Amazon last week held its Alexa Live 2021 developer conference, which would have been a lot more fun if during the event the Amazon Echo show in my office hadn't gone insane. Let's talk about the promise and some of the problems with the coming wave of ambient computing devices. Then we'll close with my product of the week, Amazon's 2nd Generation Echo Frames.

Anyone with a stake in keeping ahead of cybersecurity assaults and enterprise network intrusions through API vulnerabilities can now tap into expert advisories and security reports. API security company Salt Security last week launched Salt Labs, a now-public forum for publishing research on API vulnerabilities.

With resale appealing to a growing share of consumers, chief among them Gen Z, more brands are jumping on the bandwagon. Levi's, Lululemon, and Nike all launched in-house resale programs over the last year. However, the rise of resale comes with many challenges for e-commerce brands and marketplaces. Let's look at the most pressing obstacles for resellers and solutions for how to overcome them.

Those of us who grew up with Star Trek might remember a device from the series called a replicator. This was a 3D printer of sorts that could create almost anything, ranging from food to weapons, at the touch of a button. Let's talk about our progression to the home-based replicator that could take us to that Star Trek future. Then we'll close with the product of the week from Strauss & Wagner.

This is the era of drones, and these unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, increasingly are becoming an integral part of everyday life. As drones evolve, industries and governments alike are finding new ways to make use of the emerging tech. TechNewsWorld spoke with several experts to find out how drones are being put into service, and what's on the horizon for their future use.

The advantage of using a VR rig without a tether is huge because in a complex movement-oriented game you tend to get tangled in the tether. Let's talk about the Oculus Quest 2 this week and the announcement that this class of products is about to embrace 5G for its next generation. We'll close with the product of the week, a new webcam from Dell that may be perfect for those of us still working from home.

The U.S. technology industry is guardedly supporting a massive legislative package designed to address a range of issues affecting the sector, including a federal commitment to add billions of dollars to government technology research and development programs. Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., characterized the legislation as "a landmark bill to out-compete China in key emerging technology areas critical to our national security."

There may be two Salesforce seasons in a year -- the one we're finishing and one that happens just before Dreamforce. Roughly speaking, these seasons happen when the company disgorges a raft of new technologies both to update existing products and to bring forth new ones. This season covers a lot of ground; everything from sustainability to workforce management and vertical industry CRM solutions.

Organizations are beginning to develop, design, and manage their own voice assistant systems that are independent of today's general-purpose voice platforms. The desire to manage the entirety of the user experience is driving this transition. The Open Voice Network is dedicated to supporting this transformation with industry guidance on the voice-specific protection of user privacy and data security.

Lately there has been a noticeable uptick in buzz around chemical recycling technology as a potential solution to the plastics crisis. Meanwhile, critics point to drawbacks which include environmental health risks, inefficiency in terms of the amount of waste plastic that becomes new plastic, and high costs.

With Covid, increased numbers of people have been working remotely, and many will continue to do so post-pandemic. This has fundamentally altered how work is done; not only by company staff, but by HR professionals. This societal shift, combined with the continued emergence of new digital technologies, means that the field of human resources is in the midst of radical evolution.

Artificial intelligence may well be the Holy Grail solution for more effective shopping optimization for merchants. The list is almost endless when you tally the potential uses. It can be anywhere, from classification issues like recommendations to search and merchandising personalization. It also aids retailers in things like optimization and visual modeling.

Apple on Monday revealed dozens of new features in the latest versions of its mobile and desktop operating systems at the kickoff of its annual Worldwide Developers Conference. "The emphasis of the whole presentation seemed to be making Apple products more useful for consumers," observed Gartner Senior Principal Analyst Tuong Nguyen.

Researchers at the University College London are giving new meaning to the expression "all thumbs." They've taken an award-winning graduate project from the Royal College of Art in London and are using it to test the brain's reaction to coping with additional body parts. The idea behind the project was to reframe traditional views of prosthetics through the use of a robotic thumb that can be attached to a hand.

The fifth annual Customer Expectations Report from Gladly reveals what today's consumers want from brands, especially when shopping online. The report describes how consumers' expectations of retailers have changed in the last year amid a global pandemic and an online shopping boom. Also suggested is that online shoppers tend to prefer human agents over digital assistants.

An ecosystem is being created where cars and robots are autonomous and connected so they will be able to connect to other devices, sensors, and data repositories available to them. Let's explore some safety risks associated with this future connectivity on our roadways. We'll then close with the product of the week: a new tablet that is Amazon's first real effort to build a Surface-like laptop.

Customer churn is costing mid-market companies an average of $5.5 million per year. Retailers need to avoid the expensive mistakes that result in such disastrous churn. This presents a clamorous alarm to marketers. One solution to this costly predicament is to get sales teams to work effectively, and consistently, in CRM platforms.

GTC21, this year's Nvidia GPU Technology Conference, was terrific as always. The alleged focus was on AI and autonomous cars. But, as I watched presentation after presentation from folks out of the entertainment industry, I realized that if you started putting some of these various elements together, they effectively predicted the end of movies as stand-alone, costly entertainment.

Microsoft has announced it is purchasing Nuance Communications, a natural language to computer processing company, in a deal valued at $19.7 billion. "Nuance's popular healthcare-focused products and services will provide Microsoft an instant revenue stream and relationships with existing Nuance customers," noted Charles King, principal analyst with Pund-IT.

Even the most customer-centric businesses can overestimate their performance or miss the broad trends in customer behavior. That is why NICE inContact conducts annual surveys that track the customer experience from the perspective of businesses and consumers. CRM Buyer discussed the recent findings and related issues in more detail with the company's CEO Paul Jarman.

When technology is advancing very rapidly, the leading providers of an evolving class of products are on very different pages. I'm talking about Cisco and Microsoft -- and while neither's approach is wrong, neither is complete -- and together they can build what's needed for our hybrid workplace future. Let's talk about the advantages of a simulated workplace done right, and we'll close with the product of the week, a new graphics card from AMD.

With most workers continuing to work remotely, CRM has become an important tool for managing relationship risk. Financial firms have to deal with market and operational risk, consumer retailers have to focus on supply chain risk, and all companies have to keep an eye on economic risk. Relationship risk is no different, and the role of the CRM is right at the center.

A report from the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation called on the U.S. government to take an active role in promoting industrial competitiveness, and to formulate an advanced industry and technology strategy, which should include a set of policies and programs explicitly designed to support specific industries and technologies.

Personalization and automation, two of the hottest buzzwords in the lexicon of CRM practitioners, are all the rage for marketers these days. But only 14 percent of organizations are using artificial intelligence or machine language to automate their marketing campaigns. A survey by Rackspace Technology reveals that the majority of organizations worldwide lack the internal resources to support these high-powered CRM initiatives.

Creating a smooth functioning interface for smart glasses that allows its wearers to operate in an augmented reality world has proven to be a challenging task, but Facebook believes it may have a solution on the human wrist. It's a comfortable location for all-day wear, Facebook noted. It's located right next to the primary instruments used to interact with the world -- the hands.

The arts have seen a shift in the last year away from in-person gatherings, but that doesn't mean that performances, showings, and other creative activities have stopped. Rather, they've been transformed, becoming increasingly virtual and digital. We spoke with experts in the arts, design, and marketing to see how these fields have changed and might continue to evolve.

Half of consumers who originally planned to return to their pre-pandemic in-store shopping routines once coronavirus is under control now plan to stick with online shopping. That shift in preferences means that e-commerce merchants must keep up with trending ways to market, sell, and prevent fraud. Let's look at a few of the most important developments and see where they're going.

An increasing number of businesses and even public companies are showing interest in Bitcoin. However, not all chief financial officers of these institutions are convinced to invest in the digital currency as a corporate asset any time soon. According to a recent survey of finance executives by Gartner, 84 percent say they have no plans to purchase Bitcoin as a corporate reserve any time soon.

The United States government is trying to get smarter about getting smart. Throughout the federal government, and especially in defense and national security, artificial intelligence is getting an increased amount of attention, including the adoption of hefty AI budgets. That should lead to increasing contract opportunities for information technology vendors with high competence in AI.

Skeptics of giving computers control over high-risk activities like driving cars were given some ammunition last week when researchers at OpenAI discovered their two-month-old machine vision system could be tricked with a pen and paper into misidentifying objects. For example, their new system could be fooled into identifying an apple as an iPod by attaching a note to the apple with the word iPod on it.