Coronavirus Update: Google Cloud Next ’20 Postponed Because Of COVID-19 Pandemic

Google has postponed even the online version of Cloud Next ’20 conference in the wake of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The COVID-19 crisis continues to engulf countries leading to several conferences and events getting postponed or canceled.

Earlier, the tech giant canceled the in-person conference, which is scheduled to happen in April in Moscone Center, downtown San Francisco. The Verge noted that Google also canceled I/O developer’s physical event.

Google planned a “free, global, digital-first, multi-day event connecting our attendees to Next ’20 content and each other through streamed keynotes, breakout sessions, interactive learning and digital ‘ask an expert’ sessions with Google teams.”

However, now Google says that it is delaying the event “out of concern for the health and safety of our customers, partners, employees and local communities, and based on recent decisions made by the federal and local governments regarding the coronavirus (COVID-19).”

The search engine giant did not reveal any date and stated that it will bring the event “when the timing is right.”

Meanwhile, according to a Tech Crunch report, Google has informed Android developers that Play Store App review times will be longer than usual due to the coronavirus pandemic and how it has affected operations.

The developers should expect a week-long wait time before their apps are reviewed for Play Store. Google warned the developers via an alert on the Google Play Console.

Apart from Google Play, YouTube is also impacted due to coronavirus pandemic. On Monday, YouTube stated that it will depend more on automated assessment.

New measures are being implemented and the company “will temporarily start relying more on technology to help with some of the work normally done by reviewers. This means automated systems will start removing some content without human review, so we can continue to act quickly to remove violative content and protect our ecosystem, while we have workplace protections in place."

The coronavirus death toll stands at 7,954 globally and the deadly virus has infected 198,178.