What do a heating filter company, a robotics startup and an architecture startup have in common? Usually, nothing. But right now, as COVID-19 sweeps the world and jeopardizes the lives of millions, companies are shifting operations to make N95 masks and ventilators for healthcare workers.

The innovation coming out of the startup world has been breathtaking, and, quite honestly, hard to keep up with. It feels like everyone in Silicon Valley and beyond is rising to the challenge, even if they don&t have pockets as deep as Amazon and Google.

So, for a drop of good news and hope at least once a week, we&re rounding up some of the startup efforts we&re seeing to combat the impact of COVID-19. This isn&t a place where we&ll be analyzing startups working on proposed cures (you can check out Darrelltireless work for that). Instead, we&ll look at the unique ways that companies are trying to make us feel less lonely and unpack how tech is answering the questions we&re starting to ask ourselves.

Stopcovid.co

The founder of Managed by Q, Dan Teran, has teamed up with training services startup ESLWorks to text message the latest coronavirus updates to front-line workers in real time. The Stopcovid.co initiative targets workers who may not have the support of a big organization but still need to follow the health recommendations of the CDC. The messages are sent via WhatsApp and text message so users who are not digitally apt can access the information with ease. When I caught up with Teran, he said that, &I don&t want to characterize the population we&re trying to reach, but if I were a delivery driver for 12 to 14 hours a day trying to put food on the table, I&m probably not up to date on the virus and how it spreads.&

Cornell Tech Clinic

Cornell Tech Clinic is helping domestic violence survivors get support during a time when individuals are forced to stay inside and rely on virtual communities. The clinic launched a remote program to give advice to abuse survivors who are worried that their partners are using technology to abuse them, whether that is cyberstalking or monitoring every call or chat. The new program will include how to best get in touch with a case worker remotely, how-to guides for self help and a research study on how to aid those experiencing tech abuse.

S&More and Hopeline

Dating app S&More, which helps users connect beyond physical appearance, is teaming up with a mental health crisis prevention hotline Hopeline to raise money. The campaign, called &social distancing is not emotional distancing,& will make a $1 donation to Hopeline for every person who starts a conversation on S&More.

Procore construction management

Procore, a construction management software developer, is giving customers free access to its software for projects being built for COVID-19-related emergency relief products. The hope is to support the construction industry in flipping hotels, convention centers and more into emergency medical facilities, sans the extra money for software.

Wize tutoring platform

Wize, piggybacking off of a slew of edtech companies offering freebies, is making its tutoring platform for free until the end of the school year. Students who have felt the impact of their school or university shutting down can access a library of exam or test preparation materials.

Springboard career coaching

Edtech startup Springboard is offering a weekly career coaching seminar for free to help job seekers prepare for a &post-pandemic economy.& The AMA will be held every Wednesday, starting April 1 from 12:30 to 1:30pm PST.

Voxel51

Voxel51 is using live, pre-existing cameras to track how preventative measures are being followed around the world. It uses artificial intelligence to give a window into social activity in popular public spaces, and &scores& areas based on social behaviors. Ita way to track how much people are listening to public health recommendations.

Tech Manitoba and Computers for Schools

When Tech Manitoba, a local nonprofit in Canada, had only eight refurbished computers for the 150 families in need, it knew it needed a bigger solution. Tech Manitoba teamed up with Computers for Schools and is now gifting 200 refurbished, sanitized computers to those in need.

One Planet prayer chain

One Planet, a venture firm, started a global prayer chain. The site, LightUpTheWorld.org, lets people from all over the world post prayers and reflections focused on health and optimism. When you go to the site, the prayer you see is being written and posted in real time by the author.

Stilt low-interest loan

Stilt is a tech startup that claims it gives low-interest loans to immigrants to help them build credit based on requirements beyond Social Security number and credit history. It is offering its customers who are hourly workers, and make less than $45,000 a year, an immediate freeze on interest for payments and a forbearance — which is a delay on foreclosure — for two months.

The second half of The Walking Dead season 10 has had plenty of shocking twists and turns, but arguably the biggest is the news that the season finale is being delayed due to the coronavirus. That makes episode 15, 'The Tower', the Walking Dead season finale for now. Our guide explains how to watch The Walking Dead season 10, episode 15 online no

As schools lie empty, students still have to learn. But officials in New York City say schools are not permitted to use Zoom for remote teaching, citing security concerns with the video conferencing service.

&Providing a safe and secure remote learning experience for our students is essential, and upon further review of security concerns, schools should move away from using Zoom as soon as possible,& said Danielle Filson, a spokesperson for the New York City Dept. of Education. &There are many new components to remote learning, and we are making real-time decisions in the best interest of our staff and students.&

Instead, the cityDept. of Education is transitioning schools to Microsoft Teams, which the spokesperson said has the &same capabilities with appropriate security measures in place.&

The ban will cover some 1.1 million students in more than 1,800 schools across the cityfive boroughs.The decision to ban Zoom from schools was made in part by New York CityCyber Command, which launched in 2018 to help keep the cityresidents safe.

Zoom did not immediately comment.

News of the ban comes after a barrage of criticism over the companysecurity policies and privacy practices, as hundreds of millions of users forced to work during the pandemic from home turn to the video calling platform. On Friday, Zoomchief executive apologized for &mistakenly& routing some calls through China, after researchers said the setup would put ostensibly encrypted calls at risk of interception by Chinese authorities. Zoom also apologized for claiming its service was end-to-end encrypted when it was not.

Zoom also changed its default settings to enable passwords on video calls by default after a wave of &Zoombombing& attacks, which saw unprotected calls invaded by trolls and used to broadcast abusive content.

Not all schools are said to be finding the transition easy. As first reported by Chalkbeat, Zoom quickly became the popular video calling service of choice after city schools closed on March 16. But one school principal in Brooklyn warned the publication that the shift away from Zoom would make it harder to remotely teach their classes, citing a &clunkiness& of Microsoftservice.

The city spokesperson said it had been training schools on Microsoft Teams for &several weeks.&

But the spokesperson did not rule out an eventual return to Zoom, saying that the department &continues to review and monitor developments with Zoom,& and will update schools with any changes.

WWE's WrestleMania may be a different beast in 2020, but it's still the most prestigious event on the professional wrestling calendar. The coronavirus pandemic means this year's Showcase of the Immortals is being spread over two days, so the biggest fights are still to come this Sunday. We're here to fill you in and explain how to live stream

In the time of COVID-19, much of what transpires from the science world to the general public relates to the virus, and understandably so. But other domains, even within medical research, are still active — and as usual, there are tons of interesting (and heartening) stories out there that shouldn&t be lost in the furious activity of coronavirus coverage. This last week brought good news for several medical conditions as well as some innovations that could improve weather reporting and maybe save a few lives in Cambodia.

Ultrasound and AI promise better diagnosis of arrhythmia

Arrhythmia is a relatively common condition in which the heart beats at an abnormal rate, causing a variety of effects, including, potentially, death. Detecting it is done using an electrocardiogram, and while the technique is sound and widely used, it has its limitations: first, it relies heavily on an expert interpreting the signal, and second, even an expertdiagnosis doesn&t give a good idea of what the issue looks like in that particular heart. Knowing exactly where the flaw is makes treatment much easier.

Ultrasound is used for internal imaging in lots of ways, but two recent studies establish it as perhaps the next major step in arrhythmia treatment. Researchers at Columbia University used a form of ultrasound monitoring called Electromechanical Wave Imaging to create 3D animations of the patientheart as it beat, which helped specialists predict 96% of arrhythmia locations compared with 71% when using the ECG. The two could be used together to provide a more accurate picture of the heartcondition before undergoing treatment.

Another approach from Stanford applies deep learning techniques to ultrasound imagery and shows that an AI agent can recognize the parts of the heart and record the efficiency with which it is moving blood with accuracy comparable to experts. As with other medical imagery AIs, this isn&t about replacing a doctor but augmenting them; an automated system can help triage and prioritize effectively, suggest things the doctor might have missed or provide an impartial concurrence with their opinion. The code and data set of EchoNet are available for download and inspection.

At this time of national (and, of course, international) crisis, it's only natural that the Queen should speak to the people in a special address. It's only the fourth such time that she has done so in almost 70 years on the throne. Want to watch the Queen's Coronavirus speech online? Read on to find out everything you'll need to know.

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