While most game makers are seeing booming usage statistics in the era of coronavirus-induced social distancing, Niantic is in the opposite position. The company’s games—including Pokémon Go, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, and Ingress—are all built around the idea of leaving the house and meeting up with people in real-world locations.ARS TECHNICAThis story originally appeared on…
Early last week, Sarahjane Sacchetti paused before sending an email to the staff of Cleo, the San Francisco–based benefits startup where she’s the chief executive. A people operations manager at the company had forwarded her information about California’s state-wide shelter-in-place order, and Sacchetti wanted to email the update to all company offices—which span nine states…
Last week the Senate voted 96 to 0 on a bill that fundamentally reorients American politics. The relief package includes direct cash payouts to families that run into the hundreds of billions, and corporate bailouts for casinos, aerospace companies, airlines, hotel chains, and Wall Street firms that White House adviser Larry Kudlow argues will total…
In November 2018, hotel giant Marriott disclosed that it had suffered one of the largest breaches in history. That hack compromised the information of 500 million people who had made a reservation at a Starwood hotel. On Tuesday, Marriott announced that it had once again been hit, with up to 5.2 million guests at risk.…
Nearly eight years ago, Disney gave George Lucas $4 billion for what is arguably the biggest film franchise in the world. Since then, Disney has released an additional five Star Wars films, raking in almost $6 billion worldwide at the box office. In those intervening years, the Mouse House also launched its own streaming service,…
Last Thursday, the US announced a record-setting, economy-wreaking 3.3 million jobless claims, numbers that shattered the worst periods of the 2008 financial collapse or even the Great Depression. Sometime on Sunday, somewhere in the United States, the 2,404th person died from Covid-19, surpassing the death toll of Pearl Harbor. Sometime on Monday, the 2,982nd American…
With hundreds of millions of people sheltering in place and quarantining around the world due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, and many brick-and-mortar stores temporarily closed, online shopping has become even more of a lifeline. As consumers ramp up their online spending, though, the criminals who hack websites to digitally “skim” credit card numbers are…
President Trump on Friday signed the largest relief bill in US history, a $2 trillion lifeline to businesses, hospitals, and workers hit hard by the explosive spread of the coronavirus. More than 160,000 Americans have tested positive for the virus, according to the John Hopkins Coronaviurus resource center, more than any other country. But some…
Over the past week, as countless stressed-out people have found themselves cocooned on their couches with a Netflix subscription and no place to go, one miniseries has grabbed viewers more than others: Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness. Twitter these days is largely dominated by the coronavirus pandemic, but in the moments when people’s attention…
In August of 1905, a strange ship set sail from San Francisco Bay. The wooden brig, called Galilee—also the name of the sea where Jesus, riding in a boat himself, once allegedly soothed a storm—had been retrofitted for a new job: The Carnegie Institution’s Department of Terrestrial Magnetism wanted to sail it around the Pacific…
