Technical / Google gives 4,000 laptops to students, free Wi-Fi to 1,00,000 households in US

Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has announced that the company is giving 4,000 Chromebooks to students in California and free Wi-Fi to 1,00,000 rural households amid the coronavirus crisis. In a tweet, Pichai thanked California Governor and partners to help bridge the digital divide in their home state. Pichai said the move aims at making distance learning more accessible.

Hindustan Times : Apr 02, 2020, 05:11 PM

Technical: Google and Alphabet CEO, Sundar Pichai has announced that the company will help bridge the digital divide in the US and will boost distance learning for kids. For this, Google will be giving 4,000 Chromebook laptops to students in California who are in need. The search giant has also partnered with the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom for this.

In addition to providing 4,000 Chromebooks, Pichai tweeted that the firm will also provide free Wi-Fi to almost 100,000 rural households during the COVID-19 crisis. The details however, have not been mentioned.

Proud to work with @GavinNewsom & partners to help bridge the digital divide in our home state. We’re providing 4,000 Chromebooks to California students in greatest need & free wifi to 100,000 rural households during the #COVID19 crisis to make distance learning more accessible.
— Sundar Pichai (@sundarpichai) April 1, 2020

Google has taken several steps off lately to make users aware about coronavirus. The most recent is Google’s India-specific website that rolled out a few days ago. The website delivers comprehensive information about the pandemic, and how to stay productive during this time. It also contains information such as key helpline numbers, content about symptoms, protective measures, known treatments, and the latest global and Indian statistics.

Besides this the company has introduced SOS alert feature in India with a detailed dashboard whenever people search for coronavirus-related news on Google Search. This coronavirus dashboard is customised for different countries based on where people are searching from.

It has also made some changes in YouTube, which now shows Covid-19 related videos on top on the homepage. Google says it will be donating ad inventory to governments and NGOs in the regions that are impacted.

All this comes in addition to the company’s constant efforts to remove all the misinformation from its platform regarding the disease. This includes removing fake apps from Google Play Store as well.