Technology

At TechCrunch, we aim to deliver a great show no matter what. We&re constantly looking at ways to broaden the reach of Disrupt — in 2018, for instance, we added several new pricing tiers to make sure the show is as accessible as possible.

Thatwhy today we&re announcing plans to offer access to Disrupt SF content and networking opportunities virtually for our flagship event. We&ve been thinking about this for a long time, as there have always been people who would love to come to our show but were unable to, but the coronavirus pandemic has sped up our time frame.

We have some creative ideas about what we can do to bring Disrupt SF alive online, and we&ll keep you in the loop as we go.

Today, however, we&re announcing the free tier of our virtual pass, the Disrupt Digital Pass. Digital Pass Holders will have access to the Disrupt Stage live stream, as well as access to the full slate of Disrupt Stage content via video on demand.

You can sign up for the free Disrupt Digital Pass now!

The new Digital Pass and Digital Pass Pro (to be announced soon!) are a complement to the existing Disrupt SF conference. The Moscone Center is booked for September 14-16, Battlefield Startups are applying each day and we&re well underway in programming the in-person show, with announcements about speakers coming soon!

But for folks who can&t make it to San Francisco, these digital passes will provide unprecedented and interactive access to the show online.

Interested? Sign up for the free Disrupt Digital Pass below.

The U.S. State Department has issued an unprecedented &do not travel& warning to U.S. citizens, as the number of coronavirus-related infections jumped sharply overnight.

The advisory said U.S. citizens should &avoid all international travel due to the global impact of COVID-19,& the coronavirus strain which last week was declared a global pandemic. The advisory added that citizens abroad should &arrange for immediate return& unless they are prepared to stay overseas indefinitely.

The warning was published Thursday, where the official count for coronavirus cases hit 220,000 infections around the world, with more than 10,000 cases in the United States alone.

Several countries have closed their borders and restricted travel to their citizens and residents in an effort to stem the spread of the virus.

This week, the European Union closed the so-called Schengen border, which covers the 27 member state bloc, and the U.S. closed its border with Canada to all but essential travel and trade.

The pandemic has seen stocks and global financial markets tank, prompting governments to inject cash and slash interest rates to try to keep their economies afloat.

Nvidia is making its Parabricks tool available for free for 90 days (with the possibility of extension, depending on needs) to any researcher currently working on any effort to combat the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic and spread of COVID-19. The tool is a GPU-accelerated genome analysis toolkit, which leveraged graphics processing power to take a process that previously took days, but that through its use can be accomplished in just a matter of hours.

Researchers will still need access to Nvidia GPUs for running the Parabricks genetic sequencing suite, but they won&t have to pay anything for the privilege of running the software. This is a big advantage for anyone studying the new coronavirus or the patients who have contracted the illness. The GPU-maker is also providing links to different cloud-based GPU service providers to lower that barrier to entry, as well.

We&ve cut down drastically on genomic sequencing times in the past few years, but they still require a massive amount of computing hardware, and Parabricks, which was acquired by Nvidia late last year, has developed technology that makes it possible to sequence an entire human genome in less than an hour — and thatusing a single server, not an entire server farm.

Speed is of the essence when it comes to every aspect of the continued effort to fight the spread of the virus, and the severe respiratory illness that it can cause. One of the biggest challenges that scientists and researchers working on building potential drug therapies and vaccines for the novel coronavirus face is lack of solid, reliable information. The more sequencing that can be done to understand, identify and verify characteristics of the genetic makeup of both the virus itself and patients who contract it (both during and post-infection), the quicker everyone will be able to move on to potential treatments and immunotherapies.

It was, it seems, only a matter of time before something like this happened. As we noted in yesterdayFreshDirect story, not everyone has the ability of being able to shelter in place during the spread of COVID-19. In fact, the more of us who stay put, the more strain we&re going to put on workers who play a role in getting products and supplies to our doors.

Amazon today confirmed that an employee in its Queens, N.Y. fulfillment center has tested positive for the novel coronavirus. The company texted employees at the facility about the case yesterday. The text, obtained by The Atlantic reads, &We&re writing to let you know that a positive case of the coronavirus (COVID-19) was found at our facility today.&

It may be the first of its kind in the facility, but it almost certainly won&t be the last. Even as companies encourage workers to stay home at the first sign of sickness for both their benefit and that of customers, many will no doubt come to work. And then therethe matter of those who are largely asymptomatic.

We&ve reached out to Amazon to comment on the incident. The company noted in the text that workers at the DBK1 facility were sent home, while the sorting facility was disinfected. Amazon has denied reports that, while day shift workers were sent home, those on the night shift were still expected to come in.

In spite of the companymassive footprint, Amazon has been forced to limit certain shipments, including non-essentials through its Fulfillment by Amazon program, along with the temporary pausing of shipments from Prime Pantry.

The wild ride that has been U.S. stock market over the past couple of weeks may be settling down — at least for the moment — from the whiplash-like swingsthat helped set global markets on edge.

The new economic normal that the pandemic has brought to countries across the world seems to be settling on weary investors as the extent of COVID-19 becomes more clear and as proper testing begins to roll out along with massive trillion dollar aid packages.

Wall Street responded to reports of possible breakthroughs on the medical front, with vaccinations and other potential therapies touted by President Donald Trump causing some healthcare stocks to soar. But on the whole, the day was about digesting and coming to terms with where the world stands.

That was reflected in the major indices which couldn&t make up their minds for much of the day, but wound upup, in a nice surprise.

Herethe tale from the tape at market close:

• Dow Jones Industrial Average: +188.48, +0.95%
• S-P 500: +11.29, +0.47%
• Nasdaq Composite: +160.73, +2.30%

While tech led other sectors on the day, SaaS and cloud companies — a subset of tech itself — shone during regular trading. The Bessemer-Nasdaq cloud index rose 6.4%, a good result even if the tracker is still sharply off its recent highs.

Some automakers, nearly all of which have announced temporary shut downs, saw shares rise or at least remain steady. Honda, GM, Ford, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Volkswagen have all said factories in North America will close. The closures were prompted by slowing demand due to the spread of COVID-19 as well as pressure from United Auto Workers to protect workers. GM and FCA have each reported a COVID-19 case among its workforce.

Ford saw shares fall 0.76% to close at $4.46 after the company said it would drawn down two credit lines to put an additional $15.4 billion of cash on its balance sheet and consider suspending its dividend.

GM saw shares rise 3% to $17.71 and FCA shares fall 6.37% to $6.47.

Meanwhile, Tesla shares took the biggest jump rising 18.39% to $427.64. Tesla is one of the only hold outs in the recent move to shutter plants. The companyfactory in Fremont, Calif., which is not unionized, remains open despite a shelter in-place order in Alameda County.

U.K. takeout marketplace Just Eat has announced a 30-day emergency support package for restaurants on its platform to help them through disruption caused by the coronavirus crisis.

From tomorrow (March 20) until April 19 the package — which Just Eat says is worth £10 million+ — will see funds directed back to U.K. partner restaurants in the form of a commission rebate of one-third (33%) on all commissions paid to Just Eat by restaurants; and via the removal of commissions across all collection orders, which it intends to help reduce pressure on restaurants& delivery operations, where collection is still available.

Just Eat also said itwaiving all sign-up fees for new restaurants joining its platform (which must still meet its standard conditions, such as being registered with the relevant local authority as a food business and having the required hygiene rating); and relaxing any existing arrangements that may be in place with partners to enable them to work with delivery aggregators — ®ardless of existing contractual terms.&

It added that it will continue to pay restaurants weekly, including the rebate now in place.

Currently Just Eat has around 35,700 restaurants on its platform in the U.K., with delivery available to 95% of U.K. postcodes.

Commenting in a statement, Andrew Kenny, Just EatU.K. MD, said:

These are some of the most challenging times the restaurants we work with have ever been through. We want to show our support and help them to keep their doors open, so they can focus on doing what they do best — delivering food to people across the UK every day. We know our Restaurant Partners are worried about their teams — from chefs to delivery drivers — and these measures will go some way to helping them maintain their operations and support their people.

The food delivery industry has a crucial role to play at this time of national crisis and it is only right that as the market leader in the UK Just Eat steps up to help our independent partners so they can keep delivering for the communities that need them.

In the U.K. and elsewhere there is rising concern about the economic impact of COVID-19 on the hospitality sector as people are told to stay away from social spaces.

On Monday the U.K. government advised people not to go to bars and restaurants or other social spaces in a bid to try to limit the spread of COVID-19. Although, unlike many other European countries, it has not yet issued strict quarantine measures such as ordering hospitality industry businesses to close their doors and citizens to work at home where possible.

On-demand food delivery remains one of the services that continues to operate even in locked down EU Member States. However, with gig economy business models not typically offering platform workers an employment safety net of benefits such as sick pay, the entire sector has come under fresh scrutiny for the legal status it assigns to delivery couriers, given the heightened risks posed to them by the novel coronavirus. In a nutshell, if they need to self isolate, they won&t be able to earn.

In its press release today Just Eat said itworking on other unspecified support initiatives for couriers, as well as for groups including the vulnerable and isolated, and frontline workers.

These will be announced in due course, it added.

Although it also notes that the vast majority of orders placed through its network are delivered by restaurants with their own delivery capability. Its commission for such orders is a maximum of 14%, it added.

Some on-demand food delivery startups operating in Europe which do rely on gig workers to make deliveries have already announced emergency support funds to help platform workers who fall ill or need to self isolate during the COVID-19 crisis — including U.K.-based Deliveroo and SpainGlovo.

There has also been some criticism of how easy it is for couriers to access claimed support.