Stand 9-B145, ISE 2020

Savesor specialises in hotel and short-term rental automation solutions. The company has two innovative offers:

Hotel room automation kit Short-term rental automation kit for Airbnb hosts

At ISE 2020 you can see how these products make hospitality operations more efficient while reducing energy bills and increasing security and convenience. If you have not registered for the ISE free pass, the invitation code is available on http://www.savesor.com.

Hotel room automation kit

The Hotel room automation solution from Savesor promises simplicity and 5 minutes of installation. Case studies collected from real-life installations show energy savings of up to 40%. With Savesor hotel housekeeping staff dont need to knock at every room to find if it is unoccupied and ready for cleaning. Savesor uses IoT technology to enable Housekeeping teams to do things that matter.

Short-term rental automation solution for Airbnb hosts

The short-term rental automation solution addresses common pain points of Airbnb hosts: key delivery, high heating/cooling utility bills, and lack of security. Savesor bundled keyless access, energy-saving, and security system in a simple package. Furthermore, with instant messaging applications integration, hosts no longer need to make international calls, try to communicate in different languages, or send SMS messages to their guests. All key delivery processes are handled by the Savesor Cloud via Apple Business Chat, Messenger, Skype, Telegram, Viber, SMS, and e-mail.

Savesors solutions are delivered in the form of easy to install kits. Short term rental package for Airbnb hosts requires a SaaS membership to function.

http://www.savesor.com

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Savesor Presents a KNX Hotel Automation Kit and Innovative Bundle for Airbnb Hosts at ISE 2020 - KNXtoday

Once mastered, automation can be an easy way to add variation and progression to instruments, tracks, groups and projects as a whole. Ableton Livehas some interesting automation, including creating fades that a human could never achieve. Our new Ableton Live Tutorials video, presented by our expert Liam OMullane, breaks down the basics of Live 10s automation, providing a contextual example of how evolving a sound can add flair to a track.

Other lessons in our Ableton Live Tutorials series so far include:

Those of you who already know Live inside and out, but are looking to explore other DAWs may want to check out ourLogic Tips Series, following a similar pattern to this course.

Liam OMullane is an Ableton Live expert and has been working with us for quite some time now, and was even previously Features Editor for MusicTech. He has offered his expertise over at dBs Music and Ask Audio, and has played out as a DJ on BBC 1Xtra radio and won many DJ competitions under the alias The Scratch Technician.

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Watch how to program automation in Ableton Live 10 - MusicTech

Survey of over 100 leading digital enterprises reveals that web and mobile app test automation rates remain low. However, many organizations are looking to invest in automation solutions within the year.

MINNEAPOLIS, Feb. 6, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Perfectoby Perforce, market leader in cloud-based automated mobile and web application testing solutions, today announced the release of its 2020 State of Test Automation Report, which outlines trends in testing, automation rates across the industry, and testing concerns and priorities for 2020.

Perforce Software (PRNewsfoto/Perforce Software)

To better understand web and mobile app testing today, Perforce and Gatepoint Research partnered up to survey DevOps professionals across industries. Over 100 digital enterprises were surveyed.

Equipped with the data from this survey, along with expert insights and recommendations from Perfecto, the 2020 State of Test Automation Report takes a pulse on automation across industries including the average rate of automation, the importance of mobile testing across all verticals, how testing is done, the adoption rate of "shift left," and top challenges faced by leading organizations today.

Test Automation Is Critical, but Rates of Adoption Vary It's no secret that test automation is an essential element to the SDLC. Without it, testing becomes the bottleneck and slows down software application releases.

More than ever, test automation propels teams to test at DevOps speed, without holding up the cycle. But it is still a huge obstacle the average rate of test automation is less than 50%. Organizations without a cloud testing platform, such as Perfecto, will fall behind and fail to realize their full potential.

However, as shown in the report, test automation rates vary from team to team. Almost 40% of teams are still automating fewer than a quarter of their test cases. Only 9% automate three-fourths of their test cases. And by far, manual testing is still the most time-consuming activity for teams.

"The data shows us that in most organizations, QA is responsible for testing. But QA often lacks the more technical skillsets required of test automation," said Eran Kinsbruner, Chief Evangelist of Perfecto. "This creates a need for a solution that can match a variety of skill levels."

Key Findings From the 2020 State of Test Automation Report

For more information and to download the full report, please click here.

Additional Resources Chief Evangelist, Eran Kinsbruner, will be leading a webinar to discuss the results of the report and provide actionable insights for organizations looking to improve their test automation.

Reserve your seat for this upcoming webinar at 1 p.m. ET on February 19th.

Register for the Webinar

About Perforce Perforce powers innovation at unrivaled scale. With a portfolio of scalable DevOps solutions, we help modern enterprises overcome complex product development challenges by improving productivity, visibility, and security throughout the product lifecycle. Our portfolio includes solutions for Agile planning & ALM, API management,automated mobile & web testing,embeddable analytics, open source support, repository management, static & dynamic code analysis, version control, and more.With over 15,000 customers, Perforce is trusted by the world's leading brands to drive their business critical technology development. For more information, visitwww.perforce.com.

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About Perfecto Perfecto by Perforceenables exceptional digital experiences and helps you strengthen every interaction with a quality-first approach for web and mobile apps through a cloud-based test platform. comprised of real devices and real end-user conditions, giving you the truest test environment available. Our customers, including 50 percent of the Fortune 500 companies across banking, insurance, retail, telecommunications, and media rely on Perfecto to deliver optimal mobile app functionality and end-user experiences, ensuring their brand's reputation, establishing loyal customers, and continually attracting new users. For more information about Perfecto, visit perfecto.io.

Media Contacts

PERFORCE GLOBALColleen KulhanekPerforce SoftwarePh: +1 612 517 2069ckulhanek@perforce.com

PERFORCE UK/EMEAMaxine AmbroseAmbrose CommunicationsPh: +44 118 328 0180perforcepr@ambrosecomms.com

PERFORCE USMichael DrazninWaters CommunicationsPh:+1 917 921 1039perforcepr@waterscomms.com

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Perfecto by Perforce Releases 2020 State of Test Automation Report - Yahoo Finance

Market leader doubles the number of integrations in just two years

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 6, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Zapier the leader in workplace automation today announced more than 2,000partner apps on its platform. Zapier is the easiest and fastest solution for companies to bring automation to their users and now offers the largest number of integrations available in the market, spanning a wide range of industries.

Zapier (PRNewsfoto/Zapier)

"Getting work done today often requires coordination across several applications at any given time," said Aidha Shaikh, product manager for G Suite. "We share the same goal as Zapier to help simplify user workflows, and we think users will get a lot out of the Hangouts Chat chatbot integration, helping our users create automated notifications from Zapier's 2,000+ integration partners."

With integrations across multiple categories, Zapier offers partners and their customers unrivaled connectivity and powerful automation capabilities.

"Automation is one of the most pivotal topics of the next decade. People and businesses are proactively seeking smarter, better ways to drive tangible results in less time," said Wade Foster, co-founder and CEO of Zapier. "By offering easy-to-use and powerful integrations with over 2,000 of the top software companies in the world, we're able to give businesses of all sizes valuable time back in their day so they can focus on their most important goals."

In 2019, Zapier added 600new integration partners, including Quora Lead Ads, Google Ads, Microsoft Teams and Outlook, DocuSign and Any.do.

"Zapier allows us to bring our service to market without getting buried in the technical details of managing hundreds of direct integrations, making it an integral part of our business at Paperform," said Dean McPherson, co-founder and CTO of Paperform. "On top of that, we find Paperform users that connect Zapier are likely to stay customers much longer than those who don't, which is a fantastic indicator that our customers love Zapier as much as we do."

Zapier, a graduate of Y Combinator, was founded in 2011 and raised $1.2 million in seed round funding in 2012. The company has been profitable since 2014.

About Zapier:Founded in 2011, Zapier helps more than five millionpeople grow their businesses with the power of automation. The company connects over 2,000 apps to help people be more productive at work, saving customers up to 20 hours per week. For more information, visit zapier.com.

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Zapier now connects 2,000+ apps--more than any other automation tool - Yahoo Finance

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --Iris Automation today announced that customer United Drone Holdings (UDH) has been granted the first BVLOS flight approval by the South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA) to conduct long-range commercial flights with vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft.

The SACAA's approval for the flight was granted based on the utilization of the Iris Automation Casia onboard detect-and-avoid system, which was demonstrated during live flight operations that included the Casia system making automatedmaneuvers to avoid collisions with manned aircraft. The approval from the SACAA requires no visual observers or ground-based radars, enabling BVLOS flights with only two crew members.

Iris Automation unlocks commercial drone operations by enabling Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) to fly BVLOS. The Iris Automation Casia system is a plug-and-play turnkey solution that detects, tracks and classifies other aircraft and makes intelligent decisions about the threat they may pose to the drone. It then triggers automated maneuvers to avoid collisions, and alerts the pilot on the ground in command of the mission. The industry-leading collision avoidance system helps drones see and react to the world in the same way pilots do.

"I'm proud to see that our Casia system has been validated once again by gaining BVLOS approval from the regulator in South Africa, which comes in addition to the multiple permissions our technology has already received in the United States," said Iris Automation CEO Alexander Harmsen. "Iris Automation currently has customers operating in a dozen countries around the world and we continue to work closely with global regulators both directly and through our customers."

UDH utilizes drones to conduct long-range infrastructure inspection, mapping and surveillance for customers throughout South Africa. The company also provides certified training, SACAA-approved operations, equipment supply and hosts one of Africa's largest drone conferences.

"Iris Automation's Casia detect-and-avoid system is a game-changer for this industry and enables countless commercial opportunities," said United Drone Holdings CEO Sean Reitz. "I set out to find a solution that regulators trusted and that was also light and practical enough for everyday use. Being able to comply with the strict regulations put in place by the South African Civil Aviation Authority and unlocking BVLOS has allowed us to conduct daily missions."

About Iris Automation:Iris Automation is building a computer-vision-based collision avoidance system that helps drones see the world how pilots do. The company is based in San Francisco and is led by a team with experience at NASA, Boeing, and Nvidia, including PhDs in computer vision. Iris is a key partner on multiple FAA UAS Integration Pilot Programs, a participant of NASA's Unmanned Traffic Management program and a participant of Transport Canada's BVLOS Technology Demonstration Program. Visit http://www.irisonboard.com

SOURCE Iris Automation

http://www.irisonboard.com

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Iris Automation Announces First Beyond-Visual-Line-of-Sight (BVLOS) Drone Waiver In South Africa - PRNewswire

Vineland Research and Innovation Centre (Vineland) has hired a new director of automation. In his new role, Hussam Haroun will oversee Vinelands activities related to automation, artificial intelligence and digital agriculture technologies.

Haroun launched his own start-up after patenting and commercializing new technology during graduate school. As CEO, he secured more than $3 million in seed investment and grew the company to 30 employees with multimillion dollar annual revenues.

Haroun holds a Master of Engineering, Entrepreneurship and Innovation from McMaster University and has experience in the telecommunications industry, managing multimillion dollar projects with Rogers Communications as a senior design engineer.

Harouns technical, business and leadership experience will provide an excellent foundation for his role at Vineland in leading the automation team to success, says Tania Humphrey, PhD, vice president, Research & Development. Automation is key for Canadian growers to address rising costs, labour accessibility and more efficient resource management. Vineland is proud to be a leader in this developing field.

Vineland is home to a national automation research cluster supported by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Vineland researchers are leading three projects focused on horticulture: developing smart wireless irrigation technologies for potted plants, automating greenhouse cucumber harvest and developing a robotic solution for automated mushroom harvesting.

Vineland holds a leading role in the Canadian Agri-Food Automation and Intelligence Network (CAAIN), which was announced last year by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada to bring together academia, research institutions and the private sector to accelerate automation and digitization in Canadian agriculture.

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Vineland names new head of automation - Greenhouse Canada

INDIANAPOLIS McLaren Racing has announced that Automation Anywhere has extended its partnership to include the NTT IndyCar Series with the Arrow McLaren SP team.

As part of the partnership, Automation Anywhere, a leader in intelligent automation, will work closely with Arrow McLaren SP to drive performance at the race track through workflow and analysis of racing data, to improve race strategy and team operations.

In December, McLaren Racing and Automation Anywhere, announced a Formula One partnership that will integrate artificially intelligent software robots into the teams race operations.

We are delighted to welcome Automation Anywhere to the team and to start our technology partnership from this season, said Zak Brown, CEO of McLaren Racing. As a current partner of the McLaren Racing Formula One team, we are already aware of Automation Anywhere s innovative spirit and ability to help drive performance. We look forward to continuing to see this partnership grow with implementation into Arrow McLaren SP as we take on the 2020 season and beyond.

This partnership is an exciting step for the Arrow McLaren SP team, said Sam Schmidt, co-owner of Arrow McLaren SP. Automation Anywhere and Arrow McLaren SP are both driven by technology and performance making this partnership a natural fit. We are eager to get started and look forward to working together from the 2020 season.

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Automation Anywhere Backing Arrow McLaren SP - SPEED SPORT

"Automated Virtual Agents" available in a wide variety of forms and called artificial humans by some developers are coming soon to your company.

But how will these intelligent bots interact with your customers, sales agents and executives?

How will they fit in with your sales-focused customer relationship management platform?

And how will they likely affect your companys overall prospects?

Automated Virtual Assistants and their cousins, so-called Intelligent Assistants, count amongthe growing universe of bots that will be deployed to supplement your CRM platform and other work.

Early-generation examples include Google Now, Amazon Echo, Cortana, Siri, BlackBerry Assistant, and a host of others. Tech companies are spending billions of dollars annually on virtual assistants an estimated $2 billion globally in 2019 alone, up from $600 million in 2016.

The sales pitch from technologists is that inserting robots in the workplace can free humans to perform high-value tasks where their involvement is more of a requisite. The bots which do not create personnel problems, demand high salaries and bonuses or insist on benefits can look after the rest.

Early-stage work with bots in CRM platforms focused on addressing frequent customer questions and routing other queries to humans. Since then, more sophisticated interfaces have been deployed, and some bots are now filling out forms and addressing more sophisticated technical problems with products or services.

This situation has allowed managers to use several different bots to deal with common tasks, saving the business thousands of man-hours and dollars which can be channeled elsewhere. Despite the high costs of development, with some bigger firms helping out with development from scratch, bots are saving businesses a lot of money.

There's also the additional level of efficiency the bots can bring, acting as an interface between the customer and the CRM and staying on the job 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year.

Customer trends are also driving the uptake of the virtual assistants. Some customers prefer to interact with companies via bots or online and younger workers seem more comfortable with it.

Much of the technology has been tailored or simply set up to meet specific needs. Most companies using virtual assistants have also tended to place them in 'silos' the bots don't interact with each other although they may feed data back to a centralized CRM platform.

Choosing this level of automation is an important and increasingly necessary decision for a company. Much will be determined by what your existing technology stack looks like and which platforms you're using at the core of your CRM operations.

From there it is worth consulting the team involved in your day-to-day call center operations and direct customer interaction because your customers will provide the best feedback for your automated workplace, its virtues and its flaws.

Key takeaways:

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CRM's 'Automated Virtual Agents': Coming Soon to an Office Near You - Toolbox

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This waning year of 2019 featured a constant flurry of commentary about how the business world is being transformed by advanced manufacturing. IIoT, 5G, 3-D printing, AI, VR, revolutionary robots and cobots theyve all had gallons of real and virtual ink spilled about how theyre fundamentally changing the production and supply chain picture.

That commentary is perfectly true. Those giant leaps in technology make it one of the most exciting times ever to work in manufacturing. For big companies with plants like those included in the World Economic Forums Global Lighthouse Network of model Industry 4.0 facilities, its a brave new world in the very best of ways.

But when I talk to the small- and medium-sized manufacturers (SMMs) that dominate the U.S. producer base, theres often a disconnect between their core concerns and all that glitz and glamor surrounding advanced manufacturing. Particularly in the SMM world, there are many central production jobs that just dont lend themselves to automation. Even with individual jobs that do, though, the mix of work can still make automation a non-starter. And even with work that can be automated, the reality is often that the financial justification simply isnt there to support spending on high-tech solutions.

Bob Jacquart, CEO and owner of Jacquart Fabric Products in Ironwood, Michigan, knows firsthand the barriers to automation for some producers. His firm employs 180 people and does both mass production and custom work, including playground canopies, pet beds, cooling vests, and winter apparel, along with rink pads for the 2009 U.S. Olympic Trials and custom acoustic panels for the Smithsonian American Art Museum. While custom jobs obviously dont warrant automation, surely the firms Stormy Kromer subsidiary, making the iconic felt winter hat, could benefit from it?

I sit on the Board of Directors at Michigan Technological University, and I asked the former Dean of Technology there to see if he could have a team come up with a way to make it robotically, Jacquart said. Their study concluded that it couldnt be done economically.

For other companies, the combination of work precludes the high-tech approach. At HM Manufacturing in Wauconda, Illinois, a machine parts maker of power transmission components, its the changeovers any adjustment in the size, style, material, or design of whats being produced that requires a reset of the production equipment that preclude automation. For HM, automation is difficult, said Nicole Wolter, the companys President and CEO. We do 11 to 12 changeovers a day it just doesnt work for that.

But even if the work fully lends itself to improvement with the application of advanced manufacturing technologies, money can stand in the way. It may be that the firm simply doesnt have the capital available to invest the sums it takes to install new systems. Or it could be an opportunity cost problem; for smaller firms, investing in the basics for growing the business usually makes a lot more sense than spending on high-tech equipment. Finally, it might simply be that labor is so cheap, automation simply isnt economically attractive. In rural areas of the country, where labor costs are lowest, that can be a very good thing, since the jobs are needed there.

A worker checks an industrial robot in a high-tech company.

For SMM executives who express concern about being left behind when they read about our burgeoning advanced manufacturing world, then, my first word of advice is to look frankly at the financials and the business fundamentals, and not to be afraid to conclude that Industry 4.0 simply isnt their answer right now.

But what can SMMs do to ensure their businesses arent left behind in the competitive environment, if automation isnt going to help?

The first is to invest in other ways. Jacquart, finding that he couldnt automate his way to higher productivity, instead improved the plant floor environment for his employees. We installed Vita-Lite full-spectrum lighting, and invested in premium chairs for our workers, he said.

Another option is to invest in smaller machine improvements. Legacy equipment can be vastly improved by upgrading subsystems to newer versions, or by updating control systems to more modern equivalents. One of the most under-reported advantages of the IIoT is the many solutions that are now on offer to improve the performance of existing equipment and manufacturing systems. That was the case for Wolters. There are lots of smaller manufacturers where high-tech isnt a fit just yet so in the meantime Ive invested in IIoT for the factory floor, she said. I believe its important to continue to update with technology as its evolving.

Providing ways for workers to improve their skills is equally important, and that applies to both current employees and potential future ones. Our new employees get the new technology and programming we do have, she said. But they may not get the basic operations. If older workers cant understand the newer technology, then pairing and cross training their jobs with the younger workers sets them up to learn from one another. She also works to educate the local community about manufacturing career opportunities. I feel like I genuinely have an advantage as a small, family-owned business, she mentioned. I can lead efforts at local high schools, offer shop tours, and bring on interns were currently offering four to six-week paid internships.

Collaborative robot technology.

A final focus should be on continuing to look at what technology has to offer. Todays industrial robots cost a fraction of what the early versions did, and modern computerized control systems are cheaper, more robust, and easier to program and maintain than ever. The kinds of jobs that robots can take on have increased dramatically, and with cobots and industrial exoskeletons entering the workplace, what used to be impossible or economically non-viable may soon be practical. Its important that SMM executives continue to stay abreast of what the high-tech world can do for their businesses.

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Even With Industry 4.0, Sometimes The Best Level Of Automation Is None - Forbes

Artificial intelligence and automation are continuing to drill deeper into our society.

Yet, there seems to be a disconnect between the people designing and implementing these systems, and those who will be most affected by the outcome.

The reported median annual salary for an AI programmer in the UK in 2019 is currently around 60,000. Meanwhile, the reported median annual salary for all workers in the UK is reportedly around 36,611.

Automating routine operations presents a lot of benefits. It presents the opportunity for people to move on from repetitive tasks to more rewarding, challenging work that allows them to engage their emotional intelligence.

But currently, this is far from the case. Instead, low skilled workers are finding themselves being continually downgraded into increasingly insecure, low-paid roles. For some people, their jobs have been completely replaced.

In 2013, researchers at Oxford University studied 702 occupational groupings. They discovered that 47% of US workers have a high probability of seeing their jobs automated over the next 20 years. More recently in 2017, a McKinsey report predicted that 30% of work activities would be automated by 2030 a change that is set to affect up to 375 million workers worldwide. Thats a significant number of people.

Throughout history, new waves of technological innovation have always led to a spike in public debates regarding automation. The movement is comparable to the shift away from agricultural societies throughout the Industrial Revolution. Evidence from this can give us some insights to inform policy debates today.

People have been worrying that automation would leave humans without work as far back as the 20th century. In 1950, John F.Kennedy described automation as a problem that would result in hardship for humans.

15 years later in 1965, an IBM economist saidautomation would result in a 20-hour workweek. Considering the average American still works an average of 34.4 hours per week, this prediction was clearly quite a way off.

But it took decades to tackle the injustices of the Industrial Revolution. This time, we cant afford to wait that long.

If employment levels fall significantly enough, there is a fear that Western democracies could resort to authoritarianism, which spread in some countries back in the 1930s following the Great Depression, and as is the case in many countries today that have experienced high levels of income inequality.

Western politics is already becoming increasingly turbulent. Income inequality is slowly beginning to grow even further, contributing to the already shaky political instability. A large proportion of the population will need to retrain for new careers, and they wont be young theyll be middle-aged professionals. Developed economies are likely to be hit hardest by the transition, as increased wage averages increase the incentivization for automation even further.

Automation will vary widely, depending on the industry sector. Jobs in industries such as health care are set to increase to cope with an aging population, while jobs involving manual labor and data processing are set to decline.

Its impossible to know exactly how many jobs will be affected by AI, as studies give wildly different estimates, depending on the treatment of the input data.

A report by PwC suggests there will be three major waves of automation.

Wave 1 will occur in the early 2020s and is expected to displace a very low proportion of jobs around 3%.

Wave 2 is expected to arrive in the late 2020s and is expected to displace many jobs in the clerical and administrative sector.

Wave 3 is expected to arrive in the mid-2030s and could result in the automation of up to 30% of todays jobs particularly those that involve automotive equipment and machines.

Workers with lower education levels are likely to be much more vulnerable to being replaced by machines:

The McKinsey report used Americas transition away from agriculture during the Industrial Revolution as an example. With the decrease in farming jobs came a significant increase in spending on secondary education and new laws that made attendance compulsory.

In 1910, 18 percent of children between 14 and 17 years of age went to high school. By 1940, 73 percent of children between 14 and 17 years of age went to high school. This increase in education helped to create a booming manufacturing industry.

If we want the future of automation to be successful, it is clear that a similar push is needed today. Its becoming increasingly clear that AI will not result in the end of work. It could create as many jobs as it gets rid of. Instead, the jobs of the future will merely require a different skillset.

Government advice networks need to support more businesses to use machine learning. We need to build skills at all levels from schools to industry professionals, to undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Unfortunately, this doesnt seem to be the case. In fact, in the last few decades, spending on training and supporting the labor force has been in decline. In addition, many schools are still failing to teach the key concepts of technology to their students.

If we want technology to benefit everyone instead of further widening inequality, we need to start training our workforce for the future immediately. Inaction will result in even greater division and polarization between communities.

Politicians, trade unions and business leaders need to act now if they want to make sure the result of technological change is good.

This article was originally published on Towards Data Science byAimee Pearcy, a computer scientist, writer, and campaigner. Her work focuses on human rights issues in the tech industry.

Read next: How to turn your social media savviness into a lucrative career

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What we can do to make sure automation doesn't negatively affect the work force - TNW

It is clear that the brain-based economy has supplanted the brawn-based economy as manual labor is replaced by automation and as the service economy replaces manufacturing. About 80 percent of the U.S. economy is in the service sector and the skills required to participate in that economy evolve rapidly. Lower skilled employment remains in the service sector, but its clear that wherever possible, machine labor will continue to replace human labor. The logic of capitalism drives organizational efficiency and that efficiency enables the production of greater wealth. We want all of that to continue but while the logic works for the organization, it can leave people behind without marketable skills and often without hope.

Those with economic and political power should not think for a second that leaving people behind is possible without political blowback. Hillary Clinton learned that in 2016 in Michigan and Wisconsin. The engine behind the nearly daily protests in Hong Kong is not only fear of political repression but an educated mass of young people with little economic opportunity in a crowded and overpriced island city-state. Transportation, communication and information technology have built a global economy that makes businesses more mobile than ever. Companies use that mobility and both the threat of departure and the promise of arrival to extract tribute from state and local governments. These forces of the modern economy need to be better understood and better managed to ensure political stability and economic well-being.

In the United States, corporate giants like Amazon demand public subsidies for the jobs they bring, but the benefit of hosting these businesses is not always obvious. Last week, in a terrific piece of journalism New York Times reporter David Streitfeld charted the 20-year history of one of Amazons early fulfillment warehouses in Campbellville Kentucky. According to Streitfeld:

Campbellsvilles warehouse was among the first of what are now an estimated 477 Amazon Fulfillment centers, delivery stations and other outposts around the country. That makes Campbellsville, with 11,415 inhabitants, a case study for what may happen elsewhere as Amazon continues expanding. Brenda Allen, Campbellsvilles mayor, said: Amazon has had a really good business here for 20 years. They havent been disappointed at all. And were glad theyre here. But, she added, I really would feel better if they would contribute to our needs. In central Kentucky, Amazon has reaped benefits, including a type of tax break that critics label Paying Taxes to the Boss. In the arrangement, 5 percent of Amazon workers paychecks, which would ordinarily be destined for the county and the state, go to Amazon itself. The company netted millions of dollars from this incentive over a decade.

A political reaction against these types of business siting incentives is starting to set in. In New York City, activists made so much political noise that Amazon became unwilling to accept a multi-billion-dollar subsidy. I expect we will see more of an effort to reset the power relationship between companies and communities. The theme of government and communities as supplicants to giant corporations, coupled with growing automation and public discontent is a prescription for economic misery and political upheaval. The 20th-century ideological battle between the left and the right is ill-suited to address the public policy needs of the rapidly evolving, global and technology-based economy we have created. We need new thinking about how to effectively influence these global, high tech corporate giants.

The benefits of the market and its logic are irrefutable. But the absence of a role for government to assist the victims of the market is a prescription for political instability and ultimately economic disaster as well. Government and public policy must be used to encourage better corporate citizenship than companies like Amazon seem to practice. Minimum wage requirements, support for public institutions and infrastructure, and support for life-long learning for workers must become the rule rather than the exception. This will require national public policy in the United States of the type we are unlikely to see from todays federal government. While companies are highly mobile globally and we cant control a company willing to relocate to another nation, we could try to set ground rules for state and local competition for business siting within the United States. We could also devote far more resources to retraining workers to develop and redevelop marketable skills.

A pervasive feeling of economic insecurity and fear of downward mobility is a growing phenomenon in large areas of the United States. The stock market may be rising, but the publics faith in the future is falling. The transition to a more automated, specialized, creative and brain-based economy is unstoppable. This is not the first time Ive quoted these lyrics, but remarkably its now three and a half decades since Bruce Springsteen wrote in My Hometown:

Theyre closing down the textile mill across the railroad tracks. Foreman says These jobs are going boys and they aint coming back to your hometown.

Its long past due to recognize that these transitions are now a part of economic life. The feeling of stability and security we once knew has been replaced by an economy of constant change based on new technologies and new opportunities. The force of these changes cant be stopped by a president nostalgic for a muscular coal and steel-based manufacturing economy. The jobs arent stolen by immigrants and in a few decades wont be moved overseas due to lower-priced labor, as the economic logic of automation replaces that of poorly-paid workers.

What will people do? The answers are seen in the changing nature of the modern workforce. The number of jobs we have invented for services we didnt even know we needed. Think of the Best Buy Geek Squad or the folks working at Apple Stores Genius Bar and similar jobs. How many people were employed installing home entertainment and internet systems in the 1980s? How many worked in a store to help you learn how to retrieve your photos from the cloud? How about all the people developing those applications everyone is running on their smartphones as they ride the subway? Did anyone know in 1990 that everyone would be carrying a miniature computer in their pocket? Smartphone hardware is a smaller and smaller part of our GDP as the real money moves to the software. Think about some of the people who work in the food service business: Restaurants are not simply places that provide food and drink anymore but are places we go to enjoy experiences. This form of dining is, in part, entertainment designed by people who are experts in producing the food, dcor and the overall ambiance that generates the restaurant experience.

To remain employed and employable in the modern economy, change has replaced constancy. There are some basics of organizational, family, social and personal life that do not change. The need for love and social interaction and personal fulfillment remains, but the world we meet those needs in is constantly changing. Many families are separated by thousands of miles and see each other on screens more often than over a dinner table. I sometimes think about how much I wish Id had the patience to teach my late mother how to use FaceTime. She refused to ever use the internet. That unwillingness to learn carried a cost for her and our family. Thought of more broadly, we must institutionalize life-long learning in the new technologies and new professions that are now emerging daily. And people must somehow learn to accept and even embrace constant change. Automation will continue to replace human labor with machine labor. The economic history of this change has been to reduce the drudgery of work, but those routine tasks must be replaced by something else.

We need government and public policy to get in the middle of this mess. Heres one idea for starters: Young people are gravitating toward new business start-ups and seeking to avoid established bureaucracies. Lets use tax policy to encourage investments in these new businesses and both public policy and direct subsidies to encourage start-ups to train and hire people whose jobs have been replaced by machines. Lets marshal the energy of the market to mitigate its harshest impacts. But to do that we need to develop public policies designed to deal with the impact of automation on people.

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Automation and Public Policy - State of the Planet

Improving Your Manufacturing Productivity and Quality with CMM Networking and Automation | 2020-01-01 | Quality Magazine This website requires certain cookies to work and uses other cookies to help you have the best experience. By visiting this website, certain cookies have already been set, which you may delete and block. By closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to the use of cookies. Visit our updated privacy and cookie policy to learn more. This Website Uses CookiesBy closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to our cookie policy. Learn MoreThis website requires certain cookies to work and uses other cookies to help you have the best experience. By visiting this website, certain cookies have already been set, which you may delete and block. By closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to the use of cookies. Visit our updated privacy and cookie policy to learn more.

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Improving Your Manufacturing Productivity and Quality with CMM Networking and Automation - Quality Magazine

In 2020, AI could empower robotics with tools such as this Brain Bulder workspace. Source: Neurala

For the past decade, robotics has been one of the most interesting areas for developers, industry analysts, and startups to focus on. From emerging technologies and new applications to ongoing challenges, both innovators and entrepreneurs will have a lot to watch in 2020.

The Robot Report spoke with the following executives at robotics and artificial intelligence companies about their observations of 2019s trends, as well as their expectations for the new year:

Which technologies do you expect to mature the most in 2020, such as the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), edge computing, 5G wireless networks, or autonomous vehicles?

Visti: In 2020, Industry 4.0 will become more of a reality than a vision. Smart machines keep getting smarter as they get access to more data, and they keep getting better at connecting to other machines and systems, and therefore they become truly useful for manufacturers.

Thomas Visti, Mobile Industrial Robots

While many companies have been hesitant and seen Industry 4.0 as merely a buzzword, were starting to see connected supply chains where MES [manufacturing execution systems], robots, and picking systems are connected.

We also see the connectivity between robots and ERP [enterprise resource planning] systems within production environments.

The entire process from ordering to producing and then transporting goods can now be fully automated. Industry 4.0 is still evolving, and it will not reach its full potential in 2020, but we will see more companies adopting the enabling technologies. This will also influence the workforce, as we will see the same companies wanting to upskill their current workforce and recruit new employees with Industry 4.0 skills.

Versace: Well see more demand for AI that can be trained, deployed, and refined at the edge. 2019 has shown us that many organizations, robotics companies included, are saying No to giving up their data and having to ping the cloud.

I believe that in 2020, AI will need to live and learn at the edge, so that processing occurs where the data is being generated. As a result, robotics companies will see reduced latency problems while mitigating privacy issues and massive cloud fees for manufacturers.

Sudhir Jha, Brighterion

Jha:Enterprises will transition into deploying complex AI models in production at scale. So far, most AI applications are experiments but not in production, simple recommendation/prediction/regression models, or applied to smaller problems.

In 2020, we will see more enterprises getting bolder with their AI ambitions and requiring their vendors to support large deployments.

There will be be an acceleration from automation to autonomy, and AI will play the most crucial role in this. Also, robotics will move further from industrial arena to consumer arena, where they will act as personal coaches, instructors for children, conversational buddies for elders, and guides for the disabled.

Which market or application represents the biggest area of growth potential in 2020?

Visti: We expect to see an increase in the use of robotics in all our existing markets such as automotive, electronics, FMCG [fast-moving consumer goods], pharmaceuticals, and more.

There is still a huge focus on optimization, and with the lack of qualified workers, the need for automation across industries has never been higher.

We expect big growth in the use of AMRs by the 3PL [third-party logistics] segment, which has not been an early adopter of AMRs. In fact, our recent survey showed that only around 50% of 3PLs are currently considering automating internal logistics with AMRs. We expect to see this figure increase significantly in 2020 and the years ahead.

The hospital sector is also looking to automate internal transportation worldwide. For MiR, we have many customers within this segment in Scandinavia and China, but we expect it to grow even more.

Jha: Verticals like healthcare will see expanded AI-based applications, not only in the areas of diagnosis and personalized medicine, but also on the operational side like customer service, payment processing, and FWA (fraud, waste, and abuse).

How will trade conflicts or the slowdown in automotive manufacturing affect robotics in 2020?

Visti: While the automotive manufacturing market may have slowed, the latest statistics from the Robotic Industries Association actually shows what looks like an uptick in ordering of industrial robots by automotive OEMs, up 47% for 2019 over 2018.

Were also experiencing increased growth in that market and overall, with companies like Toyota and Ford purchasing fleets of our AMRs.

We expect this is due to these manufacturers realizing how automation can help fill difficult-to-fill jobs; increase overall productivity; and enable humans to focus on higher-skilled, higher-quality, and higher-paid tasks. These are all benefits that can lead to growth and new job opportunities, which could help turn the automotive industry back around.

Versace: We will always be faced with some degree of socioeconomic uncertainty around the world. In terms of manufacturing, possible decoupling of Chinese and Western economies may actually bolster manufacturing in the U.S. and make it less reliant on overseas production in the long run. This may indirectly boost robotic deployments in the U.S. and Europe.

But at Neurala, were focused on what we can control, which is first and foremost to provide robotics and other companies with an AI platform that they can apply to solve real-world challenges. Our Brain Builder platform is helping organizations accelerate the process of building, deploying, and analyzing AI so they can focus on improving visual inspections.

Related content: Industry experts provide more robotics predictions for 2020

What challenges and opportunities do you expect for AI in 2020?

Jha: As AI-based solutions become more mainstream across industries, we need to carve out a handful domain where our technology provides sustainable differentiation and allows us to be a leader.

We have focused on risk and compliance areas in financial services and are looking to diversify in other verticals. Also our strength in building mission-critical applications in highly regulated industries will serve us well to ensure data privacy and ethical use of AI which is a growing trend globally.

Max Versace, Neurala

Versace: Im thinking of 2020 as the Year of Productization and the Customer.

At Neurala, well continue to work with customers so that they can independently build and deploy custom AI applications for the real world.

Furthermore, AI products such as Brain Builder will enable customers with little or no expertise in AI to build an end-to-end application from scratch, on their proprietary data. This means that enterprises will no longer be restricted by their size or resources when it comes to implementing AI as a part of their business strategies.

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In 2020, AI to enable acceleration from automation to autonomy, say experts - Robot Report

In recent decades, women have made huge gains in employment. But the rise in job automation is threatening to undo that.

Jobs held by women are more likely to be displaced by automation, according to The World Economic Forums2020 report on the global gender gap, while men are more likely to be employed in less vulnerable roles.

To avoid job irrelevance, female workers must approach education and their careers in new ways, finding opportunities in areas that predominantly employ men.

The jobs that are emerging are not very gender-equal, said Vesselina Ratcheva, the data lead at the World Economic Forum. If we think about shifting workers from declining to emerging roles, what we are also likely to see is that the environment for women in those roles is not necessarily going to be one of parity.

Graphic Credit: David Foster/Yahoo Finance

Of the eight employment areas with increasing prospects across 20 leading economies, six of those sectors are dominated by men. The emerging sectors with the smallest share of women are cloud computing, engineering, and data and artificial intelligence.

On the other end, jobs that are being displaced by automation are routine, white-collar roles, like secretarial work, Ratcheva said. The vast majority 94% of secretaries and administrative assistants in the U.S. are women.

In the automation age, all workers need to be skilled, mobile, and tech-savvy to keep their job or successfully transition into a different field. They also have to think about education and employment in a different way.

Here are four ways women and men can prepare and adjust to the changes automation brings.

To avoid job irrelevance, female workers and male ones, too must approach college and their careers in new ways. (Photo: Adrian Greeman/Construction Photography/Avalon/Getty Images)

Dont think of employment as a series of full-time jobs or lifetime employment, but rather as a range of workplace arrangements, including self-employment, freelancing, and salaried roles, saidApril Rinne, an independent advisor focusing on the future of work.

Moving forward, professional paths will not be linear. We will not study for a profession and do that profession for life, Rinne said. Rather, we will have many roles, many positions, many professional chapters. Like an artist or an investor, we will curate portfolios of our work.

To be well-positioned for this journey, learn how to handle your own taxes; be ready to start your own business; develop a wide professional network; and find the best practices for working remotely.

With the rapid automation of technical skills, human skills such as emotional intelligence, empathy, ethics, curiosity, creativity, and coordination will become more valuable, Rinne said.

The really distinguishing factor for success of tomorrow's leaders lies not in programming apps and algorithms, but rather upon a solid foundation in the humanities, she said. How we develop and use technology is equally, if not more important, than the technology itself.

Story continues

Investing in and developing those human skills can make you almost 'unautomatable.' Building curiosity can help you adapt for the jobs of the future. One way to do this is to spend more time with children or with your own five-year-old brain, which is inherently curious, Rinne said.

Human skills such as emotional intelligence, empathy, ethics, curiosity, creativity, and coordination will become more valuable in the future. (Photo: Christophe Gateau/picture alliance via Getty Images)

The idea that higher education is something you only do early in your life wont help you in the world of automation.

Today's education system was designed for the First Industrial Revolution to train factory workers and soldiers and is woefully outdated for the 21st century, Rinne said. As automation changes and eradicates certain skills, roles and even entire vocations, individuals will need to keep learning, not only to work, but to better understand the world.

If you can continue to learn beyond the traditional means such as college, maintain insatiable curiosity at any age, and embrace the future's uncertainties, youll have an advantage. Study abroad, do cultural exchanges, or any experience that expands your perspective and takes you out of your comfort zone, Rinne said.

Even when entering sectors more immune to automation, women often take marketing, people, or culture roles, rather than the technical ones. Their employer might encourage them to focus more on their soft or coordination skills rather than technical ones, Ratcheva said.

What female workers should do is look for companies that are actively working to diversify their workforce through inclusion initiatives, especially for more technical roles dominated by men. Workers should also ask about a potential employer's support to help workers re-skill or up-skill to stay relevant.

That might be quite effective at increasing the take-up of that [job] offer by female workers or those whove become inactive in the labor market, Ratcheva said.

Denitsa is a writer for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter@denitsa_tsekova.

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How the most vulnerable workers to job automation can adapt - Yahoo Money

Robotics, AI and automation have long been one of the hottest categories for tech investments. After years and decades of talk, however, those big payouts are starting to pay off. Robotics are beginning to dominate nearly every aspect of work, from warehouse fulfillment to agriculture to retail and construction.

Our annual TC Sessions: Robotics+AI event on March 3 affords us the ability to bring together some of the top investors in the category to discuss the hottest startups, best bets and opine on where the industry is going. And this years VC panel is arguably our strongest yet:

TC Sessions: Robotics+AI returns to Berkeley on March 3. Make sure to grab your early-bird tickets today for $275 before prices go up by $100. Startups, book a demo table right here and get in front of 1,000+ of Robotics/AIs best and brightest each table comes with four attendee tickets.

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Listen to top VCs discuss the next generation of automation startups at TC Sessions: Robotics+AI - TechCrunch

Watch J. Paul Reed's DevOps Conference session

A culture of automation is such a cornerstone of DevOps, one of its oldest, most famous tropes is automate ALL the things. But are there things we maybe shouldnt automate? What if how we go about automating things is actively causing us pain in the form of incidents? Watch this DevOpsCon talk by Netflixs J. Paul Reed to find out more.

In this DevOps Conference session, J. Paul Reed takes a look at some of the impacts and challenges pervasive automation has presented for engineers and operations, along with some important considerations when automating Netflixs complex, living socio-technical systems, as well as some strategies to cope with these ironies of automation.

J. Paul Reed has over 15 years of experience in the trenches as a build/release and tools engineer, working with such organizations as VMware, Mozilla, Postbox, Symantec, and Salesforce. In 2012, he founded Release Engineering Approaches, a consultancy incorporating a host of tools and techniques to help organizations realize how they can Simply Ship. Every time. Hes worked across a number of industries, from financial services to cloud-based infrastructure to healthcare, with teams ranging from 2 to 2,500 on everything from tooling, operational analysis and improvement, team culture transformation, and business value optimization. He regularly speaks internationally on release engineering, DevOps, IT operations complexity, and human factors. Paul is also the founding host of The Ship Show, a twice-monthly podcast tackling topics related to build engineering, DevOps, and release management.

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DevOps The Troubles Of Automating All The Things - JAXenter

So the perfectly enjoyable dinner with friends was over and it was time to get the bill.

The waitress informed us they were in front of us. And there were the machines, ready to be poked and prodded with enter this and enter that and computerized math full of tip percentages.

Followed by the electronic signature which might as well have read Lee Harvey Oswald, given my cursive challenges with a pen.

So how long will it be before there is no waiter or waitress and we are just ordering off that dadgummed computer at every restaurant?

Not very, apparently.

Over the holidays, I heard an estimate that one third of the jobs in America will become automated in the next decade.

In the electronically dominated age we live, this is considered progress. And some automation is needed progress. But a lot of it is a nuclear threat to our lives.

Full disclosure. I have never used an ATM machine. I dont do my banking online and am not interested in learning how to do it. I like getting the bank statement in the mail and checking to make sure the books are correctly balanced. I pay the bills by check. Through the mail. I have never used the self-checkout line at a grocery store. If I had my way, I would carry enough cash in my pocket to pay for gas, restaurant meals, groceries and incidentals every month instead of using a charge card.

One of my friends says I am swimming upstream at about a 45-degree angle. Hes correct.

Another friend says he always uses a teller when he goes to the bank to preserve their job. And hes correct.

If you want an indication of where we are headed, consider what seems like daily announcements locally of retail outlets closing, their market share eaten up by online shopping. Thats a lot of jobs lost for retail clerks, jobs that go to people trying to make ends meet and improve their economic standing with hard work.

Consider, beyond the economic struggle, the loss of self-worth that comes with not having a job. For a significant portion of the population, employment is the primary source of pride. A lot of that population is part of the third that will lose jobs to automation in the coming decade.

What will be the social impact of that job loss should it become long-term, a distinct possibility?

From a practical standpoint, there is a portion of the consumer product market that works for online shopping. But I cant buy a shirt online with confidence it will fit when it magically shows up at the door. My wife cant buy any clothes online.

What she can do is order a double-waffle iron online and experience that sinking feeling that comes with electronic messages seconds later that make us suspicious our charge card has been compromised. Not exactly what the doctor ordered for that Christmas morning feeling.

We recently made reservations online for a one-night motel stay at a price, according to the online language, of $98. When we checked out, the bill was $239. There was no one online to tell us of all the extras and fine-print conditions that would more than double the price. Good thing this wasnt two decades ago. Would have fractured the family budget.

So this is where we are at the start of the third decade of the 21st Century.

When we sit down at dinner, the cell phone has priority space over the knives and forks. That rectangular gadget has replaced over-the-picket-fence conversation with our neighbors. One survey says 70 percent of us dont have any significant friends among our neighbors.

When its time to buy that special gift for someone, we scroll our computers rather than stroll the mall. We dont ask a clerk to compare two like items. We fill in the boxes on the screen and wait for the delivery, all the while giving up parts of our identity to the online god rather than Maggie in Aisle 4.

Some of this is convenience and fits our brisk lifestyles in 2020. I get it. But a lot of it is not progress when you consider the dangerous economic and social overhaul it is creating.

Tease me all you want about being old fashioned. I will own that. And I will not go quietly into that automated night.

I like talking with the waiter and the waitress, the folks in the checkout line at the grocery store and the tellers at the bank.

I just hope I still have the opportunity to do it a decade from now.

David F. Troisi is retired as editor of the Sun-Gazette.

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The unsettling grip of the automated gods | News, Sports, Jobs - Williamsport Sun-Gazette

Marketers are constantly on the lookout for the next big thing, both when it comes to user demands and the future of the marketing industry. At the moment, many of these conversations focus on automation and AI. While theyve become the buzzwords of the year, their introduction to the marketing sphere has the potential to dramatically change how we work and raise important questions about the future of marketing. How will the future marketer work with AI? Will it be a battle between humans and machines?

I doubt it. AI will not threaten marketers jobs, but it will take the drudgery out of them. Today, marketing still involves a lot of manual tasks. Moving forward, automation can liberate us from the tedious and time-consuming tasks that we dont want to do. Freedom from this routine gives us back the time to focus on creative and strategic thinking that can move the needle on campaigns.

I worked in the media industry before launching Adjust, and I know the pain marketers experienced 20 years ago and still do today. Back then, I wasted so much time thinking and planning for digital campaigns, how to set them up, how to structure them, how to g ain more users for our clients. We relied on hunches, not hypotheses. Even when I later moved to work at MTV, a pioneering company that understood the power of digital, it was near-impossible to figure out ROI and how to attribute conversions for our campaigns. I was always looking for a better way to paint a fuller picture of our users, and that sparked the idea that eventually became Adjust.

New technology means the daily drudgery has drastically improved since then, but it still doesnt run like clockwork. Today, we work with so much data that its beyond the human capacity to distill it. And more data means more complexity. When we talk to our clients, we know that they spend much of their day handling very repetitive, manual, data-related tasks.

These are tasks that also require a lot of heavy lifting. Marketers have to acquire, clean and organize data; manually create campaigns for every channel; constantly check in on various dashboards to make sure campaigns are performing well. The list goes on. So, how can AI help ease the burden and promote growth, and shape the future of marketing?

The future marketer wont feel the need to compete with AI, they will co-create with it.

It will largely be driven by demand humans simply dont want to deal with the very simple, frequent tasks at scale, but they are better at the strategic or creative decisions. The future marketer will be liberated from a life sentence of reading and sifting through spreadsheets because AI can do it faster.

Essentially, we want to shape a golden age of marketing where technology and humans work seamlessly to create growth and the most effective advertising ever seen. Were on the right path, but currently falling short. This argument is echoed in an interesting book, Lemon: How the Advertising Brain Turned Sour by Orlando Wood.

To reach this golden age of advertising, we need to offload routine tasks to machine learning so we can focus on being creative and pushing the boundaries of what marketing can achieve. At the moment, too much focus on technology and mindless tasks means advertising styles have changed to become less effective. The outcome is fact-driven and product-focused ads that move metrics over the short-term, rather than creative and emotional ads that move audiences and have lasting impact.

This is largely due to shifts in industry trends. As Wood observes: Procurement is making creativity more difficult. Holding companies want to encourage greater profitability by cutting staff and increasing workloads. Specialists are prioritized over generalists. Standardization is valued more than individualization. Reason is more important than emotion.

Of course, taking an analytical approach to advertising is important. Marketing decisions will absolutely still be based on data, although not on data alone.

AI will unlock what is really needed to compete and win in marketing: human creativity. Its the ultimate irony to be more effective, we need to automate so we can focus on bringing humanity to our work. Data fuels marketing, but we need AI to sift through the data that powers those results. By liberating the Excel marketer, they can focus on the decisions that require creativity and spirit.

Ultimately, its the marketers with the best tools and the most creative mindsets who will succeed and become the growth architects for their brands of tomorrow.

To hear more predictions for 2020, attend our Predictions breakfast event on 21 Jan, register here.

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Automation and AI will launch a golden age of marketing - The Drum

The ever closening presence of automation has a vast majority of the world at least a little bit worried. And every year we see more and more advancements in this field, bringing us closer to a potential world in which much of everyday life and our work lives is automated. So with that yin and yang of utopian and dystopian future possibilities in mind, for this special holiday episode of Hashtag Trending we look at our predictions for automation in 2020.

When many people think of automation, their minds wander to a world in which robots do everything, completely autonomous of any human control. And we dont think such a future is that far fetched and may actually be closer than many would think. We have already seen a rise in the use of industrial robots, as stats from Statista show that 2019 saw the installation of 413,000 industrial robots, with those numbers only expected to rise in the future. But now a new wave of robots in coming, the rise of service robots. Projections from Deloitte show that the market for such robots has been steadily gaining on the industrial robot market, and should actually pass it in the next year or two.

Our next prediction is related to the brain that makes robots like that possible: artificial intelligence. We believe that the world will begin to see AI operating in places that has not been seen before. For example, AI could be set to make a major move into the edge. For those who are not aware, edge computing is bringing the computing power, like AI for example, right onto devices, allowing them to perform complicated procedures entirely independently, even if they lose connection with their network. And AI should make big headway in this space in 2020. In fact, according to statistics from Market Watch, the market for edge AI software is expected to more than triple in size from $355 million USD in 2018 to a staggering $1,152 million USD in 2023.

And finally, we believe the rise of AI and automation will be a major reason why we see the downfall of support centres for devices. Much of the duties that would fall into the hands of such support centres will now begin to shift into the hands of the users, with the aid of AI built into the devices designed to solve those problems. According to stats presented by Nextiva, by 2020, 85 per cent of all customer service interactions will be automated, while over 60 per cent of Americans say that they prefer a self-service system to actual human interaction.

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Hashtag Trending Automation predictions for 2020 - ITBusiness.ca

Story: Automation will likely cause changes to the ports of LA, Long Beach.

What will happen: When the Port of Los Angeles largest terminal applied to bring in automated equipment this year, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union members and supporters objected to the move, turning out in large numbers for rallies protesting the growing trend of port automation that promises to take some jobs.

The specter of robots taking over jobs on the docks and displacing workers fueled an impassioned movement at the end of this decade which will only grow as the 2020s get underway.

Port automation has been on the horizon for some years, but U.S. ports have been slower to adapt than their European counterparts, in part due to strong unions that are quick to circle the wagons when jobs are at stake.

Tour of the Long Beach Container Terminal showing phase 1 of the Automated Shipping Container Cranes and battery-operated sleds that move the containers around the yard by remote control.To go with story by Rachel Uranga for P-T. Photo by Brad Graverson/The Daily Breeze/SCNG/06-20-17

ILWU members and supporters took a moment of silence for all member before attending another Harbor Commission meeting to vote on the appeal regarding the permit allowing zero-emissions automation to move forward on the APM (Maersk) Terminal in the Port of Los Angeles. This vote came after Los Angeles City Council rejected the ports earlier support of the permit and sent it back to harbor commissioners for reconsideration. Ultimately the commissioners voted exactly the same as they did previously 3-2 in favor of the permit for APM in San Pedro on Thursday, July 11, 2019. (Photo by Brittany Murray, Press-Telegram/SCNG)

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Harbor Commissioner Edward R. Renwick asks a question during another meeting to vote on the appeal regarding the permit allowing zero-emissions automation to move forward on the APM (Maersk) Terminal in the Port of Los Angeles. This vote came after Los Angeles City Council rejected the ports earlier support of the permit and sent it back to harbor commissioners for reconsideration. Ultimately the commissioners voted exactly the same as they did previously 3-2 in favor of the permit for APM in San Pedro on Thursday, July 11, 2019. (Photo by Brittany Murray, Press-Telegram/SCNG)

More than 1,500 ILWU members and supporters showed up for another Harbor Commission meeting to vote on the appeal regarding the permit allowing zero-emissions automation to move forward on the APM (Maersk) Terminal in the Port of Los Angeles. This vote came after Los Angeles City Council rejected the ports earlier support of the permit and sent it back to harbor commissioners for reconsideration. Ultimately the commissioners voted exactly the same as they did previously 3-2 in favor of the permit for APM in San Pedro on Thursday, July 11, 2019. (Photo by Brittany Murray, Press-Telegram/SCNG)

Some automation already has come to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. But when APM Terminals, on L.A.s Pier 400, applied for what was a routine permit to bring in new equipment in the summer of 2019, the ILWU erupted.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti brought the two sides together for private talks and, in the end, an they agreed on a deal allowing the terminal to move forward with automation while providing re-training for workers to save jobs.

But the issue wont die there.

Especially with the onset of computerization, automation in all job sectors continues to change the way business is done.

Automated ports also promise a cleaner operation the equipment will help meet strict pollution-cutting standards set out by both ports in the coming years.

How to balance the advantages of automation with the human factor providing and preserving needed jobs presents what will be an ongoing challenge for years to come.

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Stories that will define the next decade: Automation will likely cause changes to the ports of LA, Long Beach - The Daily Breeze