COSMOS is a cohort study of mobile phone use and health. The study will investigate the possible health effects of long-term use of mobile phones and other wireless technologies. It is an international study being conducted in five European countries – UK, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands and France. In the UK Imperial College London is carrying out this research.
A pre-test took place in May 2009; 4,500 mobile phone users were invited to take part in the study.
The main launch of the study took place on 22 April 2010; 2.4 million UK mobile phone users were invited to participate. As of August 2010, 67,987 people were taking part in the UK arm of the study.
From February 2012 the UK study changes its eligibility criteria so that invitations were no longer mandatory to participate. Anyone aged 18 or over, who is a UK resident and uses a mobile phone can take part in the study.
The National Toxicology Program (NTP) concluded there is clear evidence that male rats exposed to high levels of radio frequency radiation (RFR) like that used in 2G and 3G cell phones developed cancerous heart tumors, according to final reports released today. There was also some evidence of tumors in the brain and adrenal gland of exposed male rats. For female rats, and male and female mice, the evidence was equivocal as to whether cancers observed were associated with exposure to RFR. The final reports represent the consensus of NTP and a panel of external scientific experts who reviewed the studies in March after draft reports were issued in February
The Computational Propaganda Research Project (COMPROP) investigates the interaction of algorithms, automation and politics. This work includes analysis of how tools like social media bots are used to manipulate public opinion by amplifying or repressing political content, disinformation, hate speech, and junk news.
We use perspectives from organizational sociology, human computer interaction, communication, information science, and political science to interpret and analyze the evidence we are gathering. Our project is based at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford.
in SpaceX to support its plan to deliver hundreds or thousands of micro satellites into a low (750 mile) orbit around the globe to serve Internet to rural and developing areas of the world. The Information's sources indicated that Google was in the “final stages” of investing in SpaceX and valued the company at “north of $10 billion.” SpaceX is apparently courting other investors as well.
Elon Musk indeed has a Google-sponsored card up his sleeve.
The Just Net Coalition -- whose membership roll includes leading human rights organisations from across the global south -- have written urgently to the World Wide Web Coalition and its founder, Tim Berners-Lee, calling on him to intervene to stop the Consortium from publishing its first-ever DRM standard, a system for restricting video streams called Encrypted Media Extensions.
The social giant on Monday announced plans to lay nearly 500 miles of fiber cable in Uganda by the end of the year, infrastructure that Facebook believes will provide internet access for more than 3 million people.
Facebook is not, however, providing its own wireless network. The company is partnering with Airtel and BCS to provide the actual internet service, and says the fiber will offer more support for “mobile operators’ base stations.” The company also says that it’s “open” to working with other network providers down the line.
The newly tapped aide, Jeffrey Eisenach, is a known commodity in Washington tech and telecom circles. Dating back to his time as leader of the now-defunct Progress and Freedom Foundation, he's argued vigorously in favor of the FCC taking a hands-off approach to digital issues. While there in the 1990s, he also called for robust penalties against Microsoft during the U.S. government's antitrust investigation of the software giant.
It is rolling out 376 small cells that will cover 1 million people who are currently without a signal and the roll-out is now underway. The cost of the investment is US$10 million. That’s US$10 million to cover 1 million people. Now Rwanda’s a small country and it would cost more to cover a larger geographic area but the potential is clearly enormous if it works.
04/03/2016 by Intellectual Property Watch
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, today issued a statement urged United States law enforcement authorities to exercise caution in their legal fight against Apple computer company, saying it could have “extremely damaging implications for the human rights of many millions of people, including their physical and financial security.”
A decision against Apple “is potentially a gift to authoritarian regimes, as well as to criminal hackers,” he said.
Fairphone was started by a group of passionate thinkers, designers and makers who want to change the phone industry. As our campaign grew into a social
Parminder Jeet Singh, February 13, 2016
NET NEUTRALITY : As most public services go digital, it makes sense to ensure access to them free of data charges, as a citizen's right.
In its ruling on “Prohibition of Discriminatory Tariffs for Data Services”, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has held that data services over the Internet are a commodity business whereby data cannot be discriminated on the basis of the content it carries. It also asserted its regulatory control over data services, which would be provided as a regulated public utility.
This is a historic decision setting a high bar for maintaining complete Net Neutrality, and thus sanctifying the Internet in the Indian law, as a model of equal and non-discriminatory communication, information-exchange and networking.
by Robert Macmillan, If you did a double-take yesterday when Facebook announced that it was spending an astounding $19 billion to buy mobile messaging softw
P. Sastry, P. Krishnaiah, P. Rao, and D. Vathsal. International Journal on Recent and Innovation Trends in Computing and Communication, 3 (1):
264--267(January 2015)
X. Liu, M. Azmoodeh, and N. Georgalas. Fifth International Workshop on Software Quality, 2007. WoSQ'07: ICSE Workshops 2007, page 7--7. IEEE, (May 2007)