51ÊÓƵ

The country’s tech giants have joined with the White House in a task force to fight the new coronavirus, as Silicon Valley escalates its efforts to tackle the fast-moving pandemic, according to people familiar with the group. The companies, including Facebook Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google unit, Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.com Inc., AMZN 6.46% on Sunday conducted a nearly hourlong meeting with White House officials, including Michael Kratsios, chief technology officer of the U.S., one of these people said. Forty-five people joined. (Grind and Winkler, 3/15)

Google on Sunday announced a nationwide website dedicated to providing Americans with information about the novel coronavirus. But that description stops short of what President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have spent days saying Google was developing very quickly: A website meant to assess patient symptoms and to direct Americans to "testing at a nearby convenient location." Google is working with the US government on the informational site, said Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google and its parent company, Alphabet, in a blog post. The website will contain educational material and "best practices for prevention," and will launch late Monday. (Fung, 3/15)

Google sister company Verily launched a website late on Sunday that invites adults in northern California to answer questions about their recent health and travel that could result in their getting a free coronavirus test. U.S. President Donald Trump had thanked Google on Friday for developing a website that he said would help people determine whether they needed a coronavirus test. (3/16)

AT&T, Comcast and dozens of other telecommunications firms have committed to not disconnecting service to residential and small business customers who can’t pay their bills because of the coronavirus outbreak, the Federal Communications Commission said on Friday. The pledge the companies plan to implement also calls for them to open public Wi-Fi hot spots and waive late fees for 60 days. (Diaz, 3/14)

The U.S. internet won’t get overloaded by spikes in traffic from the millions of Americans now working from home to discourage the spread of the new coronavirus, experts say. But connections could stumble for many if too many family members try to videoconference at the same time. Some may have to settle for audio, which is much less demanding of bandwidth. (3/14)