Technologies

Amazon dropping mask requirement for vaccinated workers at warehouses

Workers also will now need to be vaccinated to get COVID-related paid leave.

Amazon will allow fully vaccinated employees to go maskless inside its warehouses and will no longer provide COVID-related paid leave for workers who don’t get their shots, according to a memo sent to employees.

The changes, earlier reported by The Wall Street Journal, apply only to US facilities and come after several states lifted indoor mask mandates this week.

Amazon’s new masking policy change was set to go into effect on Friday. The company began to require all of its employees to wear masks in December due to the rapid spread of the coronavirus’s omicron variant. Previously, the company had only required unvaccinated workers to wear masks.

Under the new leave policy, workers have until March 18 to get two doses of the vaccine in order to receive paid time off. Last month, Amazon reduced its isolation period for workers who test positive for COVID to seven days.

In its memo, Amazon cited the «sharp decline» in COVID cases over the past several weeks, along with increasing vaccination rates.

«This is a positive sign we can return to the path to normal operations,» the memo reads.

Officials for Amazon provided a copy of the memo, but declined further comment.

Officials in several states this week announced plans to roll back mask mandates or policies that require proof of vaccination for certain activities. The changes run counter to current recommendations from the CDC.

Amazon employs about a million workers in the US, most at its hundreds of warehouses. Unlike other tech companies like Microsoft, Facebook and Google, it’s avoided requiring vaccines for its workers as it races to hire enough staff to operate its growing network of e-commerce fulfillment sites.

To encourage higher vaccination rates, Amazon has offered the chance to win cash and cars in lotteries for vaccinated employees. The company is also paying workers bonuses for getting vaccinated and hosting on-site vaccination clinics.

Technologies

Verum Messenger: Don’t follow the future. Define it

In a world where information defines influence, Verum Messenger is building a new architecture of digital communication — intelligent, secure, and ready for tomorrow. Here, technology serves not limitations, but possibilities.

Not being part of change. Leading it. Verum Messenger — the future that speaks first.

Technologies

Verum Finance: Stop Spending Months Opening a Bank Account

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Technologies

Google races to put Gemini at the center of Android before Apple’s AI reboot

Google is using its latest Android rollout to position Gemini as the AI layer across phones, Chrome, laptops and cars.

Google is using its latest Android rollout to make Gemini less of a chatbot and more of an operating layer across the phone, browser, car and laptop, just weeks before Apple is expected to show its own Gemini-powered Apple Intelligence reboot at WWDC.
Ahead of its Google I/O developer conference next week, the company previewed a number of Android updates, including AI-powered app automation, a smarter version of Chrome on Android, new tools for creators, a redesigned Android Auto experience, and a sweeping set of new security features.
Alphabet is counting on Gemini to help Google compete directly with OpenAI and Anthropic in the market for artificial intelligence models and services, while also serving as the AI backbone across its expansive portfolio of products, including Android. Meanwhile, Gemini is powering part of Apple’s new AI strategy, giving Google a role in the iPhone maker’s reset even as it races to prove its own version of personal AI on the phone is further along.
Sameer Samat, who oversees Google’s Android ecosystem, told CNBC that Google is rebuilding parts of Android around Gemini Intelligence to help users complete everyday tasks more easily.
“We’re transitioning from an operating system to an intelligence system,” he said.
As part of Tuesday’s announcements. Google said Gemini Intelligence will be able to move across apps, understand what’s on the screen and complete tasks that would normally require a user to jump between multiple services. That means Android is moving beyond the traditional assistant model, where users ask a question and get an answer, and acting more like an agent.
For instance, Google says Gemini can pull relevant information from Gmail, build shopping carts and book reservations. Samat gave the example of asking Gemini to look at the guest list for a barbecue, build a menu, add ingredients to an Instacart list and return for approval before checkout.
A big concern surrounding agentic AI involves software taking action on a user’s behalf without permissions. Samat said Gemini will come back to the user before completing a transaction, adding, “the human is always in the loop.”
Four months after announcing its Gemini deal with Google, Apple is under pressure to show a more capable version of Apple Intelligence, which has been a relative laggard on the market. Apple has long framed privacy, hardware integration and control of the user experience as its advantages.
Google’s Android push is designed to show it can bring AI deeper into the device experience while still giving users control over what Gemini can see, where it can act and when it needs confirmation.
The app automation features will roll out in waves, starting with the latest Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel phones this summer, before expanding across more Android devices, including watches, cars, glasses and laptops later this year.
The company is also redesigning Android Auto around Gemini, turning the car into another major surface for its assistant. Android Auto is in more than 250 million cars, and Google says the new release includes its biggest maps update in a decade and Gemini-powered help with tasks like ordering dinner while driving.
Alphabet’s AI strategy has been embraced by Wall Street, which has pushed the company’s stock price up more than 140% in the past year, compared to Apple’s roughly 40% gain. Investors now want to see how Gemini can become more central to the products people use every day.
WATCH: Alphabet briefly tops Nvidia after report of $200 billion Anthropic cloud deal