Shaw temporarily lays off 10% of its employees due to COVID-19

Calgary-based Shaw Communications announced on Tuesday that because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it'll temporarily lay off 10% of its workforce. The company said the layoffs will begin on Thursday, April 16, affecting fewer than 1,000 of its 10,000 employees. Most of the laid-off staff work in retail and sales roles. Shaw and Shaw-owned Freedom Mobile closed most of its retail stores to comply with government directives to help slow the spread of the virus.

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Nintendo warns you against using alcohol to clean your Switch Joy-Cons

Photo courtesy of Nintendo

In the age of the COVID-19 pandemic, it's a necessity to clean devices you use frequently. And we know a lot of Nintendo Switch users are making the most out of their game consoles. Naturally, the first instinct is to disinfect the Switch with alcohol or disinfecting wipes. But Nintendo warns against doing so. 

Kotaku translated a tweet from Nintendo Customer Service that alcohol shouldn't be used with Joy-Cons. "Recently, customers have been asking whether they can disinfect their Nintendo Switch consoles and Joy-Cons with alcohol," the tweet said. "We're very sorry to say please avoid using alcohol as it may cause the plastic parts to fade in colour or deform."

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Google Play Services will be used to deploy COVID-19 contact tracing system to Android devices

Photo by Tofros.com from Pexels

One of the critical questions Google needed to answer about the COVID-19 contact tracing system it was co-developing with Apple is how it would deploy the technology to its devices. The company has since confirmed that it will use Google Play Services infrastructure to make this happen. 

It guarantees that more Android phones will receive the capability promptly since full operating system updates are unfortunately fraught with delays from both carriers and manufacturers. Releasing the system on Google Play Services also means it will be available on handsets running Android 6.0 Marshmallow or above.

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Apple, Google partner to develop tech that assists with COVID-19 contact tracing

How Apple and Google plan to use tech to assist with contact tracing (Apple and Google)

Contact tracing is an essential tool to help contain the spread of COVID-19. But that doesn't mean it wouldn't need some technological help. Google and Apple are working together to allow the use of Bluetooth technology to help governments and health agencies reduce the spread of the virus while having "user privacy and security central to the design."

To help with contact tracing, the tech giants are launching solutions that include application programming interfaces (APIs) and operating system-level tech. The companies will implement these solutions in two steps. 

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