Technology

After Facebook canceled its F8 developer conference and Google itself moved its Cloud Next event in April to a digital-only conference, it doesn&t come as a huge surprise that Google is canceling its I/O developer conference in Mountain View for 2020 as well. The company has sent an email to attendees informing them of the cancellation. The event was originally scheduled to run from May 12 to 14, but because of concerns around the coronavirus, it is now canceling the show.

&Due to concerns around the coronavirus (COVID-19), and in accordance with health guidance from the CDC, WHO, and other health authorities, we have decided to cancel the physical Google I/O event at Shoreline Amphitheatre,& Google said in a statement. &Over the coming weeks, we will explore other ways to evolve Google I/O to best connect with and continue to build our developer community. We&ll continue to update the Google I/O website.&

Unlike with its Cloud Next conference, Google hasn&t announced any plans (yet) to still go ahead with its keynotes and sessions in the form of a remote conference. Googlestatement leaves that option open, though.

All attendees who purchased tickets will receive a refund and they won&t have to enter next yearI/O 2021 lottery to get a ticket. To make up for the economic impact of canceling the event, Google is pledging $1 million to local Mountain View organizations to support small businesses and increase STEM and computer science opportunities in Mountain View schools.

This marks the first time Google has canceled I/O, its flagship developer conference, which it first hosted in 2008. After a few years in San FranciscoMoscone Center, the event moved outdoors to Mountain ViewShoreline Amphitheatre in the companybackyard. Typically, about 5,000 people attend the event, where Google tends to announce both its latest tools for developers, as well as a good number of new consumer-facing features. Last year, for the first time, it also launched a new phone at the event, the Pixel 3a.

Google said in a blog post that it would roll out free access to advanced Hangouts Meet video-conferencing capabilities to all G Suite and G Suite for Education customers globally as the company pitches its remote work tools as an option for companies looking to let employees work from home.

Chief executive Sundar Pichai announced the initiative in a tweet on Tuesday.

&As more employees, educators, and students work remotely in response to the spread of COVID-19, we want to do our part to help them stay connected and productive,& the company wrote in its post. &And, as more businesses adjust their work-from-home policies and adopt reduced travel plans in response to COVID-19, we&re helping to ensure that all globally distributed teams can still reliably meet face to face, even if employees are not in the same location.&

Googlemove comes as some of the largest industry conferences and events around the world are cancelling due to fears of the spreading new coronavirus, COVID-19. Major canceled events include: GSMAMobile World Congress and FacebookF8 conference, along with the Geneva Motor Show and the Game Developers Conference.

Itnot just conferences that are closing their doors. Companies are also doing everything they can to encourage remote work. Twitter has encouraged its workers to operate remotely, and they&re not alone. Stripe, Slack, Square and others are all urging their employees to not come in to the office.

Googlepitch to companies and educational institutions during the trial is free access for capabilities, including for larger meetings of up to 250 participants per-call; live-streaming for up to 100,000 viewers within a domain; and the ability to record meetings and save them to Google Drive.

Google is enabling all of its customers to use the enterprise functionality for no additional cost until July 1, the company said in a statement.

&We&re committed to supporting our users and customers during this challenging time, and are continuing to scale our infrastructure to support greater Hangouts Meet demand, ensuring streamlined, reliable access to the service throughout this period.&

The company already has one happy customer for its services in Jack Dorsey and Twitter. The embattled chief executive wrote in a tweet, &We just held our first fully virtual Twitter global all-hands using @Google Meet and @SlackHQ.&

BMW unveiled Tuesday a concept version of its upcoming i4, an all-electric four-door Gran Coupe with an estimated EPA range of 270 miles and the ability to produce 530 horsepower, pushing it past its high-performance M3 combustion vehicle.

The i4 concept vehicle, which was unveiled online because the Geneva International Motor Show was cancelled due to the coronavirus, is slated to enter production in 2021. BMW has been talking about and teasing what would follow its i3 electric vehicle for awhile now. BMW released some specs on the upcoming i4 at the LA Auto Show back in November.This latest unveiling shows off more of what we can expect the i4 to look like, plus a bit more information on the interior and expected range.

The concept has a long wheelbase, fastback roofline and short overhangs, suggesting that the production version will have a similar profile — a far cry from the wedge-shaped i3.

The front end shows a closed-off grille. BMW says it has given the grille of the concept a purpose beyond just a reminder of its combustion engine past. The grille will be used to house various sensors, according to BMW.

Perhaps the most noticeable features, besides the mammoth kidney-shaped grille, is the glass roof and a curved digital display in the interior.

While it is not clear if the production version will integrate these same features, we can expect that the interior will be more touch-based and have fewer buttons and knobs. It will be interesting to see if BMW sticks to the single-screen design. In the photo below, you&ll notice at least one knob located in the console area.

Close followers of BMWEV plans might remember that the i4 was going to have a range of 600 kilometers, or about 400 miles. But it wasn&t clear if that figure, which would push it ahead of the competition, was based on the EPA or European WLTP. EPA estimates tend to be more conservative. BMW is now clarifying the range and has said the EPA estimate will be 270 miles.

The i4 will have the fifth-generation BMW eDrive, a platform that features a brand new electric motor, power electronics, charging unit and high-voltage battery. This fifth-gen platform will also show up in the iNEXT SUV and the iX3, which is headed for the Chinese market. The 80-kilowatt battery pack in the i4 is flat, according to BMW, and weighs 550 kilograms. For comparison, the battery pack in the Tesla Model 3 weighs 480 kg.

The unveiling of the i4 concept builds upon earlier announcements from BMW to push deeper into electrification. In November,BMW announced it would spend more than €10 billion euros ($11.07 billion) on battery cells from Chinese battery cell manufacturer Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. and Samsung SDI. BMWoriginal deal with CATL, which was announced in mid-2018, was for €4 billion worth of battery cells. This new contract is from 2020 to 2031, the German automaker said at the time.

BMW Group will be the first customer of CATLbattery cell factory that is under construction in Erfurt, Germany. BMW played anactive part in establishing CATL in Germany, according to Andreas Wendt, member of the Board of Management of BMW AG responsible for purchasing and supplier network.

Ita bit gauche to talk about positive economic impacts of what may become a global pandemic, but the novel coronavirus hasn&t been bad news for every company.

Video conference provider Zoom appears to be one beneficiary; after going public in 2019, its share price rose from around $68 at the start of the year to $115 today. Why? As governments lock down cities and close borders — and companies and conferences shift to virtual for the time being — services like Zoom are well-positioned to see increased demand. (Indeed, Zoom announced today that it is rolling out select products to new territories after improving its free service in impacted regions.)

That Zoomshares have appreciated is perhaps not surprising.

The company quickly moved from being a relatively unknown video chat upstart to becoming a celebrated profitable IPO that today is synonymous with its product category in the startup world. Seeing rising investor interest in Zoom merely matches its growing brand; naturally, folks looking for a trade — however that makes your moral center feel — might pile their chips on Zoom.

The rise in Zoomvalue begs two questions: Are future-of-work and remote work-focused startups seeing a global increase in demand? And if so, what impact is that having on their growth? (Are you a startup building remote-work tools? Email me if the outbreak has impacted your growth rates.)

Luckily for you and me, Zoom reports earnings tomorrow. The quarter that Zoom will report, the fourth quarter of its fiscal 2020, stretched from November 1, 2019 through the end of January 2020. So it does include a bit of time in which the novel coronavirus was active, impacting work and perhaps corporate behavior. Obviously, its next quarter will be more interesting, but Zoom should provide guidance for that period. So we&ll get a look at whatahead, even if it is provisional.

What about startups?

If Zoom has a bullish outlook, it could lift other, similar companies.

You&ve probably come across YIrange of affordable security cameras while browsing on Amazon or other shopping sites in the past. Recently, the companyKami brand launched its $90 battery-powered outdoor camera. After spending some time with it, itclear that while it doesn&t quite provide the same experience you&d get from a wired $400 Nest Cam IQ or similar product, ita solid security camera and the ease of use makes up for its shortcomings.

With the Kami Wire-Free Outdoor Camera (thatits full name), you get a bullet-style camera that you can easily put anywhere you want, thanks to its wireless design. The fact that itwireless worried me a bit, given that I wasn&t sure how long those four 2600 mAh batteries would last, but even after a few hours of essentially live-streaming a picture of my backyard, the battery is still at 75%. Given that you&re not likely to do that under normal circumstances — and that YI promises up to six months of battery life — this should do just fine.

The camera itself streams and records 1080p video at 20 frames per second with a 140-degree field of view. Its IP-65 rating means you don&t have to worry about it getting wet, though I haven&t tested it in a full downpour yet. Therealso a microphone and speaker, in case you want to have a friendly conversation with your local burglar (or the delivery driver, whomever comes first).

You can run the camera without adding any internal storage and simply send six-second clips directly from the camera to your phone. You also can add a micro-SD card for longer recording times or subscribe to YIcloud storage service, which starts at $15 for a three-month plan and seven days of recording history.

While itwireless, you still have to attach the camera somewhere. YI provides all the installation hardware to attach the camera virtually anywhere you can drill a screw.

As for the software side, getting started simply involves popping in the batteries, using the camera to scan a QR code from the Kami or YI app (they are essentially the same) to connect to your Wi-Fi network and you&re ready to go. The process shouldn&t take more than a minute.

Especially at this price, these are solid specs, and the image quality, both during day and at night, using the cameranight vision, is good.

The only area where I felt the camera fell short of my expectations was in its motion detection. It uses passive infrared motion detection, and while that ensures that your camera isn&t going to ping you about every car that drives by, I did get a few random alerts when it started raining, for example, or when a bird flew through my yard. On other days, there were no false positives at all. Unlike some other cameras, including YIown lineup of indoor cameras that I&ve used in the past, this one doesn&t allow you to set up a specific zone to monitor. Thatan odd omission, and the one area where the camera fell short of my expectations. Occasionally, it also takes a long time for the camera to start streaming the live video feed and you have to exit the camera view and go back to the main menu. Thatnot exactly a deal breaker, but it is a bit of an annoyance. A software update could probably fix both of these issues.

Overall, though, the new Kami outdoor camera provides solid performance at this price. It won&t wow you, but it&ll do what it promises to do, and at this price, thatall you can ask. Whether you trust the company and are comfortable with the privacy implications of having your house under 24/7 surveillance is something you have to decide for yourself, of course. So far, though, YI has had a pretty good track record and no major breaches.