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Emerging technologies like digital twins, artificial intelligence and gaming visualisation have all contributed to a planning tool thats helping Liverpools 5G Create project build a more comprehensive, larger and complex 5G health, social care and education network.

The Liverpool 5G Health and Social Care Testbed began operation in the Kensington area of Liverpool in April 2018, and the Liverpool 5G Create: Connecting Health and Social Care project, announced in August 2020, set out to develop a private, independent 5G network for health and social care services in selected areas of the city.

The network is designed to reduce digital poverty for vulnerable people in need, providing safe, free and accessible connectivity to services including health, social care and education. The project will increase the area covered, upgrade existing mmWave nodes, integrate small cell technology and trial a range of new use cases in health and social care.

The 7.2m project was funded by the UKs Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) as part of its 5G testbed and trials programme to show how effective 5G is at supporting different sectors in the UK in this case, life-changing health, social care and education technologies.

The planning tool, designed by Liverpool tech company CGA Simulation, aims to save time and resources for projects planning a 5G network such as 5G testbeds, local authorities and transport hubs, including train stations and allow them to plan their network build online first.

The 5G network in Liverpool is said to be unique, as a hybrid 5G small cell public sector network of this scale hasnt been attempted before. 5G-supported remote GP consultations, online wound management, a haptic (remote hug) shirt, care homes sensors, an anti-anxiety app for children under eight, and support for children learning at home during the Covid 19 pandemic are among the technologies being trialled by the community. The 5G connection to use these technologies is provided free to the community during the course of the project.

Given that a broad spectrum of technologies is being trialled, the project created a hybrid network-of-networks to ensure all of the technologies are properly supported.5G mmWave technology,deployed by wireless networking equipment provider Blue Wireless, uses existing fibre to create a wireless mesh network, which forms the backbone of the 5G network in Kensington. This is aligned with a community LoRaWAN service, which supports internet of things (IoT) technologies. Telet Researchs Neutral Host small cell technology is currently being added to the network to provide user device access across the area.

Planning the network was said to be complicated and the planning tool used to bring it to life has proved an integral part of this ambitious build.The tool creates a 3D digital copy of the network build area using local data from Ordnance Survey, local authority mapping and theOffice of National Statisticsto accurately access where houses, roads, lamp posts and street furniture are located replicating these in a visual display, said CGA managing director Jon Wetherall.

Using the planning tool, we can analyse how a 5G connection penetrates through walls, and where 5G nodes should be placed to navigate around obstructions like trees, he added.

This process saves time and money for planning teams, insisted Liverpool 5Gs technology lead, Andrew Miles. The tool maps where on lamp posts, the side of buildings, or street furniture, the 5G nodes should be placed to communicate effectively via line of sight. This reduces planning time as the hard work can be done online rather than by foot, he said.

It is a cost-effective, efficient and easy-to-use alternative for teams on a tight budget. The planning tool can also generate a kit pack for planning teams, which lays out the exact technical parts needed to erect the working 5G network. They know exactly which parts to order and when, he added.

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Liverpool health, social care and education 5G network expands - ComputerWeekly.com

Russia will block Twitter within a month if it fails to delete banned content, authoritiestoldstate media Tuesday.

Vadim Subbotin, the deputy chief of Russias state communications watchdog Roskomnadzor, issued the warning a week after the country began slowing down the social media platforms speed over the dispute. The agency acted amid tensions with western social media platforms over what Moscow calls censorship against its state-affiliated accounts.

Weve taken a month to watch Twitters reaction on the issue of removing prohibited information. Appropriate decisions will be made depending on the social network administrations actions, the state-run TASS news agency quoted Subbotin as saying.

If Twitter doesnt comply with Roskomnadzor and Russian legislations requirements, then we will consider the issue of completely blocking the service in Russia, he warned.

The watchdog says the banned content at the center of the conflict involves more than 3,000 posts containing information about suicide, child pornography and drugs that apparently remained online since 2017. Polls say a mere 3% of Russians use Twitter.

Experts interviewed by The Moscow Times called Russias announcement that it would disrupt Twitter access unprecedented but noted that it was unclear how it would be carried out.

The Kremlin has said it supports Roskomnadzors efforts to force foreign platforms to comply with Russian law.

President Vladimir Putin last month raised fines for social media giants accused of discriminating against Russian media. On New Years Eve, he granted Roskomnadzor the power to block social media platforms if they are found to discriminate against Russian media.

Putinaccusedsocial media giants in January of controlling society and restricting the right to freely express viewpoints.

Russia previously banned the social networking website LinkedIn for failing to store users data on Russian servers and, more recently, reversed a decision to ban the Telegram messaging app after a two-year attempt to block it.

This article first appeared inThe Moscow Timesand is republished in a sharing partnership with the Barents Observer.

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Russia threatens to block Twitter within 30 days | The Independent Barents Observer - The Independent Barents Observer

MyPillow founder and staunch Trump ally Mike Lindell plans to launch a social network of his own in the next few weeks, creating a haven for the kind of pro-Trump conspiracy theories that have been banned on more prominent social-media sites. On Lindells Vocl social media platform, users will be free to claim that a supercomputer stole the election from Donald Trump, or that vaccines are a tool of the devil.

Any new social media network faces serious challenges. But Vocl must grapple with a daunting problem before it even launches: a website called Vocal, spelled with an A, already exists.

On Thursday, lawyers for Vocals publicly traded parent company, Creatd, Inc., warned Lindell, in a letter reviewed by The Daily Beast, to change his social media networks name and surrender ownership of the Vocl.com domain name. If Lindell refuses to change the name, he could face a lawsuit.

Lindell claims Vocl is also an acronym. Ours stands for the Victory of Christ's Love, Lindell added.

While Lindell has promised to turn Vocl into a cross between Twitter and YouTube, Vocal is a publishing platform similar to Medium where writers can post and monetize articles.

It is clear that you are acting with bad faith and with intent to profit from Creatds mark, the letter reads, claiming Lindells Vocl would tarnish the Vocal brand.

Its not like anything youve ever seen, Lindell previously told Insider, describing his similarly named social network. Its all about being able to be vocal again and not to be walking on eggshells.

Creatd owns the trademark for using Vocal in a number of ways related to social networking, including creating virtual communities and online networking services. Along with surrendering ownership of the Vocl.com domain name, Creatd wants Lindell to destroy any products with Vocl branding and never use the name again.

Creatd is prepared to take all steps necessary to protect Creatds valuable intellectual property rights, without further notice to you, the letter reads.

When asked on Friday morning about the new legal warning, the embattled MyPillow CEO and Trump friend replied, It has nothing to do with their trademark. I haven't even launched yet. But it has nothing to do with us.

Lindell claims Vocl is also an acronym.

Ours stands for the Victory of Christ's Love, Lindell added.

Early Friday afternoon, he called back to say, We looked into it, and we believe it would be confusing, so we are going to announce a different name and URL by Monday.

Lindell is already facing one major lawsuit. In February, voting-tech company Voting Systems sued Lindell and MyPillow over his baseless allegations that Dominion was involved in a scandalous election theft. Concurrently, Lindell, with the help of Trump attorney and Gawker-slayer Charles Harder, has also recently sued the Daily Mail tabloid, over the publications January article that the Trump pal had a secret romance with 30 Rock and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt star Jane Krakowski, a story that both parties have flatly denied.

For years, the pillow mogul has been a personal friend of former President Donald Trump, and a diehard MAGA supporter and campaigner. During the 2020 presidential election, Lindell served as Trump 2020s Minnesota co-chair, and following Trumps loss in the Electoral College and general election to Democrat Joe Biden, the MyPillow CEO became one of the loudest voices in the country supporting the broader Trump effort to nullify the outcome of the presidential race. (Trumps anti-democratic crusade on this, of course, climaxed with his instigation of the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., an event that led to the ex-presidents second impeachment in the House.)

During the tumultuous presidential transition period, Lindell was a major behind-the-scenes funder of several efforts to challenge the 2020 results, and near the very end of Trumps term even visited the then-president at the White House to brief him on discredited documents alleging that China and other foreign nations helped hack the election and throw it to Biden. Ever since the start of the Biden era, Lindell has not given up aggressively promoting the fiction that Trump actually won, even as it has resulted in his banishment from certain social media platforms, his business getting shunned by other companies, and ballooning legal risk.

Alternative social media networks aimed at conservatives have been challenged by hacks and other technical issues, but Lindell claims Vocl wont face those problems. Hackers recently hit far-right social network Gab, while social media platform Parler went offline for a month after the U.S. Capitol riot when Amazon Web Services pulled support for its hosting. In contrast, Lindell told Insider that Vocl will have its own servers, with space-age stuff to prevent hacking.

Lindell told Insider that Vocl has a staff of roughly 10 people, but declined to describe them or where theyre working for their safety.

Vocl users will be free to promote conspiracy theories about election fraud and vaccines, according to a speech Lindell gave Wednesday at a rally in Arizona.

Every word out of their mouths is going to say Dominion, Smartmatic fraud, vaccine fraud, Lindell told the cheering crowd, describing the content on Vocl.

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MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell Is Trying To Launch a Social Media Site, and It's Already Resulted in a Legal Threat - The Daily Beast

In 2020, the Race, Prosperity, and Inclusion Initiative completed two research projects on the role of social networks in economic mobility, one project based in Charlotte, NC and the other based in three cities (Racine, WI; San Francisco, CA; and Washington, DC). The purpose of this research was to better understand how the social networks of groups of diverse individuals are related to economic outcomes and opportunities such as jobs, stable housing, and education.

In this research, social networks refers to the set of personal relationships which individuals rely on for resources, information, advice, and help. These four locations were selected due to their diverse economic mobility profiles. We hypothesized that social networks of individuals vary in terms of their size, composition, function, and formation based on an individuals own characteristics, including their race, gender, and income. We also hypothesized that social networks are linked to outcomes in employment, housing, and education by providing social capital in the form of resources, advice, information, or help that may tie to economic mobility.

We were motivated by previous research which showed that local dynamics appear to drive economic mobility. While we now understand more about the dynamics of economic mobility, we were not able to identify data that could explain how social networks function for low SES populations or for communities of color in the domains important to economic mobility. We also did not have data on the conditions under which these social networks might confer opportunities for economic mobility.Our projects were focused on filling this vacuum. Over the course of 6 months, which coincided with the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, we analyzed over 30,000 interpersonal network connections drawing on data from 431 interview participants across all four cities to understand how social networks are linked with economic outcomes. Our main findings were:

1. Race is the most important and consistent differentiator of social networks. For example, In Washington DC, 97% of people in white mens job networks were also white. The graphic below depicts the racial homogeneity of social networks in Charlotte, NC.

2. Across all four cities, Black males tended to have the least robust networks for jobs, education, and housing. In Charlotte, Black men typically relied on just one person on average for support. Similarly, Latinos had relatively thin and small networks mostly reliant on family members with Latinas (Hispanic women) being the least networked within this racial group.

3. Outside of family, jobs, education, and housing, networks were primarily formed through work and education settings (college or K-12 schooling). Community activities were also mentioned as a means through which social networks are formed, specifically in San Francisco.

4. Low-income participants in Charlotte and San Francisco had small social networks. Higher-income groups also had fewer people in their networks, but those contracts were very reliable for information, advice, networking, and providing references.

Policy Opportunities

One of our principal goals in conducting the research was to ensure that local communities contributed to and were aware of the findings of the projects. We intentionally partnered with local leaders and local non-profits to share the intentions of the study, to solicit suggestions about what to include in the interview questions and to share the final results as broadly as possible. We did this in the hope that the local communities would attain a sense of ownership of the results and be empowered to lead on solutions.

From a policy perspective, the results suggest that there are numerous ways of addressing racialized and economic status-based social networks. What can be done? While we do not offer a blueprint for building social capital, we do suggest some potential paths forward to achieve equitable social networks in these cities.

1. De-segregate communities

On a national scale, residential segregation has declined in the past few decades, but patterns of residential segregation are still prevalent in the cities we studied. The most common measure of segregation, the dissimilarity index (with 0 indicating the lowest level of segregation and 100 being the highest) shows what share of one racial group would have to move to another neighborhood in order to achieve a uniform distribution of races across a city. The table below shows the white-Black dissimilarity index across our cities of study.

White-Black Segregation in Select Cities (Census 2000)

Source: Diversity and Disparities Project, Brown University

The strong racial homogeneity in social networks in the four cities reflects a range of public policy choices made over the last few decades that have essentially maintained spatial segregation. These public policy choices are most evident in housing and educational policies. Since racially homogenous social networks reflect racial segregation, city governments can make a commitment to creating more inclusive communities by undoing racist housing policies, changing restrictive zoning rules, desegregating public housing units, addressing transport inequality, and focusing on transformative placemaking.

2. Focusing on Black boys and men

One of our key findings was that Black men had the least robust social networks. Our results also suggest that most social networks for jobs and education were formed at school or at work. The thin social networks we observed for Black men reflect policy choices that have had the effect of removing Black males from the domains and moments that are critical for forming robust and reliable social networks.

In all our cities of study, Black students were more likely to be suspended compared to their white counterparts as shown in the figure below. Additionally, male students were more likely to be suspended in all four cities.

City governments must set an explicit goal to support the development of Black boys. This should start with an effort to drive down school suspension rates among Black boys. Keeping Black boys in school and building a culture of care in place of a dismissive suspension and punishment culture can go a long way in ensuring that public schools are adequately serving the needs of Black boys. Additionally, some localities are exploring mentorship programs for Black boys to help them navigate academic and non-academic environments. Local governments can also partner with local community organizations and businesses to further support the needs of Black boys. This effort needs to be coordinated across government entities, co-owned by communities who are most negatively affected by the current aggressive disinvestment in Black boys and must be pursued with a sense of urgency.

3. Enhancing paths into the workplace

Our research showed that the workplace is a place where crucial social connections for jobs and education opportunities are formed. A white female interview participant in Racine summarized how social networks formed at work can be helpful for finding other job opportunities:

[My old boss] warned me beforehand [that the company was closing]. Then I told her I was going to look for [another job]. She wrote me recommendation letters. She gave me time off of work for interviews when I didnt actually have time off. So thats how she helped me white female, Racine, WI

The U.S. unemployment rate was 6.2% in February 2021. This is lower than the 14.8% unemployment rate witnessed in April 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it remains higher than the pre-pandemic unemployment rate. Research by our colleague, Stephanie Aaronson, suggests that the unemployment rate significantly understates labor market deterioration. Thus, identifying and executing policies that will improve the chances of getting back to stable and well-paying jobs for minority and low-income workers is important. Robust social connections formed at the workplace can provide resources, advice, information, or help that is linked to chances of economic mobility for these workers and their families in a post-pandemic world. Such policies include improvements in higher education, federal worker training programs, and supporting labor unions.

Policymakers and civic leaders have the opportunity to create what we call a horizon community in their cities, where the possibility of economic mobility is equitably distributed and where the flow of resources and social capital allow all residents to experience expanded horizons and well-being.

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Social networks and economic mobilitywhat the findings reveal - Brookings Institution

A man uses a tablet device in a subway train in Moscow in 2019. Russia's Internet regulatory agency announced it is slowing Twitter because the company has ignored requests to remove content harmful to children. Pavel Golovkin/AP hide caption

A man uses a tablet device in a subway train in Moscow in 2019. Russia's Internet regulatory agency announced it is slowing Twitter because the company has ignored requests to remove content harmful to children.

MOSCOW - The Kremlin is threatening to block Twitter in Russia as President Vladimir Putin seeks to rein in the influence of social media.

In a statement, Russia's Internet regulatory agency, Roskomnadzor, said that for now it will be slowing down Twitter service because the company has allegedly ignored requests to take down material harmful to children.

Social media companies, regardless of country of origin, are coming under increasing scrutiny by the Kremlin, which views them as rivals to the dominant state-run news outlets. In January, Roskomnadzor said social media - including Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Russia's VKontakte - faced fines for inciting minors to take part in unauthorized rallies demanding the release of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Twitter's presence in Russia is relatively small, with just 3% of respondents in a recent poll saying they use the microblog. But the head of Navalny's Moscow office, Oleg Stepanov, tweeted that the Twitter slowdown was just the start of a "large-scale offensive" by authorities to assert control over - and ultimately block - social media.

Andrei Svintsov, a member of the committee on informational policy in the Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, told a Moscow radio station that Twitter was targeted exactly because it's not widely used in Russia and the slowdown will therefore have a minimal impact.

"Of course it will serve as an example to all the others who don't observe Russian legislation," Svintsov said.

Roskomnadzor claimed that since 2017, Twitter disregarded more than 28,000 requests to delete content that encourages minors to commit suicide, contains child pornography or provides information on drug use. If Twitter fails to comply, the agency said, it could be blocked in Russia.

Later, the agency clarified that the slowdown would affect photo and video content but not text.

In a statement, a Twitter spokesperson said the content which Roskomnadzor claims appears on the platform is not permitted under the company's rules.

"We remain committed to advocating for the Open Internet around the world and deeply concerned by increased attempts to block and throttle online public conversation," the statement said.

The Kremlin has repeatedly used the protection of minors as a pretext to limit free expression. At a meeting with young people last week, Putin said that tech companies had to follow the "moral laws of our society" or Russian society would collapse.

In December, Putin signed a law that would let the Russian government block social media that "censor" Russian news outlets. This week, the speaker of the Duma said new laws were necessary to guarantee the country's "digital sovereignty."

A complete ban on a social media platform would not be unprecedented. In 2016, the authorities blocked LinkedIn, the U.S.-based platform for professional networking, for not storing data on Russian citizens on Russia-based servers, as stipulated by law.

But the Russian government's years-long efforts to block the messaging app Telegram failed because of technical difficulties.

Putin's spokesman told reporters that the authorities had gained valuable experience trying to shut down Telegram.

Not long after the Twitter slowdown was announced, a number of government websites, including the Kremlin's, went down.

Andrei Soldatov, an expert on the Russian Internet with the Center for European Policy Analysis, says that the Twitter slowdown accidentally caused the sites to go down as authorities were testing technology to limit Internet access.

The Ministry of Digital Development blamed the outage on technical issues unrelated to the Twitter slowdown.

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Russia Slows And Threatens To Block Twitter - NPR