​The warehouses of the world are surprisingly empty spaces. There’s a lot of material in these vital nodes of the complex global commodities transportation system, but there’s also a lot of vacant space on the floor between their racks. The space is there to make room for the forklift, the workhorse of the warehouse, which must have room to maneuver when lifting and carrying pallets loaded down with hundreds or thousands of pounds of merchandise. A forklift needs a lot of space and a professional driver to do a mundane but dangerous task.

A new robotics firm recognizes an improved approach to warehouse management. Mytra, a company created by former employees of Tesla and Rivian, wants to automate and combine warehouse activities by using a robot and a storage rack system to improve the efficiency of products moving. It can also make the forklift obsolete.

The system has a complicated yet basic design. Mytra, which consists of a pallet-sized robot and a three-dimensional steel cell matrix, picks up and moves objects using specially made mechanics and software to speed up moving them into and out of the warehouse while optimizing how they’re stored.

According to Chris Walti, cofounder and CEO of Mytra, “we wanted to go after the simplest problem in the whole industry, which is just moving things around from one place in the factory or warehouse to another.” He also points out that between 40% and 80% of the work done in a typical facility is done within the warehouse. He had direct familiarity with it from his prior position managing Tesla’s warehouse logistics, which, like many warehouse operations, depended on pallet racks and forklifts.

Walti realized a fresh approach was required. He recognized the potential benefits of new robotics and automation technologies in his capacity as the leader of Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot project. Walti founded Mytra with Ahmad Baitalmal, who oversaw factory software at Tesla and Rivian. The robot in the company’s system is specially made to move in three dimensions and lift up to three thousand pounds. It operates inside a grid of cells that resembles a cage. Last month, the network of Albertson’s supermarket stores started using Mytra’s initial system.

Warehouse robots are already transporting and hauling things for businesses, ranging from DHL to Amazon, so this is not completely new ground. However, Walti claims that Mytra’s method automates a lot more of the movement and tasks that occur in a normal warehouse, most of which require assembling mixed pallets. Worker activity in the warehouse resembles a shopping run. And that calls for a great deal of manual labor. Going to every station and lifting a sack of concrete or a case of Coca-Cola is backbreaking, according to Walti. “Most of this can be automated by our system.”

A New Kind of Warehouse Robot. According to Walti, the robot at the center of this system is a significant advancement for the sector. He claims that no mobile robot can move over 100 pounds in a vertical direction. The steel grid structure that comprises Mytra’s racks, and a specially created screw-drive mechanism at each of the robot’s four corners, which employs mechanical leverage to ascend and descend, work together to enable Mytra’s 3,000-pound vertical load limit.

The company’s unique selling point is the grid system, which eliminates the need for the aisles that take up valuable space in forklift-based warehouse operations. The rack system’s cellular nature allows for any size or shape configuration. There are 36 cells in Albertson’s initial installation. According to Walti, Mytra is in discussions with other clients about possible uses involving tens of thousands or possibly hundreds of thousands of cells. He claims, “We’re bringing software re-configurability to physical space.”
​
The traditional warehouse might change thanks to Mytra’s robot-based approach. However, according to Walti, “forklifts are still superb at loading things in trailers and stacking pallets on a dock,” so the forklift’s day may not be over entirely. All it does is make a great deal fewer of them necessary.

In a recent research study published in PLOS ONE, 65 experts in artificial intelligence (AI) from the UK and Japan were consulted by researchers to make predictions about how much common household work will be automated in the next ten years.

While care for the young or elderly was expected to be least likely to be affected by AI, experts showed that grocery shopping was likely to witness the most automation.

Researchers from Britain’s Oxford University and Japan’s Ochanomizu University were interested in the potential effects of robots on unpaid domestic labor. "If robots will steal our jobs, will they at least also take out the trash for us?" they posed.

The researchers noted that the most often created and marketed robots worldwide are those used for "domestic household duties," such as robot vacuum cleaners.

For their predictions on robots in the home, the team consulted 29 AI specialists from the UK and 36 AI experts from Japan.

Researchers found that male UK experts tended to be more optimistic about domestic automation compared with their female counterparts, a situation reversed in Japan.

But the tasks which experts thought automation could do varied: "Only 28% of care work, including activities such as teaching your child, accompanying your child, or taking care of an older family member, is predicted to be automated", said Dr Lulu Shi, postdoctoral researcher, Oxford Internet Institute.

On the other hand, technology was expected to cut 60% of the time we spend on grocery shopping, experts said.

Technology is more likely to aid humans than to replace them, according to Dr. Kate Devlin, reader in AI and Society at King's College, London, who was not engaged in the study. "It's difficult and expensive to make a robot that can do multiple or general tasks. Instead, it's easier and more useful to create assistive technology that helps us rather than replaces us," she said.

The research suggests domestic automation could free up a lot of time spent on unpaid domestic work. In the UK, working-age men do around half as much of this unpaid work as working-age women, in Japan the men do less than a fifth.
​
According to Ekaterina Hertog, associate professor in AI and Society at Oxford University, women's incomes, savings, and pensions are negatively impacted by the disproportionate amount of household labor they must do. Therefore, the researchers suggest, greater gender equality could arise from increased automation.

Walmart was late in actively addressing competition with Amazon in ecommerce. In its new efforts to meet Amazon’s challenge, the company announced that it has plans to open four new fulfillment centers.

These fulfillment centers are where online orders will be packed and shipped. They are the first of a new breed of logistics for Walmart. The technology-heavy investments they are making involve robotics, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Walmart said they were working with Knapp, an international logistics provider, to replace their current 12-step manual process with a new 5 steps and doubling the number of orders a location can fulfill in a day. Instead of moving product with people, the new approach will have robots shuttle skiffs to stagers directly, eliminating the need for floor personnel to walk up to nine miles or more a day.

"These four next-generation [fulfillment centers] alone could provide 75% of the U.S. population with next- or two-day shipping on millions of items," David Guggina, Senior Vice President of Innovation and Automation at Walmart U.S., wrote in a blog post.

When the four new centers join the company’s existing 31 dedicated e-commerce fulfillment centers, Walmart believes it will be able to reach 95% of the U.S. population with next- or two-day shipping. And with its 4,700 physical stores, the company could offer same-day delivery to about 80% of the U.S.

Both Walmart and Amazon are focusing on their weaknesses as compared to each other. Walmart is spending billions on logistics and automation and Amazon is spending billions on new physical stores, particularly for groceries (where Walmart dominates.)

Walmart’s new fulfillment centers will be located in Joliet, Illinois; McCordsville, Indiana; Lancaster, Texas; and Greencastle, Pennsylvania—with each planning to hire over 1,000 new workers. 
​
Amazon currently has 253 fulfillment centers, 110 sortation centers, and 467 delivery stations in North America, not to mention hundreds of thousands of drivers and over 100 Amazon Air cargo aircraft at the end of 2021.

It may sound cliche, but we’re officially in the digital economy.

“If you’re feeling whiplash, it might be the ten years forward we just jumped in 90 days’ time.” This is how the final McKinsey & Companies quarterly briefing of 2020 began, which was fittingly dubbed “The Quickening” — a stunning glimpse into the meteoric rise of all things digital. 

Their research found that eCommerce penetration in the United States had experienced ten years of growth in the first quarter of 2020 alone. 

That number is only increasing. If you’re a business owner or an aspiring entrepreneur, you must have a digital-first strategy if you want to succeed.

Entrepreneurs have learned that you must pay attention to emerging trends and consumer behavior.

You need every advantage you can get in changing economies and market downturns. It means taking advantage of opportunities, trends, and technologies to which your competitors are not yet paying attention.
Here are three emerging mega-trends you need to understand.

The No-Code Revolution. Building software has traditionally required technical expertise or significant investment in a development team.

According to PayScale, the average annual salary for a single React engineer (a popular front-end development framework) is $92,020. These hurdles meant that lots of budding entrepreneurs with great ideas were stuck dead in their tracks in the past.

Enter the “no-code” revolution.

Tools like Bubble.is, Airtable and Glide help level the playing field by allowing anyone regardless of programming knowledge to build a fully-fledged web or mobile application with drag-and-drop components and visual interfaces.

Using these tools, business owners or team members can unlock innovation and improve efficiency in even the smallest of companies – without using any code.

The Rise Of The Bots. According to Juniper Research, retail sales resulting from interactions with chatbots are forecast to nearly double every year – reaching $112 billion by 2023.

Juniper anticipates that retailers who don’t take note and implement bots in their business will face substantial challenges from more technologically inclined disruptors.

While somewhat in their infancy in the west, globally, bots are big business. 

In China, a significant portion of commerce happens through bots via the WeChat app. According to Tencent’s Q4 2019 financials, the number of commercial transactions happening on their app reached 1 billion per day.

Bots are growing rapidly here in the western world, too, with venture capital firms pouring huge amounts of money into bot-driven companies like Drift and Intercom.

Bots can be used to drive sales, collect leads, help solve customer problems without human interaction (increasingly important as more and more consumers shop online), or can even be used as fun engagement tools – think text-based adventure games – to keep an audience sticking around.

Voice Apps Are Radio 2.0. Podcasts are booming. In 2020, Spotify sent earthquakes through the tech world when they announced they would be signing leading podcaster Joe Rogan to an exclusive deal worth $100 million.

Online listening has doubled over the last ten years, reaching 70% of the United States, while the 2020 Infinite Dial study recorded an incredible 100 million monthly podcast listeners.

But it’s not just podcasts. Looking ahead, there’s a new wave of voice apps on the horizon.

The first to make a big splash has been the audio-only Clubhouse, which Vogue called “the new FOMO-inducing social app to know”. 

You can think of Clubhouse as a real-time version of a podcast. Nothing is recorded, and there’s nothing you can do in the app other than listening to or joining in with the conversation.
​
The no-code revolution, automated bots, and the rise of audio are three things that any business can take advantage of to increase efficiency, drive innovation, and build lasting relationships with end customers, clients, and consumers.

Wireless engineers, automakers, and governments have spent years preparing for a future where autonomous cars will communicate with each other and sophisticated transportation networks – an initiative known as “cellular vehicle to everything,” commonly abbreviated C-V2X. Recently, the 5G Automotive Association (5GAA) offered a roadmap for mass deployments of automotive communications technologies, and its timeline includes several interesting dates that aren’t as far off as some people might have guessed.

Based on the current pace of cellular industry standards organization 3GPP’s 5G releases, global 5G deployments, and the state of the automotive communications supply chain, the 5GAA expects three C-V2X stages over the next decade:

1. From 2020 through 2023, automakers will rely on 4G LTE-V2X technology to enable basic safety features, such as left-turn assistance and emergency electronic brake light features, to improve traffic efficiency. They’ll augment primary local hazard and traffic information that’s already being shared over cellular networks.
2. Starting in 2024, the 5GAA predicts a “large-scale introduction” of 5G-enabled automated driving technologies that rely on communications between vehicles and infrastructure. For example, 5G-V2X will be used to park cars in parking garages automatically – a car-to-private infrastructure use case Bosch is already testing in German and U.S. locations – followed by “more complex environments and scenarios” including public roads. Tele-operated driving will also be possible.
3. In 2026, 5GAA expects all new autonomous vehicles will include 5G-V2X, kicking off an age where cars cooperate by sharing high-definition sensor data. Some of C-V2X’s most widely anticipated autonomous functionality, such as cars being able to share their upcoming intentions with each other and the network, as well as combining video and depth information for real-time cooperative perception, will be in pilot test stages at this point. Urban and highway pilot programs for dynamic intersection management and cooperative traffic flows could take until 2029.

5GAA expects that the 3GPP will continue to evolve the 5G standard from current Release 16 through 2023’s Release 18, enhancing industry support and specifications for 5G-V2X as carriers continue building out their 5G infrastructures. As nice as it would be if autonomous vehicles could just start relying on 5G today, the reality is that 5G infrastructure isn’t yet built out enough around the world. There are technological and legal practicalities to consider, as well.
​
Allocating wireless spectrum to vehicles will be critical to 5G-V2X deployments, the 5GAA notes, ideally harmonized internationally at 5.9GHz, as well as low band spectrum for use in rural driving, and mid-band spectrum in urban environments. The group expects basic safety to require 10 to 20MHz of spectrum for direct 4G communications, plus 40MHz or more for advanced 5G driving.

                                      A world where contactless and socially distant solutions
                              are preferred has set the stage for robots to rise to the occasion.
 
The COVID-19 outbreak has given way to an era of innovation as entrepreneurs develop tools and services to meet new needs. Though there might have been concerns about automation and the future of work before the current health crisis, the pandemic has shown how robots are benefiting us while the world grapples with the novel coronavirus.

Post-contagion, the global industrial robotics market is expected to grow from $44.6 billion in 2020 to $73 billion by 2025, according to ResearchAndMarkets.com.

The safety provided by robots, as well as the fact that robotic solutions are helping businesses stay open, are making them popular companions in the current climate.

Here are three opportunities for robotics that have arisen from the COVID-19 outbreak.

Keeping Supply Chains Going. Shipping and delivery have seen challenges since the onset of the novel coronavirus outbreak. Robotics and automation can help U.S. manufacturers increase in-house manufacturing to mitigate global supply chain risks. Instead of outsourcing, companies can then rely on robotic material handling and delivery to keep businesses running.

Further down the chain, robots are also able to drop off packages and groceries to consumers safely. As contactless and online shopping experiences are on the rise, robotic and sterile delivery options are now desirable.

Automating Service. Social distancing rules are being kept in place with robot waiters and robot concierges. From greeting customers to serving food, robots can enable restaurants and hospitality businesses to stay open safely.

Robots can help reduce the number of staff that need to be at work physically. As human counterparts try to reduce their exposure to risks, robots can efficiently obtain registration and check-in information and return used cutlery.

Cleaning and Sanitizing. Robots can also safely sanitize workspaces and common areas. In health services, semi-autonomous or remotely monitored robots can disinfect large surfaces quickly, removing the need for cleaners to be exposed to the risk of contagion.
​
Robotic solutions can also disinfect areas more efficiently and more frequently than manual cleaning.

Frost & Sullivan's Information & Communications Technology (ICT) team conducted a small-scale survey, Global Next Wave Technology Disruptors, 2018, of 112 thought leaders from around the world to seek opinions on the technologies that will have a profound transformative impact on existing industry dynamics, value chains, and business models across multiple vertical markets in the next 10 years.

In addition to providing quantitative insight, the study also provides a top-level assessment of eight emerging technologies: 5G, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Blockchain and Distributed Ledger, Human Brain-Computer Interface, Human Intelligence Augmentation, Internet of Things (IoT), Natural Language Interfaces (NLIs) and Quantum Computing.

"Numerous technologies with limited adoption/availability at present will rise in relevance over the next ten years. 5G will play an important role over the next five years as commercial deployments commence, while Quantum Computing is set to have a huge impact in the coming decade," said Adrian Drozd, Research Director, ICT. "However, thinking of these emerging technologies in isolation will limit their effectiveness. For instance, IoT cannot reach its potential without AI, and AI can be powerful only by accessing the data generated by IoT."

"Technologies will reach maturity at different times; while some are already widely used, others are still in the development phase," noted Drozd. "Technology development should be guided by the use cases and real-life deployments that the solutions promise to enable."

New technologies are emerging at an unprecedented rate, each promising to be the next transformative force that will drive fundamental shifts across industries and society. Companies looking to tap growth opportunities in their respective sectors should consider joining Frost & Sullivan's global IoT & Digital Transformation Growth Partnership Service program.

A bipartisan act designed to rein in unwanted robocalls in the U.S. passed through the House of Representatives in a decisive 429-3 vote last Wednesday, pushing the legislation one step closer to ratification.

The Stopping Bad Robocalls Act, sponsored by Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), aims to put an end to spam phone calls by leveling carrier requirements and bolstering Federal Communications Commission authority to take action against offenders.

Under the bill, carriers must implement call authentication technology like STIR/SHAKEN and offer call-blocking services to customers free of charge. Further, the FCC is directed to issue rules protecting customers from unsolicited communications, enact safeguards against robocall exemption abuse and report back to Congress on program effectiveness.

A provision also grants the FCC a more robust set of punitive options when dealing with robocallers. For example, the commission can take action against an offender up to four years after an initial violation, up from the one year afforded under the current statute of limitations.

The legislation passed with immense support from members on both sides of the aisle.

"Today, the House of Representatives voted to restore Americans' confidence in the telephone system and put consumers back in charge of their phones," the bill's sponsors said in a statement. "We're proud of the strong support our bipartisan Stopping Bad Robocalls Act received this afternoon and look forward to working with our colleagues in the Senate to produce a bill that the President can sign into law. The American people are counting on us to help end the robocall epidemic, and we will deliver for them."
​
Apple, too, is working on technology to slow the robocalling plague, which according to an FCC report resulted in some 48 billion unwanted calls in 2018. The Cupertino tech giant's upcoming iOS 13 operating system includes a new feature that uses artificial intelligence to identify and silence incoming calls from unknown parties.

One of the highlights of MIT’s Emtech Next Conference in June was a debate on whether we should tax robots. We heavily tax human workers, so why not the machines that replace them? Then, goes the theory, that tax money could help provide training or benefits for workers who’ve lost their jobs to automation.

Ryan Abbott, a law professor at Surrey University, presented a convincing case for such a tax– or, more precisely, for removing the tax incentives that favor automation over human labor. Many business decisions to automate processes, argued Abbott, are driven by these tax advantages, not because the robots are more productive. If automation is more efficient, suggested Abbott, let that be the reason businesses decide to use it – not some tax break.

The counter-arguments from Ryan Avent, economics columnist at the Economist, were that taxes (or ending tax breaks) would slow innovation, and, in any case, there is little economic evidence that robots are taking over jobs. While these points appear to be less convincing, a robot tax alone won’t solve the lack of good jobs. But removing the financial incentives that favor automation over humans will at least create a level playing field.

Even more erroneous is the argument that a robot tax is a slippery slope: are they going to tax my Roomba or smart toaster next? Somehow, we manage to tax labor, and yet you can still mow your lawn and clean your house without paying the government.

Alas, the Emtech Next attendees disagreed, with 70% voting against the robot tax after hearing the debate.
One of the recurring themes at the conference was that businesses could better exploit automation and AI not just for their own efficiency, but to improve productivity and grow the economy as a whole. How? A pair of engineers, Meera Sampath at the State University of New York and Pramod P. Khargonekar at the University of California, Irvine, presented their plan for “socially responsible automation,” which starts with getting technologists to think harder about how their creations will actually be used and how those uses can benefit workers and society.

A shout-out to workers: Too often in these discussions of how automation and AI are affecting jobs, the voices of workers themselves are absent. MIT’s Thomas Kochan, speaking at the conference, at least provided a reminder to listen to such views, even in the early stages of product designs, and to involve them more in automation decisions. And, he argued, companies need to take the time to give their existing workforce the skills and training necessary to integrate them with changes in automation better.

Let’s admit it, every time we hear the word “co-bot” we cringe. Yes, there have been remarkable advances in robotics over the last decade that allow these machines to more safely and comfortably work alongside people and do more human-like tasks. And, yes, we know the promise is that, by taking over mundane tasks, these robots will free people up to do more interesting and, hopefully, productive ones.

But that’s a business decision that too often companies are not taking; instead, many are simply replacing their workers. If robots do 20% of the tasks that a worker was doing, then you need 20% fewer people to get the job done.

It’s become increasingly clear to economists that this one reason we’re facing a crisis: wages are flat, and job opportunities are limited for many workers.

MIT economist Daron Acemoglu blames this on what he calls “so-so” automation and technologies. Advances like automation should be a boon to productivity, but productivity growth has been sluggish for more than a decade. That, says Acemoglu, is because too often companies are automating jobs even when the machines are not more productive, because of the tax mentioned above distortions and a general enthusiasm for robots. So, you have a double whammy; not only are robots replacing workers, they’re not particularly adept at growing the economy.

The way out is to create new, productive tasks for the workers replaced by the automation. (That’s what happened in the past). And that’s where AI could be useful. Examples are not that hard to imagine. For instance, if you free up healthcare workers, such as radiologists and nurses, from routine tasks, they could use AI systems to collect and analyze far more patient data, expanding their capabilities and giving them new ways to advise and treat patients. Acemoglu cites similar examples existing in education and manufacturing.
​
But, and this is key, Acemoglu warns that this won’t necessarily happen on its own. You can’t leave this up to the markets or the technologists. We need to pursue this goal deliberately.

Since Microsoft and Amazon announced plans to integrate their respective personal digital assistantslast summer, there's been almost no official update on the status of the partnership.

It seems, however, like there's finally movement happening.

An April 27 update to the Cortana support page actually mentions Alexa. "Cortana and Alexa are still getting to know each other. Soon you'll be able to ask Alexa to buy things, add items to your shopping list, access your Alexa skills, and more," says the brief update on the page. Yes, "soon" is vague. But it's something.

Typing "Alexa" into the search box in Windows 10 (on the Fall Creators Update version, at least) yields a message saying "I'll be able to connect you to Alexa soon. Stay tuned!"

Last summer, Amazon and Microsoft announced that their respective personal assistants would be able to talk to one another, so customers could opt to use the assistant most suited to a particular task. Amazon and Microsoft officials said last year that they'd make Cortana-Alexa integration available before the end of calendar 2017. Since then, there's been no update on when this might arrive.

In early March 2018, Cortana team members told Windows Insiders that the Cortana-Alexa integration was in "internal self-hosting" at Microsoftat the moment. Microsoft is working to "make sure it's (the integration) a great experience," the team said, noting that bringing together the two different speech stacks is "non-trivial."

Recently, Cortana's new boss, Javier Soltero, admitted that "skills for the sake of skills won't fly." He told PC World that skills usage isn't "quite as deep as most people think it is." He also acknowledged Microsoft's in total catch-up mode on this front. (That's for sure, with Alexa at 40,000-plus third-party skillsat last count.)
Given Cortana is set to access Alexa skills via this integration partnership, maybe Cortana's skills shortage is less horrible than meets the eye.
​
Soltero also declined to say whether there are any other Cortana-powered speakers in the works. Currently, there's one from Harman-Kardon. I think speakers might not be where Microsoft is focusing; perhaps it's more about conferencing systems, microphones or other more business-centric peripherals.