Daily Archives: February 15, 2022

OCALA, Florida For Apis Cor, a construction company based in Melbourne, Fla., building certain kinds of homes relies an awful lot on a key team member named Frank.

Frank has an arm that reaches more than 16 feet, said Anna Cheniuntai, the company's founder and chief executive, and can follow a computerized design blueprint while pushing out a steady stream of beaded construction material used to make walls.

Frank, you see, is a large, mechanical component of the technology used to build 3D-printed homes.

Proponents of the technology in recent years have pointed to 3D-printed homes as an innovative step toward addressing housing needs in the United States and elsewhere. Several projects are underway as communities cope with housing shortages and experiment with options.

The nonprofit housing organization Habitat for Humanity unveiled its first 3D-printed home in December in Williamsburg, Va., and is due to unveil another in Tempe, Ariz., in February.

"We're at the very beginning of 3D printing," said Janet V. Green, CEO of Habitat for Humanity Peninsula and Greater Williamsburg in Virginia. "I hope that this does help some of the affordable housing crisis that we have across the nation."

Other examples exist inside and outside the U.S. In northern Italy, 3D-printed dome-shaped houses were made out of raw materials, such as clay. And in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, the Dubai Municipality, a government building, stands as the largest 3D-printed structure in the world.

Here's some of what several construction business officials and observers described as key points to know about 3D-printed housing:

Homes built with 3D-printed technology use large-scale equipment for much of the construction, but also rely on traditional techniques for other basic needs of a home, such as roofing, electrical wiring, insulation and window installation.

Andrew McCoy, professor and director of the Virginia Center for Housing Research at Virginia Tech, said a general idea of what to expect in the U.S. would be a 1,600-square-foot, three-bedroom, two-bathroom, 3D-printed home that sells for about $264,000 to $330,000. As with any home construction, factors such as the region where the home is built, floor plan design, number of stories, textures and finishes can change the price of the home.

In September, researchers at the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., also known as Freddie Mac, estimated the current shortage of available homes in the United States to be close to 3.8 million.

Here are examples of 3D-printed home projects underway in different parts of the country:

In Palm Springs, the Oakland-based construction company Mighty Buildings is working on a 3D-printed community of 15 homes in the Coachella Valley.

In Austin, Texas, a development of more than 500 homes is underway by the Icon Co. The company had already broken ground in 2020 on a 51-acre development called Community First! Village that is expected to provide 3D-printed housing to approximately 480 homeless people when complete.

Fabian Meyer-Broetz, head of 3D construction for Houston-based construction company Peri, said his company expects to complete construction on a 3D-printed home for Habitat for Humanity in Tempe by mid-February. Peri officials said the company's 3D-printed projects included an apartment building in Beckum, Germany.

Peri, like several construction firms, hopes to make housing more affordable and viable to a broader range of people, Meyer-Broetz said.

Cheniuntai of Apis Cor said one of her company's overall missions is to complete construction on a $336,000, 1,700-square-foot, two-bedroom, two-bathroom house and make it move-in ready in just seven days. Apis Cor has received 25 reservations for 3D-printed homes, mainly in Florida, which are scheduled to begin construction in 2023.

"Today, the average time for a wood stick house is at least seven months," Cheniuntai said. "So with the technology that we have, we can build a house in up to two or three months."

How might 3D-printed homes perform against Mother Nature?

A study conducted by Pew Research in 2020 showed that 63% of Americans live in communities directly impacted by climate change, and that number is expected to increase. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimated that $145 billion worth of houses and infrastructure were lost or damaged in wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes and other climate-related disasters in 2021.

"By far, weather is your biggest problem variable," said Zach Mannheimer, CEO of Alquist 3D, an Iowa City-based construction company specializing in 3D-printed buildings.

Mannheimer said that because 3D-printed homes rely on concrete, they're resistant to threats such as hurricanes, tornadoes and wildfires.

Alquist 3D was the construction company behind the 3D-printed Habitat for Humanity home in Williamsburg, Va. The company had built a model home in Richmond before breaking ground on the Habitat home a few months later.

What are some concerns tied to 3D-printed homes?

Although concrete is versatile and has high durability compared with other construction materials such as wood, it has a nasty carbon footprint, emitting lots of greenhouse gases and making it the third largest source of industrial pollution, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

McCoy of Virginia Tech said some efforts exist and others are underway in the construction industry to develop options that reduce such environmental damage and create "a better footprint."

Some builders and contractors worry that some jobs traditionally done by people are being handled with the new technology, Mannheimer said.

The U.S., however, is facing a soaring demand for construction workers, with an estimated 345,000 open jobs in construction unfilled, according to a November 2021 study by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey conducted by the Associated General Contractors of America in September 2021 found that many contractors and firms are struggling to find qualified workers to fill open positions for builders and inspectors.

Some analysts said it's too soon to tell whether 3D-printed homes will hold up to traditional construction in the long run. Even some of those people in favor of using the technology said they can understand why potential homeowners might tread lightly when considering a 3D-printed home.

"For some homeowners, buying a home might be the biggest investment they'll ever do," Meyer-Broetz said.

Timothy Turcich, who lives in Orlando, has reserved a 3D-printed home with Apis Cor. He said he read the news over the holidays about the 3D-printed home that was built in Williamsburg. The next week, he was on the phone with Apis Cor to submit a deposit for a reservation.

"When I first started saying I wanted to build something, it was a fringe idea of mine, but I actually feel like it's less fringe," Turcich said. "This offers the lightest friction to building a house that I've seen."

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Technology helps offer 3D-printed homes as an option for ownership - The Salem News

SAN ANGELO, Texas New machines at voting locations for March 2022 Primary Elections in Tom Green County are coming with a new process.

Vona Hudson, Tom Green County Elections Administrator, says, We have upgraded and converted our voting equipment for the paper audit trail.

This means, while voting, voters will get an electronic code and a piece of paper. Voters must insert the paper, make their electronic choices, and then hit print. The machine will then print out which race and the name of who they voted for.

Hudson stresses, That paper is not for them to keep. They dont get to take it home with them. Theyre actually going to scan it. Thats whats gonna make it count.

She continued, So, I want everybody to kind of understand theyre gonna see a little bit new process and not to be expecting to take any piece of paper home with them.

Originally posted here:

New voting technology in Tom Green County - ConchoValleyHomepage.com

BONN, Germany--(BUSINESS WIRE)--O-RAN ALLIANCE welcomes Mobifone as its newest operator member.

O-RAN ALLIANCE Industry Briefing, March 1, 2022 at MWC Barcelona

O-RAN ALLIANCE plans to hold its next industry event on March 1, 2022 from 17:05-17:50 CET at MWC Barcelona 2022, hosted by Deutsche Telekom at Hall 3 Stand 3M31. The event will include:

Follow our website for speaker lineup and further updates.

46 demos of O-RAN technology prepared for MWC Barcelona 2022 or the O-RAN Virtual Exhibition

O-RAN ALLIANCE is excited to announce 46 new demonstrations of O-RAN solutions, with 22 planned to be presented at the MWC Barcelona 2022 exhibition. Many of those demos plus an additional 24 demos will be available online at the O-RAN Virtual Exhibition.

Intelligent RAN control demonstrations at MWC Barcelona include:

Open RAN demonstrations at MWC Barcelona include:

Additional 24 demos will be showcased at the O-RAN Virtual Exhibition by: Auray, Baicells, Capgemini, Comba Telecom, Dell Technologies, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, Groundhog, iConNext, Intel, IP Infusion, IPLOOK, IS-Wireless, ITRI, Keysight, LIONS Technology, Mavenir, Nokia, NTT DOCOMO, Orange, Pegatron, Radisys, Telefonica, TIM, University of Utah, VIAVI Solutions, Vodafone, Wind River and WNC.

For more details on these demos, please read our web announcement.

About O-RAN ALLIANCE

The O-RAN ALLIANCE is a world-wide community of more than 300 mobile operators, vendors, and research & academic institutions operating in the Radio Access Network (RAN) industry. As the RAN is an essential part of any mobile network, the O-RAN ALLIANCEs mission is to re-shape the industry towards more intelligent, open, virtualized and fully interoperable mobile networks. The new O-RAN standards will enable a more competitive and vibrant RAN supplier ecosystem with faster innovation to improve user experience. O-RAN based mobile networks will at the same time improve the efficiency of RAN deployments as well as operations by the mobile operators. To achieve this, the O-RAN ALLIANCE publishes new RAN specifications, releases open software for the RAN, and supports its members in integration and testing of their implementations.

For more information please visit http://www.o-ran.org.

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O-RAN ALLIANCE Announces New Demonstrations of O-RAN Technology and Details of its Industry Briefing at MWC Barcelona - Business Wire

Grand Farm leaders say they expect this move to attract thousands to North Dakota

FARGO, N.D. (KVRR) The North Dakota Department of Commerce picks Fargos Grand Farm Education and Research Initiative for a 10 million dollar matching grant to advance agriculture technology.

Its my pleasure today to announce that based on the legislative actions of the 67th legislature signed into law that gave the grant authority to the North Dakota Department of Commerce. Im here to announce on behalf of them that they have awarded a $10 million matching grant to grand farm to advance autonomous ag. I just think weve got to take a moment with gratitude all of us and go man how unusual it is that were able to do this here, this isnt happening everywhere, and this creates just an incredible opportunity, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum said.

What were going to do is, were going to build a bigger vision, were going to identify the permanent location of Grand Farm and build a big campus and innovation center around it. Bring people from all over the world into this region and talk about ag tech, Director of Grand Farm Brian Carroll said.

Grand Farm leaders say they expect this move to attract thousands to North Dakota and further solidifies the state as a national leader and potentially one of the worlds leaders in agriculture.

Governor Burgum says with about 90 percent of North Dakota being on a farm or ranch this is about the entire state.

Our farmers run a lot of dollars through their operations nowadays, its big business but we all know that running businesses at the end of the day the only thing that counts is the bottom line. Whats left at the end of the day, relevant to how many dollars you go through and technology is the way we can make farming more profitable, Republican State Senator Ron Sorvaag of Fargo said.

The challenge really for family farms is help nowadays because everything you do on a family farm takes a high level of skills and technology with it. If you dont have the ability to hire somebody youre going to need different ways to solve that issue for your farm. It could be seed development, it could be measuring moisture, it could be determining how much level of fertilizer you may need, all that stuff is part of this, Watne said.

Grand Farm plans to be aggressive with picking out a destination for the new campus and raising more money to build it.

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$10 million initiative to help advance farming technology at Grand Farm - KVRR

Business drivers are set to transform the future of technology in 2022

Indian enterprises across industries have accelerated the move to digital and hybrid work models in response to the present market disruptions caused by the pandemic. This challenging environment has made digital transformation initiatives essential for businesses to sustain and deliver the evolving customer demands. As perGartners report, IT spending in India is expected to reach $100 billion in 2022. The considerable increase in the adoption of modern technologies is enabling Indian enterprises to improve business operations and achieve greater agility and flexibility. Here is a rundown by Murali Manohar, Senior Director and GM for India Subcontinent, Infor, discussing where software solutions are headed in 2022.

As ERP systems evolve to modern Enterprise Application Platforms (EAPs), look for expanded platform definitions to provide not only for composability in cloud environments but also across hybrid cloud/on-premise environments. Composability will be broken down further to the business process level, and not just at the application level. This means that enterprises will need a standard operating model and platform for consistent integration, workflow, data analysis, and extensibility. Users will want to build their own processes and experiences to match their exact needs, not simply take whats out of the box.

No two businesses are the same. Users will demand easy and simple ways to define their business interactions in a flexible system. Therefore, expect the microservices discussion to accelerate, as companies strive to build and assemble their software systems as if designing a floor plan for a new home. Businesses will start deploying modern Enterprise Application Platforms (EAPs), through which business processes not only will be assembled to match needs, but also will be self-sustaining and corrective, based on AI and intelligence that is baked into the framework.

Delivering information just in time, instead of in traditional dashboard forms, which look in the rear-view mirror, will be critical in 2022. Historical data and representations arent enough for successful decision-making. Predictive intelligence needs to be blended into the process. Ultimately, these insights are needed at the point of decision and action, instead of in a separate operational location. Data fabric, business intelligence, AI/machine learning, and user experience all must come together in a single solution to be meaningful.

Core and edge solutions already are connected, for the most part, and edge solutions dont just refer to devices anymore. This view acknowledges that some business operations still want to maintain local control on premises. Being able to navigate a true hybrid cloud/on-premise business, while not impacting productivity, will be key. Customers will need cloud innovations in the form of machine learning, for example. At the same time, they need the ability to apply such technologies to their on-premise systems not just too stereotypical edge devices.

As the business world continues to transition to remote-work environments, the definition of user experience continues to change. While voice access/capabilities have been heavily hyped for some time in the enterprise arena, security controls will continue to tighten, and employees will need new ways of executing work away from traditional web screens. In 2022, we expect that users will demand nearly full operational functionality through voice-enabled devices with digital assistants that augment and automate tasks.

Murali Manohar, Senior Director and GM for India Subcontinent, Infor

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Analytics Insight is an influential platform dedicated to insights, trends, and opinions from the world of data-driven technologies. It monitors developments, recognition, and achievements made by Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and Analytics companies across the globe.

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Future of Technology: Infor Predicts the Top 5 Business Drivers for 2022 - Analytics Insight

Annalise Gunn was the second person to believe the girl.

For months, the teenager sitting across from the seasoned therapist had been repeatedly sexually abused by her mothers boyfriend. When she finally got up the nerve to tell her mom, she was laughed at, told she needed to stop making up stories for attention.

How does something like that not break a human being?

It was a family friend who finally took the girl seriously. Together, they reported the man to the authorities, and the teenager moved in with the friend. Eventually, her path would lead her to the Dee Norton Child Advocacy Center, where she would find herself sitting across from Gunn, the woman entrusted with the near impossible task of helping to put this girl back together.

I just remember she wasnt responding much at the beginning, Gunn recalled. Maybe an occasional yes or no, but that was about it.

And why should she? After all, what had adults ever done for her but bring pain and humiliation?

Ask any therapist who regularly works with kids who have experienced trauma, and they will tell you the same thing: Traditional methods rarely work.

Something Ive discovered over the years is, oftentimes, getting too cerebral with a child can hinder any of sort of progress you might be able to make, Gunn said. Approaching things differently, she explained, creating a more relaxed environment, thats usually the way to go.

If you think about how kids learn in school, they dont just sit there and listen to the teacher talk all day, she said. They do activities, worksheets, go to learning centers. So when youre working with traumatized youth, it makes sense that a similar approach might be the best way to go.

Thanks to programs like SPARK (Supporting Providers and Reaching Kids) an initiative that utilizes technology in the form of interactive touch-screen games, drawing tools, trivia, relaxation activities therapists like Gunn now have more of those types of resources at their disposal.

Created by the Medical University of South Carolinas College of Nursing, SPARK falls under the umbrella of the colleges Technology Applications Center for Healthful Lifestyles, or TACHL. The mission of the now-decade-old program is simple but powerful: leverage technology to improve population health.

Back in 2011, the state immediately saw its value and adopted it as one of the S.C. SmartState Centers for Economic Excellence. Today, TACHL is a behemoth a giant umbrella that services a range of needs, from families displaced due to a natural disaster to firefighters dealing with depression.

Program director Kenneth Ruggiero, Ph.D., said the program seeks to lend a hand to anyone willing to accept it: the couple who lost their house in a hurricane and are living out of their car. The man who fell out of his deer stand 30 feet above the ground and broke his back. The teenager who was abused by her mothers boyfriend. These are the faces of TACHL. The people Ruggiero and his team want to keep helping.

According to the National Center for PTSD, about 15 million adults in the US are battling post-traumatic stress disorder during a given year.

Many of those adults do not get the help they need due to access and quality of care barriers. With better reach through technology, we want to cut that number in half, Ruggiero said.

Bottom line, our goal is to improve access and care through the use of technology, he explained. Whether its through an app on your smart phone or something as simple as text-based instruction, everything we do is designed to reach a high volume of individuals to give them tools to improve their health and connect them to best practice care. It starts right here in South Carolina, but our goal is to go beyond that.

TACHL isnt just cool apps and fancy websites. In addition to technological innovation, the program also mentors and lends its expertise to researchers. Say someone has a great idea but might not be the most tech savvy or know the first thing about how to write a grant to get funding for their idea: TACHL is there to help.

Program liaison Jessica Chandler, Ph.D., remembers the transplant surgeon who wanted to do post-transplant research, focusing on outcomes, but didnt know the best way to go about capturing the data. Chandler and her team came up with a Bluetooth-enabled remote monitor for transplant patients who consented, which he could use to track how they were doing in real time.

Not only that, we walked him through the entire grant application process something he had no experience with, Chandler said.

Currently, shes working on a project that uses technology to monitor and improve blood pressure in patients with hypertension and diabetes. Yes, there will be an app, but the real heavy lifting comes from working closely with the clinician to figure out specifically what data he or she needs and in what format.

Tonya Hazelton, the program manager for TACHL, works directly with end users sometimes its the clinicians, but more often than not, its the regular, everyday people who are using the tools created by TACHL.

Jessica. Ken. Me. We all come at a problem from different perspectives, Hazelton said. But what we all have in common is, at the end of the day, were all focused on reaching and ultimately helping the people who might not normally get access to these kinds of services.

Here is just a sampling of the areas in which TACHL is rooted:

Disaster mental health: Apps, like Bounce Back Now (available both in English and Spanish), address post-disaster PTSD, depression and sleep difficulties as well as connect people with the resources they might need during very difficult times.

First responder well-being: The Center for Firefighter Behavioral Health offers a multitude of tools, apps and online resources that provide assistance to first responders addressing suicide prevention, mental health stigma and alcohol misuse, among other areas of need.

Mental health care: SPARK, as well as S.C. Safe Seniors a training program to teach health care providers how to identify elder abuse are just two of the tools available to both providers and patients.

Emotional recovery after trauma: The MUSC Trauma Resilience and Recovery Program, a model of care that is gaining national attention, addresses the mental health needs of traumatic injury patients at the bedside, but also with text messaging, chatbot and telehealth-based follow-up long after they have left the hospital.

Ruggiero believes that as more providers, institutions and states see what MUSC is doing with TACHL, theyre going to want to emulate it. But even more important to him and his team is how the program affects individuals the people who utilize the tools TACHL has created to make their lives better.

A lot of patients who need help dont get it because of cost, stigma, transportation, you name it, he said. TACHL has made it easier for people to access the mental health care they need, often in their own homes.

For Gunn, the child therapist, sometimes its approaching things differently that yields the most satisfying results. Thanks to TACHL and SPARK, the teenager she was working with ended up making tremendous progress.

It took some time, but eventually she opened up to me. She started excelling in school again. She regained hope for her future, Gunn said. It was just so amazing. She even started to talk about what she wanted to be when she grew up a doctor.

As it turns out, with the right tools and the right people, sometimes you can begin to put a human being back together again.

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Program combines technology with humanity to help ease pain and suffering - Medical University of South Carolina

And therein lies another benefit of tech. When properly deployed, restaurants can tailor the guest experience.

I think that, again, it comes down to personalization and really caring about what the guest needs and wants and not just serving them up messages and hoping they resonate, but really doing the due diligence to know that something is going to resonate, Zoiss says.

But what constitutes guest care can be a fraught issue. At Barcelona, technology does not figure into the relationship-building equation. The 18-unit concept has incorporated some tech within its operationwere not complete luddites, Halberg saysbut it does so in a very deliberate, measured way. The brand is currently exploring tech that can help with systems like F&B inventory. It also wants to update the POS system.

There are really smart people creating some wonderful restaurant apps now. Its sort of finally caught up to the restaurant industry. Overall, the challenge that weve always had and continue to have is what we want out of our technology; it tends to be something that we want to be able to customize, Halberg says.

Even before the pandemic, Barcelona used Wisely (now powered by Olo) for online reservations because it allowed for customization. Unlike other platforms that direct users to alternative restaurants if a particular time slot is unavailable, Wisely prompts guests to call the restaurant and provides its phone number. Because on-the-ground employees have a better read on foot traffic, they may be able to take the reservation after all.

At the very least, its an opportunity to strengthen the relationship with guestsand thats where Halberg sees potential. Hes in favor of technology that streamlines operations but has no interest in cutting opportunities for interaction, even if such solutions make things easier.

Its a point Halberg regularly debates with Tim McLaughlin, CEO of GoTab. Barcelona uses the platform for takeout orders but has opted out of its pay-at-the-table functionality.

He jokes about the fact that servers are great when you can find them. From his perspective, this pay-from-the-phone and just get-up-and-go sort of a thing would be a real win, Halberg says. He concedes that for venues like food halls or even diners, its a great ideabut not for restaurants like Barcelona. After all, the restaurant invests a great deal of time in training staff to keep their antennae up so they can quickly respond to guests needs.

Its not because we dont want the convenience, but because we lose that last touch. If you came over to my house for dinner, and you left without us getting a chance to say good-bye to each other, something would be wrong with our relationship, Halberg says. Theres something that we really felt we would lose if we had to embrace that sort of payment system.

But again, thats not the case for all concepts. Zoiss also likens hosting guests at one of Bottleneck Managements restaurants to inviting them into a home. For the brand, the best way to show hospitality is to make the experience as smooth as possible for the customer.

No matter what tech we implement, we still want to consider what the guest needs and welcome them in warmly, whether theyre using technology in a restaurant or not, Zoiss says. Were not fast casual; we are full service, and we intend to always be full service.

In recent years, the fast-casual segment has elevated both its offerings and its hospitality quotient, but even so the latter remains a hallmark of the full-service category. How restaurants interpret the application and efficacy of tech may vary widely, but the guiding principle remains the same: Any addition to a restaurants operation should enhance the guest experience.

Thanxs Goldstein says one potential pitfall for operators is only half-heartedly committing to tech solutions.

Brands that go only part of the way down the technology solution can annoy consumers. The reality is if Im getting my phone out and scanning a QR code, why cant I order a glass of wine right there? Why am I waiting for the server to come over? he says. One of the things were seeing great brands do in full service is really differentiate between a heavily tech-enabled experience and a completely non-tech experience.

For example, when guests walk into a white tablecloth establishment, they expect a hardcopy menu and interaction with waitstaff, Goldstein says. However, if a guest saddles up to a casual bar that features a QR code menu, theyll want the option to order and pay digitally.

Case in point: In the early days of COVID, Barcelona launched QR code menus, mostly as a sanitation measure. Once more was understood about how the coronavirus is transmitted (not through surfaces, generally), Halberg was eager to bring back the restaurants leather-bound menus.

That touch, he adds, helped guests feel like they were no longer stuck in a pandemic. The restaurant might not be a fine-dining concept, but the CEO wanted it to embody the same level of hospitality. Supply chain issues with paper have further delayed the rollback of QR code menus, but Halberg thinks its still on the horizon.

Because, at the end of the day, Barcelona wants to differentiate itself through the dine-in experience.

The evaluation about whether or not we keep this technology going into 2022 and 2023 really depends on what youre selling. If youre selling a fried chicken sandwich, then absolutely, your goal should be to get people a fried chicken sandwich as quickly as possible, as hot as possible, Halberg says. If what youre selling is an immersive experience then anything that removes you from that experience hurts the product. A guest at Barcelona, scrolling through social media on their phones instead of chatting with the bartender, meeting new people, listening to the musicall those are the things that degrade the product. Our product is an experience.

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The Role of Technology in the Future of Full-Service Dining - FSR magazine