Technology

Google has stopped upgrading its Chrome browser and its Chrome OS operating system because of the COVID-19 pandemic and has not said when it would resume refreshing either.

"Due to adjusted work schedules at this time, we are pausing upcoming Chrome and Chrome OS releases," Google said in a short statement posted Wednesday to its Chrome releases blog. "Our primary objectives are to ensure they continue to be stable, secure, and work reliably for anyone who depends on them. We'll continue to prioritize any updates related to security, which will be included in Chrome 80."

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Apple has announced both its new iPad Pro with 3D camera and a new Magic Keyboard-toting $999 model of its MacBook Air, introducing both new products with a pair of press releases, rather than the March event it was originally expected to hold.

The new iPad Pro

Applenew iPad Pro offers a whole bunch of new features, including a LiDAR scanner and — as expected — trackpad support in the form of the new backlit Magic Keyboard.

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Microsoft must be getting this close to delivering the latest Windows 10 upgrade. Last week the company began what will likely be a long-running pitch of 2004, the four-digit label, to enterprises.

Joe Lurie, a Microsoft senior product marketing manager, kicked off the drumbeat in a March 10 post to a company blog. "Here is an early peek at the great commercial features coming later this year," Lurie wrote, implying but not outright declaring that what he plumped would be contained in Windows 10 2004.

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With world events overtaking the tech worldpreferences to meet for coffees and convene at events, Y Combinator skipped its famous two-day live Demo event and went for a radical experiment: no demos at all, but instead a long list of the nearly 200 startups in its Winter 2020 batch, with links to their sites and one-page slides. We&ve done the legwork for you in giving you a full rundown of who does what, and we have also come togetheron a group video chat on Zoom to talk through our takeaways of the format this year (missed it? herethe recording). Now, in no particular order, here is our shortlist of some of our overall favorites.

Slack has unveiled a range of changes to its team chat app aimed at creating a simpler and more intuitive user experience, as it targets a wider range of users. This includes a message &compose& button, easier navigation and customizable sidebars.

Early adopters of Slack tended to be tech professionals working in IT or software development. But as use of Slack has boomed in the six years since its launch — with 12 million daily active users, including at many large enterprise businesses — the types of workers relying on the app for collaborating with colleagues has evolved. After tech professionals, the fastest growing use cases are now in sales, marketing, and customer support, said Slack.

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NASA and SpaceX issued a media accreditation invitation on Wednesday for their Demonstration Mission 2 (aka Demo-2) commercial crew launch & the first in the commercial crew program that will carry actual astronauts to space. The invite includes the current proposed timeframe for the mission, listed as no &no earlier than mid-to-late May.&

Reports from earlier in the year had pegged the launch window for May, with the possibility that SpaceX and NASA could move that to as early as April, or as late as June, depending on the preparedness of the spacecraft and crew. SpaceX was reportedly early on readying the Crew Dragon spacecraft that would be flying the mission, but NASA also changed the mission parameters to include a longer stay at the International Space Station for the crew going up on the demo mission, astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley.

This will be the first time ever that astronauts fly aboard a SpaceX spacecraft, and the first crewed mission for the commercial crew program, through which NASA is working with private company launch operators to return human spaceflight capabilities to American soil. All current astronaut transportation to and from the International Space Station is accomplished through a partnership with RussiaRoscosmos space agency, which flies crews using its Soyuz spacecraft.

So far, NASA and SpaceX haven&t seemed to be anticipating much of a change to the timing of their first crewed Dragon mission in light of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. This invitation from NASA is the most detailed confirmation yet that the mission is still on as of right now, and tracking towards a launch window that seems unchanged from plans prior to the implementation of strict social distancing and isolation measures as the COVID-19 epidemic flared across the U.S.

NASA recently moved all of its facilities to a ‘Stage 3& state of contingency operation, which means all employees are on mandatory telework unless they&re required to be physically present in office for mission-related activity. NASAAmes facility has been escalated to Stage 4, because of the ‘shelter-in-place& order in effect in the California county in which it resides, which means that the facility is closed and only telework is permitted.

In the invitation issued to media today, NASA says that it&proactively monitoring the coronavirus (COVID-19) situation as it evolves& and will &communicate any updates that may impact mission planing or media access, as they become available.& The agency is also taking extra precautions to protect the health of Hurley and Behnken, in addition to standard isolation procedures already in place to prevent them from getting sick ahead of a spaceflight mission.