Just in! China kick-starts development of 6G technology less than a week after rolling out its superfast 5G network

China has officially begun the research and development of 6G technology.

The news came less than a week after the country rolled out its superfast 5G network. 

The country's Technology Bureau has formally set up a team of experts to work on the next-generation mobile internet connection, state media said today.

A total of 37 telecommunication specialists drawn from universities, institutions and corporations are on the panel, which is tasked with laying out the development of 6G and proving the scientific feasibility of it.

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The country's Technology Bureau has formally set up a team of experts to work on the next-generation 6G mobile internet connection just a week after launching 5G

The news was announced during a 6G launch ceremony in Beijing on Sunday, according to a report by Chinanews.com.

Wang Xi, deputy minister of the Technology Bureau, said at the conference that the bureau was set to work with the experts to design a specific research plan for 6G and carry out preliminary research. 

China's three state-owned telecommunication carriers - China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom - launched their 5G data plans just last Thursday.

The country is due to activate more than 130,000 5G base stations by the end of this year to support the network, which is one of the world's largest 5G deployments.

Chinese engineers have already built a '5G smart town' near Shanghai, where residents will be able to download TV series, movies or games at an impressive speed of 1.7GB per second.

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China has named Wuzhen the country's first '5G town' which has which boasts super-fast internet connection in every corner of the place. Wuzhen (pictured) is an ancient water town

5G signal is sent out to the nooks and crannies of the 27-square-mile town of Wuzhen by more than 140 transmitters, which went into service recently.

The country is also on its way to completing a 5G-equipped high-speed train station, in collaboration with Chinese tech giant Huawei.

The 'super-fast' 5G network will be fitted to the existing Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station, which is one of Asia's busiest traffic hubs and handles some 60 million passengers a year .

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Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station (pictured) handles some 60 million passengers a year

Visitors to the station will be able to download a 2GB high-definition film in less than 20 seconds, according to Huawei.

In comparison, it would take three minutes and 20 seconds to download the same film on a standard 4G network. 

WHAT IS 5G AND WHAT DOES IT DO?

The evolution of the G system started in 1980 with the invention of the mobile phone which allowed for analogue data to be transmitted via phone calls.   

Digital came into play in 1991 with 2G and SMS and MMS capabilities were launched. 

Since then, the capabilities and carrying capacity for the mobile network has increased massively. 

More data can be transferred from one point to another via the mobile network quicker than ever.

5G is expected to be 100 times faster than the currently used 4G. 

Whilst the jump from 3G to 4G was most beneficial for mobile browsing and working, the step to 5G will be so fast they become almost real-time. 

That means mobile operations will be just as fast as office-based internet connections.

What is 5G? Intel launch 5G enabled laptop in 2019

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Potential uses for 5g include: 

• Simultaneous translation of several languages in a party conference call 
• Self-driving cars can stream movies, music and navigation information from the cloud
• A full length 8GB film can be downloaded in six seconds. 

5G is expected to be so quick and efficient it is possible it could start the end of wired connections.  

By the end of 2020, industry estimates claim 50 billion devices will be connected to 5G.

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The evolution of from 1G to 5G. The predicted speed of 5G is more than 1Gbps - 1,000 times greater than the existing speed of 4G and could be implemented in laptops of the future 

Just in! COVID-19: Group queries arrest, trial of Funke Akindele, wants same treatment for FCT minister

The

 Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) 

has condemned the arrest and prosecution of Funke Akindele and her husband, AbdulRasheed Bello popularly known as JJC Skillz, for breaching the restriction order put in place by the Lagos State government to check the spread of COVID-19.

HURIWA in a statement on Tuesday signed by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko claimed that the Minister of State for Federal Capital Territory, Ramatu Tijani Aliyu, violated the COVID-19 stay-at-home order and social distancing regime by going about supervising the fumigation of some areas of the metropolis in Abuja alongside dozens of residents and a large retinue of hangers on and staff.

The Civil Rights Advocacy group, therefore called for the arrest and prosecution of the Minister of State for Federal Capital Territory for overtly flouting COVID-19 directives set by the Federal Government.

The group further condemned the Lagos State government for punishing Funke Akindele and her hubby claiming they were made scapegoat by the state to divert attention from the heightened accusations over a lack of due diligence in the application of the N10 billion COVID-19 fund.

“This choreographed detention and prosecution of Funke Akindele and co was orchestrated as a perfect diversionary tactics to keep people busy talking about it whilst not remembering that some Lagos residents angrily rejected loafs of bread donated to them as relief materials by some officials.

“This was just some kind of exhibitionism by the Lagos state administration to try to hoodwink the gullible people that it is working even when government has failed to address the larger issues of forcing families to stay at home with no electricity power and no clean water supplies to millions of Lagosians as we write.

“In as much as we are not condoning lawlessness, we believe that Funke Akindele and her family are victims of a lynch mob social media justice advocates who found an ally in the Lagos state administration that yearns to divert attention from some deep rooted social failures during this Covid-19 curfew.

“Her conviction is illegal and we urge her to repudiate her guilty plea and file an appeal making use of the services of a smart legal team to overturn the charade of a court decision done by a court whose prosecution team also failed to observe social distancing rule as can be seen from the photo taken from the entrance of the court room,” the group added.

The Civil Rights Advocacy group also accused the Police of double standards for failing to arrest the serving FCT Minister, Aliyu and her security details for not observing social distancing guidelines while fumigating some areas in Abuja on Monday.

“Is the Nigerian law not supposed to apply to everyone? Why was

 Funke Akindele

arrested and charged for flouting the curfew when she only held a social party of few guests compared to the Abuja minister of state who gathered nearly one hundred people in a place to commission the jamboree of fumigation of Abuja markets? This double standards defeat the Cause of Constitutionalism,” the group said.

ER doctor: Coronavirus treatment is 'an enormous logistical nightmare'

The coronavirus pandemic has stunned the U.S, which has become the global leader in the number of cases.

Making matters worse is the fact that health care professionals are facing numerous challenges including lack of personal protective equipment (PPE), a shortage of ventilators in some areas, and no clear way of how to treat their patients. 

“What we’re seeing is an enormous logistical nightmare,” Dr. Jennifer Ellice, an LA-based ER doctor, said on Yahoo Finance’s The First Trade recently (video above). “We’re trying to deal with very sick surges of COVID patients and in addition, we still have to take care of folks with appendicitis, folks who are breaking their legs.” 

Emergency Medical Technicians bring a patient into Wyckoff Hospital in the Borough of Brooklyn on April 6, 2020 in New York. (Photo by BRYAN R. SMITH/AFP via Getty Images)

In order to help alleviate an influx of patients at some hospitals, some cities have found alternative locations to treat patients. In New York, the Javits Center wasrepurposed to start treating patients, and a U.S. Navy ship was deployed to serve as a hospital as well.

“People are getting very sick very quickly,” Ellice said, “and we don’t understand all the aspects of this disease and the natural progression. It is frightening on many fronts.” 

The New York metro area accounts for over 60,000 cases. (Graphic: David Foster/Yahoo Finance)

‘We need something so we can communicate quickly’

With assistance from a New York Times reporter, Ellice called on Silicon Valley companies to step up and help medical professionals across the country communicate with each other about what they were seeing on the ground. Slack (WORK), a messaging platform, stepped up to the challenge.

“The response was amazing,” she said. “Within 24 hours of it starting, we had 450 people log in. We have a community now of almost 3000 people. I look forward to seeing it expand even further. It’s an important platform for us. There hasn’t been anything like it in the space. We need something so we can communicate quickly.” 

Ellice realized that her and the doctors had both medical and logistical challenges, with one of the main issues being the shortage of PPE. 

Dr. Lauren Miller, left, and Dr. Micah Moore look over notes at a Mobile Health Unit for drive-thru coronavirus testing at Robert C. Byrd Clinic in Lewisburg, W.Va., March 24, 2020. (Jenny Harnish/The Register-Herald via AP)

“One of the very first topics that I remember discussing was a doctor in New York who worked at eight different hospitals, had one mask that he had been using for a week,” she said. “He was describing the challenges of trying to intubate and trying to work with patients who are very, very sick without getting exposed himself.”

Other topics that have been discussed are treatment and testing for COVID-19. Normally, Ellice explained, the medical community is able to rely on information disseminated from associations and peer-reviewed journals to figure out effective approaches. But the quick spread of the virus has changed the stakes. 

“We are relying on sources from everywhere — WhatsApp from Chinese doctors or talking to our peers from medical school and residency,” she said. “We’re just trying to figure out what we are all seeing and what we need to do to beat this.” 

Over 1 million people have been infected with coronavirus. (Graphic: David Foster/Yahoo Finance)

Muted optimism

In California, where Ellice is based, the peak of coronavirus cases is projected to be around April 19, but she noted that the models keep changing. The hope is to buy time for the medical community, because there are concerns that there aren’t enough ventilators in supply, although Ellice said there are enough where she works. 

“I think there’s some very muted optimism that we may be bending the curve here on the West Coast in Washington, Oregon, and California,” she said. “As we do, we’ll maybe see that peak get pushed farther out, which is good.”

Some studies have indicated that the virus could go away with warm weather. Although Ellice said it’s “certainly a possibility,” she also expressed caution.

“The northern latitudes have higher populations,” she explained. “So predicting, modeling, determining whether this will go away in the summer is very difficult. As a scientist, I would hesitate to say comfortably if this is going to go away in the summertime. We definitely hope that it will, but again, we can’t predict.”

Pedestrians wearing masks during the coronavirus outbreak walk along a deserted Hollywood Boulevard, Sunday, April 5, 2020, in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

In any case, another question arises: Will the coronavirus come back as seasons change to colder weather near the end of the year?

“This is a very difficult thing for us to predict,” Ellice said. “There’s some concern that with the folks who are now quarantined who aren’t seeing this disease, they may be more vulnerable when or if this disease does come back in the fall. It’s difficult to say how this disease is going to react.”

One thing she does know for certain, though, is that coronavirus is “definitely not the flu. If this does return, we may in fact have to deal with large parts of the community that are not immune and may present another challenge in the fall.”

Adriana is a reporter and editor for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter@adrianambells.

Imagine! Aisha Buhari, Patience Jonathan, Turai Yar’adua, Others Honour Maryam Babangida After 10 Years

Wife of the President Aisha Buhari and former first ladies Patience Jonathan and Turai Yar’Adua on Thursday gathered in Abuja in commemoration of Maryam Babangida, ten years after her demise.

The event was organised by Aisha Babangida, Mariam’s daughter with former military president Ibrahim Babangida.

Aisha Buhari, the host shared some photos and a short video from the event on her verified Instagram handle.

In her post, she said, “I attended an event organised to mark the 10th anniversary of the demise of former First Lady, late Mrs Maryam Babangida; the initiator of women empowerment Programme.

“The event is tagged, Mother Of The Nation History Revised 2020 held on Thursday in Abuja.”

She also lauded Maryam Babangida and her legacies adding that former first ladies should continue in this clime of meeting and sharing their experiences.

“I am happy to meet with some former first ladies at the event.

“The armchair discussion and the experience sharing by the first ladies were quite interesting and inspiring. While I commend the effort of Aisha Babangida for putting the event together, I would like to also suggest that Former first ladies should continue to explore avenues for sharing their experiences. It is hoped that this will enhance the Programmes of the next future First Ladies as well as shape the future of the younger generations,” she added.

Wife of vice-president Yemi Osinbajo was also in attendance.

Maryam Babangida was the wife of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, who was Nigeria’s head of state. She died in December 2009.

See photos from the event below…

Just in! Toke Makinwa Drops Some Big News – Reveals She’s Dating Drake!

If this lockdown goes on for a few more months you have to wonder how many sane people would be left on Planet Earth.

Boredom is killing everyone at home so people are trying to find different ways to pass the time.

This has manifested in very different ways for different people.

Don Jazzy, for example,

 photoshopped Rihanna into one of his photos simply due to boredom.

Toke Makinwa has also announced that she’s been dating Drake in her imagination.

“My imagination has me dating Drake,” she wrote.

Who are you dating in your imagination?

Just in; Coronavirus stimulus checks: 175 million Americans will start receiving funds 'this week or early next,' Larry Kudlow says

An estimated 175 million Americans will get stimulus checks with the first payments going out this week or next, according to Larry Kudlow, director of the U.S. National Economic Council.

The payments, worth up to $1,200 plus additional $500 per child, are intended to help Americans financially weather job loss, reduced work hours, and other money challenges as large swaths of the country are shut down to curb the coronavirus outbreak.

"The checks from the Treasury and the IRS [will] probably start going out, I think this week, perhaps early next," Kudlow told CNBC.

Kudlow also said glitches that small business have experienced when applying for the relief program will get worked out and told CNBC that the government is supporting the economy by, "liquidity, cash rescue, try to keep the labor force connected to the actual businesses."

While many Americans will start receiving their checks soon, it may take months for others. This depends on what banking information the Internal Revenue Service has on file and other factors. Here's what you need to know about the checks.

White House chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow talks to reporters at the White House, Monday, April 6, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

When will the stimulus check arrive? It depends.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said at a White House briefing last Thursday, that those Americans who have signed up for direct deposit will receive their payment within two weeks.

"Social Security, you'll get it very quickly after that," Mnuchin said. "If we don’t have your information, you'll have a simple web portal, you'll upload it. If we don't have that, we'll send you checks in the mail."

The payments will be deposited directly into your bank account if you received your last tax refund or expect to receive this year's refund that way. You'll also be able to provide your banking details online once a portal is set up, according to the IRS. 

Otherwise, checks will be mailed, which could take longer to get to Americans. Adding to the complications, about 6% of U.S. adults — or 12 about 12 million Americans — do not have a checking, savings, or other bank account, according to a 2018 Federal Reserve report.

A worker sorts through newly-printed stimulus checks at the San Francisco Regional Financial Center in Emeryville, Calif., Thursday, May 8, 2008. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

The New York Times, citing IRS guidelines that detail how Americans who aren't usually required to file tax returns will need to do so to receive payments, noted the guidance "will almost certainly mean longer waits for those who must file new returns to be eligible to receive a stimulus payment."

Americans with the lowest income will get mailed checks first, according to reporting by the Washington Post. Here's the timetable for the first checks, per IRS documents seen by the Post:

• Taxpayers with income up to $10,000: April 24
• Taxpayers with income up to $20,000: May 1
• Taxpayers with income up to $40,000: May 15

The rest of the checks will be issued by gradually increasing income increments each week. Households earning $198,000 who file jointly will get their reduced checks on Sept. 4. The last group of checks will be sent on Sept. 11 to those who don't have tax information on file and had to apply for checks, according to the Washington Post.

Who gets a stimulus check?

Your eligibility is based on your most recent tax return and your adjusted gross income. If you already filed your 2019 taxes, your eligibility will be based on that. If not, the Internal Revenue Service will use your 2018 taxes to determine if you qualify.

The benefit is available not only to those who have filed taxes, but also to those who receive Social Security benefits as long as they’ve received their SSA-1099 or RB-1099 forms.

U.S Treasurer Anna Escobedo Cabral, right, thanks workers at the San Francisco Regional Financial Center for their efforts in the printing of stimulus check in Emeryville, Calif., Thursday, May 8, 2008. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

Single adults with income up to $75,000 will get a $1,200 payment. Married couples with income up to $150,000 will get $2,400. Single parents who file as head of household with income up to $112,500 will get the full $1,200 check.

Additionally, Americans who qualify for the stimulus payment and have children will get an additional $500 per child under 17.

Reduced checks will be available for single adults who earn between $75,001 and $99,000 and married couples who earn between $150,001 and $198,000. The check will be reduced by $5 for every $100 over $75,000 for single adults and $150,000 for married couples.

Who doesn't get a check?

Single adults who make more than $99,000 and married couples who earn more than $198,000 won’t receive stimulus checks.

Those without a Social Security number and nonresident aliens — those who aren't a U.S. citizen or U.S. national and don't have a green card or have not passed the substantial presence test — aren't eligible.

You're also ineligible if your parents claim you as a dependent on their taxes.

How will the government send you the stimulus check?

The IRS will use the direct deposit information you provided from the taxes you've filed either for 2019 or for 2018.

If you have no direct deposit information on file or if the account provided is now closed, the IRS will mail you a check, instead.

Stimulus payments roll off printing presses at the San Francisco Regional Financial Center in Emeryville, Calif., Thursday, May 8, 2008. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

If the IRS doesn’t have your direct deposit information

If you didn't include your direct deposit information when filing your taxes or if you receive your Social Security payments by mail, you may be able to do this before checks are sent out.

The Treasury plans to create a web-based portal for individuals to provide their banking details online, according to the IRS. That will help Americans get payments faster rather than waiting for a check in the mail, according to the IRS.

Do you have to pay back the stimulus check?

No. The stimulus payment is actually a refundable credit against your 2020 tax liability, according to Kyle Pomerleau of the American Enterprise, and is paid out as an advanced refund. That means you don't have to wait to file your 2020 taxes to get the money.

It also doesn’t reduce any refund you would otherwise receive, Watson said.

In fact, if you don’t qualify for the stimulus check now based on your 2018 or 2019 tax returns, you may be able to qualify to take the tax credit next year when you file your 2020 taxes if your income meets the thresholds.

Denitsa is a writer for Yahoo Finance and Cashay, a new personal finance website. Follow her on Twitter @denitsa_tsekova.

JUst BREAKING!!! Abba Kyari is NOT in Nigeria, Former Guinness MD Reveals True Location of Buhari’s CoS

Former Nigeria Managing Director Guinness Nigeria, Plc, Keith Richards has revealed the present location of Abba Kyari, Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari.

According to him, Kyari is presently in a hospital in St John’s Wood, London, receiving treatment.

St John’s Wood is a district in the City of Westminster, West London.

The hospital according to Richards is the same hospital President Muhammadu Buhari visited when he was in UK some few weeks back.

Richards, who claimed his friend saw Kyari when he was brought into the hospital, said a former External Affairs Minister, Baba Gana Kingkibe had already visited Kyari in the hospital.

Kyari, who had recently tested positive for Coronavirus, was said to have been flown to Lagos State for treatment.

However, the Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, had on Tuesday said he did not know the whereabouts of Kyari, contrary to reports that the CoS is at the Mainland Infectious Disease Hospital (IDH) Isolation Center in the State.

But reports had emerged on Thursday that Kyari was dead. That report has been denied.

Richards has , however come out to disclose that Kyari had secretly left the shores of Nigeria seeking treatment for Coronavirus, otherwise called COVID-19 abroad.

In a tweet, Richards said : I was told this evening that Abba Kyari is in a hospital in St John’s Wood. He was visited by Kingkibe and it is the same hospital the PMB was in just a few weeks ago. My source saw him personally.

Richards, a Briton, first visited Nigeria in 1982. He joined Guinness Group in 1998 and Guinness Africa in 1993 where he served as the regional director; managing director, Kibo Breweries Limited, Tanzania; director of Jos International Breweries Plc and Guinness Ghana limited.

He later came back to Nigeria to work for John Holt in 1999/2000 from where he moved to International Equitable Association, Aba, as the managing director. The Sussex University product sat as the head of one of Nigeria’s most buoyant company for over three years, until July 1 2005.