Robot Friends” and VR for Loneliness

 “Robot Friends” and VR for Loneliness During the Pandemic

The isolation that individuals have endured due to the COVID-19 pandemic includes feelings of loneliness and depression. And in order to help those experiencing these types of feelings, technologists, researchers, and healthcare workers are tapping into the benefits of using “robot friends” and VR for loneliness.

Depression increased after the outbreak of the virus and sharp mental health shifts occurred as COVID-19 cases began to rise around the globe. A study by GOQii, a smart-tech-enabled preventive healthcare platform, surveyed over 10,000 Indians, to understand how they have been coping with the new normal. It revealed that stress levels have been on a rapid rise in India, with 43% of Indians suffering from depression – 26% of respondents were suffering from mild depression, 11% were feeling moderately depressed, whereas 6% of the respondents were facing severe symptoms of depression.

IEEE member Jonathan Gratch says that physical touch and the way people give social cues in-person versus through a video call is biologically beneficial for our brains. Without those forms of social interaction happening regularly, our loneliness meter increases.

“Video conferencing can be cognitively demanding, as it might supercharge some of the social stressors found in real-world interactions,” says Gratch. “The fact that you see yourself makes you more aware of your appearance and reactions and increases your ‘impression management’. This is a known stressor.”

Another difficulty with video conferencing is our perception of screen boundaries. “For analog face-to-face, physically co-located interactions, our senses are not bounded by a screen border or controlled and mediated by a single camera angle or microphone placement,” says IEEE member Todd Richmond. “When we are in person, we are immersed in a space and that sense of immersion is something humans have learned and evolved to expect.”

Since we weren’t able to obtain the social interactions our bodies and brains were expecting or desiring during the COVID-19 crisis because of public safety concerns, robotics, and virtual reality (VR) stepped in to fill the loneliness gaps.

ROBOT FRIENDS USE AI TO KEEP US SOCIALLY UPDATED

Social robots, or robotic friends, have provided an alternative for social interaction when human connection is limited.

Robots are being used in a variety of ways, as reported by IEEE Spectrum –– from Fribo, a robot that informs your friends and family members what you’re doing in your house, so they know you’re actively moving, to these robots that are meant to be broken and yelled at in order to get out your negative emotions –– are ultimately helping you feel less alone.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are often used in these health-managing robots to improve their interactions with you.

AI VOICE ASSISTANTS FOR OLDER ADULTS

A recent article mentioned a study that used AI voice assistants that were “programmed to report sensor-based health information using visual and voice interfaces” for older adults living at home.

“Aging in your home is no longer a luxury for those most at-risk of transmitted viruses,” says IEEE Senior Member Marjorie Skubic, a professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Missouri where the study was conducted. “Artificial intelligence is key to addressing this challenge by giving older adults better tools for managing their own health,” the article stated.

“To develop more innovative solutions that help keep people safe and make the world a better place, the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society recommends that all organizations actively combating COVID-19 leverage AI, one of the most powerful tools at our disposal,” states the article.

VR FOR LONELINESS HELPS OUR BRAINS FEEL CONNECTED

Virtual Reality is another technology being used to help people currently going through isolation.

“Compared to video conferencing, VR tech is known to increase both physical and social presence,” says Gratch. “You feel like you are really at a place or really with a person. In terms of social interaction, it can help deal with some of the breakdowns in social cues.”

“VR brings a higher degree of immersion than a typical screen-based interaction,” adds Richmond. “Sharing a virtual space with someone in an immersive VR experience could very well lead to a better sense of “being there”. The shared space is key, and one problem with current video solutions.”

If VR is more beneficial than video conferencing, why aren’t we taking all of our work meetings and conducting all of our family gatherings in this way while we stay home? Richmond explains that this limitation is mostly because the devices are not as accessible as a computer or tablet.

“Most everyone has a screen (be it phone or computer), but very few have AR/VR,” says Richmond. “Once AR/VR gets more ubiquitous, more people will be able to experiment with the experiences, which will help advance the technology development and create new sets of social norms that will be necessary.”

Both Richmond and Gratch feel optimistic about the advancements happening in the virtual reality space. The pandemic has forced us all to adapt and make this type of technology a higher priority than ever before.

OTHER TECHNOLOGIES BEING USED FOR LONELINESS

Wearables, sensors and IoT are other methods being explored during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Overall, our desire for contact has moved technology forward to offer more effective solutions than ever before. While nothing can beat a hug from another person, robots and VR are making that absence feel a little less large.

“The pandemic has shown us that humans value contact, and that contact needs to move beyond the traditional screen boundary,” says Richmond.

What is 5G and What Does it Mean for

 What is 5G and What Does it Mean for Cybersecurity?

The buzz around 5G is reaching a fevered pitch – barely a day goes by where it isn’t in the news.  We have heard about the data capacity and speed increases, lower latency, and lower power consumption.

The Ericsson Mobility Report 2020 shows how the impact of Covid19 has led to network’s crucial role in society. The report expects the global number of 5G subscriptions to top 2.8 billion by the end of 2025. In India, 5G is expected to represent around 18 percent of mobile subscriptions at the end of 2025.

It also states that in India, the projected value of the 5G-enabled digitalization revenues will be approximately USD 17 billion by 2030. With 5G being a platform for innovation it will enable the development of new services for consumers, enterprises, and industry, including large-scale IoT use cases.

BUT WHAT EXACTLY IS 5G?

When we spoke with Dorothy Stanley, IEEE Member and Chair of the IEEE 802.11 Working Group, she pointed out that confusion stems from the term ‘5G’ being used to refer to several ideas interchangeably: “Is 5G a vision? A set of services and data rates that are a goal to be accomplished, requiring multiple technologies? Or something that’s tied only to cellular carriers and what they can deliver?”

Some experts are most focused on the mixed nature of the technology. Babak Beheshti, IEEE Member and Interim Dean, College of Engineering and Computing Sciences, New York Institute of Technology, for example: “The very design philosophy of 5G is based on network heterogeneity. This means that the network can be a combination of technologies such as Wi-Fi® and LTE.”

Therefore, what 5G means depends on the context of the discussion, but it’s likely to include a combination of technologies.

This heterogeneity makes security more complex. However, there are already some exciting developments in the pipeline for 5G and IoT device security.

“According to T-Mobile US, 4G information being carried across mobile networks was not always encrypted. In 5G, end-to-end encryption is intended to provide much stronger safeguards for data privacy,” Beheshti says.

That will be coupled with a globally unique subscriber permanent identifier (SUPI) for each user. Beheshti: “The SUPI is never broadcast over the air during connection establishment for a mobile device, which can help prevent the hijacking of a mobile’s identity. 3G and 4G networks are inferior in this respect.”

For Stanley, top of mind is “The latest security solution, Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Easy Connect™. You scan the QR code, and that bootstraps a protocol exchange that gets you on the network securely, so your traffic over the wireless link will not be snipped.”

Since IoT devices don’t often have robust user interfaces, using a QR code lets manufacturers create security protocols that can be operated without the use of a keyboard, Stanley says. “The QR code is just a way to encode data. Basically, you’re encoding a public key that then can be used to establish and bootstrap trust. Only the peer device that has the private key can decode that.”

So upcoming security technologies are promising.

WHAT CAN CONSUMERS DO TO MAKE SURE THEIR CURRENT IoT SETUPS ARE SECURE?

For Kayne McGladrey, IEEE Member and Director of Security and Information Technology at Pensar Development, “Consumers should use the ‘guest’ network of their home Wi-Fi routers as a dedicated network for IoT devices, so if one of those devices were compromised, the threat actor can’t easily pivot to more valuable data.”

That’s the case for newer devices, he says. “For older, cheap, IP-based security cameras and digital video recorders (DVRs), the easiest way to secure them is to recycle them responsibly as there often are no security updates available.”

The ability to update devices over their lifetime is essential to security, and should factor into buying decisions, he says.

Han Guangjie, IEEE Senior Member and professor at Hohai University, seconds this point: “Check and update the IoT device firmware. If IoT devices have exploitable vulnerabilities, manufacturers often identify and fix problems before the hacker can access the device’s environment.”