Yahoo Finance The Morning After: Siri has a COVID-19 questionnaire
The coronavirus continues to change things.
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COVID-19 continues to dominate most of our news this morning. Major stores are swapping to curbside delivery, Siri is trying to help unravel whether your symptoms are connected to the coronavirus and in France and Italy, Amazon isn't taking some non-essential orders as it focuses on vital supplies.
In more buttoned-down news, Huawei's next flagship, the P40 Pro, looks like another imaging beast. The leaks point to a 50X zoom and plenty more -- though some of us won't be taking group photos for a while.
-Mat
Huawei P40 Pro may feature 50X zoom, custom photography chip
Ahead of the official debut on March 26th, more leaks have surfaced about both the P40 Pro and P40. As expected, the P40 Pro is all about photography. The phone will reportedly feature a 50-megapixel wide camera, 40-megapixel telephoto camera, a time-of-flight depth sensor and one more (likely ultra-wide) 12-megapixel camera. The telephoto camera will be able to zoom in on subjects by a factor of up to 50x -- less than the 100X zoom on Samsung's Galaxy S20 Ultra, but then that didn't exactly work that well anyhow. 40W fast-charging? Yep, that's rumored to be there, too.
Amazon halts orders on some non-essentials in France and Italy
Amazon is prioritizing orders in areas hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. The online retailer said it would temporarily stop taking orders for "some non-essential products" in France and Italy to help Amazon warehouses focus on more vital deliveries.
The company didn't say what it was stopping, but the Reuters source believes essentials include groceries, health products, household items, personal care, industrial goods, scientific products and pet supplies. The restrictions only affect sales fulfilled through Amazon. You can still buy non-essentials from Amazon third parties in France and Italy.
Apple's Siri has a coronavirus diagnosis tool
It's no screening test, but Apple has quietly updated Siri in the US to provide a questionnaire (using US Public Health Service and CDC data) when you ask if you have the coronavirus. The voice assistant will ask if you're exhibiting symptoms like a fever or respiratory problems and advises you to avoid contact with others if you appear infected. Siri also urges you to call 911 if your symptoms are extreme and will point you to the App Store to download telehealth apps for remote consultations. It could help take some of the weight off emergency service hotlines.
MoviePass owner sells Moviefone for a fraction of its original worth
Moviefone is far from its glory days. The defunct owner of MoviePass, Helios Matheson and Analytics, has sold the once-legendary movie listing service for just over $1 million as part of bankruptcy proceedings. That's just a fraction of the $388 million AOL (subsumed into Engadget's parent company, Verizon Media) bought it for in 1999. It's not clear what winning bidder, Born in Cleveland LLC, intends to do with Moviefone, but it's safe to say Moviefone's heyday isn't coming back.
The eventual ubiquity of internet access was not kind to Moviefone, which started as an automated phone offering in 1989. Although it did embrace the web and mobile apps, the era of Moviefone was already over.
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