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COVID-19

Mozilla lays off 250 people; roughly a quarter of its staff

Mozilla says it is embarking on a "significant restructuring" of the company. The restructuring includes laying off 250 people; roughly one-fourth of Mozilla's staff.

ThoughtWorks and VA launch chatbots for veterans

Software consultancy firm ThoughtWorks, in partnership with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), have developed and launched a chatbot to help U.S. Veterans get questions about COVID-19 answered.

Japan rolls out Microsoft-developed COVID-19 contact tracing app — The Verge

Japan’s government has released its coronavirus contact tracing app for iOS and Android, writes Sam Byford. Here is the link: https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/19/21296603/japan-covid-19-contact-tracking-app-cocoa-released

Microsoft employs experimental undersea data center in search for COVID-19 vaccine — TC

Within the tubular submerged data center are 864 servers, providing significant computing power, writes Darrell Etherington. Here is the link: https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/17/microsoft-employs-experimental-undersea-data-center-in-search-for-covid-19-vaccine/  

UK finds itself almost alone with centralized virus contact-tracing app that probably won’t work well, asks for your location, may be illegal — The...

Unless people have the NHS app running in the foreground and their phones awake most of the time, the fundamental principle underpinning the entire...