Tag Archive for: areas
U of I police taking proactive steps to prevent gun violence in campus areas | Top Stories
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (WAND) – University of Illinois police said gun violence increased off campus during the 2020-21 school year in a report detailing the events of the year.
U of I Police Chief Alice Cary said there were no gun violence incidents on campus property, but noted police realize the campus area is “not immune to off-campus issues.” She said police are taking proactive steps to prevent violence on campus, such as increased patrols and looking at technological tools, such as mobile security cameras.
“Our students and community members should notice an increase in visible police patrols in areas of Campustown that may be more likely to be impacted by violent crime,” Cary said.
There were few students and staff on campus in the 2020-21 year, police said, so calls for service were down by over 37 percent from the 2018-19 year, which was the last time students were on the U of I campus for the full academic year.
There were only four alcohol-related citations for the entire 2020-21 year, police said in the Year in Review report, and all of them were for illegal transportation of liquor. In three of the four cases, the driver was also taken into custody for driving under the influence of alcohol.
No underage drinking or possession citations were issued in 2020-21, U of I police said.
Click here to see the entire year in review report from police.
DigiCOOP delivers cybersecurity lessons as it ramps up shift to digital transactions in rural areas
TEAMS OF DigiCOOP, the digital platform of the biggest financial cooperative in Mindanao, has started teaching members about cybersecurity alongside the push to shift more transactions online.
Ana Cuisia, chairman of Taxion Cooperative that provides the DigiCOOP platform to the First Community Credit Cooperative, Inc. (FICCO), said they have found out that scammers have been on the prey for people in rural areas.
“The team soon realized that transitioning non-digital platform users to the digital space needs to go beyond merely acclimatizing them to the functionalities of an app or a browser-based platform. On the ground, we have heard horror stories about cooperative store owners who unknowingly (or knowingly but with no malicious intent) shared their computer passwords or their own user credentials with outside parties,” she said in a statement.
The 67-year old FICCO, which has over 400,000 members mostly in Mindanao, launched the DigiCOOP for members in July. It is targeting to have at least 75% or 300,000 of members switch to digital services by the end of the year.
Ms. Cuisia said they have been conducting orientation and trainings to cooperatives in the countryside, which now include a session on cyber security.
“Technology and education are the great equalizers of opportunities,” she said.
DigiCOOP, which can be used through a mobile application or an internet browser, can be used by FICCO members for financial services such as bills payment, loan availment, money transfer, and online purchase.
Alongside the digital shift, FICCO is also launching 10 digiCOOP Business Centers in Mindanao this year to expand membership.
Ms. Cuisia said in an email interview that the physical stores will complement the digital platform in terms of attracting more clients who may or may not be able to go online.
“DigiCOOP would like to cater to the most underserved which may not have access to smartphones or internet connection, and that’s why we have made the services offline too, through the digiCOOP business centers,” she said. — MSJ
Pandemic hasn’t crushed broadband networks—even rural areas are doing OK
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | metamorworks)
The sharp growth in residential-broadband traffic seen during the pandemic is starting to level off, new data shows. While Internet speeds have slowed somewhat in many parts of the United States, it turns out that even rural-broadband networks are holding up pretty well.
Speeds have dropped in rural areas but are stabilizing, BroadbandNow reported today. Median download speeds in rural areas ranged from 16Mbps to 19.9Mbps in each of the first 11 weeks of 2020. Speeds then fell to 15.5Mbps in March 22 to 28, the lowest recorded all year. But rural speeds went back up to 16.2Mbps in the week of March 29 to April 4.
Median upload speeds in rural areas ranged from 5.5Mbps to 6.3Mbps in the first 11 weeks of 2020 but have been just 5.1Mbps the last two weeks, the same report found:
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