• The coronavirus pandemic has left hospitals and doctors overwhelmed with new patients.
• Some hospitals will not even admit individuals exhibiting non-coronavirus symptoms.
• A new Google program will make it easier for patients in need of medical care to virtually connect with doctors.
• Visit BGR’s homepage for more stories.

The coronavirus pandemic is still ongoing but may be showing ever so subtle signs of slowing down. In New York City, for example, the number of coronavirus-related deaths reached a peak earlier this week and may start trending downwards going forward. Additionally, coronavirus-related hospitalizations in New York City declined over the past few days.

That notwithstanding, much of the country’s medical resources remain strained as hospitals and doctors continue to deal with a huge influx of patients. In fact, some hospitals in areas where the coronavirus outbreak is particularly pronounced won’t even admit individuals unless they’re exhibiting corona-related symptoms or if it happens to be a severe medical emergency. Consequently, and as part of a broader effort to provide medical care to folks suffering non-coronavirus symptoms, Google earlier today announced a new initiative designed to make it easier for people to virtually connect with medical professionals.

Continue reading…

Today’s Top Deals

1. Today’s best deals: Huge Echo speaker blowout, $11 waterproof speaker, $20 headphones, DIY face mask supplies, more
2. The 5 best-selling electronics devices on Amazon’s entire site
3. Surprise sale: Amazon’s Echo speakers just got even deeper discounts

Trending Right Now:

1. Coronavirus spreads through the air outside with shocking ease, study says
2. Bill Gates warns that another outbreak like coronavirus could happen soon
3. Horrifying video shows how coronavirus spreads at the grocery store

Google’s new program makes it easier for non-coronavirus patients to virtually connect with doctors originally appeared on BGR.com on Fri, 10 Apr 2020 at 23:14:08 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read more here:: Boy Genius Report

• Aleixandrea Macias is a nurse in Texas whose widely-shared Facebook post about her work treating coronavirus patients is a brutal, heartbreaking read.
• She talks about how futile it can feel to treat victims, so many of whom are dying that it seems like the only way people leave her ICU is “in a body bag.”
• This comes at the same time that the latest numbers show almost half a million cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus have been confirmed in the US.
• Visit BGR’s homepage for more stories.

If you pay regular attention to President Trump’s latest remarks about the coronavirus crisis and the US response to it, in addition to the insight from experts on the White House coronavirus task force who give daily briefings to the press, you might be letting yourself start to feel a little optimistic about things at this point. Heck, the latest word is that the president and his advisors are starting to take a look at whether it might be time — as soon as May 1 — to ease off on social distancing guidelines in order to begin reopening the country again.

Contrast that, meanwhile, with the reality on the ground for frontline healthcare workers like Aleixandrea Macias, a 24-year-old nurse from Texas who garnered widespread attention in recent days for a long Facebook post she wrote earlier this week that paints a heartbreaking picture of her what healthcare workers like her face on the frontlines of this crisis. Of how devasting it feels for nurses to be engaged in a “game of seeing how long we can keep patients half alive,” and of working in a short-staffed and under-resourced makeshift ICU where no patients have left yet “except in a body bag.” And where the thing that haunts Macias more than anything else is the constant ringing of patients’ cellphones, surely from worried loved ones, that go unanswered because the patients are intubated and not conscious.

Continue reading…

Today’s Top Deals

1. Today’s best deals: Huge Echo speaker blowout, $11 waterproof speaker, $20 headphones, DIY face mask supplies, more
2. The 5 best-selling electronics devices on Amazon’s entire site
3. Surprise sale: Amazon’s Echo speakers just got even deeper discounts

Trending Right Now:

1. Coronavirus spreads through the air outside with shocking ease, study says
2. Bill Gates warns that another outbreak like coronavirus could happen soon
3. Horrifying video shows how coronavirus spreads at the grocery store

This nurse’s Facebook post about treating coronavirus victims will break your heart originally appeared on BGR.com on Fri, 10 Apr 2020 at 22:37:18 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read more here:: Boy Genius Report

• Animal Crossing: New Horizons launched for the Nintendo Switch on March 20th, 2020.
• New Horizons has been pulled from e-commerce sites in China amid in-game anti-government protests utilizing the game’s robust customization features.
• It is still possible to download the new Animal Crossing in China on an imported Switch.
• Visit BGR’s homepage for more stories.

Few games have launched at a more appropriate time than Animal Crossing: New Horizons for the Nintendo Switch last month. Just as the true threat of the novel coronavirus outbreak became clear, Nintendo offered Switch owners a chance to (virtually) escape to a pristine, deserted island where they can build a house, relax on the beach, go fishing with their friends, and forget about the real world for at least a little while.

It’s hard to imagine something so patently gentle and harmless being banned for any reason, but that’s exactly what appears to have happened in China as Hong Kong democracy activist Joshua Wong and many others have used the game’s robust customization tools to stage virtual protests on their personal islands.

Continue reading…

Today’s Top Deals

1. Today’s best deals: Huge Echo speaker blowout, $11 waterproof speaker, $20 headphones, DIY face mask supplies, more
2. The 5 best-selling electronics devices on Amazon’s entire site
3. Surprise sale: Amazon’s Echo speakers just got even deeper discounts

Trending Right Now:

1. Coronavirus spreads through the air outside with shocking ease, study says
2. Bill Gates warns that another outbreak like coronavirus could happen soon
3. Horrifying video shows how coronavirus spreads at the grocery store

‘Animal Crossing’ sales halted in China amid in-game protests originally appeared on BGR.com on Fri, 10 Apr 2020 at 22:12:25 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read more here:: Boy Genius Report

• Apple’s iPhone 9 will likely be released next week according to a new analyst report.
• The coronavirus has delayed the iPhone 12 development process by two weeks.
• Apple’s iPhone 12 models will still launch in September while the 6.7-inch iPhone 12 model will reportedly launch in October.
• Visit BGR’s homepage for more stories.

There’s been a lot of speculation surrounding Apple’s iPhone release schedule as it pertains to both the iPhone 9 and iPhone 12. Compounding matters, of course, is that the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has completely disrupted Apple’s development process and any initial release timelines it had.

The iPhone 9, for instance, was initially supposed to arrive in stores sometime in March according to a handful of credible sources. The March release date made sense given that the original iPhone SE — which is essentially the predecessor to the iPhone 9 — was released in March of 2016.

A new research note from GF Securities analyst Jeff Pu (via MacRumors) now claims that the compact device — which will boast a 4.7-inch LCD display with Touch ID — will be released in mid-April. We’ve seen a few previous reports claiming that the iPhone 9 would arrive last week, so you’d be well-advised to take Pu’s report with a grain of salt. That said, there’s no denying that the evidence pointing to an iPhone 9 release in April is mounting and increasingly hard to ignore.

Continue reading…

Today’s Top Deals

1. The 5 best-selling electronics devices on Amazon’s entire site
2. Today’s best deals: Huge Echo speaker blowout, $11 waterproof speaker, $20 headphones, DIY face mask supplies, more
3. Today’s top deals: Rare AirPods Pro sale, Anker blowout, DIY face masks, Fire TV Stick 4K for $25, smart plugs for $6, more

Trending Right Now:

1. Coronavirus spreads through the air outside with shocking ease, study says
2. Bill Gates warns that another outbreak like coronavirus could happen soon
3. Horrifying video shows how coronavirus spreads at the grocery store

All of Apple’s iPhone 12 models will arrive in September, with one big exception originally appeared on BGR.com on Fri, 10 Apr 2020 at 21:10:41 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read more here:: Boy Genius Report

• The Trump administration’s coronavirus stimulus checks are expected to start being distributed to Americans as soon as this week, starting in a matter of days, now that Congress has passed its massive coronavirus stimulus relief bill.
• Use the tables below to estimate how much you’re eligible for, and thus how big your coronavirus stimulus check will be.
• Visit BGR’s homepage for more stories.

Here’s the good news for everyone who’s wondering how much money they’re set to get from the federal government once their stimulus check arrives, now that Congress has passed its massive coronavirus relief bill and the IRS is working to get those checks sent out ASAP. The first checks look to start being distributed next week, in the form of direct deposits into checking accounts.

The government is prioritizing the first wave of checks to go to people with lower incomes, as well as Social Security recipients. The disbursements will come in waves after that, with people who don’t have direct deposit information on file with the IRS set to be at the back of the line — those people will be waiting on paper checks in the mail, which will, of course, take longer. But now, for the good news: You don’t have to wait that long to learn how big your check will be.

Continue reading…

Today’s Top Deals

1. The 5 best-selling electronics devices on Amazon’s entire site
2. Today’s best deals: Huge Echo speaker blowout, $11 waterproof speaker, $20 headphones, DIY face mask supplies, more
3. Surprise sale: Amazon’s Echo speakers just got even deeper discounts

Trending Right Now:

1. Coronavirus spreads through the air outside with shocking ease, study says
2. Bill Gates warns that another outbreak like coronavirus could happen soon
3. Horrifying video shows how coronavirus spreads at the grocery store

Here’s how big your coronavirus stimulus check will be originally appeared on BGR.com on Fri, 10 Apr 2020 at 20:08:30 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read more here:: Boy Genius Report

• The West Virginia University Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute and WVU Medicine are looking to detect novel coronavirus symptoms in healthcare workers early with the use of a smart ring.
• The Oura Ring can “capture body signals like resting heart rate, [heart rate variability], body temperature, and calorie burn,” and analyze sleep.
• The study will use AI to attempt to interpret health parameters in real-time to predict a COVID-19 outbreak.
• Visit BGR’s homepage for more stories.

The only way to diagnose the novel coronavirus infection correctly is with a specialized type of test. A swab from your mouth or nose is enough to detect the presence of a viral load. A second test can look for COVID-19 antibodies in your blood and determine whether your immune system has fought off the infection — or whether it’s just starting to fight it. But there aren’t enough tests to go around, and you need to meet specific criteria to get a test in some countries. As for immunity tests, they’ve yet to be widely deployed, with the CDC set to approve one in the coming weeks.

COVID-19 has some specific signs, but not all patients exhibit them. And the most common ones are also common to the flu. Add to that the fact that the novel coronavirus is infectious even in people who have no symptoms, and that the incubation period is quite long, and you end up with a huge problem. Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Germany, and Iceland proved how critical it is to conduct large testing campaigns. But finding COVID-19 patients early is difficult without tests. That’s where a wearable company might help, as researchers are trying to determine whether a smart ring can help them predict the outbreak of COVID-19 in healthcare workers.

Continue reading…

Today’s Top Deals

1. The 5 best-selling electronics devices on Amazon’s entire site
2. Today’s best deals: Huge Echo speaker blowout, $11 waterproof speaker, $20 headphones, DIY face mask supplies, more
3. We need to tell you about this secret Fire TV Stick 4K sale

Trending Right Now:

1. Coronavirus spreads through the air outside with shocking ease, study says
2. Horrifying video shows how coronavirus spreads at the grocery store
3. This new drug might stop the novel coronavirus from replicating

Researchers want to use a smart ring to predict coronavirus symptoms originally appeared on BGR.com on Fri, 10 Apr 2020 at 19:06:58 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read more here:: Boy Genius Report

• Instagram is now rolling out a new feature worldwide after pursuing a limited test earlier this year — the ability for users to access their direct messages on the web, in addition to the app.
• This continues a Facebook-ification of the app, which is owned by the social networking giant and is starting to become a kind of “New Facebook” and a much more full-featured version of its earlier self as Facebook’s popularity has waned and its user base has aged.
• Instagram announced the news about DMs on the Web via a tweet on Friday morning.
• Visit BGR’s homepage for more stories.

The inexorable push to Facebook-ify Instagram, which is owned by the social networking giant, is continuing, with the evolution of the photo-sharing app now including the ability for users worldwide to access their direct messages from the web.

This is something Instagram has been testing in a limited way since January, and starting today everyone will now have the ability to send a receive DMs after logging into their Instagram account on a desktop. What’s more, there’s basically feature parity with the app, so you’ll still be able to easily include emoji and other media like photos with your missives.

Continue reading…

Today’s Top Deals

1. The 5 best-selling electronics devices on Amazon’s entire site
2. Today’s best deals: Huge Echo speaker blowout, $11 waterproof speaker, $20 headphones, DIY face mask supplies, more
3. We need to tell you about this secret Fire TV Stick 4K sale

Trending Right Now:

1. Coronavirus spreads through the air outside with shocking ease, study says
2. Horrifying video shows how coronavirus spreads at the grocery store
3. Bill Gates warns that another outbreak like coronavirus could happen soon

You can now check and send Instagram DMs on a web browser originally appeared on BGR.com on Fri, 10 Apr 2020 at 18:04:04 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read more here:: Boy Genius Report

• A new genetic study reveals that the outbreak of the COVID-19 coronavirus in New York appears to have stemmed mostly from infected travelers from Europe, not China.
• Researchers in New York began to pick up on this in March, around the same time as the Trump administration imposed a ban on travel from Europe around the beginning of the month.
• New York has become the epicenter of the virus in the US, with more cases there than any other country in the world.
• Visit BGR’s homepage for more stories.

New York state hit a sobering coronavirus milestone in recent days, now that it has more confirmed cases of the COVID-19 virus than any other country around the world. But regardless of what New Yorkers might have thought they knew about the virus up to this point, a new genetic study reveals at least one important fact about the virus that might come as a surprise: New York City’s outbreak is attributable mostly to infected travelers coming from Europe, not China.

Continue reading…

Today’s Top Deals

1. The 5 best-selling electronics devices on Amazon’s entire site
2. Today’s best deals: Huge Echo speaker blowout, $11 waterproof speaker, $20 headphones, DIY face mask supplies, more
3. We need to tell you about this secret Fire TV Stick 4K sale

Trending Right Now:

1. Coronavirus spreads through the air outside with shocking ease, study says
2. Horrifying video shows how coronavirus spreads at the grocery store
3. Watch a black hole violently fire a jet of material into space

Study reveals coronavirus came to NYC mostly from Europe, not China originally appeared on BGR.com on Fri, 10 Apr 2020 at 17:20:58 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read more here:: Boy Genius Report

• Facebook introduced a new Quiet Mode this week that silences most notifications.
• Facebook’s Quiet Mode will also remind you not to check the app when it is turned on.
• In order to activate Quite Mode, open the Facebook app, click the hamburger menu at the far-right on the bottom of the screen, open the Settings & Privacy menu, and click Your Time on Facebook.
• Visit BGR’s homepage for more stories.

In the modern world, attempting to limit the amount of time we spend in front of screens has always been difficult, but the novel coronavirus pandemic has made it nearly impossible. Cooped up at home with nothing to do, especially the people who have been furloughed or laid off as a result of the global economy all but shutting down, many of us are turning to TV, computers, video games, and smartphones to keep us entertained.

If you have been on social media at all in the past few weeks, you’ve probably seen people whining about the Screen Time report that the iPhone and iPad spit back at them once a week. Unsurprisingly, those numbers have skyrocketed lately, and the longer we have to stay indoors, the more depressing those reports are likely to be. In response to this, Facebook has introduced a new Quiet Mode feature that might help you manage your screen time.

Continue reading…

Today’s Top Deals

1. Today’s best deals: Huge Echo speaker blowout, $11 waterproof speaker, $20 headphones, DIY face mask supplies, more
2. The 5 best-selling electronics devices on Amazon’s entire site
3. Surprise sale: Amazon’s Echo speakers just got even deeper discounts

Trending Right Now:

1. Coronavirus spreads through the air outside with shocking ease, study says
2. Horrifying video shows how coronavirus spreads at the grocery store
3. Watch a black hole violently fire a jet of material into space

Facebook’s new Quiet Mode will silence annoying push notifications originally appeared on BGR.com on Fri, 10 Apr 2020 at 16:45:09 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read more here:: Boy Genius Report

• Bill Gates warned in an interview that a coronavirus-like outbreak can happen every 20 years or so.
• But thanks to the world’s slow response to the COVID-19 pandemics, we’ll be more prepared to handle the next major health crisis.
• The Microsoft founder is working through his foundation on several coronavirus vaccines, which are the only way to really stop the spread of the new virus.
• Visit BGR’s homepage for more stories.

A Bill Gates TED talk from 2015 in which the Microsoft founder predicted that the world’s next major problem would be a plague rather than a world war went viral a few months ago. The world realized that what was happening with the novel coronavirus outbreak followed a scenario that Gates laid out. His goal at the time was to raise awareness and convince governments to prepare their responses to a pandemic accordingly. The COVID-19 health crisis shows the world wasn’t just caught by surprise, it failed to act accordingly. Even if China withheld information and hid the real number of cases and fatalities, many countries had time to prepare to handle local coronavirus epidemics. A few of them actually did, while most wasted nearly two months.

Gates now warns that a coronavirus-like outbreak can happen every 20 years or so. But next time around, he believes, the world will be prepared to respond.

Continue reading…

Today’s Top Deals

1. Today’s best deals: Huge Echo speaker blowout, $11 waterproof speaker, $20 headphones, DIY face mask supplies, more
2. The 5 best-selling electronics devices on Amazon’s entire site
3. Surprise sale: Amazon’s Echo speakers just got even deeper discounts

Trending Right Now:

1. Coronavirus spreads through the air outside with shocking ease, study says
2. Horrifying video shows how coronavirus spreads at the grocery store
3. Watch a black hole violently fire a jet of material into space

Bill Gates warns that another outbreak like coronavirus could happen soon originally appeared on BGR.com on Fri, 10 Apr 2020 at 16:10:26 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read more here:: Boy Genius Report