Padraig Belton from the BBC writes about how house hunters are using virtual-reality headsets to tour homes in the age of coronavirus. From the report: It’s not for everyone as, at the moment, house hunters have to use their own headsets. But Giles Milner, marketing director at estate agent Chestertons, says he will sometimes send buyers headsets for new-build properties, if…
Tag: Singapore
Japan Acted Like the Virus Had Gone. Now It’s Spread Everywhere.
After initial success, Japan is facing a reality check on the coronavirus. From a report: The country garnered global attention after containing the first wave of Covid-19 with what it referred to as the “Japan Model” — limited testing and no lockdown, nor any legal means to force businesses to close. The country’s finance minister even suggested a higher “cultural standard”…
Will China’s AI Surveillance State Go Global?
China already has hundreds of millions of surveillance cameras in place, reports the Atlantic’s deputy editor, and “because a new regulation requires telecom firms to scan the face of anyone who signs up for cellphone services, phones’ data can now be attached to a specific person’s face.” But the article also warns that when it comes to AI-powered surveillance, China “could…
Human-linked Earth vibrations dropped 50% during Covid-19 lockdown
Between March and May 2020, many people across Earth went into lockdown. During those months, seismographs recorded a drop in human-linked vibrations in the solid Earth, by an average of 50%. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/covid19-lockdown-2020-caused-50-percent-global-reduction-human-linked-earth-vibrations…
Is Work Easier For ‘Digital Nomads’?
A digital nomad describes what no one ever warns you about after selling everything and then travelling to Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand “before doing the Working Holiday Visa thing in Australia and New Zealand.” It was the greatest solo travel adventure of my life and I loved it. That said, I’ve had some time to reflect on my experience and…
‘Mozilla VPN’ Launches in Six Countries
“Starting today, there’s a VPN on the market from a company you trust,” Mozilla announced Wednesday. Mozilla VPN is now officially available for Windows and Android in six countries: the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Singapore, Malaysia, and New Zealand, and it’ll be coming to even more countries later this year, reports the Verge: The service is available for $4.99 a month,…
Face Masks Offer More Protection from Coronavirus Than Many Think
Face masks “offer much more protection against coronavirus than many think,” reports the Los Angeles Times. [Alternate version here ….] There’s a common refrain that masks don’t protect you; they protect other people from your own germs, which is especially important to keep unknowingly infected people from spreading the coronavirus. But now, there’s mounting evidence that masks also protect you. If…
Scientists Say You Can Cancel the Noise But Keep Your Window Open
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Researchers in Singapore have developed an apparatus that can be placed in a window to reduce incoming sound by 10 decibels. The system was created by a team of scientists, including Masaharu Nishimura, who came up with the basic concept, and Bhan Lam, a researcher at Nanyang Technological University in…
TikTok Mulls Changes to Business to Distance Itself From China
Bytedance said it’s evaluating changes to the corporate structure of its TikTok business as U.S. concerns grow over the parent company’s Chinese origins. Bloomberg reports: Executives are discussing options such as creating a new management board for TikTok and establishing a separate headquarters for the app outside of China to distance its operations from Beijing, according to a person familiar with…
How Did the World Miss Covid-19’s Silent Spread?
Long-time Slashdot reader hankwang writes: The New York Times has an article on how the transmission of Covid-19 by seemingly healthy individuals was discovered in Germany on January 27, but the report was discredited because of a quibble over whether it was really asymptomatic or rather presymptomatic or oligosymptomatic transmission. Oligosymptomatic means that the symptoms are so mild that they are…