Bond Capital, a Silicon Valley VC firm whose portfolio companies include Slack and Uber, told its investors this morning via email that the coronavirus’ high-speed spread and impact has similarities to the devastating San Francisco earthquake of 1906.
Why it matters: Bond’s best-known partner, Mary Meeker, is a former bank analyst renowned for her annual Internet Trends Report, which many investors and entrepreneurs use as a touchstone for where tech is now and where it’s going. Today’s 28-page report to Bond’s limited partners, obtained by Axios, shares some structural similarities.
Just finding space to park can be a problem, and idle planes require a surprising amount of work, from maintaining hydraulics to stopping birds from nesting.
The skies are eerily empty these days, presenting a new challenge for the world’s embattled airlines as they work to safeguard thousands of grounded planes parked wingtip to wingtip on runways and in storage facilities.
More than 16,000 passenger jets are grounded worldwide, according to industry researcher Cirium, as the coronavirus obliterates travel and puts unprecedented strain on airline finances. Finding the right space and conditions for 62% of the world’s planes and keeping them airworthy have suddenly become priorities for 2020.
Aircraft can’t simply be dusted back into action. They need plenty of work and attention while in storage, from maintenance of hydraulics and flight-control systems to protection against insects and wildlife — nesting birds can be a problem. Then there’s humidity, which can corrode parts and damage interiors. Even when parked on runways, planes are often loaded with fuel to keep them from rocking in the wind and to ensure tanks stay lubricated.
When you think about wearable tech, chances are that your mind goes to a device like the Apple Watch long before it does the Band-Aid-style smart patch developed by Epicore Biosystems. But the company, which spun out of Northwestern University’s Querrey Simpson Institute for Bioelectronics and professor John A. Rogers’ laboratory, has been hard at work creating sweat-sensing smart patches which could be used to help measure sweat components in athletes and a variety of other individuals — and could even have potential application for medical use in helping keep tabs on crucial biomarkers for patients suffering from COVID-19.
“We have [created] two versions of the wearable sensor patch in development suitable across different applications,” Roozbeh Ghaffari, Epicore’s CEO and co-founder, told Digital Trends. “One is a color-changing wearable microfluidics patch used by athletes. The other is a Bluetooth-enabled patch that tracks the sweat biomarkers of workers in construction, on oil rigs, and in factories, plus other physically intense occupations — for the ‘industrial athletes.’”
An unintended and unexpected consequence of the multitrillion dollar stimulus package is that workers are asking to be laid off or reluctant to go back to work after being furloughed.
In an effort to help people financially cope with their job losses in the midst of a pandemic, the federal government—through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES Act)—is providing an extra $600 per week in unemployment benefits. This amount is in addition to what the states already pay, which is in the range of $200 to $300 per week.
A person could conceivably earn $1,000 per week on unemployment, depending upon the state he or she resides in. In addition to the enhanced benefits, most Americans, earning less than $75,000 in 2019, received a one-time check for $1,200 and $500 for each child under 17 years of age.
Here’s the situation facing companies that have already been financially hurt by the consequences of the COVID-19 outbreak. Consider a worker in an Amazon warehouse. The worker has to be on their feet all day, lift heavy boxes onto and off of high shelves and race around the facility to fulfill orders. Earning a minimum wage of $15 per hour, the person may make pre-tax $525 per week. Think of how many millions of other people work at dangerous, physically demanding or unpleasant jobs earning a similar amount.
Tesla’s electric Cybertruck has more than 600,000 pre-orders and is scheduled to be released in late 2021, but in the meantime, a Canadian concept artist reimagined what Tesla’s camper attachment could look like.
The design renderings, which we first saw via Robb Report, take Tesla’s general camper design and run with it. Instead of imagining a more temporary camper with a pop-up topper or a tow trailer, the artist’s redesign depicts overhead space incorporated into the body of the vehicle. The renderings also showcase two different options for either a single or dual sleeper.
“So I’m liking something a bit larger, like this insert camper that you can add to the vault of the Cybertruck,” the artist wrote on Cybertruck Owners Club, a fan website. “These renders need work, but I want something in the vault so no need to tow and can travel almost anywhere all the time.
The Formula E electric-vehicle racing series was conceived in 2011. Nearly a decade later, EVs are well on the way to mass commercialization. Airspeeder, the first motorsports program for electric flying cars, this week announced raising a seven-figure sum to launch its series. Founders of the flying EV series believe it could accelerate progress toward mainstream sustainable, electric air mobility.
The company announced it had secured funding from two of Australia’s leading technology venture capital firms, Saltwater Capital and Jelix Ventures. Alauda, the tech company behind the series, is based in Adelaide, South Australia. Other investors include EQUALS, a financial firm, and the German logistics company DHL.
Flexible mechanical sensors that can be bonded or sewn into woven or knitted fabrics have been developed by German research lab Fraunhofer ISC.
Deformation, force and pressure can be measured, and strains up to 100% (doubling length) can be endured.
It is an elastomer film with flexible electrodes on both sides. Electrode patterning can be used to create an array of sensors. Silicone rubber is the preferred elastomer, with chemical cross-linking allowing hardness to be tuned.
“The textile-integrated sensors are washable, show a high wearing comfort and are reasonable in price,” said the lab. “They are applicable in medical devices, for preventing bed sores or for localising the pressure distribution in shoes, for example. They can also support personal training by measuring the posture via the clothes, or as an input device for game and fitness device controlling.”
The coronavirus outbreak has left India’s startups and small businesses jittery about their future.
As much as 61% startups and small & medium enterprises (SMEs) in the country are staring at the possibility of scaling down their business in the next six months. Only 13% are expecting their business to grow, according to a survey conducted between April 18 and 23 by LocalCircles, a community-led social media engagement platform.
Some will emerge from this crisis disrupted and shaken, but ultimately stable. Others will come out of it with much more lasting scars.
Viruses aren’t picky. They tear through neighborhoods and nations, infecting whomever they can, and the new coronavirus is no exception: The pain of the present pandemic will be felt—is already being felt—by just about everyone in the United States and all over the world, in one way or another. After the pandemic has run its course, no one will be wholly untouched.
At the same time, there will be stark disparities in how certain segments of the American population experience this crisis. Some of these disparities will be the result of luck or coincidence—a matter of where someone happened to travel, what line of work they chose, or what city they live in. But in a country that was highly unequal in so many ways well before it had a confirmed case of COVID-19, other disparities will be sadly predictable, falling along racial and class lines, as well as other fateful divides.
In the coming months and years, there will really be two pandemics in America. One will be disruptive and frightening to its victims, but thanks to their existing advantages and lucky near misses with the virus, they will likely emerge from it relatively stable—physically, psychologically, and financially. The other pandemic, though, will devastate those who survive it, leaving lasting scars and altering life courses.
The NBA, NFL and MLB are dreaming up ways to play amid a pandemic, with talk of isolating players in Arizona or Las Vegas or maybe on the moon. It all sounds great, until you talk to people who actually know science.
The proposals multiply almost as fast as the coronavirus: The NHL can play in North Dakota! The NBA can play on a cruise ship! MLB can play in a biodome! The NFL can play in its stadiums, with 70,000 fans packed in!
These are fun thought experiments, at least as good a way to spend time in isolation as watching Tiger King. And everyone wants to believe we will be buying peanuts and Cracker Jack this summer. But fans deserve a reality check: According to the experts—medical experts, not the money-making experts in league offices—we will not have sports any time soon. And when we do, we will not attend the games.
Much like the movie “Fight Club”, the first rule of joining the SBA Loan Club is that you don’t talk about the SBA Loan Club! Here’s why, and it comes with an 80% discount offer!
The coronavirus has not been kind. If you’re like most small businesses today, you’re operating on a shoestring, employees on unemployment, contracts on hold, and sales agreements postponed.
When a disaster occurs, the first goal is to survive. But survival means rethinking your entire business strategy, and the only lifeline is a government bailout program cloaked in mystery.
Domio, a startup that offers short-term rentals, has its headquarters in a New York City loft that features beer on tap, a game room and a wall of house slippers for visitors. The fast-growing and unprofitable company has raised $117 million in venture capital, including $100 million in August.
When the coronavirus pandemic caused Domio’s bookings to dry up last month, it laid off staff but did not ask its investors for more funding. Jay Roberts, Domio’s chief executive, said it had no immediate need to raise more money and most likely had enough cash to last until 2021.
Instead, Domio applied for a federal loan under the Paycheck Protection Program, the $349 billion plan to save jobs at small businesses during the outbreak. It received a loan on April 13. Three days later, the program’s funding ran out, even as hundreds of hard-hit restaurants, hair salons and shops around the country missed out on the relief.
Questions about whether the funds were disbursed fairly and whether some applicants deserved them have drawn scrutiny to the aid program. Several companies that got millions of dollars in loans, such as the Shake Shack and Kura Sushi restaurant chains, faced criticism and eventually gave the money back. On Friday, President Donald Trump signed legislation approving a fresh $320 billion to replenish the program, which the Small Business Administration is directing.
Now, scrutiny of the program has reached technology startups like Domio. While many of these young companies have been hurt by the pandemic, they are not ailing in the same way that traditional small businesses are. Many mom-and-pop enterprises, which tend to employ hourly workers and operate on razor-thin margins, are shutting down immediately because of economic pain or begging for donations via GoFundMe campaigns.
