Walmart, the nation's largest employer, announced a partnership with Nuro, a Silicon Valley startup called this week. The two companies will begin delivering groceries to customers in Houston this year using autonomous vehicles.

Women have long felt the pressure of looking the part. Now men are feeling it, too.

The Vikings will face off against the 3-0 Los Angeles Rams, which normally would trigger an automatic sit for any passing attack, but the Rams, on short rest, will be without cornerbacks Aqib Talib and Marcus Peters.

Here’s how the NHL season is projected to end — with a look at some key stats that could make all the difference.

The Boston Red Sox won 108 games in 2018, the most in franchise history.

Contrarian bettors are off to their best start through the first four weeks of the season since 2003.

Anderson has had to face Darius Slay, Xavien Howard, Denzel Ward and Jalen Ramsey in coverage during the first four weeks of the season. Better days should be ahead, starting next week against the Colts.

People are talking about some College Football Playoff scenarios as though they're certainties. That needs to stop. As good as the Tide are, the odds are still not in their favor. (Yet.)

Khalil Mack has helped turn the Bears into a solid commodity in the betting market.

During the first five weeks of the season, NFL coaches, as a group, have made the choice to go for two points 47 times this year, 19 more than they did at this point of the season in 2017.

But they should make the playoffs!

Quarterbacks have won 10 of the past 11 MVP awards, and the six rushers who have won over the past 30 years have been historically good, either establishing a record for touchdowns or rushing for more than 2,000 yards in a season.

The work of Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers shouldn’t go unnoticed.

A sputtering offense and a bad defense is causing the Raiders to be outscored by nearly eight points per game after adjusting for strength of schedule.

Michel will face a Chicago Bears defense that stops opposing rushers a league-low 13 percent of the time.

Goff is using play-action more often than any other quarterback in 2018.

Mack carried the ball 19 times for 126 yards and a touchdown and added two catches for 33 yards and a touchdown on Sunday against the Bills.

Boston's pitchers aren't performing as well as they did during the regular season, making them vulnerable to an upset by Los Angeles.

While Clemson and Alabama appear to be locks for the postseason bracket, Ohio State's loss opens up the bottom two spots to a few different tiers of teams.

Washington is a good bet to win at least two of their next three games (42 percent chance), with 3-to-1 odds to win all three.

Teams are averaging 113.4 points per game, the highest output since the early 1970s.

The Lakers rank near the bottom of the league in three-point percentage after three games and spreading out around the arc will not work for this team. Couple that with a fast pace and James's age and there are real concerns to address in L.A.

Since 1969, only 12 teams have recorded baseball’s best record and gone on to win a championship that same year. Just seven of those 12 won 108 or more games during the regular season. The Red Sox are two wins away from joining that elite company.

Six teams are on a bye this week, giving stars like Saquon Barkley, Odell Beckham Jr., Andrew Luck, Zach Ertz and A.J. Green the week off. Here are three players that could have big games in their stead.

This year’s Classic, a 1¼-mile race for 3-year-olds and up, will be held at Churchill Downs and features several strong entrants.

Favorites have won 99 of 318 races (31 percent) in the Breeders’ Cup.

The dismissal of coach Hue Jackson seems to have given Duke Johnson Jr. new life with the Browns.

Michigan, Georgia and Oklahoma scrambling for final spots.

The Braves' Acuna appears to be a runaway winner right now, but a closer look shows Soto had a tremendous impact on the Nationals.

The Bills, Browns, Patriots, Jets and 49ers all have byes. That leaves a number of holes to plug in your fantasy lineup.

Since 2002, the first year the league expanded to 32 teams, the Chargers have made the playoffs six times, just one of which saw them advance further than the divisional round. That could change this season.

Even with the Dolphins, Broncos, Bengals and Titans within striking distance, if you are hoping for a dramatic playoff push in the AFC to end the season, bad news: there won’t be any.

Here’s what we know for sure about the NFC playoff picture: the Saints, Rams and Bears can make postseason plans. The rest is up for grabs.

The Baltimore defense has produced a very effective pass rush lately.

Monday night's game figures to have a big impact on the NFC playoff race.

Cousins's next opponent, the Seattle Seahawks, has been kind to fantasy quarterbacks of late, surrendering at least 21 fantasy points in each of the last four contests.

From 2003 to 2017, underdogs getting seven points or more at home were 94-72-1 overall against the spread and that includes a 43-26-1 ATS record in December and January.

The two teams in control of the NFC's wild-card slots battle head-to-head, while the rest of the NFL playoff picture got much clearer despite four of the AFC’s top teams losing.

It's never easy benching star players who are in less-than-ideal situations but it is often the right thing to do.

Atlanta is on a five-game losing streak but their offense is scoring 2.3 points per drive in 2018, the fifth-highest rate in the NFL. That should be more than enough against Arizona's awful offense.

The 49ers are 1-9 straight up in their last 10 divisional games.

Sleep easy knowing that no matter what next week’s injury report reveals, you will have the players you need to secure a year’s worth of bragging rights.

The Redskins need two more victories to close out the season, including one against the Eagles in the regular-season finale, just to get their playoff chances to 80 percent.

• While ride-hailing has suffered from the impact of COVID-19, Uber is in a good position to survive the crisis, three analysts who cover the company told Business Insider.
• Uber is in no danger of running of out money anytime soon, said Mark Mahaney, a managing director at RBC Capital Markets.
• And a series of cost-cutting moves should make the company profitable by next year, said Dan Ives, a managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities.
• Uber's food-delivery service, Uber Eats, gives the company an advantage over ride-hailing competitors, since it allows homebound consumers to keep using its app, said Tom White, a senior research analyst at DA Davidson.
• Are you a current or former Uber employee? Do you have an opinion about what it's like to work there? Contact this reporter at mmatousek@businessinsider.com. You can also reach out on Signal at 646-768-4712 or email this reporter's encrypted address at mmatousek@protonmail.com.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The ride-hailing industry has taken a major hit from COVID-19 as potential customers remain confined to their homes, but Uber is in a good position to survive the crisis, three analysts who cover the company said.

"Their business model will be intact on the other side of this," said Dan Ives, a managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities.

A strong cash reserve will help. After ending the first quarter with $9 billion in cash and short-term investments, Uber has the resources to survive a scenario in which the prevalence of COVID-19 and its effect on consumer behavior last for the next two years, said Mark Mahaney, a managing director at RBC Capital Markets.

On Thursday, Uber disclosed its first-quarter financial results, reporting an adjusted loss of $2.9 billion on revenue of $3.5 billion during the first three months of this year. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said on a call with analysts that the ride-hailing company would cut $1 billion in fixed costs. The company has recently removed its food-delivery service — Uber Eats — from eight unprofitable markets, folded its electric bike and scooter business into Lime (Uber recently led a $170 million investment round in the company), and announced it will lay off about 14% of its workforce.

Those moves should help Uber become profitable in 2021 (the company predicted in February that it would turn a profit by the end of this year), Ives said. Uber's management, which had struggled in the wake of the company's 2019 IPO, has performed well in the current crisis by being transparent with investors and quickly moving to reduce expenses, Ives said. Investors signaled their approval of the company's strategy by sending shares up as much as 8% in after-hours trading on Thursday.

Uber Eats was one of the highlights of the company's first-quarter results, said Tom White, a senior research analyst at DA Davidson, as gross bookings grew 52% from the first quarter of 2019 to $4.7 billion. Eats gives Uber an advantage over ride-hailing competitors that don't have a similar service, as it allows the company to keep homebound consumers using its app, White said. Even after the toll of COVID-19 begins to subside, demand for online food delivery could see continued growth, he added.

But there are still challenges ahead for Uber. The company said rides fell by as much as 80% in April, and Ives projects that 30% of the customers for gig-economy companies like Uber, Airbnb, and Lyft won't use a ride-hailing service until there's a vaccine for COVID-19. Yet the pandemic could leave Uber better off in the long run, White said.

"I saw and heard enough [during Uber's first-quarter earnings call] that makes it harder and harder for me to think that these guys don't emerge from this pandemic probably in a stronger competitive position and a healthier and leaner operating position," he said.

Are you a current or former Uber employee? Do you have an opinion about what it's like to work there? Contact this reporter at mmatousek@businessinsider.com. You can also reach out on Signal at 646-768-4712 or email this reporter's encrypted address at mmatousek@protonmail.com.

• Read more:
• Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi says drivers should receive tiered healthcare benefits based on how many hours they work, and that the company would pay for it
• SoftBank-backed companies laid off more than 3,700 people in 2020 and more than 7,000 in the past year
• Uber reveals first-quarter losses of $2.9 billion because of the coronavirus — but says business is starting to pick up again
• Lyft surges 17% after posting a narrower-than-expected quarterly loss as coronavirus hit the ride-hailing industry

SEE ALSO: Elon Musk's theater of the absurd is a sign of the times for tech

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why Pikes Peak is the most dangerous racetrack in America

• A hospital in India is using robots to screen possible coronavirus patients.
• The humanoid robot, called Mitra, uses a handheld thermal camera to evaluate patients before sending them on to healthcare workers.
• Thermal imaging is being tested in other countries as a way to check for coronavirus symptoms. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

India is yet another country using robots to take some of the burden off of HealthCare workers, with a humanoid robot named Mitra that takes patients' temperatures using a thermal camera.

India's 1.3 billion residents have been under lockdown since March 24, and last week the orders were extended for at least another two weeks. "To save India and every Indian, there will be a total ban on venturing out of your homes," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said. In late April, some convenience stores were allowed to reopen, but specific rules vary by state.

The Indian government has also developed a controversial contact tracing app which shares residents' location constantly. More than 90 million people have reportedly already downloaded the app, and in at least one city, not having the app is punishable with six months in jail.

Meanwhile, these robots are being used in a hospital in Bangalore as the first screening for some patients who may have coronavirus. A pharmacy in Italy has implemented similar technology to screen customers for signs of infection. Here's how they work.

SEE ALSO: Stores in Italy are using robots to screen customers for mask wearing and high temperatures before they can go inside as the country reopens

The robots are a safer way for doctors to perform initial screenings of patients.

A tablet on one robot's chest allows doctors to video chat with patient without putting their own health at risk.

A thermal camera-equipped robot takes a patient's temperature without needing to touch them.

Using this information, healthcare providers can send patients to the appropriate specialist, and patients who are unlikely to have coronavirus won't be unnecessarily exposed.

After receiving a temperature reading, the robot gives the patient instructions for their next steps.

Some experts have suggested that temperature guns are not always accurate because they must be held at a specific distance, but the tablet mostly avoids that problem by instructing patients on where to stand.

Even the most accurate thermometers aren't a perfect measure to stop the virus, though. Infected people can go up to 14 days without showing symptoms, and some people never develop symptoms.

Source: Business Insider

• Business Insider surveyed enterprise technology companies to determine who's still hiring amid the coronavirus pandemic.
• Companies like Amazon Web Services, Slack, Okta, Box, and Zoom are actively hiring, while others like Microsoft, Google, and SAP have slowed hiring to prioritize recruiting in key areas.
• Below is a list of 19 enterprise tech companies that are hiring, and the types of roles they are trying to fill.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

As companies across industries slow or stop hiring amid the public health and economic crisis caused by the coronavirus, Business Insider surveyed enterprise technology companies to find out who is still hiring, and the types of roles they're trying to fill.

The results include companies actively hiring — such as Amazon Web Services, Slack, Okta, Box, and Zoom — while others like Microsoft, Google, and SAP have slowed hiring to prioritize recruiting in key areas.

Responses come directly from companies, but be aware that hiring alone may not paint a complete picture of what's going on at each one. VMware, for example, told Business Insider that it's hiring, particularly in a few key areas related to its cloud business — but also told employees in an internal memo that it was freezing all salaries.

Oracle, Nvidia, and Palo Alto Networks declined to comment on whether they are still hiring. Workday, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Stripe, Qualcomm and HP did not reply to requests for more information.

Here are 19 enterprise companies still hiring in some form amid the pandemic, and what they're looking for:

Amazon Web Services is actively hiring, with no hiring freezes in place, the company says. Amazon at large has more than 20,000 job postings in US corporate roles.

Slack is "actively hiring," in a range of positions including engineers, data scientists, designers and customer experience experts, a spokesperson told Business Insider.

The company has moved to a virtual hiring process – all interviews are conducted over video and onboarding happens remotely.

Slack has 213 open positions listed on its website at the time of this writing.

Box is "currently hiring," a spokesperson said, across roles in engineering, sales, marketing, customer success, finance, compliance, business operations, product and product design.

Box's website listed 76 open jobs at the time of this writing.

In additional to moving interviews online, the company has introduced new practices like virtual coffee chats with candidates and videos from employees to learn more about Box's culture. For new hires, the company has switched start dates to once per month and started a buddy system to help with onboarding.

Zoom is hiring across the US and internationally for positions including in sales, engineering, legal, and security.

"We did have an extremely ambitious hiring goal already for this year," Lynne Oldham, Zoom's chief people officer, recently told Business Insider. "So where we're seeing additional need is around the places that we touch the customer."

The company had 81 open positions listed on its website as of this writing.

DocuSign "has moved forward with its hiring as previously planned," a spokesperson said, and is hiring in roles across customer services, sales and business development, engineering and IT, marketing, finance, legal, and workplace teams.

The company is also continuing its internship program virtually and plans to bring on more than 100 interns this summer.

DocuSign had 338 positions listed on its careers website as of this writing.

Dell-owned VMware is still hiring, a spokesperson said, and has "hundreds of open roles across R&D, IT, sales, customer services and support, marketing, finance, HR, legal, and business administration."

But the company is also freezing salaries and suspending retirement matching, according to a memo obtained by Business Insider. A spokesperson confirmed that "there have been a number of cost management changes impacting the VMware workforce."

VMware interviews take place virtually.

Microsoft has frozen hiring for some roles, citing uncertainty related to the coronavirus crisis.

"We continue to seek industry-leading talent in a range of disciplines as we continue to invest in certain strategic areas," a Microsoft spokesperson told Business Insider last month. "However, in light of the uncertainties presented by COVID-19, we are temporarily pausing recruitment for other roles."

Microsoft declined to provide more information about for which positions it's still hiring, and which roles are seeing a pause in hiring.

Microsoft's subsidiaries include LinkedIn and GitHub.

German software giant SAP is still hiring in essential areas, but has pledged to reduce hiring and discretionary spending as "precautionary measures" during the pandemic.

The company "will continue to hire carefully selected people into roles that will rapidly contribute to our competitive edge,"a spokesperson said, which it said include in "essential areas" such as innovation, and research and development. 

SAP said its candidate selection has remained the same, but the interviews are conducted virtually. New hires are onboarded virtually and sent SAP-issued equipment to their private addresses so they don't have to go to the office.

Google is slowing down hiring for the remainder of the year, CEO Sundar Pichai told the company in an email seen by Business insider.

Pichai said the company is enacting a hiring freeze on all but a select few "strategic areas" for the remainder of 2020. He wrote in the email that the company needed to "carefully prioritize" recruiting employees to serve its "greatest user and business needs."

Dell Technologies is not "hiring broadly," but subsidiary companies like VMware and Secureworks still are, a Dell spokesperson told Business Insider.

Dell Technologies is still continuing its early-in-career programs and summer internships, although they've become remote. 

"We are constantly evolving our hiring strategy based on business needs," the spokesperson said.

Okta is still actively hiring, Okta's chief people officer Kristina Johnson confirmed to Business Insider.

"We're continuously evaluating what we need as a business during this time, listening to customers, and tailoring our hiring plans to meet those needs," Johnson said. "Okta is in a unique position during this uncertain time in that we had the right infrastructure in place from the get-go to make remote work and remote on-boarding fairly routine."

Okta's main hiring focus areas are in customer service, engineering, and sales, Johnson said. 

Dropbox has temporarily halted its recruiting efforts to figure out the process for onboarding people remotely.

"What we actually ended up doing was we took a pause to just take stock of our onboarding and our approach to onboarding because we wanted to make sure that we weren't bringing people on and that they actually weren't effectively able to onboard," Dropbox COO Olivia Nottebohm told Business Insider.

It's still hiring but has slowed down, only hiring for targeted roles, meaning it's up to managers to hire for key, business critical roles.

"We're trying to just be prudent and nd not get ahead of ourselves given the macro environment that we're in, but we are moving forward to hiring targeted roles," Nottebohm said.

While Dropbox plans to honor pending offers and ongoing interview processes, interviews for new applicants have been put on hold. The college internship program will also take place in the summer remotely.

"Fully remote recruiting and onboarding into a new company comes with unique challenges — bringing new hires into Dropbox takes a great deal of collaboration between many teams, including hiring managers, learning and development, IT, benefits, and recruiting," a Dropbox spokesperson told Business Insider.  

"In order to ensure we're onboarding new hires effectively and managing the strain on these teams during the shelter-in-place orders in effect across the globe, we've paused recruiting efforts temporarily," the spokesperson added.  

In April, ServiceNow promised not to lay off any of its 11,000 employees and also said it plans to keep hiring worldwide this year.

"With this new no layoffs pledge for its 11,000-plus global workforce, ServiceNow continues to take a leading role in how technology companies are responding to this health crisis by helping its own employees and customers get through these challenging and uncertain times," Shane Driggers, vice president of Global Talent Acquisition at ServiceNow, said in a statement to Business Insider.

The company expects to create and fill more than 1,000 new jobs in the US and more worldwide by the end of the year, Driggers says.

"We are leaning into hiring for engineering and sales roles as well as other functions across the business," Driggers said.

Splunk is still hiring for a number of positions across the organization, a spokesperson told Business Insider. Open roles include positions in engineering, sales, finance, accounting, and information technology.

Square is still hiring and focusing on roles like software engineering, data science, product design, sales, marketing, operations, and finance, a spokesperson told Business Insider.

"We are continuing to hire in the US and internationally, focusing on roles that we believe will be the most important to our customers and our business in the coming months," a Square spokesperson said. 

Currently, Square has over 100 open roles. 

Twilio is still hiring across the board and not slowing down, a company spokesperson told Business Insider. There are still open roles in engineering, services, sales, product, and more.

Intel has slowed down external hiring, a spokesperson said. "We have slowed external hiring, but we currently have approximately 1000 open positions that we are actively hiring for."

Atlassian is still hiring across the board, a spokesperson confirmed. This past March was its strongest month of hiring in its history, the company said, as it brought on about 200 new hires. At the end of March, Atlassian had 4,457 employees.

Zendesk is still hiring roles that are "key to our business," but "deprioritizing" the ones that are not as critical.

Zendesk is still hiring roles that are "key to our business," but "deprioritizing" the ones that are not as critical, a Zendesk spokesperson said.

"In response to the global COVID-19 pandemic, Zendesk has been focused on helping our employees, customers, and community at large navigate their immediate needs and plan for the future in this new world," the spokesperson told Business Insider.

The spokesperson said that Zendesk is continuously looking at how to manage its operations to become more efficient and productive, while minimizing disruption to customers. 

"This is standard for all businesses that are looking at their immediate and long-term strategies in order to position themselves for growth," the spokesperson said. "We believe in the strength of our business and our employees, and the resiliency of our customer base, and are in a good position to weather this crisis and emerge as a better, stronger company."

• Colombian delivery app Rappi is testing pilot robot deliveries in Colombia.
• Rappi operates in several Latin American countries, and last year SoftBank invested one billion dollars into the startup.
• Deliveries are made using Kiwibot, a delivery robot from a Colombian owned company in California.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Colombian delivery app Rappi is yet another company turning to robots to reduce reliance on human workers during the coronavirus pandemic. 

In addition to Colombia, Rappi operates in Mexico, Peru, Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil. Last spring, SoftBank invested $1 billion — one-fifth of its Innovation Fund for Latin America — in the startup. It was founded in 2015, and other investors include Sequoia Capital, Andreesen Horowitz, and Y Combinator.

Colombia is currently under a lockdown set to end in May, though it may be extended again. Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported on the lack of coronavirus testing throughout Latin America, making it difficult to assess how widespread the virus is in the region.

Like in other countries, the Colombian delivery app is using robots to complete orders at a time when people are at risk of catching the virus from interacting with others. So far, the robots are part of a pilot in Medellin, with potential to expand.

Here's what it looks like. 

SEE ALSO: Nonprofits, truck drivers, food banks, and others are turning to a little-known Google Maps feature to navigate life amid the coronavirus pandemic

Rappi is using robots for deliveries in Medellin, the capital of Colombia.

Typically, Rappi works similarly to GrubHub or DoorDash, with delivery drivers picking up orders and bringing them to customers' doors.

As the coronavirus spread between people, options for contactless delivery became more popular.

Deliveries in the pilot program use Kiwibot robots, from a California company with a Medellin office.

The four-wheeled delivery robots have orange flags to call attention from walkers, drivers, and bikers.

Customers stuck at home because of the coronavirus can order and pay for meals digitally, and then last mile delivery is completed by the robots.

Robots can carry deliveries up to five square inches in size, and are disinfected between orders.

Source: The Star

Kiwibots have a stereo camera system to sense its surroundings as it moves.

The sensor system allows it to react to lights and obstacles.

Kiwibots are equipped with corner recognition, which allows them to create safe paths on sidewalks.

Kiwibot emphasized its robots ability to "seamlessly mesh into the fabric of urban landscapes," with technology like street crossing mode.

Source: Kiwibot

Rappi says it completes about 120 deliveries each day with the 15 robots in the pilot area.

Source: The Star

It plans to run the program until July, and then potentially expand to other cities.

Kiwibots have previously been used for deliveries at colleges including UC Berkeley, and Kiwibot says it has made more than 30,000 deliveries since it started in 2017.

Source: The New York Times

• As the coronavirus-led economic shutdown drags on, many investors have started counseling startups to have more than a years' worth of "runway" to avoid having to raise funding on poor terms.
• But VCs are split on how much startups should be socking away. Some have estimated 18 months oof reserves could suffice, while others say as much as 3 years' worth of runway is ideal.
• The different time frames depends on the age of the startup along with which industry they operate in. Younger startups typically have fewer overhead expenses, while older startups likely have more employees and pricey office leases.
• Also, those companies that may be able to resume work as essential services may need less cash if they are able to generate revenue.
• VCs are uniformly bracing for an economic slowdown, but the severity of downturn is still up for debate. 
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Startups are facing what could become the worst economic downturn in several decades, and VCs are begging them to take drastic measures to improve their chances of making it through. 

Most Americans who lived through the 2008 financial crisis will know that a savings stockpile or rainy day fund can mean the difference between surviving and thriving during tough times, but as recent studies have shown, many tech startups and VC firms don't have a similar first-hand experience; many have only known boom times and are now venturing into uncharted waters.

One thing VCs agree on is that startups need to quickly rein in growth plans — ideally as soon as yesterday — and start scrutinizing expenses. Anything nonessential should be cut or suspended indefinitely, headcount should be reduced, and pricey office leases eliminated if possible, all with the goal of extending a startup's "runway."

In Silicon Valley, runway refers to how much cash a startup has on hand to put against its operating expenses. If, for example, a startup has roughly $100,000 in monthly operating expenses and has $1 million in the bank, they are looking at a 10-month runway, assuming revenue stays roughly flat.

In the days before the coronavirus pandemic, a startup's runway dictated when it had to start looking for additional funding. Instead of cutting expenses, the popular solution was to simply put more VC money in the bank. This helped high flying startups like Uber and Airbnb expand at a breakneck pace — VC dollars kept pouring in and the companies remained unprofitable as they chased growth at all costs.

But now, VCs are saying that's no longer an option. Founders Fund general partner Keith Rabois said on a podcast recently that profitability is now being rewarded much more than high-growth. 

For startups that aren't profitable, that means hunkering down and ensuring there are enough reserves to last through the crisis.

So how long does the runway need to be? 

Many VCs that Business Insider has spoken to are advising their startups to have at least 18 months of runway. But some VCs say startups should have upwards of 3 years' of expenses saved up. 

The length of time can vary depending on the startup, one investor told Business Insider, pointing to the startup's age and industry as important factors. An early-stage company with a handful of employees and low-overhead costs might easily stretch a $500,000 seed check, whereas a growth-stage biotech startup with hundreds of employees, expensive hardware, and pricey office space might struggle to make tens of millions of dollars in funding make it through 12 months. Those that can't cut costs will be forced to fundraise with poor terms and risk the dreaded downround. 

"You can always easily dial back up the aggressiveness and risk profile if we get more optimistic visibility, but if you don't take action right away — to preserve capital, cut your burn rate, have fundamentally attractive unit economics, edit the product to make more sense in the new world order — if you don't do those right away, the opportunity to do those things and survive is probably lost forever," Rabois said in the April Talkshow broadcast.

Rabois is in the camp of pessimists, generally speaking, who think the economic downturn will not only drag on through 2020, but could eventually turn into an economic depression the likes of which could rival the Great Depression of the 1930s. He said that his VC peers are starting to rein in the freewheeling deal-making that has defined the last two decades of the Silicon Valley startup ecosystem, and are now treading cautiously. It's time that startups do the same, he said.

SEE ALSO: Lower valuations and a long wait for funding: Two top early-stage VCs dish on how they are counseling startups to withstand long-term economic uncertainty

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Pathologists debunk 13 coronavirus myths

• Dockworkers in Belgium are wearing bracelets to enforce social distancing.
• The bracelets were already used to detect if someone fell into the water, but now they will sound an alarm if workers get to close to each other.
• Manufacturers say there is no privacy issue and the bracelets don't track workers' locations, despite concerns.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Quarantine and social distancing are going high-tech as countries and companies embrace wearables. In Antwerp, Belgium, dockworkers are instructed to wear bracelets that enforce social distancing rules while they work.

Europe, where more than 100,000 people have died from COVID-19, is slowly starting to reopen in some places. Stay at home orders are expiring in many countries, while nonessential travel has stopped across the EU, and countries look towards the summer to anticipate what kind of travel might be possible. 

People are beginning to go back to work, which in some sectors means inevitable close contact, especially in many essential jobs. Social distancing bracelets in Belgium are one idea bing tested to see what the future of work might look like after coronavirus.

Here's how it works. 

SEE ALSO: People arriving in Hong Kong must wear tracking bracelets for 2 weeks or face jail time. Here's how they work.

The black, plastic bracelets are worn on the wrist like a watch.

They're made by Belgian company Rombit, which says that they are "a fully integrated personal safety and security device, specifically designed for highly industrial environments."

Source: Romware

Rombit already made bracelets useful in the port setting, which could be used to call for help if a worker fell into the water or another accident occurred.

Europe is slowly starting to go back to work, but fears of a second wave are making officials cautious.

Contact tracing is one solution being explored around the world, and the manufacturers of the bracelet believe it could also be used for contact tracing.

Source: The Associated Press

European health guidances say to wash hands, wear masks, and keep at least 1.5 meters, or about five feet, apart.

When two workers are less than five feet apart, the bracelets will sound warnings.

Rombit CEO John Baekelmans told Reuters that the bracelets won't allow companies to track employees' locations, because the devices are only connected to each other. He says there is no central server.

Source: Reuters

Workers in the control tower will be the first to test the bracelets early this month.

Then, the Port of Antwerp will likely expand the devices to tug boat workers.

Baekelmans told Reuters that Rombit already had hundreds of requests in 99 countries, and is hoping to ramp up production to 25,000 in a few weeks.

• Facebook is taking a harder line on misinformation related to coronavirus than it has on other health topics in the past.
• This decision may increase the pressure on the company to act more decisively against other forms of harmful falsehoods that spread on its social networks.
• Facebook is banning events that promote flouting lockdown protests, and is removing the conspiracy theory video "Plandemic."
• But false claims that vaccines are dangerous still proliferate on Facebook — even though they contribute to the deaths of children.

Amid the pandemic, Facebook is taking a harder line on misinformation than it has in the past. That decision may come back to haunt it.

As coronavirus has wreaked havoc across the globe, forcing lockdowns and disrupting economies, false information and hoaxes have spread like wildfire on social media. Miracle cures, intentional disinformation about government policies, and wild claims that Bill Gates orchestrated the entire health crisis abound.

In the past, Facebook has been heavily criticised for failing to take action to stop its platform being used to facilitate the spread of misinformation. To be sure, coronavirus falsehoods are still easily found on Facebook — but the company has taken more decisive action than in previous years:

• For starters, Facebook is now displaying warning messages to people who have shared false information about COVID-19. They're imperfect — Stat reported that they may be too vague in their wording to have a major impact — but it's a step further than Facebook has taken on misinformation in the past.
• The company is also taking down event pages for events that reject mainstream science on coronavirus by calling on people to flout lockdown rules.
• And it is banning "Plandemic," a conspiratorial video about coronavirus that has been going viral on social media and contains numerous falsehoods.

But Facebook's actions to combat COVID-19 misinformation may backfire — in the sense that it has the potential to dramatically increase pressure on the company to take stronger action against other forms of misinformation.

The company has long struggled with how to handle fake news and hoaxes; historically, its approach is not to delete them, but to try to artificially stifle their reach via algorithmic tweaks. Despite this, pseudoscience, anti-government conspiracy theories, and other falsehoods still abound on the social network.

Facebook has now demonstrated that it is willing to take more decisive action on misinformation, when the stakes are high enough. Its critics may subsequently ask why it is so reticent to combat the issue when it causes harm in other areas — particularly around other medical misinformation.

One expected defence for Facebook? That it is focused on taking down content that causes "imminent harm," and while COVID-19 misinformation falls into that category, lots of other sorts of falsehoods don't.

However, using "imminence" as the barometer of acceptability is dubious: Vaccine denialism directly results in the deaths of babies and children. That this harm isn't "imminent" doesn't make it any less dangerous — but, for now, such material is freely posted on Facebook.

Far-right conspiracy theories like Pizzagate, and more recent, Qanon, have also spread on Facebook — stoking baseless fears of shadowy cabals secretly controlling the government. These theories don't intrinsically incite harm, but have been linked to multiple acts of violence, from a Pizzagate believer firing his weapon in a pizza parlour to the Qanon-linked killing of a Gambino crime boss. (Earlier this week, Facebook did take down some popular QAnon pages — but for breaking its rules on fake profiles, rather than disinformation.)

And Facebook is still full of groups rallying against 5G technology, making evidence-free claims about its health effects (and now, sometimes linking it to coronavirus in a messy web). These posts exist on a continuum, with believers at the extreme end attempting to burn down radio towers and assault technicians; Facebook does take down such incitements to violence, but the more general fearmongering that can act as a gateway to more extreme action remains.

This week, Facebook announced the first 20 members of its Oversight Board — a "Supreme Court"-style entity that will review reports from users make rulings as to what objectionable content is and isn't allowed on Facebook and Instagram, with — in theory — the power to overrule the company. It remains to be seen whether its decisions may affect the company's approach for misinformation, and it still needs to appoint the rest of its members and get up and running.

For now, limits remain in place as to what Facebook will countenance in its fight against coronavirus-specific misinformation.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company would immediately take down posts advertising dangerous false cures to COVID-19, like drinking bleach. It is "obviously going to create imminent harm," he said in March. "That is just in a completely different class of content than the back-and-forth accusations a candidate might make in an election."

But in April, President Donald Trump suggested that people might try injecting a "disinfectant" as a cure, which both has the potential to be extremely harmful, and will not cure coronavirus.

Facebook is not taking down video of his comments.

Do you work at Facebook? Contact Business Insider reporter Rob Price via encrypted messaging app Signal (+1 650-636-6268), encrypted email (robaeprice@protonmail.com), standard email (rprice@businessinsider.com), Telegram/Wickr/WeChat (robaeprice), or Twitter DM (@robaeprice). We can keep sources anonymous. Use a non-work device to reach out. PR pitches by standard email only, please.

SEE ALSO: Facebook announced the first 20 members of its oversight board that will decide what controversial content is allowed on Facebook and Instagram

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: A cleaning expert reveals her 3-step method for cleaning your entire home quickly