Adrian Willings, Contributing Editor - Roborock S6 Robot Vacuum Cleaner

[Evanvincent]

I've been reviewing robot vacuum cleaners for a while now and once you get one in your home it's hard to imagine anything else. They might not be a replacement for a "proper" clean with a full-sized vacuum cleaner, but they're a Godsend for keeping the house looking presentable with kids, cats and dogs charging about and leaving a trail of mess wherever they go.

Roborock's various robot vacuum cleaners have always been a welcome addition to the home, the flagship S6 robot vacuum does such a superb job of cleaning, mopping and getting about the house with a minimum amount fuss or intervention. These robot vacuums are also jam-packed with features and performance capabilities that outperform much more expensive bots and are proof that quality doesn't have to cost the earth, which is always a winner in my book.

[Evanvincent]

Chris Hall, editor - Android

Android was almost a dirty word in its early years, considered by many as something experimental and lacking compared to the likes of BlackBerry OS or Windows Mobile. But it was the excitement of an open-source offering and vibrant developer community that brought Android into the big time.


Android isn't just about phones, it's a platform for so many different types of device. While it still gets slammed because Samsung phones don't get updated fast enough, it's a platform that's enabling technology of all types, bringing some commonality to this diversity - and that's hugely significant. Android has powered an explosion in smart devices over the past 10 years making it perhaps the most significant technology enabler we saw in the decade.

[Evanvincent]

Android 2020 primer: 12 bits of telling analysis to mull

When it comes to mobile technology, trends mean so much more than any single event.

That's a notion we see reinforced time and time again here in the land o' Android — and that's why so much of our focus in this little corner of the internub is on the bigger-picture view of what's going on with Google. By looking at those broader trends, we can get a sense of how the company's strategies are shifting and what those changes suggest about the future of Android and other mobile tech efforts.

We had no shortage of such matters to consider in 2019 — and some of the trends we've observed over these past 12 months will almost certainly inform the patterns we'll see over the course of the coming year.

[Evanvincent]

Augmented reality could solve the UK’s skills crisis

The UK’s skills gap could be solved by using augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence (AI) to protect the knowledge and expertise of retiring workers. This is according to the boss of one of the world’s leading providers of industrial innovation technology.

PTC’s president and CEO Jim Heppelmann believes the next generation of workers and existing employees could be trained using this innovative technology. Mr Heppelmann pointed to an increased uptake in the number of companies investing in AR as a way of protecting traditional skills and securing intellectual property.

In its simplest sense, the company’s Vuforia Expert Capture lets experts record a task as they carry it out using a wearable device, such as Microsoft’s HoloLens. The content is then turned into a step-by-step video guide with instructions for other workers to follow through the wearable tech – locking valuable skills in place forever. “The terms AI and AR automatically conjure up images of robots taking human jobs – well the ‘connected worker’ paints a completely different picture,” explained Mr Heppelmann, who has spoken across the globe about the importance of embracing digital technology in manufacturing.

[tracym]

Actually, my point is that most intelligent household appliances are not as smart as companies claim.