Videogames Mental Health Charity, Safe In Our World (www.safeinourworld.org), today announces the launch of a dedicated hub for Covid-19 resources, information, and advice.
With the advent of lockdowns across Europe and the US, Safe in our World, the videogames mental health charity has launched a new hub for those in need of support, advice and information in these unprecedented times. The Covid-19 hub is available online, and will be updated regularly: https://safeinourworld.org/covid-19/
Launching today, the hub offers advice on managing stress, coping with isolation, relaxation and excise techniques, as well as highlighting videogames that may aid those suffering, or finding it hard to cope with the changes in daily life.
Leo Zullo, Chairman of Safe in our World said, “As a charity, we’re doing our best to support those around us, and the wider industry. Whether working from home within the industry, or our players, everyone will be adjusting to a new normal. This dedicated hub is designed to signpost techniques to help deal with the challenge of isolation. We’ll continue to do everything we can to help.”
Officially unveiled in 2019 on World Mental Health Day, Safe in Our World is an accredited charity supported by industry luminaries, veterans and ambassadors across the world, and its mission is to create an online destination where people can seek help, gain access to resources and information, and discover stories from real people within and surrounding the games industry. Safe in Our World aims to enable conversations by destigmatizing the mental health conditions; helping a generation of creators, professionals and players come together in support of each other.
In 2020, Safe In Our World will continue to make more announcements and share updates on its efforts and impact to the global gaming community.
Safe In Our World is a registered charity in England and Wales no. 1183344 but its objectives and mission is global.
The Open Doors Initiative has today released a podcast series to help workers and businesses deal with the new realities of employment during the Covid-19 crisis. The initiative is also today publishing a ‘Covid-19 Toolkit’ aimed at helping people with information on working from home, upskilling, financial supports and wellbeing.
The four-part podcast series features different experts all addressing different aspects of work / business during the Covid-19 crisis. Those featured in the podcast are:
David Joyce, Equality Officer from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions
Maureen Walsh, CEO of DeCare Dental
Tiernan Brady, Global Director of Inclusion, Clifford Chance
Dr Pat McKeon, founder of Aware and former Clinical Director of St. Patrick’s Hospital.
Among the topics they address are mental health supports at this time, the need for inclusion and diversity in the workplace – now more than ever, and what the future of work and working practices may bring.
Alongside the podcasts the online toolkit offers best practice and work planning with links to resources and aids for people affected by this change.
Jeanne McDonagh, CEO of the Open Doors Initiative said: “In recent weeks we have seen employment fall by over 17% in Ireland, mainly affecting those most in need such as employees on a low wage and marginalised people. There is a compelling need for social responsibility and leadership to be taken by the business community, where it can help.
“We have seen many businesses and their workers help where they can and Government, business and unions are working together to ensure that employment continues and the impact on the economy is temporary and recoverable. We are proud that so many businesses and organisations, including our members, are stepping up to help those who need it most”.
The Open Doors Initiative was established to help three marginalised groups in employment in Ireland – those with a disability, under 25s with educational disadvantage, and refugees and asylum seekers.
We know that during the current Covid-19 crisis the impact on these groups is greater:
For young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, this can lead to falling into negative behaviour, criminality and other anti-social ways, as supports such as mentoring and training are not available.
People in direct provision who have no way to move accommodation and protect themselves and their families through self-isolation while modes of travel are restricted too.
For people with many disabilities, who need work routine, or have difficulty working without carer support or have mental health difficulties, can all be very affected by the changes that have come about.
Esri Ireland, the market leader in Geographic Information Systems (GIS), today announces that Donegal County Council has used its digital mapping platform to create a comprehensive COVID-19 dashboard with information on confirmed cases across the island of Ireland. The freely available online dashboard is updated daily and compiles data from the Department of Health and Public Health Northern Ireland.
The dashboard helps users to visualise data related to the outbreak of COVID-19 throughout the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Confirmed cases and data can be filtered for analysis by county and district. Charts and graphs on confirmed cases and deaths, as well as breakdowns of age groups, gender and transmission type can all be viewed clearly.
Percentage and actual increases in figures, including the number of healthcare workers infected and number of cases in ICU, can be tracked via the dashboard on a day-to-day basis. Links to official guidelines and information from the HSE, Department of Health, Public Health Northern Ireland and World Health Organisation are also available on the platform.
Additionally, Esri Ireland has made available COVID-19 Impact Planning infographics for every county in Ireland. The infographics detail the preparedness of each county for coronavirus, by outlining population breakdowns, work status of population and total numbers of healthcare facilities in the county, such as health centres, hospitals and GPs. Detailed infographics for every county in Ireland are available to view at: https://arcg.is/jmr1C.
After providing communication support to medical staff on the front lines of the battle against the coronavirus in the US and Japan, Pocketalk, a global leader in connecting conversations and removing language barriers, today announced it will be donating 500 units of its AI-powered translation device, Pocketalk W, to qualifying medical facilities, first aiders, testing sites and those in need of translation services. Pocketalk W devices, including those connected by the smart SIM card, V-Sim which will come with free connectivity donated by Vodafone, will be dispatched on a first come first-served basis, with a maximum of three units per organisation or NHS trust. Those interested can apply by filling out the form on the Pocketalk website.
Pocketalk has been used as an emergency communications tool to break down communication barriers between two people when it matters most. First responders recently aboard the Diamond Princess cruise line quarantined in Yokohama, Japan used Pocketalk as a quick and accurate support to speak with potentially ill passengers in more than 50 languages. What is more, it removed the need for a human translator, preventing even more people being exposed to the virus. Furthermore, in the US, Pocketalk has also been used in healthcare organisations that need translation support.
Medical professionals having to communicate with patients during this global pandemic will benefit from the following features:
74 languages addressing 90% of the world’s population
Handheld translator designed for instant and accurate two-way communication at the touch of a button
Elimination of the need for a human translator, reducing both waiting time and potential exposure of others
“The health and safety of all people, especially first responders putting themselves at risk for others, is our number one priority when connecting the world through conversation,” said Noriyuki Matsuda, Founder and CEO of Pocketalk. “We hope that, through our donation, we are able to provide accessible translation services to those communities who need it most during this global health crisis.”
To apply for a donation of Pocketalk units, applicants must be employed by a healthcare organisation in Europe. Requests will be selected based on a first-come, first served basis for those most in need.
A global emphasis on working from home combined with advice to minimize COVID-19 transmission from shared surfaces even within a home, will help cement the benefits of smart home voice control for millions of consumers. Last year, 141 million voice control smart home device shipped worldwide and, despite the key China market being impacted during the first quarter of 2020, the value of voice control during the pandemic will ensure that this year, voice control device shipments will grow globally by close to 30% over 2019, states global tech market advisory firm, ABI Research.
“A smarter home can be a safer home,” says Jonathan Collins, Research Director at ABI Research. Key among the recommendations regarding COVID-19 protection in the home is to clean and disinfect high-touch surfaces daily in household common areas (e.g., tables, hard-backed chairs, doorknobs, light switches, remotes, handles, desks, toilets, sinks). “Voice has already made significant inroads into the smart home space and voice control can mean avoiding commonly touched surfaces around the home from smartphones, to TV remotes, light switches, thermostats, door handles and more. Voice can also be leveraged for online shopping and information gathering.”
But it is in conjunction with other smart home devices that voice brings greater benefits. Voice can be leveraged to control and monitor smart locks to enable deliveries to be placed in the home or another secure location directly, or monitored securely on the doorstep until the resident can bring them in. Similarly, and smart doorbells/video cameras can also ensure deliveries are received securely without the need for face-to-face interaction or exposure. “Such delivery capabilities are especially valuable for those already in-home quarantine or for those receiving home testing kits,” explains Collins.
“In the long term, voice control will continue be the Trojan horse of smart home adoption. COVID-19 is part of the additional motivation and incentive for voice control in the home that will help drive awareness and adoption for a range of additional smart home devices and applications,” Collins says. Greater emphasis and understanding, and above all, a change of habit and experience in moving away from physical actuation toward using voice in the home will support greater smart home expansion throughout individual homes. A greater emphasis on online shopping and delivery will also drive smart home device adoption to ensure those deliveries are securely delivered.
Precautions for COVID-19 will bring new routines into many millions of people’s daily lives in and around their homes. “Smart home vendors and system providers can certainly emphasize the role of voice and other smart home implementations to improve the day-to-day routines within a home and the ability to minimize contact with shared surfaces, as well as securing and automating home deliveries. There is role for integrating smart home monitoring and remote health monitoring with a range of features, such as collecting personal health data points (temperature, activity, heart rate) alongside environmental data (air quality or occupancy) to help in the wider response and engagement for smart city health management,” Collins recommends.
New research indicates a massive 87% of Irish people would be willing to share their personal data and medical records if it helped to solve a global pandemic like COVID-19. While 84% believe technology will ultimately help to beat the outbreak. This has been a recent topic of discussion on social media and forums due to GDPR and it is good to see people have some sense around this crisis we are now under for god knows how long.
The research was commissioned by the Irish Computer Society as part of currently ongoing Tech Week 2020, which aims to provide new and creative ways to help students engage with technology and provide them with hands-on opportunities to learn about how computing and related technology are reshaping every area of life.
Undertaken for the Irish Computer Society by iReach, the research surveyed 1000 people across Ireland in a range of age groups, providing insights into perceptions of COVID-19, technology, privacy, working, and social media. It found that:
87% would be willing to share their personal data and medical records if it helped solve a global pandemic like COVID-19. This number rises to 93% in the 18-24 and 55+ cohorts.
60% (71% of the 55+ cohort) would be open to an implantable device/chip if it made medical conditions easier to manage and enhanced day-to-day life.
84% think technology can help to beat the Coronavirus outbreak. This increases to 92% in the 18-24 cohort and 90% in males.
83% think technology will change the way we work after the COVID-19 crisis.
78% don’t trust social media in spreading awareness about COVID-19 prevention. (55% in the 18-24 cohort do not trust social media for this purpose).
Jim Friars, CEO of the Irish Computer Society said: “Researchers, businesses and innovators around the world are putting technology to work to alleviate the effects of the global health crisis. From applications that collect data to track the spread of the virus to 3D printed ventilators for hospitals, it is no wonder that 84% think technology can help to beat the Coronavirus outbreak.
“Our survey further suggests that there is also a considerable cohort, 60% who would be open to an implantable device/chip if it made medical conditions easier to manage and enhanced day-to-day life. This figure rises to 71% in the over 55’s age cohort.”
“Efforts to contain the spread of Coronavirus have also reached new levels. As the pandemic spreads further, it has become clear that personal data will play an essential role in understanding the virus and ultimately containing it. Our survey indicates that the vast majority of people are happy for medical researchers, practitioners, and public health officials to collect and analyse their personal data in a bid to better track the virus, learn more about how it spreads, and predict its movements.”
“One of the most common tools being employed around the world has been the gathering of location data using smartphones and data from mobile networks. Our phones track our steps and many people have wearable devices that can collect statistics on our vitals and lifestyle. Potentially, this data could now be used to track and accelerate a cure for COVID-19.”
“With this data available intelligent machine learning algorithms could identify trends that human experts can miss, then raise insights and recommendations for professionals to review and validate. The process could ultimately speed up detection in the case of COVID-19.”
“Governments around the world are already using technology to track the coronavirus outbreak as they race to stem its spread. China, Singapore and South Korea are using a combination of location data, video camera footage and credit card information, to track COVID-19 in their countries. There are also proposals to introduce track and trace technology here by way of an opt-in mobile phone app that will allow people to be notified if they were in close proximity to confirmed cases.
“However, while this presents many opportunities, it also raises important questions on data ownership, access and privacy. Concerns have already been raised by privacy activists about the use of temporary ‘symptom tracker’ applications used in the fight against the outbreak. Any personal data collected should be protected to the maximum extent of the law, anonymised as much as possible and disclosed only to health authorities, and not under any circumstances shared with other authorities without explicit consent.”
The Department of Health today launched a new Covid-19 information app which was commissioned and delivered in just two weeks by locally based cloud software specialists CIVICA in partnership with Big Motive.
“Covid-19 NI is one of the first dedicated tool of its kind in the UK and Ireland and demonstrates that our local Department of Health and the HSC were well ahead of the game in knowing exactly what they wanted and securing it in record time,” explained Mark Owens, Managing Director of CIVICA Northern Ireland.
Photo by Aaron McCracken
“The App is simple to download and use and has three core functions, firstly an in-app symptom checker for Coronavirus (COVID-19) leading the user to appropriate medical advice and onward links to further information; secondly a chat bot with natural language interface to answer users’ questions which will be enhanced and expanded with time, usage and feedback; and thirdly a push notification service with the ability to push messages out to user’s devices very similar to text messages alerting people to things like significant changes to official status or advice.
“Our brief was to provide a trusted single source of information dedicated to providing the population of Northern Ireland with immediate advice that should ease pressure on GP surgeries, pharmacies and of course Hospitals.
“ I cannot stress how unprecedented it is in our industry to produce an App of this nature so quickly and we could not have done it without the skills and dedication of our developers who were determined to do their best to support our amazing NHS.
“We all know the pressure on our medical services is going to be extraordinary and we believe this is going to be a critical tool for those who need local information immediately.
“It is the duty of every business in Northern Ireland to do their bit to support the Executive, the Government Departments and to realise that it is vital we all work together to beat this Pandemic, use our skills, our ingenuity and retool where necessary to support each other and our economy,” concluded Mark.
The App is available on Google Play store, Apple store, Windows 10 app store.
SophosLabs researchers have published a new Uncut blog, “Facing down the myriad threats tied to COVID-19.” that tracks how the use of “COVID-19” and “coronavirus” in domain names, spam, phishing attacks, and malware has skyrocketed. The article is a “live report” that SophosLabs Uncut will update as findings unfold.
Specifically:
The article shows that the volume of “COVID-19” and “coronavirus” email scams have nearly tripled in the past week – see the below chart (high res version attached).
Attackers are also increasingly impersonating the WHO (World Health Organization), CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, North America) and the United Nations (UN), as evidenced in scams tracked by SophosLabs.
“Cybercriminals are wasting no time in shifting their dirty, tried and true attack campaigns toward advantageous lures that prey on mounting virus fears. It’s easy to see, for example, that the attackers behind a new Chloroquine scam are the same as those behind a recent herbal Viagra scam,” according to Sophos Principal Research Scientist Chester Wisniewski.
“With global spam volumes estimated to be in the hundreds of billions, for 2-3% of those to be COVID-19 themed is significant. Similar to A/B testing of advertisements and web pages, criminals often dip a toe in the water when there is a new or sensational topic in the news. If the new topic proves a more effective lure than the previous scam bait they begin switching to new lures.
“In fact in one of the spam campaigns we tracked this week, there was evidence of exactly that. These particular criminals had been using fake shipping and delivery emails to convince unsuspecting victims into opening attachments and infecting their computers with the Kryptik Trojan. Now the main body of the email pretends to come from erecruit@who.int with “health advice” in the attachment, but when we carefully inspect the plain text body, we see it matches a previous spam campaign from this same criminal using a lure pretending to be about invoices and deliveries.
“The increases we are seeing are likely due to two important factors. First, as time passes more and more criminal groups are joining the party on using all this interest in COVID-19 to steal money from people. Secondly, it takes time. Any given criminal group has to handcraft the spams to convince the recipient to take an action. In the research community we call this the call to action. The call to action might be to open the attachment, visit the website or, in the case of the WHO Bitcoin scam (attached), to donate cryptocurrencies to criminal controlled Bitcoin wallets. Crafting these messages takes time, especially for those who are not native English speakers.
“Even the most innocuous mention of something by a politician or a celebrity can lend a scam credibility or present a new business opportunity. Two recent examples come to mind. One is a spam campaign offering to tell you about a government cover-up and attempting to sell you a COVID-19 survival guide allegedly used by the celebrity Gwyneth Paltrow as a lure in its subject line. A clue that the email is a fake is the incorrect spelling of her first name as Gwenith (attached), but this could easily be missed or glossed over. A few days ago President Donald Trump mentioned the possible efficacy of a drug called Chloroquine against the coronavirus, immediately leading to WordPress blog comment spammers switching from pitching herbal Viagra to instead attempting to sell you Chloroquine, which can be quite dangerous when not taken under the supervision of a doctor. And within only two days of the WHO creating a charity called the Solidarity Response Fund, criminals were soliciting Bitcoin donations pretending to be the charity, even implying your donation is fully tax deductible in the US or Europe.”
Additional Sophos Resources Related to COVID-19 themed cyber-scams:
SophosLabs has uncovered a variety of different malicious email campaigns connected to COVID-19, including:
Phishing scams impersonating the WHO, CDC, and other healthcare organizations to deliver malware via malicious documents disguised as official information on how to stay safe during the pandemic
Cybercriminals impersonating charities and relief organizations like the WHO’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund to trick victims into sending them Bitcoin
SophosLabs is updating its Uncut blog with new findings in real time
Follow the SophosLabs Twitter feed for breaking SophosLabs discoveries: @SophosLabs
Sophos News is providing tips and free resources as people navigate the work-from-home tech/security gauntlet:
Cybersecurity guidance during the coronavirus pandemic
Naked Security is providing security tips and industry news:
Remote working during Coronavirus? Here’s how to do it securely
Extortion emails threating to infect families with the coronavirus
The Coronavirus outbreak and the worldwide reaction to the pandemic will force companies to radically rethink how they operate and embrace technological investment, states global tech market advisory firm, ABI Research.
“To effect change, there must be a stimulation of a magnitude that means companies cannot do anything but make bold decisions to survive. COVID-19 is that magnitude,” explains Stuart Carlaw, Chief Research Officer at ABI Research.
Bold decisions and technological investments could lead to outcomes such as:
A more concerted and widespread move to lights-out manufacturing
Increased usage of autonomous materials handling and goods vehicles
A more integrated, diverse, and coordinated supply chain
Investment in smart cities to support community resilience
A move to virtual workspaces and practices
And so much more
“Before we feel this potential long-term impact, there will be some serious short-term implications. Contractions in consumer spending, disruptions to supply chains, and reduced availability of components will create a rough sea for all boats,” Carlaw says. “In the short-term, there will be a retrenchment in outlooks a reduced investment in modernization, as survival instincts trump the drive to prosperity.”
