In a world suddenly fearful of touch, voice technology is getting a fresh look.Voice-activated systems such as Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa and Apple’s Siri have seen strong growth in recent years, and the virus pandemic could accelerate that, analysts say.Voice assistants are not only answering queries and shopping, but also being used for smart home control and for a range of business and medical applications which could see increased interest as people seek to limit personal contact.”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,” said analyst Jonathan Collins of ABI Research.The pandemic is likely to provide “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 said.ABI estimates that voice control device shipments for smart home devices hit 141 million last year, and in 2020 will grow globally by close to 30 percent.For the broader market of voice assistants, Juniper Research estimates 4.2 billion devices in use this year, growing to 8.4 billion by 2024, with much of the interactions on smartphones.Smart locks, doorbellsCollins said he expected to see growing interest in smart locks and doorbells, along with other smart home systems, to eliminate the need for personal contact and face-to-face interaction as a result of the pandemic.Avi Greengart, a technology analyst and consultant with Techsponential, said data is not yet available but that “anecdotally, voice assistant usage is way up” as a result of lockdowns.Greengart said he expects a wider range of business applications for voice technologies in response to health and safety concerns.”Looking forward, office spaces will need move towards more touch-free controls; voice can be a solution, although motion triggers for lighting is often easier and more friction-free,” he said.”However, I do expect smart speakers — along with an emailed list of commands — to be a common feature at hotels and other rental properties. The fewer touch points, the better.”Post-pandemic outlookJulian Issa of Futuresource Consulting said there appears to be “an uptick in the use of voice assistants since the virus outbreak” during the pandemic.”Whilst avoiding touching surfaces may play a small part in this, it is mainly due to consumers spending far more time at home with their devices,” Issa said.Chris Pennell, another Futuresource analyst, said he expects adoption of digital assistants is likely to accelerate, “especially in client facing areas such as healthcare, retail and entertainment.”One example of this already in use is a Mayo Clinic tool using Amazon Alexa which allows people to assess their symptoms and access information on the virus.Other medical applications are also in the works for voice technologies.Veton Kepuska, a Florida Tech computer engineering professor who specializes in speech recognition technologies, is seeking to develop voice-activated medical robots that can help limit physical contact and contagion.”If we had this infrastructure in place, we would have been better off today,” said Kepuska, who was spurred by the COVID-19 outbreak to seek funding for the research effort.Kepuska said this effort could lead to a “humanoid” medical robot which can take over many tasks from doctors or nurses with voice interaction.”The pandemic has created a situation where we need to think about how to deliver services to people who need our help without putting ourselves in danger,” he said. 
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Fiumicino International Airport in Rome is the first one in Europe to use “smart helmets” to check the temperature of travelers from a safe distance. VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo explains how the helmets are helping fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
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More than four million Australians have downloaded the government’s CovidSafe tracing App, but officials insist many more need to sign on to make it effective. Australia has had 6,800 COVID-19 cases, 5,800 patients have recovered, and 95 people have died with the virus.  The CovidSafe App was launched in Australia just over a week ago.  4.25 million Australians have downloaded it, but officials say a greater uptake of the coronavirus tracing software would give political leaders the ability to be more “bold” in easing restrictions.  The government has said that about 10 million Australians – or 40 % of the population – need to join the program to make it an effective tool to trace COVID-19 cases.   Civil liberties groups say the technology breaches privacy, while some experts have questioned its ability to accurately trace users. But the Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy is urging more Australians to take part. “The other very important precondition we have talked about on many occasions is the App.  4.25 million Australians have now downloaded the App and clearly, we need to keep downloads and registrations increasing.  We think there are about 16 million adults with Smartphones.  They are our target population.  They are the people we want to get to download App because they are the people are likely to be contacts of cases, and we want as many of them as possible to download the App,” Murphy said.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline. Embed” />CopyThe federal government says it will announce later in the week if more COVID-19 controls will be relaxed following moves by some state and territory authorities to ease some public gathering and recreational restrictions. More than 630,000 tests have been carried out across the country. Australia also shut its borders to foreigners in March to stop the spread of imported cases of the disease.   A New Zealand rugby team are the first foreign nationals to be allowed into Australia since international borders were closed.  The New Zealand Warriors will stay in quarantine for 14 days before the planned resumption of the Australian National Rugby League on May 28.  The Auckland-based Warriors are the only overseas side to play in the 16-team competition.  In Sydney, another elderly resident has died at a care home that has become an epicenter for COVID-19 in Australia.  14 people have now died after a staff member caused an outbreak by working several shifts despite having mild coronavirus symptoms.  The New South Wales state government said the situation at the facility was “horrific” and “unacceptable.”   
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House lawmakers investigating the market dominance of Big Tech are asking Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to testify to address possible misleading statements by the company on its competition practices. In a letter to Bezos, leaders of the House Judiciary Committee are holding out the threat of a subpoena if he doesn’t agree voluntarily to appear. 
 
Amazon used sensitive information about sellers on its marketplace, their products and transactions to develop its own competing products, according to a recent Wall Street Journal report. An Amazon executive denied such a practice in statements at a committee hearing last July, saying the company has a formal policy against it. 
 
Amazon spokesmen had no immediate comment. 
 
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Communities in the United States and around the world are talking about when and how to ease lockdown measures as they grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic. This disease and how it spreads presents some unique challenges. People without symptoms can infect others, and for some, it can be deadly. What if a smartphone app could let you know if you have been exposed? Michelle Quinn reports.
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YouTube, the video service of Alphabet Inc’s Google, said on Tuesday it would start showing text and links from third-party fact checkers to U.S. viewers, part of efforts to curb misinformation on the site during the COVID-19 pandemic. The information panels, launched in Brazil and India last year, will highlight third-party, fact-checked articles above search results for specific topics such as “covid and ibuprofen.” Social media sites including Facebook are under pressure to combat misinformation relating to the pandemic caused by the new coronavirus, from false cures to conspiracy theories. YouTube said in a blog post that more than a dozen U.S. publishers are participating in its fact-checking network.
 
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The smartphone in your pocket may soon let you know if you’ve been exposed to COVID-19.As communities around the world consider the first steps toward reopening, there is fear that once people begin moving, the virus will spread. But COVID-19 presents unique challenges to stop its spread. Some who are infected never had symptoms; those who do fall ill can spread the disease for a day or two before experiencing a cough or body chills, some of the common COVID-19 symptoms.Apple, Google and others are working on a plan to use smartphones to inform those who have crossed paths with an infected person. They call it “exposure notification.” A digital tool for health authoritiesNext month, Apple, the maker of the iPhone, and Google, whose Android operating system powers the majority of smartphones in the world, will release software tools that will allow devices to exchange information via Bluetooth. Public health authorities and their partners will build apps that they will use to notify people if they’ve been exposed to someone who has tested positive for the virus.But will it work? There are many hurdles ahead. Many people will need to download the app for it to work properly, and many may want to be reassured that their privacy won’t be compromised, their data won’t be hacked. And there are many technical challenges. For example, if the app reduces the phone’s ability to function.“This is complicated because it’s untested speculative technology,” said Harper Reed, an entrepreneur and former chief technology officer for the Obama campaign. “If it doesn’t work, we can put people in danger. But if it does work, early notification of exposure can dramatically help our communities limit and survive COVID-19.”WATCH: Here’s how contact tracing works Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline. Embed” />CopyWhere does the data live?Around the world, there’s a debate about technology and policy. Should government health authorities collect data or should the data live on smartphones? Apple, Google and some groups in the U.S. insist the data should live on phones — to protect people’s privacy but also to make the data less of a target for hackers.Some governments are working on apps that use global positioning system (GPS) data. The Apple and Google technology does not. If the app is private and secure, people are more likely to use it, said Henry de Valence with the TCN Coalition, a coalition of app developers and others working on the technology and policies underlying exposure notification.“People want to be able to help out and contain the spread of disease,” he said. “And so if you give them an option that poses no risk to them, but allows them to help themselves and others, people are just going to opt into that without having to be required to.”There are many unknowns still about how an exposure notification app will work and whether it will see widespread adoption. But there’s hope that technology may play a role in slowing down the virus’s spread.
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Communities in the United States and around the world are talking about when and how to ease lockdown measures as they grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic. This disease and how it spreads presents some unique challenges. People without symptoms can infect others, and for some, it can be deadly. What if a smartphone app could let you know if you have been exposed? Michelle Quinn reports.
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More than a million Australians have downloaded a coronavirus contact tracing app within hours of it being released by the government.  Officials have said the technology would help Australia get back to normal and help lift restrictions, but it has been criticized by civil liberties groups.  Australia has managed to control its coronavirus outbreak, but officials worry about the risk of another flareup.  There are 6,713 confirmed Covid-19 infections in Australia.  83 people have died.  The Australian government says the voluntary app will help to save lives.  It is designed to enable health officials to trace people potentially exposed to COVID-19.  Smartphone users who download the app will be notified if they have had contact with another user who has tested positive for coronavirus.  It uses Bluetooth signals to log when people have been close to one another.  Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline. Embed” />CopyOfficials believe it could help to trace undiagnosed COVID-19 infections.  They have insisted the data will only be used by state health authorities.   
 
“No Australian should have any concerns about downloading this app.  It is only for one purpose; to help contact tracing if someone becomes positive,” says Australia’s chief medical officer Brendan Murphy. “I think Australians will rise to the challenge because they have risen to the challenge of distancing, they have risen to the challenge of testing.” The CovidSafe app is based on software used in Singapore.  But civil liberties campaigners say it is an invasion of privacy.   Pauline Wright from the Law Council of Australia says data protection safeguards are needed. “If there are problems then people need to have the assurance that it will be overseen by an independent authority,”  she said.
 
The government wants at least 40% of Australians — roughly 10 million people — to sign up to make the Covid-19 digital tracking measure effective.   
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Amazon.com Inc is piloting the use of video conference calls to verify the identity of merchants who wish to sell goods on its websites, in a new plan to counter fraud without in-person meetings in the pandemic, the company said on Sunday. The world’s largest online retailer has long faced scrutiny over how it polices counterfeits and allegedly unsafe products on its platform. Fakes have frustrated top labels like Apple Inc and Nike Inc and discouraged some from selling via Amazon at all. Amazon said its pilot began early this year and included in-person appointments with prospective sellers. However, it switched exclusively to video conferencing in February because of social distancing requirements related to the highly contagious coronavirus, which has infected more than 2.9 million people globally. The interview vetting, on top of other risk-screening performed by Amazon, has been piloted with more than 1,000 merchant applicants based in China, the United States, United Kingdom and Japan, Amazon said. The extra scrutiny by Amazon could make it harder for some China-based sellers, who have registered multiple accounts using private internet networks or fake utility bills. China-based merchants accounted for 40% of the top 10,000 Amazon sellers in Europe, according to 2019 research from firm Marketplace Pulse.
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Seventy-five-year-old Eileen Higa loves to travel and has visited many countries, but she never got a chance to see the Indonesian island of Bali. After moving into Silverado Beverly Place, a memory care community in Los Angeles, she thought she would never have a chance to see exotic places again.  But on a sunny day before lunch, Higa’s dream came true, with virtual reality (VR). When she placed a VR headset over her eyes, the four walls around her disappeared, and she was transported to Bali, where a tour guide showed her key sites around the island.“I like to travel, so for me, it’s great,” Higa said.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
The second image: Eileen Higa feels happy and excited after an adventurous, action-filled virtual reality experience. (E. Lee)“Increasingly over the last few years, noticing first minor memory issues and then bigger things and even bigger things,” said Kevin Higa, who remembered his mother getting increasingly isolated at home.“A lot of concerns and a lot of worries with her living alone with the Alzheimer’s and the dementia.”Signs of promise with VREileen Higa is not the only person who has experienced benefits after a session of virtual reality.In a small pilot study with VR company MyndVR, a few participants felt dizzy, but others responded positively to the experience.“It seemed like it improved their mood,” said Kim Butrum, a gerontological nurse practitioner and senior vice president for clinical services at Silverado. “We saw less depression, a little less anxiety later in the day.”
Researchers are looking into the benefits of virtual reality as a tool to fight isolation and loneliness linked to physical and mental conditions such as cognitive decline. Studies have found social isolation to be associated with a higher risk of mortality. VR for seniors during the pandemicFeelings of loneliness and social isolation could be exacerbated during the pandemic.   Older adults are believed to be at a higher risk of life-threatening complications if infected with COVID-19. As a result, many senior living facilities have been on lockdown, not allowing visitors inside and limiting activities in the facilities to protect the residents. MyndVR is donating VR headsets to senior living communities across the U.S., along with access to its library of content for a year to keep seniors engaged.The communities see VR as a way of treating the symptoms of dementia without having to use antipsychotic drugs, which come with side effects including stiffness, a higher tendency of falling, abnormal movements and confusion.   Could VR improve quality of life for seniors? Butrum said the possibility is there. “We’re not sure where it’s (VR) going to lead, and that’s why we’re excited to be moving forward with this.  “Even to someone living on hospice, what if when they’re in bed and maybe too frail to get up and participate in the life of the community, but that they could see somewhere they went with their loved one and a trip to Paris again. What would that do in terms of improving their quality of life? We do think we’re going to see impact.”Eileen Higa liked her virtual reality experience because it allowed her to do an activity she otherwise would not be able to do.   Through the magic of VR, Higa can continue to experience new things and travel to exotic places in this next chapter of her life.   
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The cancellation of marathons and major races because of coronavirus lockdown measures doesn’t mean sports lovers can’t compete. Racing and breaking records is still possible – it’s just a bit more complicated. Maxim Moskalkov reports. 
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