blended-learning is the new normal across the country. In reality, it’s just a slightly bigger digital whiteboard — but assuming it doesn’t cost too much, the tweaked vision does sound intriguing.
Now that COVID-19 has swept the country, some students are huddling around tiny Chromebook screens at home while others stay in class, and Samsung’s internet-connected digital whiteboard promises to let students and teachers collaborate with each other, whether they’re in that classroom drawing on the board or adding to it in real-time from their laptop at home. The goal here isn’t to...
According to test maker P23, the tests are 98% sensitive and 99% specific. (Sensitivity is the probability that the test will produce a true positive response, while specificity is the probability that the test will produce a true negative.)
To take the test, users collect a sample of their saliva by spitting into a tube. These tubes of saliva are sent to a testing center in a return-shipping box, which is included as part of the kit. According to Costco, the tests' results are then available online or via app within 24 to 48 hours.
The test's official name is the P23 Labs TaqPath SARS-CoV-2 Assay. Costco's version of the test is administered by the digital-health group Azova.
"P23's test uses parts from Thermo Fisher Scientific and works with collection kits made by testing companies Everlywell and OraSure Technologies, according to the FDA and a P23 spokesperson," Business Insider's Blake Dodge reported. "Samples are tested in its lab in Little Rock, Arkansas."
Dodge reported that just a handful of the hundreds of tests for the novel coronavirus have received emergency authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration to be shipped to people's houses. The P23 test, sold at Costco, is one of the few to make the cut.
Companies have been battling to develop inexpensive and speedy tests that people can administer at home. Experts say that frequent testing can help identify asymptomatic people before they expose others to the coronavirus.
When autumn falls on the Laptev Sea, which borders the northwest coast of Siberia, sea ice typically starts to form in vast quantities that flow into the Arctic Ocean over the winter.
But this year, for the first time on record, the Laptev Sea’s seasonal ice pack has not started to freeze by late October, reports The Guardian. The delayed production of sea ice in such a critical region is yet another dire omen of the climate crisis, and its disproportionate disruption of the Arctic.
“It is quite unusual how slowly the ice is forming this winter in the Eurasian sector,” said Julienne Stroeve, a senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado, in an email. “Looking at the sea surface temperatures we can see that ocean temperatures are still several degrees above freezing and also that means the near surface air temperatures are also elevated.”
Normally, the Laptev Sea acts as an “ice factory,” Stroeve added, due to offshore winds that spur sea ice formation. This sea is also the “the main feeding area” for the Transpolar Drift (TP) System, according to Thomas Krumpen, a sea ice physicist and climate scientist at Alfred Wegener Institute.
“The TP drift is one of the two major systems in the Arctic moving ice around,” Krumpen said in an email. Ice minted in the Laptev Sea flows across the Arctic Ocean before breaking up in the Fram Strait, east of Greenland, which enriches the region and stimulates biodiversity.
But the rise in global temperatures, which is driven by human activity, has caused a decline in Arctic sea ice, including within this important feeder.
The long-term trend of ice loss kicks off feedback loops that could ultimately accelerate the dangerous environmental changes occurring in the Arctic.
The delayed Laptev Sea ice is just the latest of several climate anomalies in the Arctic this year. The region logged its hottest temperature ever, topping 100°F in the Siberian town of Verkhoyansk in June. Unprecedented heat-waves exacerbated a devastating wildfire season that released a record-breaking amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Last spring, the sea ice retreated earlier than usual, exposing Arctic Ocean waters to a prolonged dose of sunlight that is also “leading to warmer ocean temperatures and a delay in winter ice formation,” Stroeve said.
“It does show that while summer ice loss is remarkable, the departures from average conditions are starting to be larger in autumn (and sometimes also spring), so the spring/fall are also starting to become more anomalous,” she added.
Scientists think we will witness the first ice-free summer in the Arctic—an event that has not happened for tens of thousands of years—within the next few decades.
“The rapid retreat and low ice extent in the Laptev Sea this summer is truly exceptional and wasn't really predicted by models,” Krumpen said. “It basically tells us that the interaction between ice, ocean, and atmosphere is very complex and not fully understood.”
“In order to better understand the impact of climate change on the Arctic Ocean, we need more and better observations to feed the models with,” he concluded.
Update: This article has been updated with comments from Thomas Krumpen.
The CalWood Fire is now the largest wildfire in the history of Boulder County in Colorado. The largest wildfire in state history, the Cameron Peak Fire, is also continuing to gain ground. | Matthew Jonas/Boulder Daily Camera/Getty Images
Three of the four largest fires in Colorado history have ignited since July.
Snowfall over the weekend gave firefighters in Colorado some some desperately needed relief as they worked to contain the two largest blazes in state history burning just ten miles apart. The cold snowy weather helped limit the growth of the infernos, but it also prevented fire crews from making progress in containing them.
It’s followed closely by the East Troublesome Fire to its southwest, which has now burned more than 192,000 acres and was 10 percent contained as of Monday. The blaze stunned forecasters last week when, over a period of 24 hours, it grew six times in size to more than 125,000 acres. The fire is burning at an elevation of 9,000 feet and across both sides of the continental divide. forced Rocky Mountain National Park to close. It’s now the second-largest fire in Colorado history.
The previous record-holder before Cameron Peak was the 137,000-acre Pine Gulch Fire near Grand Junction, Colorado. That fire also ignited this year and was declared 100 percent contained in September. It only held on to its record as Colorado’s largest wildfire for seven weeks. Three of the four largest wildfires in state history have ignited just since July.
Smaller blazes this year have set records too. The CalWood Fire became the largest wildfire in the history of Boulder County after igniting earlier this month. The fire burned 10,000 acres and was 76 percent contained by Monday.
Beyond the threat from the flames, these various wildfires have sent dangerous, smoky air into cities like Denver and Fort Collins, triggering air quality alerts off and on for months. The smoke from Colorado’s wildfires has even reached Europe.
Together, the recent blazes in Colorado add up to an unusually long, late, and severe wildfire season, and it’s not likely to let up anytime soon. “The current fire season, it’s definitely a crazy one,” said Chad Hoffman, an associate professor of fire science at Colorado State University. “We still have dry, windy conditions pushing these fires.”
Some unique weather conditions this year set the stage for Colorado’s blazes, but the threat from wildfires is growing across the state due to human development and climate change.
What’s fueling Colorado’s fires this year
It’s an increasingly familiar story. Like the epic wildfires this year across California, Oregon, and Washington, the wildfires in Colorado arose amid a year of extreme heat and dryness.
Heat waves baked the state this summer and persisted into the fall. The high temperatures increased the evaporation of moisture from vegetation, leaving plants dry and ready to burn. There was also less rainfall. Over the past month, precipitation was less than 10 percent of what is typical.
“By the end of September, nearly 100% of the state was experiencing some level of drought, up from 51% since the beginning of the calendar year,” according to the Colorado Climate Center’s Monthly State of the Climate report. The state is on track to have its second-driest year on record.
That aridity has left almost every type of vegetation in the state primed to burn, as was evident in the Cameron Peak Fire. “It burned all the way from fir forest, ponderosa pine, mixed conifer. It’s burned through some grasslands and shrublands as well,” Hoffman said. “It’s burned through areas that have previously burned, like during the Bobcat Fire. It’s burned through bark-beetle-affected areas. So a really big mix of fuels that this fire has burned through over the last 60 days.”
This afternoon's view of widespread wildfire activity in the Colorado Rockies.
It’s also uncommon to see fires this late in the year in Colorado. Typically, winter precipitation starts to set in and cap fire seasons in the autumn.
This fits within the trend of fire seasons in Colorado getting longer. Wildfires are a natural part of the landscape in the state, as they are in places farther west. Many woodlands have evolved to deal with and benefit from periodic fires.
However, humans have been making fire risks worse. That’s in part due to climate change, which is changing weather patterns and driving some of the aridity in Colorado’s forests.
“Our 2020 wildfire season is showing us that climate change is here and now in Colorado,” said Jennifer Balch, director of the Earth Lab and an associate professor of geography at the University of Colorado Boulder, in an email. “Warming is setting the stage for a lot of burning across an extended fire season.”
In particular, there has been a growth in late-season fires in Colorado. The area burned by October fires over the past decade has tripled compared to the area burned between 1980 and 2000. “We do see fall fire events in Colorado, related to fast, downslope winds. But to see multiple events start this late, in the middle of October, is very rare,” Balch said.
It’s also a function of more people living in high-risk areas. “The growing population in Colorado means we have more people in the woods, which leads potentially to more ignitions,” Hoffman said. The vast majority of wildfires in the United States have human causes, though in Colorado about half of fires in the state are ignited by lightning strikes.
The growing fire risk is also a consequence of more than a century of suppression of natural wildfires. By putting out blazes, vegetation in the state has accumulated, so during periods of extreme dryness, there is much more fuel to burn than there would be had more fires been allowed to proceed.
There are now efforts to reintroduce fire to the landscape, but vast swaths of the state need fuel reduction treatments, and the window for safely conducting measures like prescribed burns is shrinking as the climate warms.
This video gives a quick look into the types of wind conditions us and other firefighters on Cameron Peak experienced and have been experiencing over the duration of the #cameronpeakfire#cofirepic.twitter.com/8WDfE1reTc
“We love our beautiful mountain landscapes to live and to recreate,” Balch said. “But these beautiful landscapes are also flammable, and more flammable with climate change. We need proactive solutions that manage our fuels in places where it matters most for ecosystems and people.”
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Experts and an infectious disease doctor gave us guidance and tips for mitigating risks during hotel stays.
Table of Contents: Masthead Sticky
For some travelers, there's nothing more desirable than the hotel experience, awash in luxury and service. But amidst the continuing pandemic, many are wondering how much risk they'd face if they booked a stay. Many hotel selling points, such as round-the-clock staff, are now potential liabilities.
By definition, hotels are gathering spaces, often crowded with both staff and other guests. They are places where many objects - from remote controls to furnishings - are shared and reused by visitor after visitor, sometimes with mere hours in between. If these facts never raised red flags for travelers in the past, they certainly do now at a time when social distancing and sanitizing are top of mind.
To help break down whether hotels are safe to stay in right now, we reached out to several experts - including an infectious disease doctor, a cleaning company owner with a new coronavirus division, and representatives for the Four Seasons and Marriott Bonvoy hotel brands.
Here's what they said about how to know whether the property's common spaces and rooms are clean and safe, how to take extra precautions when you get there, under what conditions you could risk exposure if you do choose to book, and if they themselves would take on the risk.
And, if a hotel stay isn't quite right for you just yet, consider booking a vacation rental where you won't have to worry about interacting with other guests or staff.
Finally, it's important to remember that this is an evolving situation. As vaccines ramp up, it's crucial to continue to follow guidelines and advice set forth by organizations such as the CDC and WHO, and practice safety measures no matter where you go, including wearing a mask, washing your hands, and maintaining social distancing.
Is it safe to stay in a hotel right now? What are the risks?
The novel coronavirus is known to spread primarily from direct contact with people. That makes hotels potentially suspect by their nature as places where people gather. These people are typically unknown to each other and from unknown backgrounds.
"The first thing that potentially opens up risk is running into other people that you have no idea what their infectious status is. We know now that there's a lot of people who get the coronavirus who have no symptoms at all, who could potentially transmit it," explains Dr. Thomas Russo, chief of the division of infectious disease at the University at Buffalo, referring to the virus' now well-known ability to spread among asymptomatic people.
He adds, "And we also know that people could potentially transmit the virus perhaps as many as six days prior to developing symptoms. So just because people are feeling well and circulating in society doesn't mean that they couldn't potentially be infectious. Therefore you have to assume that anyone you encounter that you don't know could be potentially infectious."
He points to potential problem areas such as hotel check-in desks, where people might gather. "When you are waiting in a line to check-in, you might interact with people taking your bags. I would wear a mask because during the check-in process, going in the elevator up to your room, or even the stairwell, it's possible that you might run into someone. The mask would afford a layer of protection."
In general, Dr. Russo recommends masks in addition to social distancing in environments such as hotels. "I'm a big fan of mask use because this magical six-foot zone is based on probability. The closer you are to someone, and the longer you're close to someone that's infectious, the more likely you are to get infected. But just because you may be seven or eight feet away doesn't mean you're absolutely risk-free. It just means the risk decreases."
And if you imagine that you are sparing yourself risk exposure by traveling to a remote or rural hotel rather than a big city one, make sure to do your homework to confirm your suspicion, which may, or may not, be accurate. What really matters is "what the prevalence of infection is at that venue at that time. If you're in a small town with a bunch of meatpackers who are all infected - not so good."
What precautions should I take in hotels?
Dr. Russo explains that the virus is known to settle out of the air quickly, about one to three hours under experimental conditions, and perhaps much less in real-world scenarios. That means air quality is not likely to be a concern in a hotel if no other people are present in an environment, such as your room upon check-in.
That said, take note of areas of potential concern and do a disinfecting pass. These high-touch areas might include phones, TV remotes, door handles, bathroom faucets, toilet handles, and flat surfaces. "The flat bedside tables," Dr. Russo points out, "If someone was sick in the room and coughing, [those are among] flat surfaces it could settle onto."
John Marroni, owner and president of National Restoration, a disaster recovery company with a new dedicated coronavirus arm suggests seeking signs that your hotel's cleaning standards are up to par. "We work with a lot of hotels, and they should each have some kind of certificate that indicates the place has been disinfected, which is what we make sure to provide after we service them," he says.
He adds, "You can always tell if a hotel has been properly cleaned and disinfected by checking the bathrooms and seeing if the room is free of dust. You can also check the heating vents to make sure they are clean and free of dust and dirt. Those are the key areas to check first, which will be a major indicator of whether the hotel is clean and safe."
Marroni also suggests scanning for clues in the form of sanitizer dispensers. "Typically, with the modern cleaning policies now being put into place, the first thing you should see is a hand sanitizer dispenser right at the entrance to the building. That's what the CDC is on the verge of mandating with all the reopening policies the states will be issuing."
As far as hotel common areas are concerned, Dr. Russo again underscores the highest risk is directly between people.
So in a hotel pool for instance, "other bodies is the main concern," Dr. Russo says. "If there are other people around, that's going to increase your risk. And when we swim, sometimes we aspirate a little water so we're going to cough. [The bigger concern is] the people and proximity in that scenario than [being] worried about the water getting contaminated, because it is a respiratory virus more than a fecal-oral virus in terms of spread."
Beyond that, he says, "Remember pools, theoretically, are chlorinated, and this is a wimpy virus. So that should be able to deactivate the virus."
When it comes to dining in a hotel, your best bet at this time is going to be room service, or ordering some kind of delivery from an outside establishment. "Once you get into the restaurant situation, then your risk is going to increase," Dr. Russo says. "I'm not really worried about menus or tablecloths. Those can be laundered and disinfected. But when the food shows up, you're going to have to take your mask off."
What are hotels doing to mitigate risk?
As you would expect, most major hotel chains have announced wide-reaching new cleaning policies made in combination with health experts. In addition to cleanliness, these policies focus on social-distancing opportunities and contact-free transactions.
For instance, Marriott Bonvoy hotels rolled out the Marriott Global Cleanliness Council in April 2020. Among its areas of focus are those high-touch surface areas, which now must be treated with hospital-grade disinfectants with greater frequency. Marriott is also offering disinfecting wipes in each room for guests' use.
Marriott aims to reduce person-to-person contact in various ways such as using signage in lobbies to remind guests of social distancing protocols, and removing or re-arranging furniture to allow more space to do so. The company has installed hand-sanitizing stations throughout properties, and now, in more than 3,200 of Marriott's hotels, guests can opt to use their phones to check-in, access their rooms, make requests, and order room service to be delivered without contact.
"We want our guests to understand what we are doing today and planning for in the near future in the areas of cleanliness, hygiene, and social distancing so that when they walk through the doors of one of our hotels, they know our commitment to their health and safety is our priority," Marriott International president and CEO Arne Sorenson said in a statement.
For its part, Four Seasons has worked with experts at Johns Hopkins Medicine International on its new Lead With Care program for cleanliness and safety. Included in the program is the promise that restaurants and bars may operate with reduced capacity to allow for social distancing.
"In this environment, the notion of care has a whole new dimension, and travel must be grounded in trust. This enhanced health and safety program builds upon our already stringent procedures, equipping hotel teams with access to leading international specialists and real-time COVID-19 information," explained Christian Clerc, president of global operations. "By collaborating with Johns Hopkins, our employees and guests can trust that we are going above and beyond, making informed, expert-guided decisions when it comes to the implementation of health and safety measures at our properties around the world."
Like Marriott, Four Seasons also leverages technology for safety, by way of its Four Seasons app, "a powerful, intuitive platform that helps limit face-to-face interaction, but that does not lose Four Seasons signature service experience," says Clerc.
What should I ask the hotel about the cleaning history of my room?
While gloves are the subject of much discussion, Dr. Russo says that he would not necessarily need to know that the housekeeping team wore them to clean the room, only that they'd disinfected their hands.
"I think a better question might be, 'Does housekeeping routinely disinfect hands before they make the beds?' Hand disinfection is probably better than gloves because once the gloves become contaminated, it's hard to clean them until you get rid of them, unless you keep using glove after glove. Hands are disinfected more readily. I prefer the concept of doing more hand disinfection, but [asking your hotel] some kind of question along those lines would be a good one."
Marroni also suggests asking your hotel what cleaning products they are using. They should be using an approved EPA-registered disinfectant in their rooms and should be able to tell you that," he says. "Ask the front desk for their cleaning protocol. Otherwise, you are putting yourself at risk by staying there."
Let's consider the worst-case scenario, in which an infected person stayed in your room before you arrive, but the housekeeping crew did indeed clean and sanitize everything according to guidelines. If you enter the room within three hours of that guest's departure, would you escape risk?
"The answer is probably yes," Dr. Russo says. But, "that's not an ideal scenario." You'd be better off specifically requesting a room no one has stayed in for a day or two.
Would an infectious disease doctor stay in a hotel?
When asked whether or not he'd be willing to stay in a hotel himself during the pandemic, Dr. Russo opened up a broader question of risk tolerance and its potential for reward.
"The answer is, I think so," he said, answering the question as to whether or not he'd stay in a hotel. "And I think that my equalizer is a mask."
But the conditions would have to reasonably merit a decision associated with accepting some risk.
"If you don't interact with anyone, you're not going to get infected. But we can't carry on with life [in quarantine] forever, right?" he says. "If you're going to put yourself in situations where you're going to increase your risk, you should choose wisely. What are those activities that are most necessary and most important to you?"
When it comes to travel and hotel stays, these decisions will be highly individual, he says. "If it's a trip that is important and necessary, I feel relatively safe using the proper protective measures like wearing a mask, distancing, disinfecting, and hand hygiene."
More reporting on whether it's safe to travel right now
Boxes of Coca-Cola are seen at a grocery store in Los Angeles
Lucy Nicholson/Reuters
Coca-Cola plans to scrap around 200 of its drinks brands, it announced on Thursday.
Since June, the company has said it will scrap drinks such as Tab, Zico, and Odwalla.
It would likely remove more brands from its "hydration" category, which includes brands like Dasani, Powerade, and Smart Water, CEO James Quincey said.
This would allow it to focus on stronger brands or those with growth potential, the company said.
Coca-Cola will discontinue around 200 drinks brands, halving its portfolio, it said in its earning call on Thursday.
The drinks giant didn't name the brands that it would scrap, but it would likely remove more brands from its "hydration" category, which includes brands like Dasani, Powerade, and Smart Water, CEO James Quincey said during an analyst call on Thursday.
Since June, the company has said it will scrap drinks such as Tab, Zico, and Odwalla.
Coca-Cola has decided to discontinue certain brands so it can make sure drinks "with the strongest potential to grow their consumer bases, increase frequency, and drive system margins," it said.
Despite ending some brands, the company will continue to explore new beverage categories, it said.
It launched its Topo Chico Hard Seltzer in Latin America in the third quarter through an agreement with Molson Coors Beverage Company, and will launch the product in the US in the first half of 2021, it said.
Coca-Cola's sales remain behind as fewer people dine out
Net revenues in the quarter to September declined 9% to $8.7 billion because of a drop in out-of-home drinking, as restaurants in some areas remained shut and fewer people dined out, Coca-Cola said.
Sales had improved on the previous quarter, the company said, but at a slower rate.
However, the company beat revenue expectations, with revenues around $300 million higher than analysts had predicted, according to a survey by Refinitiv.
Unit sales, which don't include currency fluctuations, fell by just 4%.
The company reported the biggest volume drop for tea and coffee, which fell 15%, primarily driven by lockdown restrictions on its Costa coffee shops, a third of which are based in the UK.
Water and sports drink volumes — the category Quincey warned could face further cuts — fell 11%. The company credited this to a decline in water brands.
Sales of juice, dairy, and plant-based drinks was down 6%, with strong performance by Simply and Fairlife in North America unable to prop up dropping sales in Asia Pacific and Latin America.
Coca-Cola posted its smallest volume decline in sparkling soft drinks, which includes Sprite and Fanta, at just 1%.
The company reported declining revenues in every location, including a 23% drop to $809 million in Latin America.
It posted a pre-tax profit for the quarter of $2.2 billion, 29% down on the same period last year.
The company said the ultimate impact of the pandemic on its near-term results is "unknown," and Quincey warned that "many challenges still lie ahead."
The OnePlus 8T, the latest device from the Chinese phone manufacturer, is now on sale in the US. You can grab it unlocked from OnePlus directly or third-party retailers like Amazon for $749. The T-Mobile version is available for the same price, but comes with an additional IP68 rating for dust and water resistance that the unlocked model doesn’t have.
Meanwhile, if you’re in Europe, the phone went on sale earlier this week on October 20th. While the US has just the one variant with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, Europe has two; one with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage for €599 / £549, and another with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage for €699 / £649.
Morning yoga and stretching with Teddy the pug in Allegria Garden at the Royal Palms Resort and Spa in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Michelle Gross
In an effort to incentivize business and leisure travelers alike, hotel brands like Hyatt have been rolling out 'workation' packages at deeply discounted rates.
Freelance writer Michelle Gross spent a week spent working at the 5-star Royal Palms Resort and Spa in Scottsdale, Arizona to see if the 'Work from Hyatt' amenities were worth the $254 per night price tag.
During the day, she and her partner did their jobs remotely from their patio or from a designated hotel banquet room stocked with office supplies, and took turns walking their dog around the property.
On weeknights, when the hotel was quiet, they'd sit and enjoy happy hour cocktails outside.
Before the pandemic happened, my trip from Jersey City to South Beach in early March was relatively run of the mill. I was traveling to meet my partner for his company's annual board meeting, a business-meets-leisure (bleisure) vacation spent working, lounging, and networking between the beach and bar.
Little did we know that those blissful pre-pandemic days we took for granted would be the dearth of "bleisure" travel.
Like many couples whose work-life balance has consisted of small daily arguments exacerbated by an even smaller apartment, we started to explore ways we could work and coexist beyond our four walls.
In an effort to incentivize travelers, hotel brands have gotten creative with their offerings in recent months.
From 'workation' programs and "school-cation' packages, traditional vacations as we know them have been rebranded to meet travelers' growing demand to work and relax all in one safe, sanitized, and socially distanced setting.
"There is a strong pent-up demand for travel," Asad Ahmed, SVP Commercial Services Americas at Hyatt told Business Insider via email. "We wanted to offer a package to give the millions of people who are indefinitely working and schooling remotely a welcomed change of scenery, with more work and school-life balance, more space, better weather, and a respite from chores."
In August, Hyatt launched 'Work From Hyatt' at 25 hotels across the US, Mexico, Canada, and The Caribbean. The package performed well, and has now expanded to more than 60 hotels. Hilton and Marriott have also introduced their own iterations of "Working in Paradise," and "Zoom to Zen — Work With Perks" programs at select properties across the US, Caribbean, and Mexico.
After seven months of working from home, we pulled the trigger on a seven day 'workation.'
We went to Hyatt's Royal Palms Resort and Spa in Scottsdale, Arizona, a Spanish-style hotel boasting 20,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor space in the shadow of Arizona's Camelback mountain. The minimum seven-night stay at $254 per night plus tax was higher than the average $139 plus tax offered at the other participating 'Work From Hyatt' hotels.
Editor's note: The writer paid a media rate for her seven-night stay at the property.
The 'Work From Hyatt' includes one daytime cabana at the hotel's pool.
Michelle Gross
Among the inclusions, which vary from hotel to hotel, was a daily $50 food and beverage credit, dedicated work space in one of the hotel's banquet rooms, waived resort fee, free dog walking, one daytime cabana at the hotel's pool, and an automatic upgrade to a one bedroom suite.
A week before check in, we received an email listing all of the inclusions along with a preference sheet for our stay.
Everything at Royal Palms was contactless including check in via Hyatt's Mobile Entry App.
The entrance to the Royal Palms Resort in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Michelle Gross
Once we arrived, everything from booking a reservation in the restaurant to room service was communicated via text message. There's one main restaurant on property called T. Cookes as well as a bar and pool café which utilize QR codes for ordering or can be ordered through the TV menu found in each guestroom.
As a part of the WFH package, our room was upgraded to a mountain view spa suite on the ground floor. Many rooms on property feature private outdoor space, which I promptly designated as my morning office.
Morning coffee on the patio workspace off of our one bedroom suite.
Michelle Gross
True to its description, our mountain view room also fronted an oversized fountain which provided a nice ambient noise both day and night. The room also came equipped with a mini fridge, steam shower and bathtub, as well as a Keurig coffee machine with enough decaf and caffeinated coffee pods, cream, and coffee cups to last our week-long visit and then some.
Our one bedroom suite, an upgrade for the 'Work From Hyatt' package.
Michelle Gross
With 16 room types starting from the most basic guest rooms to suites, villas, and private casitas, the grounds are a labyrinth of walkways and tucked away alcoves and gardens.
Designated as a Historic Hotel of America, Royal Palms' Mediterranean meets Spanish-style architecture dates back to 1926, and was built as a private residence by New York industrialist (and JP Morgan's cousin) Delos Willard Cooke for his ailing wife.
"It was built for a wife by a loving husband and it's never lost its romantic touch," the hotel's unofficial historian and event and sales manager Brianna Vore told me on the historical property tour, another perk included in our stay.
One of the courtyard spaces at the resort.
Michelle Gross
One guest I spoke with booked a room using her military discount for $151 a night, and received an upgraded balcony view room for an additional $10. She said she's a World of Hyatt loyalty member, but had never heard of the hotel before this year. Part of Hyatt's exclusive Unbound Collection, Royal Palms does not look or feel like more traditional Hyatt's or bear any logos, but the Work From Hyatt package can be booked using World of Hyatt points that can go towards members elite tier status.
Our routines varied slightly day to day, and were a balance of work and enjoying the resort's amenities.
After discovering an enclosed garden space not far from our room, it became my go to spot for morning stretching and yoga. Sometimes I'd be accompanied by our two-year-old dog, Teddy, who also likes to stretch in the mornings.
Morning yoga and stretching with Teddy the pug in Allegria Garden at the Royal Palms Resort and Spa in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Michelle Gross
In addition to guests traveling with their pets, the hotel seemed to largely cater to couples looking for a romantic getaway.
While we were initially drawn here because of its relaxed resort-like setting and complimentary dog walking service, we ended up forgoing that offering altogether, and scheduled our work breaks around taking our dogs for walks around the winding property.
The resort offered a variety of spacious areas to relax, including this terrace and pool right outside our bedroom.
Michelle Gross
Every morning, while it was still cool enough, my partner and I would sit and have coffee on our room's private patio where I'd set up my morning work station. Breakfast is not included in the WFH package, so we stocked up on oatmeal, cereal, and fruit to keep in the room.
We used $20 of our $50 daily credit towards ordering a fresh pot of coffee and a copy of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, which were delivered to our door for contactless delivery each morning.
By the afternoon, when the heat would linger between 97-100 degrees, we would move to Palmera South, the banquet room that had been converted into our designated 'Work From Hyatt' office hours space.
Working from the office space Palmera at the Royal Palms.
Michelle Gross
The banquet room is set in the middle of the property and featured ample indoors and outdoors space which was good for getting some fresh air during the day.
The banquet room came outfitted with desks, chairs and offered extras like sticky notes, pens, paper, calculators, and scissors. My partner had brought his computer monitor from home, and posted up at a desk by the window.
Office hours set up in the Palmera South Banquet Room.
Michelle Gross
Our "office" also came equipped with a mini-fridge loaded with water and soda that was replenished each night, a nice surprise since it wasn't listed in our WFH inclusions email.
A complimentary water and soda mini fridge were provided in the work space and refilled each evening.
Michelle Gross
There was also a library and game room available for guests who wanted to work in a cozier, academic-inspired setting.
The game room and library at the resort.
Michelle Gross
While it wasn't required, my partner and I took multiple COVID-19 Rapid tests prior to and during our visit. The hotel never felt crowded, but operating in compliance with Hyatt's Safety First, Wellbeing Always including an enforced mask and social distancing policy in public areas, and a 50% limited the capacity in the restaurant, pool, and bar.
During the weeknights, when the hotel was quiet, we'd sit and enjoy happy hour cocktails at MixUp, the hotel's bar which offered plenty of outdoor seating.
Some of our favorites were their house specialty MixUp Mule made with home-brewed ginger beer, and the Orange Grove, a spicy tequila drink with orange, lemon, demerara, and bitters.
Happy hour MixUp mules made with homemade beer in the Mansion Courtyard.
Michelle Gross
On Saturday and Sunday, when traffic at the hotel picked up, there was live music and happy hour on the 'Mansion Patio,' which was a great place to sit and people watch in a safe and socially distanced way.
The 'Mansion Courtyard' where live music and nightly happy hour were part of our routine.
Michelle Gross
Lawn games like bocce, volleyball, and life-sized checkers were always available on a first come, first served basis, and was a fun way to decompress after the work day.
Well-kept lawns for bocce and other games were the perfect place for an end of day de-stress session.
Melissa Gross
We didn't partake in these services, but the hotel is also home to an award-winning spa called Alvadora, and a fitness center that was open but would only accommodate one guest or couple from the same household at a time. Both the spa and fitness center could be arranged by texting or calling the concierge.
In response to COVID-19, the hotel recently launched a complimentary Wellness on Demand service with workout classes ranging from Barre, Cardio, HIIT, and Yoga by Exhale and calming meditation sessions from Headspace.
Overall, Hyatt said they've seen a great response to their 'Work From Hyatt' package since its launch, particularly among travelers like us who are looking to change their day to day routine.
Among the most popular destinations attracting travelers according to Hyatt's SP Asad Ahmed are warm weather destinations including Florida, Southern California, and Cabo San Lucas.
"As the world begins to reopen, we are readying ourselves to help people do what they're longing to do," Ahmed said. "That is to get back on the road to explore new places, feel the excitement of reconnecting with those they miss, destress, reenergize, and once again experience the joy of travel, and do so safely."
The entire landscape of office work has shifted, but the physical work spaces themselves have yet to change much. | Malte Mueller/Getty Images
For those who have gone back to the office, not much has really changed.
So far, the office of the future looks a lot like the office you left seven months ago — though you probably haven’t seen it. Most of those who have been able to work at home during the pandemic haven’t gone back to the office and don’t want to go back until there’s a vaccine.
It’s not clear when, if ever, offices will return to their previous level of activity. As of mid-October, less than 15 percent of office workers have returned in New York City, the largest office market in the United States, according to Partnership for New York City. In big cities nationwide, office building occupancy rates are hovering around 25 percent on average as many of the country’s workers remain stuck in limbo. It’s not yet safe to return to full capacity, and it’s not clear if offices operating at partial capacity are a better solution than people working from home.
Real estate leasing has also slowed to a crawl as the office class has taken more permanently to working in their living rooms and bedrooms. Tech juggernauts like Facebook and Microsoft are offering employees the opportunity to work remotely forever. Meanwhile, even less digitally savvy companies are weighing the future of their real estate and the location of their workers.
The entire landscape of office work has shifted, but the physical workspaces themselves have yet to change much. The open floor plan still predominates the office landscape, and germ-killing robots are still mostly the stuff of science reporters’ dreams. Instead, to goad workers back into offices, employers have enacted a raft of minor precautions to make their offices safer — or to give the appearance of safety — but most have put off major, expensive alterations to their office space until there’s more certainty about a coronavirus vaccine, and, in turn, more certainty about the future of the office.
Those who have returned to their offices have only been able to do so because so many others haven’t. Most businesses are adopting a hybrid work model, which lets people work at home and in the office. And since the majority of people are choosing to work from home most of the time, that frees up space in the offices for those who want or need to come in to have adequate social distancing.
In a way, this hybrid model represents the situation overall. Offices and office workers are in a holding pattern, not ready to commit to working from home or the office. And the future of the office, if it’s going to be substantially different, has yet to be realized for many reasons that have nothing to do with the office itself. A whole spate of other issues — transportation, child care, trust in society and coworkers — is informing employees’ decisions not to go back just yet.
Of those who responded to our recent survey about returning to work in an office, about half said they feel safe there and think their employers have done a good job. But for the most part, employers aren’t forcing employees back, perhaps as a nod to the difficulty of those issues or as an acknowledgment that they can’t guarantee their safety.
Still, many employers want workers back in the office, and many employees want to be back. Both employers and employees, however, say the availability of a vaccine is a main consideration before returning to the office. A widely available vaccine may not be a reality until the middle of next year.
In the meantime, employers are doing what they can — without expending excess cash in a recession — to make the space feel safer for their workers.
If you’re one of the few returning to the office soon, here’s what you might expect.
Office space largely looks the same
Back in the early days of the coronavirus, when legions of office workers were sent to work from home for the first time, many were making ambitious predictions about the future of work. (I declared the end of the office as we know it.) They thought the future of the office would bring touchless entry, completely remodeled office spaces, state-of-the-art filtration systems, and, of course, those germ-killing robots.
The reality has been more mundane. So far, the changes to offices have largely been superficial and temporary.
“To reconfigure a space takes money,” Julie Whelan, head of occupier research for the Americas at CBRE, told Recode. “Not a lot of organizations are willing to deploy capital right now because of the uncertainty of what the future of office space is.”
Juliana Beauvais, research manager in IDC’s enterprise applications practice, put it another way.
“Do companies really need to spend money right now, when people don’t feel safe or comfortable coming back to the office anyway?”
“It’s still hard for companies to make the ROI argument for a lot of these more sophisticated technologies, especially if they involve hardware or equipment investments,” Beauvais said. “Do companies really need to spend money right now, when people don’t feel safe or comfortable coming back to the office anyway?”
In their existing spaces, many employers have mostly forgone major construction in exchange for simpler, less expensive, and more temporary fixes that capitalize on the fact that fewer people are coming in.
“These are table stakes to manage a building in the Covid environment,” according to Kevin Smith, executive managing director of asset services at Cushman & Wakefield.
Instead of building more walled-in private offices, for instance, desks have been taped off or chairs removed in order to ensure at least 6 feet of space between employees. Common areas are off-limits and bulk bins of office snacks have gone by the wayside.
Most offices don’t have sophisticated hospital-grade HVAC systems that can handle filtering viruses out of the air, though Smith says some of the wealthier landlords are looking into it. Rather than complete overhauls of air conditioning systems, building managers are opting to upgrade their filters and change them more regularly. Many have also placed smaller air filtration devices around the office.
Plexiglas dividers have popped up to create physical divisions between workspaces and colleagues, though it’s not clear how effective these shields actually are. Indeed, many post-coronavirus measures amount to little more than hygiene theater, an effort to make people feel safe rather than actually making them so.
Nonetheless, Plexiglas dividers and other types of lightweight barriers are seeing a spike in demand, according to office furniture company Steelcase, which has also seen a growth in demand for mobile office equipment like tables and carts with wheels. Such requests represent employees’ wanting to be able to construct the space around them and respond to the changing situation.
“All the things we thought in March and April changed in May and June and seem to be shifting again right now,” Steelcase’s VP of workplace innovation Gale Moutrey told Recode, referring to the ways in which our understanding of the virus and how it spreads have changed drastically since this spring.
Sorbetto/Getty Images
Getting into and moving around offices is more complicated
Many of the changes to offices have manifested less in the physical space than they have in how we behave in that space. Signage is everywhere, cautioning people to stay 6 feet apart, instructing them in which direction to walk, and reminding them to wear masks.
Mask-wearing, which is often required by law these days, is ubiquitous in many offices, but the degree to which individuals comply with the law varies from job to job. Other less visible changes to office space include cleaning, health checks, and scheduling protocols.
Offices are being cleaned much more frequently than they used to be. (This includes notifying people that the space has been cleaned.) Hand sanitizer — once an impossible-to-find item — is being placed everywhere.
While welcome, many of these changes probably won’t do much to stop the spread of the coronavirus, which scientists believe travels primarily through airborne particles, not so much on surfaces. Rather, they convey the idea that employers are thinking of their employees’ safety.
Health screenings are also common. Thanks to local government mandates, many offices have implemented employee questionnaires — Do you have symptoms? Were you exposed to someone with the coronavirus? Have you traveled recently? — and temperature checks to avoid letting obviously sick employees in the building. This, too, can be a bit of theater. The CDC has said such screenings have “limited effectiveness,” since people transmitting the diseases don’t necessarily have a fever or symptoms.
That hasn’t stopped a whole cottage industry from popping up around these sorts of checks, with badge-in company Kastle, airport biometric ID company Clear, and health care concierge Eden Health all pivoting to include coronavirus screenings in their offerings. Kastle only allows an employee ID card access to a building once their questionnaire has been completed. Clear uses kiosks equipped with biometric technology, allowing employees to complete their questionnaire and temperature screening on the same device that checks their identity. Eden Health offers not only health screenings on their app but also coronavirus testing on site or at home. Rent the Runway, for example, instituted coronavirus tests monthly for its employees. while a financial services client is getting weekly at-home tests.
Many employers use scheduling tools — or more simply public calendars — to limit how many people can be in the office at once and to book space within the office. Employees can see who else will be in the office and decide when or whether they’re going in based on that information. To a lesser extent, different groups or teams alternate coming into the office by the day of the week.
Real estate is also in a holding pattern
Like offices themselves, the office market at large is also a bit stuck. Companies have stopped expanding their real estate footprints, deferring non-essential leasing until there’s more certainty about the trajectory of the coronavirus pandemic. As a result, more office space is coming on the market than is being leased, and many are choosing to sublease space they already have, according to data from CBRE.
In some markets, this has led to rising vacancy rates and declining rents. However, it’s not yet clear whether these changes are stem from work-from-home policies or are simply reflective of being in a recession, which always results in a real estate contraction, according to Whelan from CBRE.
Those companies that are shopping for new space are also asking questions about safety parameters, HVAC systems, and cleaning protocols, according to Michael Colacino, president of office leasing platform SquareFoot.
“We haven’t had anybody reject a building because they didn’t like the answers,” Colacino said, “but there’s no question people are putting it in a metric of things to consider that they didn’t a year ago.”
Companies are also looking for more space per person than before, despite the added cost, he said. In the past, businesses had typically asked for around 250 square feet per person; now they want more like 300-400 square feet, according to Colacino, who attributes the increase to a need for more collaboration space and a desire to add social distancing.
“When you actually sit down and do the logistics of half-baked plans of rotating through offices, the easiest solution is to take a little more space,” Colacino said.
Nina Broadhurst, a principal and leader of the work studio at Cuningham Group Architecture, thinks when everything shakes out, offices will take up less space. Thanks to working from home and desk-sharing in the office, she’s operating on the assumption that offices will require about 70 percent of their existing footprints.
Jesussanz/Getty Images
What the future of work looks like
While the wide variety of solutions to improving the office space in a pandemic may seem slipshod, CBRE’s Whelan thinks of them as all part of a larger effort to build up “multiple lines of defense.” She added, “No one solution we know is going to be perfect.”
As for any big changes — either in the vein of what we thought about this spring or something entirely new — they aren’t off the table yet.
“Real estate is historically an industry that takes a long time to change,” Whelan said. “We can talk about all the great things that are coming, but it’s going to take time to really unfold and show itself in the physical portfolio.”
And those changes might not have much to do with the coronavirus at all; they could represent jumps forward in trends that were already underway.
“When people thought it was going to be tamer — when we thought we could go back in June and September with precautions — we saw more 6-foot gaps and one-way traffic and Plexiglas,” said Cuningham Group’s Broadhurst said. “The more they haven’t made that leap, the more they’re starting to look forward rather than make adjustments for a temporary situation.”
Broadhurst and others see the future of the office as a place of collaboration, where people come in to work together and to maintain an office culture. They see a future in which fewer people go into the office all of the time, while the vast majority still want office space they can go to some of the time. When they do, they want to be able to work with others. The coronavirus made working from home more widely acceptable, but it also made being together more important than ever.
In the office of the future, the decades-long push toward fitting as many people into the office as possible may finally reverse. But also expect more flexible seating as well as larger and more robust and more numerous conference and other group spaces.
Whelan estimates that offices of the future will have more common space than personal space. Traditional offices are approximately 80 percent cubicles and offices and 20 percent common space; she expects that ratio could flip.
It’s notable that some of these trends feel antithetical to coronavirus precautions. Instead, they could represent what offices will look like after a coronavirus vaccine. The pandemic could effectively be, as Broadhurst put it, “an opportunity to maybe reset how we go about working when we start again.”
“Some of these trends were already underway. Coronavirus has just accelerated them and made people start to really consider them,” Broadhurst said. “People always say, ‘don’t waste a good crisis.’”
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However, for $700, you can do better than the Google Pixel 5.
The Pixel 5 is lacking in performance in its $700 price category, as it has a middling processor compared to other phones in the $700 range. This phone also may not satisfy those who like smaller screens, nor will it satisfy those who like larger screens – it's on an unfortunate middle ground.
The Pixel 5 isn't a bad phone, as it has the best cameras of 2020 so far and good battery life, but you'd still be overpaying if you bought the Pixel 5 at $700. I'd suggest you look at the Samsung Galaxy S20 FE, or the OnePlus 8T instead.
Table of Contents: Masthead Sticky
The Pixel 5 marks Google's 5th attempt at making a smartphone in-house, and there's always something — one little compromise — when you compare them to other phones that come with similar price tags.
Usually, those compromises are design-related and non-consequential. They might have bigger bezels, or the design may simply not be very premium. But at least you got a phone that works well, gets the latest Android updates when they're released, and has the best cameras on any smartphone.
This time, with the Pixel 5, Google compromised where it shouldn't have and gave the phone mid-range chip. That in itself isn't the issue, as the chip is actually quite good, but not quite as good as the top-of-the-line chips in other phones with the same price. And that's where the real issue lies — Google is charging the same for the Pixel 5 as other $700 phones with a significantly more powerful chip.
For the Pixel 5, it simply turns out you can get better performance for the same money if you look elsewhere.
Google Pixel 5 specs
Display: 6.0-inch 1080p (1,920 x 1,080 pixels) 90Hz OLED
Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G
Memory and storage: 8GB RAM & 128GB storage
Rear camera: 12-megapixel standard wide, 12-megapixel ultra-wide, OIS
Selfie camera: 8-megapixel
Battery: 4,080Ah
Water resistance: IP68
5G: Yes
Design and display
The Pixel 5 is a step-up for Google compared to previous Pixel designs, mostly because there's no giant "forehead" bezel. Compared to other premium phones like the Galaxy S20 series, iPhone 12 series, and OnePlus 8 series, you're getting a solid utilitarian design with a coated metal back and decently narrow screen bezels — there's nothing too fancy here.
Even though it doesn't give off the same premium vibe that glass does, the metal back is actually a good thing, as it's more durable. Granted, phone makers use fragile glass to enable their devices' wireless charging features, and it's typically not a possible feature when a phone's back is made of metal. But, Google circumvented this obstacle by leaving a plastic portion in the metal back that allows for wireless charging. If you didn't read this, you'd never know about this plastic part on the Pixel 5's back, as it's not noticeable.
The 6-inch, 1080p resolution, 90Hz screen is decent yet unremarkable at this price point where we're seeing phones with smoother, faster 120Hz screens for similar price tags. I am happy to see a flat screen rather than curved screens you'll find on ultra-premium phones, like the Galaxy S20 and OnePlus 8 Pro.
Speaking as a phone user who likes larger screens, I wish there was a Pixel 5 model with, well, a larger screen. With that said, the Pixel 5's screen is manageable if you're used to larger screens, but it is a compromise when other large-screened options are available.
The Pixel 5 might not suit those who like smaller phones and smaller screens, either. It seems as if Google tried to please both camps, and potentially ended up with something that disappoints everyone on the size front. I say potentially because phone and screen size is subjective, and you might like the "medium" sized Pixel 5 if you've always thought that phones were either too small or too big.
Performance and battery life
The Pixel 5 runs on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G. Indeed, it's not the high-end Snapdragon 865 that you'll find in competing phones with competing prices, namely the Samsung Galaxy S20 FE and OnePlus 8T.
Performance on the Pixel 5 is fine, but it's unimpressive and we'd expect more from a $700 phone. Apps open almost as quickly as phones running on the Snapdragon 865, but there's noticeably more stuttery lag, especially when you're moving and swiping quickly. That's just not something I'd expect when paying $700. Google did give the Pixel 5 a memory (RAM) boost with 8GB of RAM, but it's not enough to boost performance when paired with a lesser chip than the Snapdragon 865.
Those looking to validate my assessment with numbers will see a Geekbench 5 benchmark score of around 575 for single-core performance, and about 1,575 for multi-core performance. Compare that to the Galaxy S20 FE's 870/2,995 Geekbench 5 score, and it's pretty clear that the Pixel 5 isn't carrying its weight in price.
The Pixel 5 battery life is quite long — it easily lasts me a full day that includes a bunch of video streaming, social media scrolling, email checking, phone calling, texting and message, maps directions, and general app usage like browsing the web or the news. The included 18W charger is decently fast for the Pixel 5's large 4,080mAh battery. I would have liked a faster charger, perhaps something in the 25W range, but that's a nitpick.
New to the Pixel line is reverse wireless charging that actually seems to work, unlike my experience with Samsung's phones. I used the Pixel 5 to wirelessly charge the Pixel Buds off its back, and it worked just fine.
Cameras
Camera quality is where Google excels, and the Pixel 5 delivers.
For the main camera, you'll find a realistic, clear, and rich reproduction of what you see with your own eyes, and it doesn't look like it's been artificially enhanced. It's a huge relief compared to Samsung's and OnePlus's phone cameras, where the company adds so many "enhancements" and over-eager HDR that photos often look overly boosted, sharpened, and processed. The Pixel 5 currently has the best camera in town, at least for Android phones.
Some may dislike the fact that the Pixel 5 doesn't have a zoomed lens. That's up to you if you've already decided that you like or want a zoomed lens. If you've never really cared or used zoomed lenses in the past, you won't care that there isn't one on the Pixel 5.
Some think that producing "realistic" photos that don't look processed look boring, but the Pixel 5 is very much capable of capturing bright, saturated colors when subjects actually do have bright and saturated colors. Below, these flowers in real life are as they look in the Pixel 5's photo.
Unseen in previous Pixels is an ultrawide camera, finally. It's essentially a wider version of the standard camera, and it's great — much better to have than the mediocre zoomed lens from the Pixel 4. Here's a photo taken with the standard lens (which coincidentally shows that the Pixel 5 handles the color white well, and it doesn't make it look too blue or too yellow, which other phone cameras struggle with).
There's little distortion, edges are still crisp, you get a better view, and a better idea of the surrounding area. It works for taking photos when you want to capture a wider setting, or when you want to capture more of an subject/object that's up close.
The Pixel 5 works with the "sub 6Ghz" networks from US carriers, which includes the low and mid bands. So far, the most prevalent 5G network is the low band, which hasn't impressed and doesn't seem to offer faster speeds than 4G LTE. Mid-band 5G networks are coming, but "when" is still a mystery.
The Pixel 5 in the US can also connect to the fast mmWave high-band 5G networks offered by most US carriers, including Verizon, AT&T, and soon T-Mobile and US Cellular. Note that mmWave 5G networks on any US carrier are extremely sparse at the time of writing, and most reserved to certain pockets of certain cities. You can see Google's complete chart of which 5G network the Pixel 5 connect to here.
Drawbacks
The Pixel 5's major drawbacks are in its performance relative to its price, which I've described above.
Fans of larger phones won't like the Pixel 5's relatively small 6-inch screen, nor will it please those who prefer smaller screens and smaller phones designs either. With that said, it's among the smallest options in the $700 range. If you want smaller, the $350 Pixel 4a is a great smartphone for the price that essentially comes with the same camera. You can read our Pixel 4a review here.
The Pixel 5 isn't a bad phone, but every bone in my body says that you should go for the Samsung Galaxy S20 FE, or perhaps the OnePlus 8T (still being reviewed at the time of writing) rather than the Google Pixel 5. The value just isn't there with the Pixel 5, not when the Galaxy S20 FE and OnePlus 8T are around and offer better performance for today's speed and tomorrow's longevity.
Still, the cameras on the Galaxy S20 FE and the OnePlus 8T don't compare to the Pixel 5's. Pixel fans and regular phone users who value its incredible camera will be happy with the Pixel 5 over any other phone — but they will have still overpaid.
Rose Kirk, senior vice president and chief corporate social responsibility officer for Verizon, said more companies are rethinking their purpose in society.
Verizon
Verizon is investing $44 million in an upskilling program to help Americans unemployed by the coronavirus pandemic, as well as Americans looking for better jobs.
People who are Black or Latinx (a gender-neutral alternative to Latino or Latina), unemployed, or without a four-year-degree will be given priority admissions.
The upskilling program is part of Citizen Verizon, Verizon's recently unveiled responsible business plan.
Rose Kirk, senior vice president and chief corporate social responsibility officer for Verizon, told Business Insider that the company has a duty to help the labor force.
Last week, Verizon announced it is investing $44 million in an upskilling program to help Americans unemployed by the coronavirus pandemic, and those looking for better jobs.
People who are Black or Latinx (a gender-neutral alternative to Latino or Latina), unemployed, or without a four-year-degree will be given priority admissions into the program that will train students to get jobs like junior cloud practitioner, junior web developer, IT help desk technician, and digital marketing analyst.
Rose Kirk, senior vice president and chief corporate social responsibility officer for Verizon, told Business Insider that the company has a duty to help the labor force.
"I think what's important about this program and this $44 million investment for us is that it really is all about understanding that we have an obligation to prepare individuals for future jobs," she said.
The upskilling program is part of Citizen Verizon, Verizon's new responsible business plan that includes a goal of preparing 500,000 people for jobs of the future by 2030.
The move to upskill half a million people comes as more corporate executives focus on stakeholder capitalism, the idea that companies exist to not only benefit their shareholders, but their workforces and society.
Amazon, PwC, IBM, and AT&T have launched major upskilling programs to retrain their workforces or attract new talent in recent years. And digital upskilling has increased during the pandemic as millions of Americans look for in-demand jobs, Reuters reported.
Business leaders, she said, have a responsibility to care for their workers and communities.
"We have to care about enabling individuals to compete for jobs, to be successful, to have economic opportunity as society continues to move us forward," she said.
On Wednesday, ride-hail driver and advocate groups from 6 major cities across the United States released a statement of solidarity reiterating their opposition to a California ballot initiative proposed by gig companies.
Proposition 22, as the initiative is known, is a ballot measure backed by app-based gig companies such as Uber, Lyft, and Instacart, and seeks to exempt the companies from reclassifying their drivers as employees.
“We stand in solidarity with mobile workers across the globe who are uniting to drive up standards in our industries and win our fair share from big app companies," the letter says. "In the United States, we condemn actions in California by the giant global companies who are waging a campaign to misclassify drivers as a way to avoid paying minimum wage, healthcare, paid sick leave, workers compensation coverage and other benefits."
Gig companies have spent the past decade protecting a business model that relies recruiting far too many workers and then misclassifying them. This allows gig companies to both minimize labor costs by denying workers benefits and protections, and keep wait times low by forcing most drivers to spend a significant amount of their time simply waiting for customers. These companies continue tweaking the independent contractor model to push as many costs as possible onto the driver and use venture capital subsidies to operate at unsustainable and unprofitable levels in pursuit of an eventual monopoly. Wanton disregard for regulatory law (“ask forgiveness not permission”) is also a key part of the strategy.
Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart, and Postmates have sunk nearly $200 million into their Yes on Prop 22 campaign, which has unleashed an unprecedented propaganda campaign in what is shaping up to be the most expensive ballot measure in U.S. history.
"All eyes are on California as we witness the lengths these companies will go in order to defeat an employment protection law passed by elected officials that were put in office by the people of California,” the letter reads. “It is not only an attack on workers but it is an attack on democracy."
Victory for the gig companies would mean the past decade of law-breaking, regulatory capture, lobbying, and malfeasance would now be codified into a law that would require a seven-eights majority of the California state legislature to overturn. After California, it’s likely that Uber and its coalition would turn their sights on other states flirting with their own versions of AB5, such as Massachusetts.
The stakes for gig companies are high. Faced with the prospect of Prop 22 failing, Uber and Lyft threatened to exit California in August if they did not successfully delay a legal ruling demanding the immediate reclassification of ride-hail drivers to employees. Uber and Lyft have also threatened to leave almost every single time a city has demanded the companies follow basic regulations about safety or licensing requirements.
Those threats to leave California come despite the fact that the state is responsible for 9 percent of Uber's global Rides and Eats gross bookings, along with 16 percent of Lyft's rides. As commentators have long pointed out, Uber's business model does not actually change the unit economics of ride-hailing—there is no taxi operator as large as Uber because it isn’t sustainable or profitable to be as large as Uber and offer what it does: taxi service with an app.
This has not deterred the ride-hailing giant from turning to threats. In an early October blog, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi admitted that employment carried a "high cost" for the company—nationwide, Khosrowshahi claims that the company could only employ a quarter of a million drivers full time.
Defeat of Proposition 22 is unlikely to result in the outright exit of the ride-hailing companies, but a restructuring to a new business model is likely. At one point, Uber and Lyft were floating the franchise model as a possible alternative. All of this, however, distracts from the fact that we are in this position largely because of these companies and their desire to realize outsized returns regardless of whether the industry they were entering made any economic sense.
The US and six of its allies issued a joint statement last week calling on tech companies to weaken encryption and make it easier for law enforcement to access people's private messages.
The UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, and Japan joined US Attorney General William Barr in calling on tech companies to build "back doors" for law enforcement to access encrypted messages.
Currently, messaging apps like iMessage and WhatsApp are end-to-end encrypted, meaning no one — including the companies that own the apps — can see people's messages unless they obtain and unlock the person's device.
Barr has for years been pressuring companies like Facebook and Apple to break end-to-end encryption, but the companies have declined.
The US and six of its allies are calling on big tech companies to weaken encryption in order to make it easier for law enforcement to break into messaging apps like iMessage or WhatsApp.
Officials from the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and India joined US Attorney General William Barr to issue an international statement last week criticizing tech companies that currently offer end-to-end encryption.
Barr has been pressuring tech companies to weaken encryption for years, arguing that end-to-end encryption makes it harder for law enforcement to track down criminals. The Department of Justice has called out Facebook and Apple for providing end-to-end encryption, but both companies have so far refused to weaken their security protocols.
Services like WhatsApp, iMessage, Signal, and Zoom use end-to-end encryption, which means all messages are automatically encrypted and can only be decrypted by the unique "key" found on the devices of the sender and recipient. That means nobody — including law enforcement or even the companies that own the apps — can access the messages without obtaining a users' device and logging in.
The seven governments want tech companies to find a way to build "back doors" into messaging apps that would let police easily access the messages of suspects in criminal investigations. They also argue that encryption makes it impossible for tech companies to enforce their own terms of service and prevent illegal activity on their apps.
"Law enforcement has a responsibility to protect citizens by investigating and prosecuting crime and safeguarding the vulnerable," the countries wrote in the statement. "End-to-end encryption that precludes lawful access to the content of communications in any circumstances directly impacts these responsibilities, creating severe risks to public safety."
Last year, all of the same countries except Japan and India issued a similar statement calling on tech companies to create backdoors. Tech companies have consistently objected, arguing that there's no way to build such backdoors without eliminating end-to-end encryption altogether.
Security experts have echoed that sentiment. Chris Howell, CTO of encrypted messaging app Wickr, said the governments' calls would effectively imperil people's privacy and make apps more vulnerable to cybercriminals in an interview with Business Insider earlier this year.
"There is no security mechanism that can discriminate between a hacker trying to crack it and a law enforcement officer trying to do the same thing," Howell said. "Either we secure it or we don't, it's that simple."
The Verge used to have a fine tradition of cataloging all of the times when Eric Schmidt stuck his foot in his mouth, and today’s feels like a worthy addition: the former Google CEO and executive chairman has decided that social networks are “amplifiers for idiots.”
The fuller quote, according to Bloomberg: “The context of social networks serving as amplifiers for idiots and crazy people is not what we intended.”
Without knowing who “we” refers to, you might think he’s talking about how the entire tech industry has failed to keep sites like Facebook and Twitter from creating echo chambers and polarizing politics around the world (though some argue we can’t blame social networks alone).
He’s certainly a member of the tech elite, one who...
by ijibilian@businessinsider.com (Isabella Jibilian)
A train conductor looks out from a train on the subway in the Brooklyn borough on June 22, 2020 in New York City.
Stephanie Keith/Getty Images
A new survey from NYU found that 24% of New York's bus and subway workers have contracted COVID-19, a figure higher than previously estimated.
The survey also found that workers dealt with widespread fears about their own safety, especially when it came to enforcing mask-wearing on buses and trains.
About 131 New York transit workers have died of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.
The MTA pushed back on the survey's findings in a statement to Business Insider, saying that the 645 workers who responded are "a fraction of the NYC Transit workforce, and captured only those who were most motivated to participate."
Nearly a quarter of New York's bus and subway workers say they have been infected with COVID-19, a new survey by NYU published Tuesday found. That figure, which is based on self-reports, is higher than a previous estimate conducted in May, which found that about 14% of New York's downstate transit workers tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies.
In addition, more than 70% of transit workers said they were fearful for their safety at work. Beside concerns about their own health, workers said that they were worried that riders would attack them if they tried to enforce mask-wearing, or if they didn't enforce mask-wearing on other riders.
The survey illuminates the heavy toll that COVID-19 has taken on the employees that keep New York's trains and buses running.
"The transit workers have suffered the most casualties," said Roberto Martinez, a bus operator, in a previous Business Insider report. "Why? Because we are in contact with more people on a daily basis."
Early in the pandemic, MTA workers said that there weren't adequate safety protocols on trains and buses, Business Insider previously reported. Concerned about their own health, employees brought their own masks to work and cordoned off areas to try and distance themselves from passengers. Management told workers they could be disciplined for their efforts and when supplies did come, they often were insufficient, workers told Business Insider.
There have been "significantly more" personal protective equipment, safety supplies, and sanitary protocols compared to early March, transit workers said, according to the survey. Still, the stress of COVID-19 exposure has negatively affected the mental health of employees. Over half of respondents said they felt "nervous, anxious, on-edge, and cannot control worrying," and 15% said they felt "isolated, down, depressed or hopeless."
Since the outbreak, about 131 MTA workers have died of COVID-19 and New York MTA has begun paying a $500,000 "COVID Death Benefit" to their families. 91% of workers surveyed said they knew a coworker who had been infected, and 76% said they personally knew a coworker who died of COVID-19.
The MTA pushed back on the study in a statement to Business Insider, saying that the 645 workers who responded to the study are "a fraction of the NYC Transit workforce, and captured only those who were most motivated to participate." An MTA spokesperson also said that the overall COVID infection rate for MTA workers is about 7%, and that NYU's poll numbers were inflated because they were based on self-reports, rather than antibody tests.
"We hope any future 'study' is based on science, data and facts as the MTA's highest priority remains the safety of our workforce," said MTA's chief communications officer, Abbey Collins.
On Tuesday, the Justice Department and 11 state attorney generals filed an antitrust lawsuit accusing Google of preserving its monopolies in search and search advertising with anticompetitive behavior. The suit, filed in a Washington, D.C., federal court, is the most significant antitrust action targeting a tech company in decades.
The case alleges that Google, an Alphabet subsidiary, has maintained its central role in search and advertising through anticompetitive contracts which allowed Google to establish itself as a gatekeeper to the digital world and its economy, giving it even greater latitude to deal with any potential competitors.
The lawsuit also focuses on how Google uses its Android OS to further preserve its search monopoly, preloading the search engine and preventing its deletion. At the same time, Google persuades other competitors from preloading their own search engines on phones. For example, Google used billions of dollars from its advertising empire to pay Apple to keep Google as its default search engine.
These business practices, and others, have allowed Google to control nearly 80 percent of all U.S. search queries and to dominate digital advertising—44 percent of the U.S.’s $54.7 billion market is Google's share. This means competitors are not only unable to grab a sufficient share of search to build scale, but neither can they meaningfully compete with Google's ability to leverage its position in one sector of its empire to shore up its dominance in another.
The lawsuit argues that this leaves consumers with less choice and innovation, and leaves advertisers with less competitive prices.
On a call with the press, DOJ officials called Google an “unchecked monopolist,” warning that its conduct was "illegal" and "must be stopped."
Since the investigation was launched last summer, a series of hearings have made clear regulators are seriously scrutinizing Google and other tech giants for antitrust concerns, among others. Deputy Attorney General Rosen also added that the DOJ was planning to "continue our review of competitive practices by [other] market leading online platforms."
Google has long argued that it is not in violation of antitrust law despite losing multiple fights in Europe, and despite enjoying a $120 billion cash reserve hoard and a $1 trillion valuation of its parent company, Alphabet.
One well-worn argument that Google is likely to lean on insists that the tech giant’s alleged monopolies actually face fierce competition—namely advertising. There are reasons to doubt this, however. The issue here is not the number of competitors, but the fact that Google dominates each part of the digital advertising ecosystem and Google forces advertisers to use its tools, limiting their options to buy ads on Youtube.
Another defense Google typically relies on is that it can’t possibly pose any harm to the consumer because it offers its services at near-zero cost. This is a familiar refrain from today’s tech monopolists (and their defenders), but as antitrust scholars have long established, most of these services provide loss-leading products precisely because it allows them to engage in the anticompetitive behavior necessary to quickly achieve a monopoly and to perpetually defend it.
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
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The CalWood Fire is now the largest wildfire in the history of Boulder County in Colorado. The largest wildfire in state history, the Cameron Peak Fire, is also continuing to gain ground. | Matthew Jonas/Boulder Daily Camera/Getty Images
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The entire landscape of office work has shifted, but the physical work spaces themselves have yet to change much. | Malte Mueller/Getty Images
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