Technology

EAST MARLBOROUGH — Technology at its best provides solutions, not just profits. And at GuGu Asian Table delivering quality food is more important than profits, said Tony Liu, who owns the business alongside his wife, Suki Liu. She concurred. “Making the money is not the top priority, serving the customer is the top priority,” Suki said. Still, with inflation near 9 percent the cost for high-quality food is more expensive than ever, or at least within the last 40 years. Plus, there’s an ongoing shortage in staff for the hospitality industry happening across North America and restaurants are at the core. Tony and Suki took action to counter this trend by introducing Bella, the robot, just before Christmas last year. Sky and Taylor Christian, who often dine at GuGu, enjoy the company of B...

Did you miss a session from MetaBeat 2022? Head over to the on-demand library for all of our featured sessions here. Terahertz (T-ray) technologies offer the promise to transform how we interact with the world around us, from delivering lightning-fast data transfer beyond 6G to providing X-ray-like imaging without any harmful radiation. Yet effectively and efficiently harnessing T-rays for mainstream commercial applications has continued to elude scientists and engineers, relegating T-ray technologies to the realm of science fiction. However, recent breakthroughs in how terahertz waves are generated and detected have now brought the technology to a tipping point for mainstream adoption. T-ray scanners can now be small enough to fit on a desktop, and they have enabled w...

We live in an age of abundant new technology. Consumers are inundated with faster, more sophisticated smartphones every year, and the Internet of Things keeps people connected with ever-smarter devices, from refrigerators to automobiles. Business executives are faced with the same advancing technology that can improve their company and operations—if used correctly. It can be an uphill battle getting the C-suite on board with new technologies, despite the benefits they can bring to a business. In a world faced with constant upgrades, many executives are getting burned out with implementing new technology. They may wonder if all the advancements are really worth the investment. Here are a few tips when presenting technology to your executives to get them on board with the changes. Hig...

By Charlie Hildebrand and Riley SumnerWisconsin Watch Until recently, the University of Wisconsin-Madison had a successful program to compost discarded food. Starting in 2009, the university collected food scraps at campus cafeterias to send to the West Madison Agricultural Research Station for composting. In 2018, the university began bringing scraps to an anaerobic biodigester, now owned by Clean Fuel Partners LLC. There, the waste was converted into methane for fuel. But the company changed its focus, leading it to drop its partnership with UW-Madison in 2021. Travis Blomberg, the campus resource coordinator for UW-Madison’s Office of Sustainability, said the digester stopped taking food and now only uses manure as an input. That change also scuttled the city of Madison’s a...

Technology plays a key role in the worsening mental health of young Australians, according to Australia’s leading mental health task force. Up to 1,200 Australians participated in sharing their experience of the nation’s mental health and suicide prevention system through the “Making Connections for Your Mental Health” program launched by the National Health Commission (NHC) in July. NHC chief executive Christine Morgan said one of the key themes of the national listening tour was increasing concerns about the well-being of young people.  “The resting pulse for our young people is much higher in terms of anxiety and psychological distress,” she told AAP. “When we dig deep into that, there’s a lot of conversation around the role of technology … it’s almost like it’s created a new form of...

Researchers at the University of East Anglia have developed cutting-edge technology to diagnose patients with heart failure in record time. The state-of-the-art technology uses magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to create detailed 4D flow images of the heart. But unlike a standard MRI scan, which can take up to 20 minutes or more, the new 4D heart MRI scan takes just eight minutes. The results provide a precise image of the heart valves and blood flow inside the heart, helping doctors determine the best course of treatment for patients. Cardiology patients at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital (NNUH) were the first to trial the newtechnology.And the team hope their work could revolutionise the speed at which heart failure is diagnosed, benefitting hospitals and ...

When I see what science and technology have turned the world into, I marvel. What has moved man from the state of nature, the primitiveness and crude way of life are simply innovations brought about by science. Each time I’m travelling by air, I request a window seat at the check-in counter. The reason being that it enables me to watch happening outside the plane even as we’re air-bound. I have never ceased to wonder how the human mind can conceive and produce such a contraption that can fly despite the heavy weight of the aircraft. When I stand up to go to the restroom on the plane, it seems like I am walking in the air. It’s not only aircraft that amazes me. Everything that science and technology have made possible does. When I pass through the body scanner a...

(Photo by Brian Sommer) This year’s HR Technology Conference (HR Tech) was impressive. The number of exhibitors alone had to have broken a record. By my (unscientific) estimate, there were over 400 HR vendors in the expo hall, with numerous firms occupying huge booths. I personally conducted approximately two dozen 30-minute interviews with software executives and also informally chatted with approximately one dozen industry analysts. While an attendee could score some swag at this show, vendors were clearly focused more on discussing their offerings and not handing out stress balls, tote bags, etc. For me, my only swag indulgence was a deck of playing cards. The event this week versus pre-pandemic versions of this show differed in some key ways. There were a number of new-ish firms ...

Benjamin K. Sovacool, professor of earth and environment at Boston University, spoke at a climate justice event at the Dana Samuel Trask Building on Friday to discuss his work on social inequities in the transition to low-carbon energy sources and recommend several policy initiatives to reduce them. The event, which was jointly hosted by The School for Environment and Sustainability and the School of Public Policy, began with Sovacool highlighting a study he worked on to understand the disparate effects of four prominent low-carbon technologies: clean cookstoves, food-sharing, electric vehicles and solar panels.  The study found that all four technologies perpetuated social inequities across racial, class and gender lines, as well as across geography and generations and betwee...