Google suffered an outage that lasted roughly 30 minutes on Wednesday evening. South Africans reported being unable to access search, Maps, YouTube, and Gmail.
Google won’t let me google what’s going on with google😭 pic.twitter.com/R1vRttaCfx
— 𝖘𝖍𝖆𝖎𝖑𝖞𝖓 💸 (@shailynjeftha_) March 3, 2021
According to Business Insider, the outage was first reported just before 19:30 in Gauteng, Cape Town and Durban. YouTube, Gmail and other Google services were also affected. By 20:00, the Google sites were restored.
Google Plans to Help Speed Up Delivery of Vaccines
Google revealed that it will be giving $150 million to promote vaccine education and making it easier to find locally relevant COVID-19 information. The company is also going to use its technology to improve vaccine distribution.
“The pandemic has taken a devastating toll on communities worldwide. While there is much uncertainty still ahead, the development of multiple safe vaccines in such a short time gives us reason for hope. Now the work begins to ensure that everyone can benefit from this triumph of scientific achievement, and quickly,” says Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet.
To aid in the distribution, Google Cloud will help healthcare organizations, retail pharmacies, logistics companies, and public sector institutions make use of innovative technologies to speed up vaccine delivery.
“For example, logistics companies are using our AI to optimize trucking operations by adapting to traffic or inclement weather, and detect temperature fluctuations during transport.”
Once vaccines reach their destination, Google’s tools will help facilitate pre-screening, scheduling, and follow up.
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