Accessible parking space

By Lalit K Jha Washington: Google's Indian-American CEO Sundar Pichai announced on Monday that the tech giant will open up its spaces in the US to serve as mass COVID-19 vaccination sites and committed more than USD 150 million to promote vaccine education. Google is initially looking at offices' spaces inside the US, but is open to do the same in other countries as well, a company official said. "Today we're announcing that we'll be opening up Google spaces to serve as mass vaccination sites, committing more than USD 150 million to promote vaccine education and equitable distribution, and making it easier for you to find where and when to get a vaccine," Pichai announced in a blog post on Monday. "Searches for 'vaccines near me' have increased 5x since the beginning of the year and we want to make sure we're providing timely and locally relevant answers," he said. Pichai, 48, said to help with mass vaccination efforts, starting in the United States, Google will make select … [Read more...] about Google opening up its spaces in US to serve as mass COVID-19 vaccination sites: Sundar Pichai

Plant blogger and researcher Ekta Chaudhary (@GardenUp) has dealt with many such ‘mourners’ of late. “Often, in DMs and comments, I see that people need encouragement after they’ve killed their first plant. I tell them to try again because nobody is born with a green thumb. Over time, you develop a kind of intuition,” she says. Another influencer who fields similar questions is Ann Mathew (@geeksofgreen). She’d started gardening a few years ago with 40 succulents she’d brought from her aunt’s garden in Mysuru. After she “killed them all”, she began studying plants seriously and, as her knowledge grew and her north-facing garden flourished, she started putting up videos on social media. Today, the Mumbai-based entrepreneur has 58k+ followers on YouTube and 32k+ on Instagram, who wait for her videos on plants, gardening tips, and nursery tours. … [Read more...] about In the #houseplantclub

Google systems not affected by SolarWinds hackThe hacking attack on the U.S. government agencies and other companies that used SolarWinds’ network management software did not impact Google, according to a company blog post. “Based on what is known about the attack today, we are confident that no Google systems were affected by the SolarWinds event,” the search giant noted. “We make very limited use of the affected software and services,” it added. Further, Google said that the seriousness of the SolarWinds hack is deeply concerning, however, it also highlights the opportunities for government, industry, and other stakeholders to collaborate and build effective technology that can fundamentally improve the software ecosystem. In another development, Google Cloud rolled out image search, product recommendations for retailers. … [Read more...] about Weekly Bytes | Microsoft’s ‘affordable’ Surface laptop, Chrome’s password protection, and more