, Columnist
Apple and Google Come to the Rescue. Are You Ready?
Either Silicon Valley or Washington will have citizens’ trust in its hands.
Smartphone apps like this one in Singapore can fight pandemics.
Photographer: Catherine Lai/AFP/Getty Images
Silicon Valley plans to come riding to our rescue. Truly.
Apple Inc., purveyor of iPhones, and Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent and purveyor of the operating system used in Android devices, announced Friday that they have joined forces to make contact tracing more convenient and ubiquitous in the Coronavirus Era. Starting next month, the companies plan to enable people whose mobile gadgets use their operating systems — about 3 billion of the planet’s 9 billion people — to receive alerts if they’ve crossed paths with an infected person.