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5G’s Timing Perfect for COVID-19’s Accelerated Societal Transformation

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NY State Senator Introduces Bill Banning State Employees From Using TikTok

New York State Senator Chris Jacobs has introduced a new bill proposing to ban state employees from downloading and using the Chinese video-sharing app TikTok on their government-issued phones. “On the surface TikTok appears to be a harmless tool for creating short videos with music when in reality it is a data mining instrument that violates our privacy and could threaten our security,”  Jacobs said in a June 22 press release from his office. He added: “It is just too easy for the information it collects to be accessed by the oppressive Chinese government waging a fierce economic war against our state and our country.” The bill, named “No TikTok on Government Devices Act” (S8600), was introduced by Jacobs last Thursday. It would add new language to section 103 of…

5G’s Timing Perfect for COVID-19’s Accelerated Societal Transformation

The next generation of wireless networks—5G—is one of the fundamental enablers of the so-called fourth industrial revolution, and as society shifts toward a “new normal” of decentralized life, its advantages become critical.

Experts on the nascent technology gathered online for the Collision from Home conference on June 23 to discuss 5G’s revolutionary nature and how humans will likely need to adapt to utilize its benefits. The annual Collision technology conference—one of the world’s premier tech summits—went virtual this year due to the pandemic.

It’s a silver lining of COVID-19 that this societal transformation is as convincing as it is nowadays to more people, said Marcus Weldon, chief technology officer and president at Nokia Bell Labs, when interviewed on the first day of the three-day online summit hosted in Toronto

5G’s Timing Perfect for COVID-19’s Accelerated Societal Transformation Jeremy Kaplan, editor-in-chief at Digital Trends (L) interviews Rose Stuckey Kirk, chief corporate social responsibility officer at Verizon about the societal impacts of 5G at the Collision from Home virtual technology conference on June 23, 2020 hosted in Toronto. (Collision from Home screenshot)

“COVID-19 has taught us that all businesses need the ability to remotely optimize themselves,” he said.

Companies are already re-evaluating their real estate footprints, said Alex Rogers, executive vice president at Qualcomm, a company focused on the research and development of communication systems.

“5G is going to be extraordinarily instrumental in enabling that work from anywhere. It’s going to be a new normal, not just work from home,” he said.

Remote education is another application that has taken off during the pandemic, and it raises the question of equal access for everyone, regardless of their geographic location. 

Rose Stuckey Kirk, chief corporate social responsibility officer at Verizon, says that service providers have an obligation to bring forth new technology that can provide that access more seamlessly.

Human Adaptability

But as with prior industrial revolutions, job loss or workplace transformation is another seismic shift for all of society.

“I think our obligation is to make sure that in a world where 5G comes into play, with all of its benefits, we have to make sure that we are focused on how do we ‘re-skill’ and ‘up-skill’ individuals to be able to compete for jobs and opportunities in what will be a massive digital economy,” Kirk said.

Weldon says that, with potentially less physical interaction, “We have to add back in the bits that will be missing from the physical experience.”

This could manifest as augmented or virtual reality experiences, like in the case of an expert on demand.

“The way that machines and the AI [artificial intelligence] systems come to our help is the AI system will allow us to absorb the data and interpret it … so we ultimately as humans make the decision, and then we instruct a machine to perform the task on our behalf,” Weldon said.

5G’s Timing Perfect for COVID-19’s Accelerated Societal Transformation Michael Hainsworth, editor-at-large at Futurithmic (L) interviews Marcus Weldon, chief technology officer at Nokia & president at Nokia Bell Labs about 5G spurring the fourth industrial revolution at the Collision from Home virtual technology conference on June 23, 2020 hosted in Toronto. (Collision from Home screenshot)

Cutting-edge applications like autonomous driving and tele-health need the speed and reliability with which 5G can manage data. And it’s not just about making cellphones even faster—5G will also enable all kinds of devices to “talk” to each other.

The amount of data created by every little process is mind-boggling, and “being perfectly augmented”—meaning having access to perfect knowledge and in effect retraining oneself—is something humans can look forward to doing. 

“We’re very adaptive creatures,” Weldon said. 

Kirk also emphasized that there are no health concerns with 5G and that all of Verizon’s infrastructure is in compliance with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s standards.

Collision took place last year in Toronto and the partnership continued this year with opening remarks from Mayor John Tory. The conference welcomed 634 speakers and more than 32,000 attendees all online.

Follow Rahul on Twitter: @RV_ETBiz

Focus News: 5G’s Timing Perfect for COVID-19’s Accelerated Societal Transformation

House Will Debate the Great American Outdoor Act in July

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) announced Monday that the House will debate and may vote to amend the Great American Outdoors Act, which would inject billions to maintain neglected national parks and permanently fund land and water conservation efforts. “The House will consider the Great American Outdoors Act under a rule on the floor during the work period at the end of July.  This bipartisan bill, which passed the Senate by a vote of 73–25, will permanently fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) and address the maintenance backlog at our national parks,” Hoyer said in a press statement. The Senate passed the legislation with bipartisan support last week, and it also has bipartisan support in the House. Hoyer said he will bring up the measure under regular rules that…