The Founder of Camile Thai Kitchen examines the ways in which 2020 has accelerated the adoption of new technology and how his business will implement such innovations in the near-future. This year has presented huge challenges for our whole sector. At Camile Thai Kitchen we have found that one silver lining has been the accelerated focus and adoption of new technologies. The companies that win with technology are those that can successfully utilise the right combination of solutions that optimise operations and improve the customer experience. For us, a combination of kitchen robotics, cloud kitchens and drones is a winning formula that makes the most sense in terms of being able to adapt to future customer demand and trends.

Pictured above is a general purpose dual RBG camera system, designed by Carnegie Mellon University researcher George Kantor and his R&D team, to collect high quality images in agricultural environments. Collected images can feed crop-specific artificial intelligence methods that extract measurements such as crop yield, maturity, or disease incidence. Generally speaking, artificial intelligence (AI) enabled technologies are infiltrating every aspect of our daily lives, from the smartphones everyone is carrying around everywhere to places where maybe AI is best left on the sidelines (have you heard about Alexa's newest integration into a connected shower head device?). As you all know, the greenhouse has not been spared from the "AI Revolution" – not in the slightest – and one area we're hearing the technology is making believers out of skeptics is in the legal cannabis space, where high profit margins and a youthful, tech-focused grower demographic creates the perfect storm for early-stage ag tech adoption. If you disagree with that statement, I invite you to spend a day next year at the massive MJBizCon show in Las Vegas, which at this point is basically a smaller, more focused CES show for cannabis producers, and then let me know if you still don't think cannabis growers are all that innovative or on the cutting edge of technology adoption.

The adoption of technology in the NHS is more closely tied to meeting a "political or commercial imperative" rather than improving care, according to about a dozen stakeholders from across the health system who were interviewed for a new report. Published by the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, or RSA, the "Patient AI" paper - first covered by the Health Service Journal - sought to identify how the introduction of emerging technologies was "influencing commissioning and clinical practice" across the NHS. The RSA said understanding and agreeing on the purposes for the deployment of new tools and systems needed to be the "starting point for a more constructive conversation" in order to tackle the "embedded scepticism" that it was not being done for the right reasons. The organisation carried out interviews under the Chatham House Rule with professionals involved in the development, procurement and use of data-driven technologies for the health service in England earlier this year. It outlined the work done in partnership with NHSX, the unit for digital, data and technology, and found interviewees believed that a lot of the challenges in embedding new tools stemmed from the fact that the NHS did not see itself as a "digital organisation".

The security of peoples' finances is as important as the protection of their personal data (87%) by their bank A lack of understanding and trust in technology is stalling mainstream adoption of innovative new services which could make millions of people's daily lives simpler and more secure, new HSBC research reveals. The HSBC research report, Trust in Technology, shows that technologies such as fingerprint recognition, voice recognition and robo-advice hold enormous potential for uses from bank security to mobile payments and investment advice, yet millions of people who could benefit do not trust them because they do not understand them well enough. HSBC has commissioned a study of more than 12,000 people in 11 countries and territories looking at their perceptions and use of technology. The study of more than 12,000 people in 11 countries reveals four in every five people (80%) believe that technology makes their lives easier but less than half (46%) trust fingerprint recognition to replace their password, despite it being recognised to be at least five1 times more secure and significantly more convenient than traditional passwords. Eighty-four per cent of respondents say they would share their personal data with their bank if it meant getting a better service, underlining the need to educate consumers about the specific benefits of new technologies.

There are many clichés about lawyers, but one that even lawyers buy into is that we are slow to adopt new technology. It may be heresy for me to say this, but I do not believe it is true. Yes, the behemoth that is the profession as a whole is slow to adopt change of any kind – tech, business, and otherwise. But the behemoth is a creature of the lowest common denominator. It does not define us all.