Category Archives: Technology

NHSX, the health service technology unit responsible for the governments failed contact-tracing app, attempted to block rival apps to protect its own, hampering efforts to track the early spread of the coronavirus.

Developers of several apps were urged to stop work by either NHSX or the Ministry of Defence, who told them their apps might distract attention from NHSXs app when it was launched. Last week the app was abandoned after three months, with work beginning on an alternative design without any deadline.

Prof Tim Spector, of Kings College London, said that NHSX had treated his Covid symptom tracker research team as the enemy. We were hampered from the beginning, in March when we first contacted NHSX, he told the Observer. They were very worried about our app taking attention away from theirs and confusing the public.

Lots of signals went to places like the universities, my university, the medical charities and the royal colleges not to back our app because that would interfere with their one.

When the pandemic hit the UK, tech workers, academics and health professionals responded to Boris Johnsons call for a national effort by creating smartphone apps to help track the spread of the virus.

The Covid Sympton Study app has 3.5 million users and has helped chart the emergence of symptoms such as the loss of taste and smell. Evergreen Life, with 800,000 users, has been working with the universities of Liverpool and Manchester and spotted signs of the outbreak in Middlesbrough before tests had been carried out. The governments app, meanwhile, was downloaded by tens of thousands of people on the Isle of Wight and never formally launched.

The rival apps could still form a vital part of the early warning system if, as some scientists fear, a second wave of Covid-19 hits the UK. The Covid Symptom Study app indicates that while the number of people reporting symptoms across the UK has been decreasing, numbers in London have remained static for the past three weeks.

Spector said that although people in the NHS had wanted to work with his team, they told him privately that everything needed to go through NHSX, which was set up by Matt Hancock after he became health secretary, and previously operated outside the main structure of the health service. We naively thought they would sort of take our app over or incorporate them into one, he said. The whole point was to help the NHS, to find the hotspots so they could get the resources to the right hospitals.

Instead, he said he was told the app was a problem. The idea was that this NHSX app was going to be the saviour, another world-beating thing, Spector said. It was going to be an all-singing, all-dancing app that does everything: diagnoses you, it tells you about tests for you and who youve come into contact with.

They were saying: This will make your app redundant. Their app would come out, thered be a huge blaze of publicity and everyone would drop our app. We said: Well, if that does happen, well hand over and work with you, its in the interests of the country. Theirs just got more and more delayed nothing ever happened. Ours got more and more successful, Spector said.

Had ministers backed the app in England, more people would have signed up more quickly, Spector said. We would have got more fine-grained data earlier. Their attitude prevented other branches of government working with us. Users of the Covid Symptom Study who report symptoms can now order a test directly through the app. That would have started earlier, he said.

Spector said he was working with the joint biosecurity centre, which has been set up to create an early warning system for Covid-19 and other diseases. Plenty of people within the NHS have been very helpful, he said, naming Sir Patrick Vallance, the governments chief scientific adviser. Kings will be launching a campaign on Monday to persuade the government to support the app.

The devolved administrations in Wales and Scotland also adopted the app early on. We have proportionally many more users there, he said. I know, from speaking to other people from the Ministry of Defence who were helping out, they put even more pressure on some of the other apps to close them down early.

NHSX has set up Project Oasis to gather data from eight tracking apps. One technology firm characterised the relationship between them as keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

Ian Gass of Agitate, which set up Ink C-19, an app designed to make reporting symptoms as simple as possible, said he was approached by the MoD in March and described the interaction as not friendly: Not that it was aggressive, but I got the impression that there was just a lot of panic going on in governmental circles, and they didnt know what to do or how to do it. They intimated that theyre doing stuff, and we dont want others doing it.

Agitate is a leading expert in tech security and Gass tried to advise NHSX in March that its app design, which attempted to use Bluetooth signals to sense when a phone came close to another, was flawed. In theory, the app was supposed to keep a record of other phones, and if a person developed symptoms, the app could send an alert to those phones. Yet the app only recognised 4% of Apple phones using Bluetooth.

The whole overall approach at the moment is this weird, almost paranoid state where the government says publicly that theyre asking for help, but then they dont want it, Gass said.

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NHS Covid app developers 'tried to block rival symptom trackers' - The Guardian

The coronavirus pandemic has led to an urgent focus on medical research to develop a vaccine or a cure for the deadly pathogen.

But it has also sparked innovation in other areas of technology, as companies and universities have sought to develop products that can help contain the spread of the infection.

While some inventions have been created from scratch, others have stemmed from adapting existing technology.

Here are five examples, developed in the UAE and around the world, that have been inspired by the Covid-19 outbreak.

Contact with contaminated objects can spread the coronavirus, so researchers at UAE University have developed a touchless keypad for elevators.

Already deployed at Abu Dhabi International Airport, the technology uses infra-red sensors to detect fingers when they are 3cm away. The user simply puts his or her finger close to the button without touching it.

We went through different approaches, mainly for selecting the best sensors," said Dr Fady Al Najjar, co-founder of Meta Touch, the company at UAE Universitys Science and Innovation Park that developed the keypad.

"It took about one-and-a-half months. We were working intensively because of the requirement to do this as soon as possible.

We came up with three or four prototypes until we got the current prototype, but its not actually finished. Were trying to develop different types and to enhance it.

The hope is that the system will continue to be deployed after the pandemic, helping to prevent the spread of future infections.

With governments recommending the public to stay at least one metre, or in some cases two metres, apart, inventors have created alarm systems that activate when individuals get too close.

Meta Touch at UAE Universitys Science and Innovation Park has developed a system that uses thermal cameras to detect where people are. The cameras do not record details of faces, so privacy is safeguarded.

It will be just a reminder, like an alarm, that beeps when people get very close to each other," said Dr Al Najjar of Meta Touch. "It will beep to remind people to keep their distance."

New systems have also been developed that can ustilise existing cameras, including CCTV networks.

Scylla, a US and Armenian firm, uses artificial intelligence software to interpret surveillance camera footage and alert controllers if people get too close to one another.

If theyre congregating too much, maybe the tannoy announcer can say, Please be mindful of social distancing and keep two metres apart, said Elliot Zissman, a regional director for the firm.

Temperature sensors are not a perfect way to identify those infected with coronavirus, since some people can be asymptomatic.

Nevertheless, they are able to identify a proportion of individuals with Covid-19 and are widely deployed at borders, schools and other venues.

When vast numbers of people need to be tested, however, scanning a crowd with cameras can become more efficient.

Scyllas system does just that by using a thermal camera and artificial intelligence to identify peoples foreheads and pinpoint individuals with a high temperature.

As people walk across the field of vision of the camera, its taking multiple measurements," said Mr Zissman of manufacturer Scylla.

"What the software allows is to look at all these people walking past and spot the outlier. All of this can be done in less than half a second."

While the coronavirus has led to many high-tech innovations, some are remarkably simple.

None more so than the hygiene hook, a hand-held hook that can open and close doors, eliminating the need to touch them with hands.

Some versions have a small flat surface on the end of them so that they can also be used to push buttons on lifts or punch the keys of an ATM machine.

While these hooks existed before the pandemic, designers have been releasing versions in response to what they expect to be an increase in demand.

The hooks can easily be washed as they are typically made of non-porous materials such as plastic or metal.

Prices range widely, starting at about $1 for the most basic types and going up to about $15 for larger models.

Wristbands are being promoted for their ability to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.

One such device is Immunotouch, developed by a company based in Seattle, United States, called Slightly Robot.

Using an algorithm to interpret data from a gravity sensor or gravimeter, the wristband can determine if a persons hand is approaching his or her face and activate a buzzer.

The mouth, nose and eyes are all potential points where the new coronavirus can enter the body, so people can infect themselves if their hands are contaminated.

Originally developed to discourage habits such as nail-biting and hair-pulling, the Immunotouch has found renewed use since the coronavirus emerged.

Other forms of wristband are used to promote social distancing, with built-in alarms set off when the wearer steps too close to another person wearing another device. The carmaker Ford has been trialling their use to keep factory workers apart.

Updated: June 21, 2020 11:32 AM

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Coronavirus: 5 technologies inspired by the pandemic - The National

Bill McGoun, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Published 5:37 p.m. ET May 2, 2020

Computers have made the coronavirus house arrest more tolerable for many. The lack of computers has made it even worse for some.

I am writing this column on a personal computer in the den of my Swain County home. When I complete it, I will email it to the Citizen Times. My task will have been completed without close contact with any other human being.

I have been working remotely for 20 years now, so the virus has made minimal change in my lifestyle. For many, however, it is a new way of life that may prevail after the virus is gone. For some, it puts them even further behind.

Millions of people who used to go to an office now work from home. Educational institutions all over the country have gone to virtual instruction. All of this is made possible by the ubiquity of home computers and laptops.

More: Living in broadband gaps, rural WNC families improvise to make virtual learning work

Students use a tablet device at Nesbitt Discovery Academy in this 2014 file photo.(Photo: Citizen-Times Photo)

I recall in the 1980s trying to get some work done while waiting for an airplane. I was using the first laptop, a Radio Shack word processor with a memory of 16 thousand bytes. That translates to roughly 16,000 letters or 3,000 words. I was interrupted constantly by people wondering about that strange machine on my lap.

Today, of course, laptops are everywhere. They also are a lot more powerful. The computer I use at home and the laptop I use while traveling each has 8 billion bytes of memory. Of course, they do a lot more than word processing, though this continues to be a major use for me.

There is hardly a business that has not been revolutionized by computers. In newspapers, the composing room is a thing of the past. Editors now can prepare pages for the press right at their desks. Those editors often are based in different cities or states from the one in which the newspaper is published.

A society is never the same again after an upheaval. It instead settles into a new normal. The post-coronavirus new normal will include even greater use of computer technology.

More: Boyle column: We've all got pandemic fatigue, but let's not rush the reopening

Many of those working from home will continue to do so. Such arrangements are more convenient for the employee and less expensive for both the employee and the employer. The trend toward online sales will accelerate, reducing store employment.

Virtual learning has its drawbacks; there is something to be said for interacting with an instructor who is in the same room. Still, there are some cases in which a virtual class makes sense, as in delivering specialized instruction to a remote area, or in one of those lower-division college courses that often are taught to an auditorium full of students by a graduate assistant.

There is, however, a dark cloud behind all these silver linings. Millions of families still are without access to high-speed internet. In some cases, they simply cannot afford it. In other cases, especially in rural areas and more so when signal-blocking mountains abound, the service is not available.

One in eight homes in the Asheville metropolitan area is without internet access, and many more have access that is either inconsistent or too slow for interactive uses. In the rural counties the percentage is higher. One option is creation of wi-fi hot spots. SkyWave, a Bryson City-based wireless internet provider, has set up 27 of them in Swain County.

Families can download school assignments at a hot spot, if necessary on a device provided by the school system. "Absolutely not ideal that folks are having to do their homework in their car, but that is one of the ways we're trying to be creative, said Karen Cook, technology director for Swain County Schools.

If the virus has taught us nothing else, it is the importance of internet service. The next society will be even more dependent on that service than the one we know now. The new normal should include a commitment toward universal access.

4/28/00 Bill McGoun is a former editorial writer for the Palm Beach Post who is retired and lives in Bryson City.(Photo: Ewart Ball)

This is the opinion of Bill McGoun, a contributing editor on the Citizen Times Editorial Board. He lives in Bryson City.

Read or Share this story: https://www.citizen-times.com/story/opinion/2020/05/02/coronavirus-nc-internet-gaps-and-gratitude-technology-sustain-us-opinion/3066257001/

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Amid a new technology normal, gaps and gratitude for the devices that sustain us - Citizen Times

This article is part of the On Tech newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it weekdays.

This will sound weird coming from a professional tech writer: Technology will not end a pandemic. People will.

There has been both hype and hand-wringing about tech that turns peoples smartphones into disease sentinels. Governments, health care authorities and companies around the world are using information about where we go to help locate coronavirus hot spots or notify potentially infected people.

There are good elements of this location-tracking technology, and serious shortcomings. Mostly, though, Im concerned that citizens, companies and political leaders will fixate on this technology at the expense of more helpful but difficult policy choices.

If so, well waste money, risk lives and provide an opening for technologists to oversell what they do.

Its not all worrisome. To my surprise, the big American technology companies have been sensible and responsible about how our smartphones should track where people infected with the coronavirus have been.

But the perfect should not be the enemy of the good. Location data is likely to be a useful tool in a large pandemic-fighting toolbox.

Notice what I said. ONE tool. Technology is not magic. We need to focus more on unglamorous, human-powered tactics.

Andy Slavitt, the former director of Medicare and Medicaid in the Obama administration, wrote on Twitter that early in the pandemic he worked to see if Google and Apple would collaborate on smartphone tracking. I was looking for silver bullets, he tweeted. But I was lying to myself.

Slavitt changed his focus. He teamed up with Scott Gottlieb, a former head of the Food and Drug Administration under President Trump, to help write a pandemic-fighting proposal that emphasizes low-tech solutions.

They said the United States needed comprehensive, coordinated coronavirus testing, and tens of billions of dollars in government spending to isolate and compensate infected people to limit spread among family members. They said a couple hundred thousand people may be needed to do the laborious work to identify infected people.

Endless focus on the merits and drawbacks of technology to fight the coronavirus isnt going to solve our problems. Less technology, please, and more competent humans.

So, technology cant fix everything! But there are tech companies and tech people deploying their skills and resources in helpful ways during this pandemic.

I asked two technology leaders I trust for examples that might otherwise fly below the radar. Ill be returning to this topic again.

Roy Bahat, who invests in young tech companies with Bloomberg Beta, mentioned U.S. Digital Response. The group, organized in part by the technology executive Raylene Yung, matches local governments with volunteer technical assistance. The volunteers are helping build websites that would help small businesses request loans, coordinate meal deliveries to homebound people and create health assessment screenings and other digital government services.

Samuels also mentioned Propel, a start-up that helps people manage their food stamp assistance on their phones. The company is now working to help food stamp recipients access personal donations, keep them informed about the coronavirus and share their struggles.

And Bahat talked up the work of the technology executives Joe Wilson and Eric Ries, who are coordinating an umbrella group of companies, volunteer groups and health care providers working to supply personal protective equipment to hospitals and states.

Facebook drama: The company pushed out some of the people responsible for finding and stopping hackers. My colleagues Sheera Frenkel and Mike Isaac write that some of the affected people believe theyre being treated unfairly. Also, The Wall Street Journal traces Mark Zuckerbergs sparring with board members who felt their views were being dismissed.

Anime with a side of Marx: The Communist Youth League and other Chinese government-sanctioned groups have been flooding Bilibili, a popular online hub for animation and video games in China, with coronavirus-related conspiracy theories and nationalist messages, Bloomberg Businessweek reports.

A raccoon banker runs the Bank of Nook: In a perfect deadpan tone, The Financial Times writes about interest rate cuts by the fictional central bank in the Animal Crossing: New Horizons video game. The banks raccoon-like manager, Tom Nook apologised for any inconvenience and offered a compensatory gift of a floor mat shaped like a bell.

I think youre muted? Look at your little cat! The things we say in our work-from-home days, smushed into 45 seconds.

We want to hear from you. Tell us what you think of this newsletter and what else youd like us to explore. You can reach us at ontech@nytimes.com.

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Technology Will Not Save Us - The New York Times

New technical proposals to track, contain, and fight COVID-19 are coming out nearly every day, and the distinction between public health strategies, technical approaches, and other terms can be confusing. On this page we attempt to define and disambiguate some of the most commonly used terms. Bookmark this glossarywe intend to update it with new terms and definitions regularly.

For more information on COVID-19 and protecting your rights, as well as general information on technology, surveillance, and the pandemic, visit our collection of COVID-19-related writing.

Contact tracing: This is the long-standing public health process of identifying who an infected person may have come into contact with while they were contagious. In traditional or manual contact tracing, healthcare workers interview an infected individual to learn about their movements and people with whom they have been in close contact. Healthcare workers then reach out to the infected persons potential contacts, and may offer them help, or ask them to self-isolate and get a test, treatment, or vaccination if available.

Digital contact tracing: Some companies, governments, and others are experimenting with using smartphone apps to complement public health workers contact tracing efforts. Most implementations focus on exposure notification: notifying a user that they have been near another user whos been diagnosed positive, and getting them in contact with public health authorities. Additionally, these kinds of appswhich tend to use either location tracking or proximity trackingcan only be effective in assisting the fight against COVID-19 if there is also widespread testing and interview-based contact tracing. Even then, they might not help much. Among other concerns, any app-based or smartphone-based solution will systematically miss groups least likely to have a smartphone and most at risk of COVID-19: in the United States, that includes elderly people, low-income households, and rural communities.

Contact tracing using location tracking: Some apps propose to determine which pairs of people have been in contact with each other by collecting location data (including GPS data) for all app users, and looking for individuals who were in the same place at the same time. But location tracking is not well-suited to contact tracing of COVID-19 cases. Data from a mobile phones GPS or from cell towers is simply not accurate enough to indicate whether two people came into close physical contact (i.e. within 6 feet). But it is accurate enough to expose sensitive, individually identifiable information about a persons home, workplace, and routines.

Contact tracing using proximity tracking: Proximity tracking apps use Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to determine whether two smartphones are close enough for their users to transmit the virus. BLE measures proximity, not location, and thus is better suited to contact tracing of COVID-19 cases than GPS or cell site location information. When two users of the app come near each other, both apps estimate their proximity using Bluetooth signal strength. If the apps estimate that they are less than approximately six feet apart for a sufficient period of time, the apps exchange identifiers. Each app logs an encounter with the others identifier. When a user of the app learns that they are infected with COVID-19, other users can be notified of their own infection risk. Many different kinds of proximity tracking apps have been built and proposed. For example, Apple and Google have announced plans for an API to allow developers to build this kind of app.

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COVID-19 and Technology: Commonly Used Terms - EFF

LARIMER COUNTY, Colo. (KDVR) Colorado small businesses are looking for ways to disinfect their spaces ahead of reopening in the near future.

In Larimer County, salon owner Jennifer Eichhorn says shes turning to dry fog technology to help keep her staff and clients safe.

Im willing to do anything extra I can right now, said Eichhorn.

Eichhorn was set to open the fourth location of The Screamin Peach Waxing Studio just as businesses started shutting down.

Its been extremely difficult to navigate through this, said Eichhorn.

Shes now ready to bring a small amount of staff back to the salon but wants to make sure theyre protected. She says thats why she enlisted the help of Pure Maintenance of Colorado, a company specializing in dry fog technology.

Ryan Taylor, Managing Partner with the company says it was recently learned their chemicals are effective against the novel coronavirus.

It gets in and around every crack. It gets the underside of tables, the top of tables, pushing into fabric and furniture, said Taylor.

Taylor says the chemicals used disrupt the virus, making the environment essentially uninhabitable for it. He says their process kills the virus on surfaces and also provides a level of protection for up to 90 days.

Essentially, it prevents against surface-to-person transfer. It cant protect against person-to -person transfer but we can certainly protect against surface-to-person transfer, said Taylor.

Taylor says theyve seen an increase in the number of inquiries as many small businesses are preparing to reopen in some capacity.

I do hope that sooner rather than later, this isnt a necessary thing. Theres always value in preventative maintenance, said Taylor.

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Salon turns to dry fog technology to kill coronavirus ahead of reopening - FOX 31 Denver

It took little time to discover the potential benefits.

Ill never forget it," said Eckersley. "We could see the signs during the game. If guys got to second base, wed run down from the clubhouse and say, I think theyre using the second sign! If they didnt change the signs, they were stupid.

"But we thought we were really neat. Obviously, this has been going on for a long time.

Another Hall of Famer, Padres great Tony Gwynn, became a pied piper for the use of video as a scouting and training tool in the early 1980s. His wife recorded some of his games during a slump in early 1983, allowing him to almost immediately identify and fix a mechanical issue.

Yet while videos applications as a tool for improvement have long been evident, its use for cracking other teams codes has an equally lengthy history.

Sign-stealing has always been an accepted and legal part of baseball. For years, players have been lauded for solving opposing pitchers like a Rubiks Cube, whether by identifying how they tip their offerings, by seeing a pitchers grip from second base and relaying it to a hitter, or by identifying which sign in a catchers sequence is being used.

But there have been plenty of efforts to decipher opponents signs that have pushed the boundaries of acceptable practices: scoreboards flashing a light to indicate a pitch type, bullpen members holding binoculars and signaling to hitters, or personnel in the bleachers doing the same. Just as video revolutionized how players and teams trained and prepared, it likewise offered revolutionary potential for espionage.

According to former Red Sox general manager Dan Duquette, the team spoke to the American League in 1995 and 1999 about suspicions that the Cleveland Indians were using a camera in center field ostensibly there for scouting purposes to steal signs.

Opponents believed that someone who was watching the feed whistled to indicate to hitters when fastballs were coming. The Sox brought their concerns to an umpiring crew in September 1999 and the Indians were told to cover the camera with a towel. The league preferred self-policing to an intervention.

Over time, technology became more sophisticated and more accessible. By the 1990s, several teams started using the Baseball Analysis and Tracking System (BATS) for pitch-location and spray-chart data. By the early 2000s, BATS (whose parent company, Sydex Sports, declined interview requests for this story) incorporated video, creating large and easily sorted libraries that allowed players to become ever more precise and efficient in their ability to review at-bats in games.

BATS is now a staple of nearly all big league clubhouses; on its website, Sydex claims that 29 big league teams use it. The net result of such systems is that in the nearly four decades since Gwynn made video a key training tool, nearly all big leaguers are now well-versed in its use. The in-game examination of video has gone from rare to nearly universal.

Video usage ramps up

The BATS system offers four angles from which to analyze at-bats: a front view, two side views (one useful for lefties, one for righties), and a fourth that can vary from park to park. In his 10 years in the big leagues, Red Sox first baseman Mitch Moreland has seen reliance on it grow.

Nowadays I think its a lot more prominent in the way guys approach the game how they study their swing not just daily but at-bat by at-bat to see how theyre approaching different pitches, if theyre making the move they want to make, whatever theyre working on, said Moreland. The game is so much more analytical than it was and more technical than it was when I first came up.

A few years ago, a member of the Red Sox coaching staff lamented that players would conclude a disappointing at-bat and run straight to the computer to look at their swings and pitch selection. But in 2018, with a managerial change from John Farrell to Alex Cora, the turnover of the coaching staff, and the arrival of hitting sage J.D. Martinez one of the most precise technicians in the game the teams embrace of video jumped to new levels.

Cora was renowned for his ability to identify tipped pitches during his playing career, and was part of sign-stealing as a coach with the Astros in 2017. He arrived in Boston preaching attentiveness to details, including opportunities to pick up on teams giving away pitches. Much of that effort was to be done from the field he wanted players in the dugout and on the bases to be locked in on what an opposing pitcher was doing but also included a heavy video element.

Cora, his coaches, and the advance scouting team of Steve Langone and J.T. Watkins scoured video for any tells by opposing pitchers. They also examined catcher sign sequences with runners on base to figure out which sign typically was being used to call a pitch.

Prior to every game, their hitters met to go over scouting reports digesting information not just about pitch mixes, count tendencies, and the shape of pitches, but also, according to multiple major league sources, information about tipping, sign sequences, and signals from runners on second to hitters. All of that was perfectly legal.

On top of that, hitters became more active in their use of video. Martinez had video taken of all of his swings during batting practice. Other players soon followed. Banter among Red Sox players in 2018 about their swings was constant and a frequent source of in-game attention via the BATS system, thus bringing them into proximity with another game-changing technological innovation: replay.

MLB approved the use of replay to review disputed calls for the 2014 season. It started using the Hawk-Eye system, with up to 12 synchronized live feeds of games to show every play from a variety of angles. The feeds were received in a New York hub, which umpires could then examine when asked to rule on a managerial challenge.

Yet rather than centralizing replay decisions and leaving them under the oversight of umpiring crews, MLB elected to leave the challenge in the hands of teams. Teams were given access to the same live feeds available in New York, including several angles not being used for the broadcast.

Those live feeds were examined by a team staffer in the clubhouse in the case of the Red Sox in recent years, it was Watkins typically at a station adjacent to the BATS setup. Whereas BATS doesnt make video available until at least the conclusion of an at-bat, replay made a dozen video feeds available in real time, including on occasion a center-field view that captured the catchers signals.

MLBs report on the Red Sox acknowledged that the Hawk-Eye system does not always feature a center-field view, and two major league sources estimated that the Red Sox had such a view about 30 percent of the time in 2018.

Wading into the gray area

Since the introduction of replay, MLB has prohibited the use of that electronic equipment to steal signs or convey information, though its report on the Sox noted that prior to 2018, many teams didnt see that prohibition as applying to players and staff in the replay room to identify sign sequences.

But in September 2017, MLB fined the Red Sox for communicating sign-sequence information to their dugout via a smartwatch and the Yankees for a pre-2017 use of a dugout phone to get sign-sequence information.

MLB tried to clarify some of the gray area that had long existed surrounding the role of video in sign sequencing. In September 2017, it issued a memo warning teams that they faced more significant penalties (including the loss of draft picks) for further violations. In March 2018, MLB issued another memo to teams stating unequivocally that using live replay feeds to decode signs and sign sequences was illegal.

Still, the replay screen typically remained just a few steps from the dugout, and people in the game whod figured out how to steal signs and sign sequences by using it remained there as well. Their job descriptions included doing just that for scouting purposes.

Meanwhile, foot traffic around the area (for the Red Sox at Fenway Park, it was the batting cage just behind the dugout) remained high, at least in part because of the widespread use of BATS for in-game purposes.

That proximity likely played a part in the rules violations by the Red Sox in 2018. Players were in the batting cage area where Watkins monitored the game. When he had a Hawk-Eye feed from center field, Watkins could discern whether an opposing team was using the same sign-sequence information that it had in a previous game.

Players cared about the games details, and wanted to know what they could pick up when on the field. Its easy to envision a player, during a trip to review his swing on the BATS system, asking Watkins what sign in a sequence was being used to call pitches. If that happened, the pressure on Watkins to offer accurate information rather than doubling down on pregame information he now knew to be wrong would be enormous.

Watkins was placed in a very difficult position by virtue of his dual role as the person responsible for decoding signs pregame and as the person responsible for operating the Red Sox replay system (a structure, as I have previously noted, that was not uncommon within MLB Clubs), MLB commissioner Rob Manfred noted in his report.

Watkins admitted that because he watched the game feeds during the entire game, he was able to determine during the game when the sign sequences he provided to players prior to the game were wrong. Thus, he was placed in the difficult position of often knowing what the correct sequences were but being prohibited by rule from assisting the players by providing the correct information.

"While this does not excuse or justify his conduct, I do believe that it created a situation in which he felt pressure as the Clubs primary expert on decoding sign sequences to relay information that was consistent with what he naturally observed on the in-game video.

Violations inevitable?

Some believe that the lines of demarcation between what was and was not acceptable were blurry. After all, given that the BATS system features a front view, its possible for players to pick up sign and sign-sequence information during reviews of in-game at-bats. A major league coach not affiliated with the Red Sox noted that just in reviewing at-bats via the BATS system, coaches and players sometimes pick up on how a team is delivering its signs even without trying to do so.

If players notice a change in the sign sequences from their pregame reports, are they supposed to ignore it? Are they supposed to withhold such information from their teammates? What about an advance scout who happens to be the in-game replay coordinator?

Thats what the rules require, yet MLB didnt consistently monitor compliance with those replay rules until the 2018 postseason. In the meantime, its hard to imagine people ignoring information that they knew to be accurate. Perhaps that explains why the publication of the findings on the 2018 Red Sox hasnt inspired the same public outcry that occurred in the wake of those about the 2017 Astros.

Nonetheless, while some members of other organizations consider the Red Sox violations relatively minor, at least one coach whose team played them in 2018 noted his concern.

Its taking a live game feed and using it to affect a live game, he said. Thats not trivial to me. The punishment for that should be strong. There should be some fear.

At least during the 2018 season, there wasnt. Members of the baseball industry cited their belief that the use of live feeds to steal sign sequences had become widespread, if not ubiquitous.

In that environment, some viewed the prohibition on using the replay feed to steal sign sequences as the equivalent of driving 65 miles per hour in a 55-m.p.h. zone with no police on the road. Violations were bound to happen. Just as certain, in an era of player movement, violations were bound to be discovered.

While MLB did a poor job of policing its regulations until the 2018 postseason, it nonetheless had established the need to punish transgressions should they be discovered. With the release of MLBs report on the Red Sox following a months-long investigation, the consequences of such behavior have now become a bit clearer, as baseball tries to offer moral clarity to a video era nearly 40 years in the making.

Alex Speier can be reached at alex.speier@globe.com. Follow him on twitter at @alexspeier.

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A brief history of video and technology in baseball, and how it helped teams steal signs - The Boston Globe

In Seoul, South Korea, much of daily life has returned to normal despite the coronavirus pandemic restaurants, shopping malls, and parks have been filled in recent weeks as the South Korean government started winding down social distancing measures.

It's one of the first countries in the world to bring a major COVID-19 outbreak under control. Cases in South Korea peaked at 909 on Feb. 28 and have gradually diminished since, and the current death toll from coronavirus is 236, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The country has controlled COVID-19 by rapidly scaling up testing as well as relying on other high-tech solutions: A government app tracks the location of all new visitors to the country; people who violate quarantine have to wear a location-tracking bracelet; "smart city" tech is being deployed to bolster contact tracing networks.

"We are in a lengthy tug of war with the coronavirus," Health Minister Park Neung-hoo told Reuters in April, adding that such measures may need to remain in place for months or years.

The success of Asia's fourth-largest economy could serve as a lesson to other countries, like the US. While there are clear differences between the two nations for one, South Korea's single-payer healthcare system makes testing and treatment free for all citizens the US is still in the process of scaling up testing and exploring how best to deploy contact tracing networks on a state-by-state basis.

Here's a look at some of the cutting-edge technology being used to fight COVID-19 in South Korea.

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How South Korea has used tech to successfully contain COVID-19 - Business Insider - Business Insider

Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies have proven to be a key factor in helping residents and businesses across the UAE adapt to the new reality of functioning during a pandemic, with experts noting that the rate of adoption of the technology will only accelerate in the coming years.

Jackson Liu, head of the Middle East, North Africa and Europe region at BIGO Technology, told Khaleej Times that AI has been applied widely across the UAE during the Covid-19 outbreak to enhance connectivity such as with chatbots to improve customer service, as well as increasing the efficiency and intelligence of video conferencing platforms and more.

"We believe that AI-driven digital connectivity is not only key to the current situation of social distancing, but will also redefine any economic landscape due to its applications across a variety of sectors and industries," he said. "We are, as a result, constantly innovating our social networking products and AI-driven capabilities to ensure that we will be part of the digital transformation narrative of the UAE and the region."

The UAE's emerging workforce is relatively young and are digital natives, he pointed out. This makes them extremely accepting of how a digital economy and lifestyle can create value for them. "We also see that the UAE is weaving digital and smart technologies into their national fabric. This combined with the digital-first nature of the emerging workforce will certainly maximize the potential of the government and companies which in turn will improve productivity and efficiency, and contribute to achieving the smart city vision of the future."

Jeroen Schlosser, managing director at Equinix MENA, explained that there are a number of areas where AI is already helping to advance positive outcomes in the current pandemic such as disease surveillance and tracking hotspots; detecting infections in travellers and high-risk populations; speeding up diagnoses with automated image analysis; and accelerating drug discovery and vaccine development.

While data sharing may have opened up quite a bit for the Covid-19 outbreak, it is typically a challenge in industries like health and pharma where data is often collected and stored in different places and considered to be highly sensitive, he noted.

"For participants in digital health ecosystems such as providers, insurers, governments, researchers and more to share patient information safely and compliantly, they need an interconnected distributed data architecture. After all, only secure exchange of health data grows will pave the way for medical breakthroughs," he said.

Highlighting how the UAE is accelerating as a digital society, Schlosser said that businesses integrate digital technologies such as AI, machine learning (ML) and the Internet of Things (IoT) to capture data in real-time and generate the insights needed for optimal product and service delivery. "From remote working to online education, from access Over the Top (OTT) streaming services to ordering online groceries, consumers are now seeing AI in action."

He also noted that AI algorithms are an integral part of Smart City initiatives. Using AI and ML, time-consuming bureaucratic processes could be eradicated, interactions between government departments could be improved, and new streams of revenue can be tapped into.

"Smart cities are highly complex and highly interconnected," he said. "A truly smart city requires digital infrastructures that can physically link dispersed sensors, devices and machines that make up public systems, services and experiences, so they can exchange information in real time. It is therefore important for organisations and businesses to ensure there is the digital infrastructure in place to cope with this complex and diverse web of applications, data, content, clouds, networks and people.

rohma@khaleejtimes.com

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AI proven to be invaluable technology during pandemic - Khaleej Times

With lockdowns across the world and social distancing, technology is playing a central role in communication. Increasingly, people are participating in religious services and concerts online through live-streaming. Pope Francis may have been speaking over the Easter holidays in a mostly empty St. Peters Basilica or St. Peters Square, but he was joined by thousands, if not millions, of persons through the internet and more traditional means such as television and radio. In many ways, COVID-19 is accelerating the use of technology in our work and social activities.

In Geneva, Brussels, London, New York, Kingston, Georgetown, and other cities across the world, many peopleare now working from home using the internet and conducting local and international meetings through some form of teleconferencing.

Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and senior officials have increasingly resorted to more frequent use of teleconferencing. In fact, recently the Heads of government have been holding emergency sessions on COVID-19s impact on the region.

Services, such as medical consultations, physiotherapysessions, and exercise classes, are now being provided through various internet applications.It seems that e-commercehas also increased significantly. Thus, COVID-19 is forcing many people to become much more familiar with technology, and its various applications.

Working from home has also raised again in Jamaica, and no doubt in other parts of the Caribbean region, the question of flexible working hours. Peopleworking from home, whether in the public or private sectors, are reported to be more productive and less stressed. Of course, this requires further study. In Jamaica, in 2014, the Employment (Flexible Work Arrangement) (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act was adopted but is yet to be fully implemented. COVID-19 is demonstrating that there could be merit in introducing some flexible working schedules where appropriate.

While many developed countries have been using technology in the workplace and have adopted flexible working hours, this is not the case in the Caribbean and other developing countries. In general, these countries are playing catch-up.

However, there are definite signs of improvement over the last 12 years, during which time Caribbean countries upgraded internet services and received teleconferencing equipment through a technical cooperation program. The CARICOM Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) Special Session on Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) has, for many years, been looking at creating a Single ICT Space allowing for ICT harmonization and other legislative frameworksin CARICOM. Increased use of ICT, it is said, would aid the realization of the long-awaited CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Within the Caribbean, and especially in its public sector, it is necessary to ensure that institutions and employees have up-to-date, properly maintained equipment and are efficiently trained in how to use them.The service providers in the Caribbean also have to iron out all the kinks to provide a highquality of service at a price thatusers can afford.

To be honest, Caribbean residents are not actually receiving the best quality telephone and internet services from their principal providers. Security is an important issue as well and, of course, across the region cybersecurity policies and legislation need to be completed.

E-commerce, which is among the issues proposed for consideration in the World Trade Organization (WTO), needs to be properly addressed across the CARICOM region. This is where business is now being conducted especially among Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).

The use of technology is also changing how diplomacy is being conducted, moving from face-to-facemeetings and very formal diplomatic notes and saving-telegrams to teleconferencing, emails, and social media portals like Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc. This is not to say that there isnt still a place for diplomatic person-to-person contact, but diplomacy has clearly moved into the digital age.

The flexible working arrangements also need to be seriously examined for implementation. The experiences forced on the region and the rest of the world in this COVID-19 period clearly indicates that the use of technology for communication in various scenarios is workable.

So, whether people are prepared or not, the future of work is evident as COVID-19 preventative is propelling the world more into the digital age and the related reform of working procedures.

A few weeks ago when CARICOM Heads met to share ideas and experiences on measures related to COVID-19, Barbados Prime Minister Mottley said the presence of the coronavirus could be the regions time. Indeed, it could be the Caribbeans time to implement the many CARICOM proposals which are outstanding including proposals on agriculture and food security, trade in services, and most importantly, ICT.

Guest editorial adapted from CMC feature written by Elizabeth Morgan,a specialist in International Trade Policy and International Politics.

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The Use Of Technology And Future Of Work Has Changed Because Of COVID-19 - caribbeannationalweekly.com