Here are some (more) computing / tech articles I’ve read in the last week along with a brief summar. This is the second in what may become a bit of a series… (see the first).

Do let me know if you know of others: @JoBrodie on Twitter or j.brodie@qmul.ac.uk, thanks!

 

 

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Table of Contents

1. State of the nation 2021: Social mobility and the pandemic (21 July 2021) Gov UK
2. Police Are Telling ShotSpotter to Alter Evidence From Gunshot-Detecting AI (26 July 2021) Vice
3. Named: 9 jails to benefit from in-cell tech (5 July 2021) Inside Time
4. 9 examples of machine learning in action (29 June 2021) Code Academy
5. Meet the “connected cow” (26 October 2017) Financial Times
6. Hundreds of AI tools have been built to catch covid. None of them helped. (30 July 2021) Technology Review
7. NHS Data Injection: Will It Hurt? (29 July 2021) PC Pro
8. Why right to repair matters – according to a farmer, a medical worker, a computer store owner (2 August 2021) The Guardian

 

1. State of the nation 2021: Social mobility and the pandemic (21 July 2021) Gov UK

Digital access is one of the 7 key pillars of recovery (the others are ‘Geography and local power’ (= under-invested places), ‘Poverty and living standards’, Early years’ (= higher pay, more childcare), ‘Education’, ‘Apprenticeships and adult skills’ and ‘Work and career progression’.

The Digital access recommendation is on page xxiv (p26 of 255pg PDF)

“Digital access
When the pandemic hit in March 2020, only 51% of households earning between £6,000 to £10,000 had home internet access, compared with 99% of households with an income over £40,000. Even when poorer households had access to equipment and internet, they were then less likely to have the skills to utilise it.

• • Provide affordable access to devices and networks so everyone can engage in 21st century education and employment systems: Ring-fence a portion of the digital infrastructure budget so that skills and access provision increase proportionate to infrastructure spending.
  • Ensure everyone is equipped with the essential digital skills for life (as defined by the Department for Education): Ensure every child leaves school with these skills; include training and assessment of these skills in relevant apprenticeship programmes; incentivise employers to ensure they equip people in their sphere of influence with skills (e.g. workforce, customers and supply chain).”

The main section on Digital access and skills is from pages 40-42 (p68-70 of 255) with a case study on p42 (70 of 255) on ending laptop poverty.

2. Police Are Telling ShotSpotter to Alter Evidence From Gunshot-Detecting AI (26 July 2021) Vice

ShotSpotter is an acoustic gunfire detection system which uses an array of microphones which are triggered by anything that sounds gunshot-like. A sound recording is captured and an algorithmic determination of ‘gunshot’, ‘fireworks’, ‘car backfiring’ etc can be made. Several microphone arrays allow the sound’s location to be determined. Although the system is backed up by human operators these gun locators will send police into an area to investigate. The article discusses a case where this went wrong (police acted on incorrect information, shooting a 13 year old boy named Adam Toledo) and another case where a sound classified as a firework was manually reclassified as a gunshot, and was used as evidence in a criminal case.

3. Named: 9 jails to benefit from in-cell tech (5 July 2021) Inside Time

“Seven men’s jails and two women’s jails will be equipped with laptop or tablet computers by next March, with funding for the devices already committed. The Prison Service hopes to kit out more prisons in 2022/23, but this depends on the Treasury giving the go-ahead.”

4. 9 examples of machine learning in action (29 June 2021) Code Academy

An overview of what machine learning is used for including image or speech recognition (also gun detection, see above), virtual assistants like Alexa, television streaming recommendations and medical diagnosis support (analysing medical images).

5. Meet the “connected cow” (26 October 2017) Financial Times
Part of a special report on People’s Technology: https://www.ft.com/reports/peoples-technology

From 2017 this article is part of a series of articles on technology. The Internet of Things now includes cows, with pedometers telling farmers how much walking their animals are doing (a health indicator as well as indicating when cows are likely to be fertile). ‘Moocall’ measures the tail movements during labour and can send a text message to a farmer alerting them that a new calf is imminent.

6. Hundreds of AI tools have been built to catch covid. None of them helped. (30 July 2021) Technology Review

The article highlights potential problems with the sets of data used to train algorithms. For exmample a data set that contained scans of children’s lungs without Covid (as an example of ‘no Covid’ cases) trained the AI to spot children, not Covid. In another case “some AIs were found to be picking up on the text font that certain hospitals used to label the scans. As a result, fonts from hospitals with more serious caseloads became predictors of covid risk.”

7. NHS Data Injection: Will It Hurt? (29 July 2021) PC Pro

Article suggests that better awareness is needed of how (appropriate) data sharing can benefit everyone – patients can get better treatments, NHS managers can better manage resources, but perhaps stronger sanctions are needed for organisations that don’t look after patient data correctly.

8. Why right to repair matters – according to a farmer, a medical worker, a computer store owner (2 August 2021) The Guardian

Rules imposed by manufacturers makes it harder for consumers to fix their own devices – iPhones are notoriously fiddly. Farming equipment like tractors and medical equipment like ventilators also contain proprietary technology and their manufacturers have been reluctant to let farmers and medical technicians rummage around and have restricted access to manuals, spare parts or software updates. In the US President Biden has put in place measures to prioritise consumers’ right to repair.

Sign the (UK-based) Restart Project’s petition “Give everyone a real right to repair“

See also

• • The FTC Votes Unanimously to Enforce Right to Repair (21 July 2021) Wired
  • Repairing and reusing household goods could create thousands of green jobs across the UK (4 August 2021) The Guardian

 

Previous “Computing in the news roundup and retrospective” editions

• #1 – 2 August 2021

 

Pic credit: Carousel Website Page, Image by 200 Degrees from Pixabay