Daily Crunch - Alphabet's Verily launches COVID-19 screening site

TechCrunch Newsletter [TechCrunch logo]( [The Daily Crunch logo]( Monday, March 16, 2020 • By [Anthony Ha]( Alphabet launches a site for COVID-19 test screening, the stock market continues to fall and Microsoft Teams goes down. Here’s your Daily Crunch for March 16, 2020. [Alphabet’s Verily launches its California COVID-19 test screening site in a limited pilot]( Alphabet-owned health technology company Verily has launched the COVID-19 screening site that was first described by President Trump as a broadly focused coronavirus web-based screening and testing utility developed by Google. After a flurry of blog posts by Google and Verily over the weekend — as well as Trump’s subsequent claim that Google CEO Sundar Pichai [called him to apologize]( — it became clear that the screening and testing site was a Verily project, limited in scope to California residents, with a specific focus on a couple of counties for now. [Read more]( [Alphabet’s Verily launches its California COVID-19 test screening site in a limited pilot image] Image Credits: JIM WATSON / Contributor / Getty Images [How did ecommerce businesses advertise in the 2019 holiday quarter?]( Sponsored by [Brex]( [To help you start planning for your Q4 2020, Brex shared how ecommerce companies approached advertising heading into the 2019 holidays.]( [Read more]( [Stock markets halted for unprecedented third time due to coronavirus scare]( The morning after the Federal Reserve cut its interest rates to near zero at the urging of the president, all of the indexes posted major losses. For the third time in the past two weeks, the Dow hit its emergency circuit breaker as the market opened; the S&P also halted trades. [Read more]( [Microsoft Teams goes down — just as everyone starts working from home]( The technology giant left a cryptic message on Twitter, stating that it has “received reports that impact associated with TM206544 is ongoing.” Perfect timing. [Read more]( [Microsoft Teams goes down — just as everyone starts working from home image] [The latest Powerbeats bring Pro-style updates to a tethered design at $149]( After several weeks’ worth of leaks, the latest version of Apple/Beat’s Powerbeats arrives this week. But there will be no Powerbeats 4 — not for now, at least. Instead, the company’s somewhat confusingly doing away with the numbering scheme in favor of the simpler “Powerbeats” name. [Read more]( [Startup founders are building companies on WhatsApp]( VC Lisa Enckell looks at companies like shoe brand Portblue, AI e-commerce company Sorabel and Sama, an online recruitment platform for migrant workers, which all started life using WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger to communicate with customers, onboard users and raise brand awareness. (Extra Crunch membership required.) [Read more]( [Y Combinator may go fully remote for its next cohort]( Y Combinator said that it may make its Summer 2020 accelerator program entirely virtual, proving that even the world’s premier accelerator isn’t immune to having its business reshaped by the novel coronavirus spreading across the world. [Read more]( [This week's TechCrunch podcasts]( The team at [Equity]( discusses what the collapse of the public markets might mean for startups aiming to raise funding. Meanwhile, on [Original Content](, we review the new FX/Hulu series “Devs,” a creepy techno-thriller that also provides some relief from the craziness of the real world. [Read more]( [Read more stories on TechCrunch.com]( Newest Jobs from Crunchboard - [Front End Developer at SRAM, LLC (Chicago, Illinois, Colorado Springs, Colorado)]( - [B2B Sales Representative at Waydev (San Francisco, CA, USA)]( - [Senior Unity Engineer at AmazeVR (West Hollywood, CA, USA)]( - [1053 IS Business Analyst - Senior - HSA at City and County of San Francisco (San Francisco, CA, USA)]( - [Technical Operations Engineering Manager at StrongKey (Cupertino, CA, USA)]( [See more jobs on CrunchBoard]( [Post your tech jobs]( and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $200 per month. [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Youtube]( [Instagram]( [Flipboard]( [View this email online in your browser]( [Privacy Policy]( | [Terms of Service]( | [Unsubscribe]( © 2020 Verizon Media. All rights reserved. 110 5th St, San Francisco, CA 94103