At a Sunday news conference, President Donald Trump doubled down on his claim that Google is working with the government to build a nationwide website to help manage coronavirus diagnosis and treatment.
Reality check: Google was blindsided by Trump's Friday announcement of such a project. The company is now working on two different tracks: ramping up a small pilot project that partially resembles what Trump spoke of Friday but had much more modest scope, while also scrambling to launch an entirely new, less personalized nationwide information portal about the virus.
President Trump said Friday that Google is building a website to help people determine whether they need a test for COVID-19 and that "Google has 1700 engineers working on this right now." But Google said Verily, the life sciences unit of its parent company Alphabet, is "in the early stages of development" on such a tool.
Update: Google said in an updated statement Saturday it is helping with a national site, but it stressed the testing triage site is being done by sister company Verily, and they are aiming to start testing soon in the San Francisco Bay Area.
On March 11, the Atlantic Council launched the GeoTech Center, a new think tank that will focus on the social impact of emerging technologies like AI, synthetic biology, personalized medicine and more.
Why it matters: How these technologies develop in the years ahead will have enormous impacts on society. The experts behind the GeoTech Center believe the government, the private sector and the public need to take an active role in understanding and shaping the use of "technology for good."
Apple announced it will close all its retail stores worldwide except for greater China until March 27 amid the rapid spread of the novel coronavirus, and will donate $15 million to help mitigate its impact.
Why it matters: Apple's stores are a significant revenue generator for the company, but the flip-side of the company's efforts to make them community gathering spots is that they're now posing a risk as authorities warn against crowd gatherings.
Former American Express CEO Ken Chenault will not run for re-election on Facebook's board of directors following disagreements with CEO Mark Zuckerberg over governance and political policies, according to the Wall Street Journal.
