LONDON: Twitter Inc. is shutting its reopened offices in United States, while other big tech companies are making vaccination mandatory for on-campus employees, as the highly infectious Delta COVID-19 variant drives a resurgence in cases.
Alphabet Inc’s Google and Facebook Inc. said on Wednesday all US employees must get vaccinated to step into offices. Google is also planning to expand its vaccination drive to other regions in the coming months.
Twitter, which on Wednesday also paused future office reopenings, had started allowing employees back to its campuses in San Francisco and New York at 50 percent capacity about a fortnight ago after more than 16 months.
US coronavirus cases have been rising due to the Delta variant, which emerged in India but has quickly spread and now accounts for more than 80 percent of US coronavirus cases.
Health authorities on Tuesday said Americans fully vaccinated against COVID-19 should go back to wearing masks in indoor public places in regions where the coronavirus is spreading rapidly.
San Francisco-based ride-hailing company Lyft Inc, which had already made vaccinations mandatory for employees returning to the office, postponed its reopening to February from September.
“We anticipate the COVID situation will remain fluid for the upcoming months, making it difficult for us to land a clear return date without a possibility of moving it again,” Lyft CEO Logan Green said in a memo to staff.
According to a Deadline report, streaming giant Netflix Inc. has also implemented a policy mandating vaccinations for the cast and crew on all its USproductions.
Apple Inc. plans to restore its mask requirement policy at most of its US retail stores, both for customers and staff, even if they are vaccinated, Bloomberg News reported
Apple and Netflix did not immediately respond to requests for comments.
Many tech companies including Microsoft Corp. and Uber have said they expect employees to return to offices, months after pandemic-induced lockdowns forced them to shift to working from home.
Google also said on Wednesday it would extend its work-from-home policy through Oct. 18 due to a recent rise in cases caused by the Delta variant across different regions.
Big Tech starts requiring vaccines; Twitter closes re-opened US offices
https://arab.news/5cz2v
Big Tech starts requiring vaccines; Twitter closes re-opened US offices
- Twitter is shutting reopened offices in the US amidst the spread of the DELTA COVID-19 variant
- Google and Facebook announced it is now mandatory for all US employees to get vaccinated before coming back to offices
Saudi Arabia ‘ideal partner’ in shaping next wave of intelligent age, communication minister tells WEF
- Abdullah Al-Swaha said aim was to “help the world achieve the next $100 trillion by energizing the intelligence age”
DAVOS: Saudi Arabia has accelerated efforts in “energizing the intelligent age,” making the Kingdom the world’s ideal partner in shaping the next wave of the technological age, said the minister of communication and information technology.
Speaking during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Abdullah Al-Swaha said the aim was to “help the world achieve the next $100 trillion by energizing the intelligence age.”
He said the Kingdom was expanding global partnerships for the benefit of humanity and highlighted both local and international achievements.
“We believe the more prosperous the Kingdom, the Middle East, is, the more prosperous the world is. And it is not a surprise that we fuel 50 percent of the digital economy in the kingdom or the region,” he told the audience. He added the Kingdom fueled three times the tech force of its neighbors and, as a result, 50 percent of venture capital funding.
Al-Swaha said Saudi Arabia was focused both on artificial intelligence acceleration and adoption. At home, he said, the Kingdom was doubling the use of agentic AI in the public and private sector to increase worker productivity tenfold. He also cited the world’s first fully robotic heart transplant, which was conducted in Saudi Arabia.
“If we double down on talent, technology, and build trust with partners, we can achieve success,” he said. “And we are following the same blueprint for the intelligence age.”
He said the Kingdom aimed to be a “testbed” for innovators and investors. Rapid technological adoption and investment have boosted Saudi Arabia’s non-oil economy, with non-oil activities accounting for 56 percent of GDP and surpassing $1.2 trillion in 2025, ahead of the Vision 2030 target.
In terms of adoption, Al-Swaha said the Kingdom had introduced the Arabic-language AI model, Allam, to be adopted across Adobe product series. It has also partnered with Qualcomm to bring the first hybrid AI laptop and endpoints to the world.
“These are true testimonies that the kingdom is not going local or regional; we are going global,” he said.
