The chief executive of a US mortgage company has drawn criticism after he reportedly fired 900 employees on a Zoom call. 'I come to you with not great news,' Vishal Garg, CEO of Better.com, is heard saying at the beginning of the video call made on Wednesday. Footage of the call was widely circulated on social media
Continue reading...Category Archives: Zoom
Zoom dilemmas solved! Expert advice on making video chats less awkward and more fun
Whether it’s chatting with small children, planning occasions or finding ways to socialise off-camera, after 18 months of lockdowns we’ve learned what works
With many parts of Australia still in lockdown, connecting with others can feel increasingly challenging.
Whether video calls are stifling your usual banter with friends, or the problem is actually hearing them at all over a patchy internet connection, Zoom fatigue is real.
Continue reading...Virtual contact worse than no contact for over-60s in lockdown, says study
Staying in touch with friends and family via technology made many older people feel more lonely, research finds
Virtual contact during the pandemic made many over-60s feel lonelier and more depressed than no contact at all, new research has found.
Many older people stayed in touch with family and friends during lockdown using the phone, video calls, and other forms of virtual contact. Zoom choirs, online book clubs and virtual bedtime stories with grandchildren helped many stave off isolation.
Continue reading...Using Zoom could help older people avoid dementia, study reveals
Those who communicate online alongside traditional methods show less of a decline in episodic memory
Defiant in the face of Covid isolation, older people across the country ventured online, often for the first time, and mastered technology: reading bedtime stories to grandchildren over Zoom and holding book clubs on Microsoft Teams.
Now a UK study has shown that their determination to access and enjoy the internet’s social possibilities could have had another advantage: protecting them against dementia.
Continue reading...Footage reveals Ohio state senator driving during Zoom call
Andrew Brenner used background of home office on same day a bill to ban distracted driving was introduced
An Ohio state senator used a virtual background of his home office in an apparent attempt to conceal the fact that he was driving during a Zoom meeting – on the same day a bill to ban distracted driving was introduced.
Andrew Brenner might have succeeded in fooling the meeting with the state’s controlling board, were it not for the seatbelt strapped across his chest, glimpses of the road behind him and the constant turning of his head as he changed lanes.
Continue reading...A room with a view: the Twitter account that spent a year staring into people’s homes
As the pandemic forced us inside and online, Room Rater was one Twitter account giving doomscrollers a well-needed levity break. A year on, co-founder Claude Taylor explains how he plans to keep going
With its stately lamp and verdant window view, Hillary Clinton’s “Zoom room” is nicer than most. So when Room Rater – a Twitter account which scores the video conference backgrounds of high-profile figures – gave it nine out of 10 last spring, Clinton took her disappointment to social media: “I’ll keep striving for that highest, hardest glass ceiling, the elusive 10/10,” she tweeted at the account.
Judging the backgrounds on video calls has been the armchair sport of the past year. Room Rater just happened to screengrab these moments. As we doomscrolled through bleak statistics online, it was cheering to see shots of Meryl Streep’s sterile shelves or the copies of Fahrenheit 451 and The Twits propped up behind Boris Johnson at a school in Leicestershire. Scrolling through the posts a year after it launched, these images have become emblematic of just how quickly coronavirus forced all of us inside and online.
Continue reading...‘Virtual meetings aren’t going anywhere soon’: how to put your best Zoom face forward
Has a year of video calls made you self-conscious? Don’t turn your camera off: just relax and deploy a few of these beauty tips
Thought we were a nation of narcissists pre-Covid? Well, a global pandemic has taken things to a whole new level. It’s safe to say nobody planned to spend quite so much of the past year staring at their own grainy reflection, but with everything from weddings to work meetings forced online, our bid to stay connected with others has meant being constantly confronted with our own faces.
And not all of us like what we see. There’s a big difference between sharing a carefully filtered selfie on Instagram, and catching yourself slumped in front of the screen during your fourth video chat of the day, the cat cleaning its paws in the background as you stare in horror at your dark circles. What with the unflattering lighting, unforgiving camera angles and the fact that none of us has been inside a salon in months, it’s no wonder we’re sick of the sight of ourselves. But what effect does it have on our self-esteem? And can we do anything to boost it?
Continue reading...Zoom refuseniks: why companies are banning constant video calls
This week an investment bank announced Zoom-free Fridays – and they are far from the first to question the stress and fatigue that comes with 24/7 screen time
Name: Zoom refuseniks.
Age: One year old, give or take.
Continue reading...Oscars 2021 ceremony will be in-person and Zoom-free, producers say
Academy Awards producers have insisted video-link will ‘not be an option’ for attendees in the wake of ratings slumps for other recent major awards shows
The Oscars ceremony in April will be an intimate, in-person gathering, held without Zoom and limited to nominees, presenters and their guests, the producers said on Thursday.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, events to hand out the highest honours in the film industry will held at both the Union Station in downtown Los Angeles and the traditional home of the Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.
Continue reading...ChimpanZoom? Primates at Czech zoo go wild for video calls
To make up for lack of interaction under Covid-19 restrictions, apes at zoos 150km apart can now watch each others’ daily lives on big screens
Humans might be tiring of video calls, Zoom birthdays and streamed performances, but the chimps at two Czech zoos are just starting to enjoy their new live online link-up.
To make up for the lack of interaction with visitors since the attractions closed in December under Covid-19 restrictions, the chimpanzees at Safari Park Dvur Kralove and the troop at a zoo 150km away in in Brno, can now watch one another’s daily lives on giant screens.
Continue reading...Naomi Klein: how big tech helps India target climate activists
Companies such as Google and Facebook appear to be aiding and abetting a vicious government campaign against Indian environmental campaigners
- Republished with permission from The Intercept
The bank of cameras camped outside Delhi’s sprawling Tihar jail was the sort of media frenzy you would expect to await a prime minister caught in an embezzlement scandal, or a Bollywood star caught in the wrong bed. Instead, the cameras were waiting for Disha Ravi, a nature-loving 22-year-old vegan climate activist who against all odds has found herself ensnared in an Orwellian legal saga that includes accusations of sedition, incitement and involvement in an international conspiracy whose elements include (but are not limited to): Indian farmers in revolt, the global pop star Rihanna, supposed plots against yoga and chai, Sikh separatism and Greta Thunberg.
If you think that sounds far-fetched, well, so did the judge who released Ravi after nine days in jail under police interrogation. Judge Dharmender Rana was supposed to rule on whether Ravi, one of the founders of the Indian chapter of Fridays for Future, the youth climate group started by Thunberg, should continue to be denied bail. He ruled that there was no reason for bail to be denied, which cleared the way for Ravi’s return to her home in Bengaluru that night.
Continue reading...‘I’m operating’: doctor makes Zoom court appearance while in surgery
California medical board to investigate after plastic surgeon appeared at a virtual trial from an operating theatre
Medical authorities in California have said they will investigate a plastic surgeon who appeared in a videoconference for a traffic violation trial while operating.
The Sacramento Bee reported that Scott Green appeared for his trial at Sacramento superior court on Thursday, held virtually because of the coronavirus pandemic, from an operating room.
Continue reading...Close-ups, cats and clutter: what the online yoga teacher saw
Teaching via Instagram and Zoom is both more and less intimate than a real-life class
Fifteen people lie down in rectangles on my screen. I am telling them to relax their jaws and soften the muscles around their eyes. I am also having a silent, hand gesture-based conversation with a five-year-old girl in one of the rectangles. This morning the girl’s mother sent me an email that read: “I’m going to attempt as much of the class as she will allow me to do – sometimes she is fine with it, and sometimes not.” In the next box, a cat strolls into view and settles down on its owner’s back as they rest in the child’s pose. Elsewhere, a dog is causing chaos at the back of someone’s mat. This is what I’ve learned from teaching Zoom yoga; mostly, small children and pets rule a household.
I’ve observed couples having conversations in class, giving me a delicious feeling of embarrassment and curiosity
Continue reading...‘Good on her’: how Jackie Weaver became an internet star
Handforth residents, a comedian and young political activists helped explosive parish council meeting go viral
It was the distraction the nation didn’t know it needed: a poor-quality recording of an online meeting of a Cheshire parish council, called by two councillors “following the refusal of the council chairman to call such a meeting”.
Normally such a congress would struggle to raise a quorum, let alone an audience of millions. Yet against all odds, December’s Extraordinary Meeting of Handforth parish council’s planning and environment committee went viral on Thursday night.
Continue reading...Prepare stories and invite a dog: eight tips for surviving a Zoom Christmas
Instead of gathering around the holiday table, we’ll be gathering around our laptops for awkward silences and Zoom fatigue
Your laptop screen will be a window into your soul this holiday season, so take advantage of the opportunity to make your life appear under control. An upside to any global pandemic is that you don’t have to clean up for guests. When it comes to messes, it’s “out of screen, out of mind”. Meanwhile, you can create an idealized – and/or completely false – vision of your home life: fill the area behind you with thick volumes of poetry, or hardcore exercise equipment, or the only plant you have ever managed to keep alive for more than a week.
Continue reading...Zoom lifts 40-minute call limit on free accounts over Christmas
Limit suspended for two weeks including last day of Hanukah and New Year’s Day
Zoom is lifting limits on the free version of its videoconferencing software over the festive season to help families around the world socialise safely in the midst of the pandemic.
Normally, free accounts are limited to 40-minute-long calls, which abruptly end at the time limit. Zoom has announced that those limits will be removed for two weeks including the last day of Hanukah, Christmas and New Year’s Day.
Continue reading...New Yorker suspends Jeffrey Toobin for allegedly masturbating on Zoom call
- Magazine says it is investigating matter
- Toobin says ‘I thought I had muted the Zoom video’ in apology
The New Yorker magazine has suspended one of its long-time staff writers, legal expert Jeffrey Toobin, while it investigates a report that he was allegedly masturbating during a Zoom work call earlier this month.
“I made an embarrassingly stupid mistake, believing I was off-camera,” Toobin said in a statement on Monday about the situation, first reported by Vice.
Continue reading...Zoom admits cutting off activists’ accounts in obedience to China
Meetings on Tiananmen Square massacre and Hong Kong crisis were taken down because Communist government complained
Zoom has admitted it suspended the accounts of human rights activists at the behest of the Chinese government and suggested it will block any further meetings that Beijing complains are illegal.
On Thursday the video conferencing platform was accused of disrupting or shutting down the accounts of three activists who held online events relating to the Tiananmen Square massacre anniversary or discussing the crisis in Hong Kong. None were given an explanation by Zoom.
Continue reading...Man confesses to fatally stabbing his father on Zoom video conference call
Authorities say Thomas Scully-Powers, 32, stabbed his father multiple times as horrified call participants scrambled to dial 911
A Long Island man suspected of fatally stabbing his father on a live Zoom call confessed to the caught-on-camera killing after police found him trying to wash blood off his body with Dr Pepper, prosecutors said on Friday.
Thomas Scully-Powers, 32, was arraigned via video and ordered jailed without bail after pleading not guilty to a murder charge in the attack on Long Island, New York, on Thursday that left 72-year-old Dwight Powers nearly decapitated as horrified call participants scrambled to dial 911.
Continue reading...UK government told not to use Zoom because of China fears
Security services said last week that videoconferencing tool was vulnerable to surveillance
Government and parliament were told by the intelligence agencies last week not to use the videoconferencing service Zoom for confidential business, due to fears it could be vulnerable to Chinese surveillance.
The quiet warnings to limit the technology came after the cabinet had used Zoom to hold a well-publicised meeting at the end of March, a decision that was defended at the time as necessary in “unprecedented circumstances”.
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