Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan have donated $25 million through their foundation to a philanthropic effort organized by Bill Gates to explore new coronavirus treatments.
The Gates Foundation donated $50 million last week to what it’s calling the “COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator.” The initiative brings together life sciences companies to collaborate on the development of new vaccines, diagnostics, and treatments for COVID-19.
“The Therapeutics Accelerator will enable researchers to quickly determine whether or not existing drugs have a potential benefit against COVID-19,” Chan and Zuckerberg said in a press release. “We hope these coordinated efforts will help stop the spread of COVID-19 as well as provide shared, reusable strategies to respond to future pandemics.”
The two donations are the largest from tech billionaires since the coronavirus outbreak. Wellcome and Mastercard are supporting the effort as well.
The goal of the initiative is to either develop a new drug or adapt an existing treatment that it could help distribute alongside partnering pharmaceutical companies.
The 15 companies participating in the project kicked off the effort by sharing their proprietary libraries of molecular compounds that have some history of being tested with COVID-19.
The lineup includes big names in biotech such as Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Pfizer, Sanofi, and Bristol-Myers Squibb.
New York is now the first city in the country to set a minimum pay rate for drivers working for ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft, following a vote on Tuesday by the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission. Under the new policy, those drivers will make $17.22 per hour. But Aziz Bah, steward of the Independent Drivers Guild, told Cheddar Wednesday it's only the beginning.
Lyft filed for its initial public offering in a confidential registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, it announced in a press release Thursday morning.
The markets rebounded from session lows after news broke the Federal Reserve is considering a new approach to interest rates that could translate to fewer rate hikes in the coming year. The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday the Fed is considering a "wait-and-see" mentality for monetary policy, after the anticipated December hike that is by and large already priced into the markets.
StoreMe wants to solve travelers' "schlepping problem." The on-demand app allows travelers to search a location, input the number of bags they have, and make a reservation. That way, as travelers are passing through cities, they can enjoy the sights sans luggage. "This service is convenient, on-demand, and it's totally affordable," Peter Korbel told Cheddar Wednesday.
Care to watch the original "Star Wars" trilogy? Don't assume Disney's forthcoming streaming service Disney+ will have it. And while AT&T owns "Friends," it won't be streaming it exclusively on its own OTT platform when it launches in 2019 ー viewers will still be able to binge the series on Netflix. "Star Wars" and "Friends" are just a couple of the confusing licensing arrangements viewers should expect as more media companies push to debut their own streaming services to rival Netflix and Hulu.
In the virtual-reality world, "Mission Impossible" is possible after all. VR start-up Nomadic has partnered with VRWERX and Paramount to create a "tactile" experience for the "Mission Impossible" movie franchise that will allow users to interact physically with the virtual world of the movie.
After Tumblr announced it would pull so-called "adult content" from its platform, a larger-than-expected group of users erupted in protest. According to Shannon Liao, a tech and culture reporter at The Verge, many flocked to the platform "to browse sex-positive blogs and also different kinds of curated porn," in a "safe place."
Reports indicate that widespread 5G may arrive in 2019, and providers are scurrying to meet that unofficial deadline in the wake of Verizon's recent announcement that it will partner with Samsung to release a 5G phone by June.
Instagram and WhatsApp are reasons to believe in the future of Facebook as social media trends toward community-based social platforms that reflect users' specific interests, Reddit co-founder, investor, and 21st century renaissance man Alexis Ohanian told Cheddar on Tuesday.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2018.
