Pratt Miller demonstrated its LAAD disinfecting robot at Gerald R Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids, MI, in July 2020. The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to be felt for years to come, regardless of the presence and availability of a vaccine. Physical measures adopted by humans, such as social distancing or wearing masks, are likely to be utilized for years to come, along with technological developments deployed in both public and private spaces that are focused on enforcing social distancing, enabling more efficient cleaning and disinfecting of spaces, and driving more automation and intelligence to reduce humans' direct physical interaction with each other. Some companies and individuals feel the best way to avoid COVID-19 or other viruses is to simply avoid all unnecessary human contact. As such, many companies have introduced or fast-tracked the use of automation to lessen their reliance on human workers, as well as to enhance their responsiveness to customer queries.

In today's world, it is nearly impossible to avoid voice-controlled digital assistants. From the interactive intelligent agents used by corporations, government agencies, and even personal devices, automated speech recognition (ASR) systems, combined with machine learning (ML) technology, increasingly are being used as an input modality that allows humans to interact with machines, ostensibly via the most common and simplest way possible: by speaking in a natural, conversational voice. Yet as a study published in May 2020 by researchers from Stanford University indicated, the accuracy level of ASR systems from Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and others vary widely depending on the speaker's race. While this study only focused on the differing accuracy levels for a small sample of African American and white speakers, it points to a larger concern about ASR accuracy and phonological awareness, including the ability to discern and understand accents, tonalities, rhythmic variations, and speech patterns that may differ from the voices used to initially train voice-activated chatbots, virtual assistants, and other voice-enabled systems. The Stanford study, which was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, measured the error rates of ASR technology from Amazon, Apple, Google, IBM, and Microsoft, by comparing the system's performance in understanding identical phrases (taken from pre-recorded interviews across two datasets) spoken by 73 black and 42 white speakers, then comparing the average word error rate (WER) for black and white speakers.

Waverly Labs' Ambassador, an over-the-ear translation device, can support up to 20 languages and 42 dialects. The greatest obstacle to international understanding is the barrier of language," wrote British scholar and author Christopher Dawson in November 1957, believing that relying on live, human translators to accurately capture and reflect a speaker's meaning, inflection, and emotion was too great of a challenge to overcome. More than 60 years later, Dawson's theory may finally be proven outdated, thanks to the development of powerful, portable real-time translation devices. The convergence of natural language processing technology, machine learning algorithms, and powerful portable chipsets has led to the development of new devices and applications that allow real-time, two-way translation of speech and text. Language translation devices are capable of listening to an audio source in one language, translating what is being said into another language, and then translating a ...

The construction of New York's Empire State Building is often seen as the figurative and literal pinnacle of construction efficiency, rising 1,250 feet and 102 stories from the ground to its rooftop spire in just over 13 months' time, at a human cost of just five lives. Indeed, most of today's construction projects would be lucky to come close to that level of speed, regardless of the building's size. While the construction industry traditionally has been slow to change the way it operates, several new technologies are poised to usher in a new era of faster and more automated construction practices. Three-dimensional (3D) printing is among the key technologies that are expected to change the way structures are built in the future, as construction engineers and contractors seek methods for completing buildings more quickly, more efficiently, and, in many cases, with a greater attention paid to sustainability. Large printers that can print construction materials such as foam or concrete into specific shapes can drastically speed up the creation of walls, decorative or ornamental pieces, and even certain structural elements.

Customer contact centers are most efficient when they are able to automate routine tasks and quickly route callers to human agents who can solve issues in a timely and courteous fashion. In years past, rules-based decision matrices (such as "press 1 for sales, press 2 for technical support") were the de facto standard for "intelligent" customer service systems, and often left customers frustrated and angry by the time they reached a live human being. Advances in artificial intelligence are yielding significant benefits for organizations that deploy the technology in their call centers. Indeed, rather than simply being used to replace contact center workers, artificial intelligence (Al)-based technologies, including machine learning, natural language processing, and even sentiment analysis, are being strategically deployed to improve the overall customer experience by providing functionality that would be too time-consuming or expensive to do manually. "It's a lot more prevalent than people think," explains Justin Robbins, content director for the International Customer Management Institute and HDI.

Silke Pan of Team PolyWalk EPFL in the powered exoskeleton race. Most physical competitions are based around the idea of participants pushing themselves physically, demonstrating to the world that they are the fastest, strongest, or otherwise physically gifted. For those with significant physical disabilities or injuries, however, simply accomplishing basic everyday tasks can be an Olympic-level feat. That's where Cybathlon, a new competition designed to promote innovative assistive devices, may accomplish two goals: providing a competitive forum for disabled athletes, and highlighting the specific advances that are being made in robotic assistive aids designed to help those with significant physical disabilities. Conceived and developed by Switzerland's ETH Zurich (a science and research university) and National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) Robotics professor Robert Riener, the first iteration of Cybathlon took place last October in Zurich.

Keith Kirkpatrick is principal of 4K Research & Consulting, LLC, based in Lynbrook, NY.

Nations consider using defense systems that can make their own lethal decisions. Most reasonable people can see the benefits of using fully autonomous systems, particularly to help prevent injuries or death, as is the case with advanced driver assistance systems increasingly found in automobiles. When it comes to autonomous systems that are designed to take life rather than preserve it, there is significantly more debate. Currently, the U.S. and other nations do not have any weapons systems that can operate fully autonomously, which is defined in military parlance as selecting, aiming, and firing at a target without a human being "in the loop," or somehow in control of the weapon system. However, a variety of military weapons systems operate semiautonomously, requiring some human control or input to select or choose targets, but relying on pre-programmed algorithms to execute a strike.

Keith Kirkpatrick is principal of 4K Research & Consulting, LLC, based in Lynbrook, NY. Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and full citation on the first page.

More than 20% of U.S. adults live with some form of disability, according to a September 2015 report released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The latest generation of smartphones, tablets, and personal computers are equipped with accessibility features that make using these devices easier, or at least, less onerous, for those who have sight, speech, or hearing impairments. These enhancements include functions such as screen-reading technology (which reads aloud text when the user passes a finger over it); screen-flashing notification when a call or message comes in for the hearing impaired; and voice controls of basic functions for those who are unable to physically manipulate the phone or computing device's controls. Other technologies that can help the disabled have or are coming to market, and not all of them are focused simply on providing access to computers or smartphones. Irrespective of the accessibility provided, most market participants agree more needs to be done to help those with disabilities to fully experience our increasingly digital world.