With the past week came a flurry of big tech news — from executive orders to massive mergers. Here’s what’s making waves in the Bay Area and beyond.
Drama surrounding video-sharing app TikTok continued. President Donald Trump teed up executive orders banning business with Chinese companies ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, and Tencent Holdings, the owner of WeChat. The administration is pushing the companies to sell their U.S. arms to U.S. companies within 45 days, due to its concerns over national data security. TikTok said it plans to contest the order, Reuters reported. Meanwhile, rumors fly about a potential sale of TikTok to Microsoft.
The U.S. got its first official fintech national bank. Varo Money became the first consumer fintech company to gain a national bank charter when the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Reserve and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted their approval, the company announced July 31. That means Varo can offer FDIC-backed loans and lines of credit to its customers, and particularly people “underserved by the traditional system,” the company said in a statement. From its inception, Varo has pursued this “real bank” status, as opposed relying on community banks partners to hold its balances, like other banking fintechs.
It was a huge week for healthtech. German healthcare behemoth Siemens Healthineers struck a deal to acquire Palo Alto-based healthtech company Varian Medical Systems for $16.4 billion. Three days later, Mountain View-based disease management platform Livongo and New York-based telehealth platform Teladoc Health announced their $18.5 billion merger. The deals come amid a flurry of activity for healthtech companies, as the coronavirus outbreak fuels demand for digital health products like telehealth appointments. But market growth for these players likely won’t end with the pandemic — the International Agency for Research on Cancer, for instance, expects cancer diagnoses to almost double between 2010 and 2030.
Another tech giant committed to long-term remote work. Facebook announced Thursday its more than 50,000 employees can work remotely until July of 2021. The move follows similar declarations from Google, Amazon, Uber and others. Policy decisions by tech giants on remote work fuel speculation on what office jobs will look like once the pandemic is over.
COVID-19 forecasting became more accessible. Google, in partnership with the Harvard Global Health Institute, released a set of AI-powered prediction models dubbed the COVID-19 Public Forecasts. Powered by data from Johns Hopkins University, Descartes Labs, the United States Census Bureau and more, the models can help local governments and healthcare organizations predict infection rates and hospital bed availability at the county level. This, ideally, will help with resource planning and testing strategies, according to analysis by VentureBeat. The models allow users to query their results and see what information produced various forecasts. They’ve also been adjusted to account for the pandemic’s disproportionate effect on people and communities of color, Google researchers wrote.
San Jose is attempting to tackle the tech gap for Santa Clara County students. The city announced a partnership with AT&T to install 11,000 Wi-Fi hotspots — 8,000 for schoolchildren at home and 3,000 for the public through local libraries, Axios reported. The $9.4 million initiative will help the county’s estimated 15,000 students without access to home internet as area schools start the year with entirely remote instruction. San Jose will contribute $3.4 million toward the program’s costs, while AT&T will donate $6 million of installation services. Could this set-up be replicated elsewhere as more counties commit to remote learning during the 2020–21 school year?
Instagram unveiled a “Reels” feature reminiscent of TikTok. Users can now create 15-second videos composed of multiple clips, music and effects, according to the company’s announcement. The reels will have a dedicated space in Instagram’s explore function.
