As he entered Hong Kong Supermarket, Sam Lin scanned text messages from his wife instructing him how many red envelopes to buy. Three dozen, she wrote -- and make them large, to fit checks rather than folded wads of cash. Lin's nephews, nieces and in-laws will not have the thrill of pulling crisp bills out of their red Lunar New Year good luck envelopes when the Year of the Ox begins Friday. Normally, Lin goes to his credit union weeks ahead of the holiday to pre-order new bills -- a total of $900 to $1,000 for the kids and elders in his extended family. But with the possibility that the coronavirus could be lurking on $20 or $100 bills, Lin is one of many Asian Americans forgoing traditional cash to ring in the festivities.

The idea came to Zheng around the turn of the Lunar New Year. Wuhan had just been put on lockdown and the number of cases and deaths was rising rapidly every day. As an engineer, Zheng wanted to do something to contribute to the relief effort. On the first day of the Lunar New Year, he heard from his friend, Dong Jiahong, executive president at Beijing's Tsinghua Changgung Hospital, that the biggest problem was that of frontline workers getting infected. Gathering a team, Zheng set to work converting two mechanized robotic arms with the same technology used on space stations and lunar explorers.

Shortly after the hit hero shooter Overwatch launched last May, fans were treated to a slew of new character models themed for the upcoming 2016 Brazil Summer Olympics. That was just the beginning of Blizzard's extra content train, as they released more for Halloween and Christmas. Last week, they teased new stuff to celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year, which all goes live today. Players will be excited for the new skins, but the real win is the addition of a long-awaited capture the flag mode to the game. As usual, there are new skins to enjoy, some garbed in traditional Chinese formal wear and adorned with celebratory accoutrements (read: Junkrat has firecrackers).