TRENDS

Accelerating Past the Hurdles

According to the trendiest trend-spotters, COVID-19 has been a catalyst for rapid technological change. 

Surprise deck drop

VC Mary Meeker, who produces a must-see Internet Trends Report each year, released a special coronavirus deck with her new firm Bond Capital (first spotted by Axios). 

The report discusses the effects of real-time connectedness on global collaboration. With AI lending a virtual hand, researchers have sped up scientific discovery. They've published ~3,000 COVID-19 papers, a 20x spike over prior infectious disease research at a comparable point in the public health response. And clinical researchers have mobilized trials for COVID-19 interventions quickly, with ~500 underway and 5 million expected participants. 

Existing trends are accelerating

Communications and productivity services have also quickly scaled to meet the demands of a decentralized workforce, Bond Capital argues. Restaurateurs and brick-and-mortar retailers have shifted offline business online. On-demand delivery services like Instacart and DoorDash "may be gaining permanent market share." 

Which services are here to stay? Healthcare tech adoption curves that "would previously have taken months or years" have sped up to just days or weeks, tech analyst Benedict Evans notes. Telehealth, connected devices, rapid point-of-care diagnostics, and AI/automation in healthcare "will only accelerate," Bond Capital predicts. 

Elsewhere, corporate IT departments accelerating investment in cloud services probably won't return to dinosaur tech systems. The U.S. government may fast-track plans to modernize outdated, overwhelmed tech stacks. And e-commerce will retain a greater share of retail. 

The "builder" mindset

On Saturday, VC Marc Andreessen published "It's time to build," a blog post 1) arguing that Western institutions' bungled COVID-19 response stems from a failure of imagination, and 2) issuing a call to arms to "build" more innovation into manufacturing, transportation, urban planning, education, and government.

• Andreessen famously said software is eating the world. True, but the sectors he cites typically don't have software's profitability margins, nor can they be quickly "rebuilt" like an app.

Bottom line: This crisis increases our appetite for experimentation and reduces adoption hurdles.

+ For more trends, check out Emerging Tech Brew's COVID-19 Traffic Report.

AV

Why Don't You Just Meet Me In the Middle

Three weeks ago, I wrote that autonomous vehicles could assist with long-haul freight routes and last-mile deliveries to consumers. One startup thinks its AVs can fill the missing sweet spot on that logistics spectrum.

Whomst? Gatik says it serves an expensive, challenging part of retailers' supply chains: the "middle mile"—fixed, repeatable routes between distribution centers, warehouses, and stores. By catering to this AV-starved segment, Gatik has found business opportunities that have eluded competitors. 

The startup has completed 15,000 revenue-generating trips in North America for customers like Walmart. Since these trips qualify as "essential business," Gatik's AV fleet is still burning rubber during the pandemic. "We're seeing a spike in orders" driven by surging e-commerce, Gatik policy/communications lead Rich Steiner told me. 

• From a technical POV, repeatable journeys minimize the likelihood of "edge cases," such as streaking jaywalkers, that flummox self-driving software.

My takeaway: Gatik's operations aren't scalable enough to make a dent in humans' monopoly on driving, but they're a proof of concept for contactless, automated logistics.

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PUBLIC HEALTH

The Quantified Wrist

Your loyal wrist lieutenant may soon be moonlighting as an infectious disease field researcher. 

Fitbit, the Scripps Translational Research Institute, and the Stanford University School of Medicine recently announced a research initiative to detect and track infectious diseases using data from wearables. That's not a trivial task—the standard wearable collects 250,000 data points a day, per a Stanford genetics professor. 

• In January, Scripps published research showing it could accurately predict flu hotspots quicker than the CDC using 47,000 Fitbit users' anonymized data. Regionally, clusters of elevated resting heart rates corresponded with a higher concentration of patients with flu-like infections. 

In other smart news

A few weeks ago, the German government launched an opt-in smartwatch "data donation" app to monitor the coronavirus's spread and assess the effectiveness of containment policies. And smart thermometer maker Kinsa has said its temperature data can identify COVID-19 hotspots faster than the CDC. 

Zoom out: Though these data trails ≠ ironclad health signals, they could provide extra visibility into COVID-19's spread.

BITS & BYTES

Stat: Gmail is blocking more than 100 million phishing emails a day. 18 million of those emails are related to coronavirus.  

Quote: "The best way to communicate from one human being to another is through story"—Donald Knuth to Quanta. The trailblazing computer scientist is still expanding on The Art of Computer Programming, his magnum opus. 

Read: A helpful teardown of how Chinese consumer apps built features for COVID-19 data visualization, personalized exposure levels, telehealth, e-commerce, and quarantine.

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WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• State-run Chinese banks are testing a digital currency created by the country's central bank in four cities. The currency could be ready to use for Beijing's 2022 Winter Olympics.
• Instagram cofounders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger launched Rt.live, a real-time, state-by-state tracker of the coronavirus's reproduction rate. If Rt <1, the virus stops spreading.
• The NYT built an AR feature into its iOS app that shows users how to social distance. 
• The FBI is receiving between 3,000 and 4,000 cybersecurity complaints a day, a big jump from the 1,000 pre-coronavirus daily average.
• White House advisor Larry Kudlow suggested the U.S. should let companies deduct the cost of reshoring production from China. 

WHAT'S BREWING THIS WEEK

Monday: 4/20; earnings (IBM); Fortune publishes World's 25 Greatest Leaders: Heroes of the Pandemic list; Boeing resumes airplane production in Washington state (who's buying?)

Tuesday: Earnings (Netflix, Snap)

Wednesday: Earth Day; earnings (AT&T)

Thursday: Ramadan begins; earnings (Intel, Ping An, Canon, Renault); 15th anniversary of first YouTube video; EU leaders hold coronavirus videoconference

Friday: iPhone SE becomes available; earnings (Verizon); 30th anniversary of Hubble telescope lift-off

FROM YOU...

On Friday, I asked how your New Year's resolutions were holding up. Most respondents said their workout goals are suffering from gym closures or exponentially increased snacking. One reader is getting close to finishing a book about blockchain; another is learning how to play the harmonica and sending more postcards than ever before.

But the best resolution is the anti-resolution: "Haven't had resolutions in decades and am more affirmed than ever to not have resolutions."

TECH THINGAMABOBS

For students of history: 55 years ago yesterday, Fairchild Semiconductor R&D chief and future Intel cofounder Gordon Moore published an article predicting that the number of transistors on integrated circuits would double every two years or so. Moore's call was quite prescient; you may have even heard of his law. 

For cultural crossover headlines: The influencer economy is heading into its first recession. Animal Crossing fans are going on Tinder dates in the game. NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order allowing New Yorkers to get married over video.

For getting smarter: Enroll in NYU Professor Scott Galloway's two-week course that breaks down the winning strategies of tech behemoths like Amazon and Apple. The May course is only open to Brew readers, so sign up today.*

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