The pandemic a year later - how it changed the world of technology and science, as well as our lives. The world has changed

The coronavirus has changed our way of life in many ways. Physical distancing, quarantine with an urgent need for social interaction - all this has led to an increase in the use of new communication technologies, collaboration and virtual presence. There have been changes in technology and science that we have quickly noticed, and changes that we will not see in the future.

One of the most notable “technological symptoms” of the pandemic has been robotic invasion of a previously unknown scale. They have spread through the streets of many cities, supplying purchases to people in quarantine or simply self-isolating (1), as well as in medical institutions, where they have proved to be very useful, maybe not as doctors, but certainly as a measure of overworked medical workers, and sometimes even as company for the sick (2).

2. Robot in an Italian hospital

However, the most important was the spread of digital technologies. Gartner, a technology research and consulting firm, estimates it will take five years on all fronts. All generations have rapidly become more digital, although this is most noticeable among the youngest.

As the older ones adopted Teamsy, Google Meet, and Zoom, other obscure ones became popular among the younger group. social communication tools, especially related to world of games. According to the Admix platform, which allows players to monetize their content and game records, the blocking helped increase the popularity of the website by 20%. They offered new content, or rather, old forms entered their digital thresholds. For example, he was very popular. Travis Scott Virtual Concert (3) in the world of the online game Fortnite, and Lady Gaga appeared in Roblox, attracting millions of listeners and viewers.

3. Travis Scott's Fortnite Concert

The pandemic has proven to be a great springboard for gaming social media platforms. The old social networks have not gained so much during this time. “Only 9% of the youngest people list Facebook as their favorite social network,” the report says. Samuel Huber, CEO Admix. “Instead, they spend more time interacting with 3D content, whether it be gaming, entertainment or socializing. It is these platforms and Fortnite games that are becoming the most important media of the youngest generation of Internet users. The time of the pandemic was favorable for their dynamic development.”

The growth in the use of digital content has been felt around the world. Virtual reality also noted the growth of “consumption”, which was also predicted by MT, who wrote about the growth in popularity of this type of technology and media back in the summer of 2020. However, the development of virtual reality is hampered by the still limited distribution of hardware, i.e. One way to deal with this problem has been demonstrated during the pandemic. Education technology provider Veative Labswhich offers hundreds of lessons from n. He shared his content through Web XR. With the new platform, anyone with a browser can use the content. While not the full immersion you can get with a headset, it's a great way to bring content to those who need it and also allow students to continue learning at home.

Global internet pressure

It would be necessary to start with the fact that, first of all, self-isolation has led to a colossal load on Internet traffic. Major operators such as BT Group and Vodafone have estimated broadband usage growth of 50-60% respectively. Overloads have caused VOD platforms such as Netflix, Disney+, Google, Amazon, and YouTube to lower the quality of their videos under certain circumstances to prevent overloads. Sony has begun slowing down downloads of PlayStation games in Europe and the US.

On the other hand, for example, mobile phone operators in mainland China saw a significant drop in subscribers, in part because migrant workers were unable to return to their office jobs.

Researchers at the Melbourne Monash Business School, economists and co-founders of KASPR DataHaus, a data analytics company based in Melbourne, conducted a large-scale data study analyzing the impact of human behavior on transmission delays. Klaus Ackermann, Simon Angus and Paul Raschki have developed a methodology that collects and processes billions of data on internet activity and quality measurements every day from anywhere in the world. The team created Map of global internet pressure (4) display of global information as well as for individual countries. The map is regularly updated on the KASPR Datahaus website.

4. Map of global internet pressure during the pandemic

Researchers Check How the Internet Works in Each Affected Country COVID-19 epidemicgiven the rapidly growing demand for home entertainment, video conferencing and online communication. The focus was on changes in Internet latency patterns. The researchers explain it this way: “The more streaming packets trying to pass at the same time, the busier the path and the slower the transmission time.” “In most OECD countries affected by COVID-19, internet quality continues to be relatively stable. Although some regions in Italy, Spain and, oddly enough, Sweden are showing signs of tension, ”Raschki said in a publication on this topic.

According to data provided in Poland, the Internet in Poland has slowed down, as in other countries. SpeedTest.pl has been showing since mid-March decrease in the average speed of mobile lines in selected countries in recent days. It is clear that the isolation of Lombardy and the northern Italian provinces has had a huge impact on the load on 3G and LTE lines. In less than two weeks, the average speed of Italian lines has dropped by several Mbps. In Poland, we saw the same thing, but with a delay of about a week.

The state of the epidemic threat greatly affected the effective speed of the lines. Subscriber habits changed dramatically overnight. Play reported that data traffic on its network has increased by 40% in recent days. Later it was reported that in Poland they generally appeared in the following days. mobile internet speed drops at the level of 10-15%, depending on the location. There was also a slight decrease in the average data rate on fixed lines. Links "closed" almost immediately after the announcement of the closure of nurseries, kindergartens, schools and universities. Calculations were made on the fireprobe.net platform based on 877 thousand. speed measurements of 3G and LTE connections and 3,3 million measurements of Polish fixed lines from the SpeedTest.pl web application.

From business to games

The impact of last year's events on the technology sector is well illustrated by the stock charts of the most important companies. In the days following the WHO's declaration of a pandemic last March, the cost of almost everything plummeted. The collapse was short-lived, as it was quickly realized that this particular sector would cope well with the new conditions. The following months are a history of dynamic growth in earnings and stock prices.

Silicon Valley leaders decided that the long-planned restructuring of the American (and not only American) industrial and corporate mechanism to work and business in the cloud, remotely, using the most modern means of communication and organization, went into an accelerated mode.

Netflix doubled the number of new subscribers in the first months of the pandemic, and Disney+ passed the 60 million mark. Even Microsoft recorded a 15% increase in sales. And it's not just about monetary gain. Usage has increased. Daily traffic on Facebook increased by 27%, Netflix increased by 16% and YouTube by 15,3%. With everyone staying at home to go about their business, personal activities and digital entertainment, the demand for virtual content and communications has increased. than ever before in history.

In business, at work, but also in more personal areas it's time for virtual meetings. Google Meets, join.me, GoToMeeting, and FaceTime are all tools that have been around for years. But now their importance has increased. One of the symbols of the COVID-19 era is likely to be Zoom, which doubled its profits as early as the second quarter of 2020 because of the sheer volume of work meetings, school sessions, virtual social gatherings, yoga classes, and even concerts (5 ) on this platform . The number of daily attendees at company meetings increased from 10 million in December 2019 to 300 million as of April 2020. Of course, zoom is not the only tool that has become so popular. But compared to, for example, Skype, it used to be a relatively unknown tool.

5. Concert in Thailand with the audience gathered in the Zoom app

Of course, the popularity of the old Skype has also grown. However, it was characteristic that in addition to the growing popularity of previously known and used solutions, new players had a chance. In the case of, for example, applications for group collaboration and project management, to the previously popular Microsoft Teams, whose user base doubled in the first months of the pandemic, and was joined by new, previously more niche players such as Slack. It will be important for Slack, like Zoom, to keep the interest of paying customers until strict social distancing rules are passed.

Unsurprisingly, entertainment retailers have performed as well as companies offering business tools, including, of course, VOD platform, as already mentioned, but also the gaming industry. April 2020 spending on hardware, software, and game cards increased 73% year-over-year to $1,5 billion, according to NPD Group research. In May, it increased by 52% to $1,2 billion. Both results were records on a multi-year scale, Konsola Nintendo Switch is one of the best selling devices of 2020. Game publishers love Electronic Arts or epic games, the creator of said Fortnite. At the end of the year, the game Cyberpunk 2077 from the Polish company was on everyone's lips. CD Project Red (6)

Expanded trade

2020 has been a boom year for e-commerce worldwide. It is worth seeing how it looked in Poland. At that time, almost 12 new online stores, and their number at the beginning of January 2021 amounted to a total of almost 44,5 thousand. - 21,5% more than a year earlier. According to the ExpertSender report "Online shopping in Poland 2020", 80% of Poles with Internet access make purchases in this way, of which 50% spend more than PLN 300 per month on them.

As in the world, so in our country for several years the number of stationary stores is systematically reduced. According to research agency Bisnode A Dun & Bradstreet Company, 2020 people were suspended from work in 19. commercial activity consisting of selling in a traditional store. Traditional vegetable sellers make up the largest group in this group, as much as 14%.

The onset of the pandemic has become a kind of "accelerator" for even more innovative than just Internet sales, e-commerce solutions. A typical example is the Primer app, which was not scheduled to launch this year, but was accelerated due to the closure due to the coronavirus. allows users to virtually apply layers of paint, wallpaper or bathroom tiles to the walls of their homes. If the user finds one they like, they can go to the merchant's site to make a purchase. Retailers say the app is a "virtual showroom" for them.

As the influx of new customers into digital commerce increased rapidly, "retailers have begun a race to see who can best recreate the physical shopping experience in a fully virtual context," writes PYMNTS.com. For example, Amazon is launching its "room decorator“A tool similar to the IKEA app that will allow consumers to view furniture and other home equipment in a virtual way.

In May 2020, the network Mom and Dad launched in UK virtual personal shopping service for customerswho were "stuck at home because of the blockade". The site is intended primarily for couples expecting a baby. As part of the service, customers can consult with video conferencing expertstips and live product demonstrations. The network owner also plans to launch free virtual group sessions that will provide support and advice to waiting couples.

In July, another retailer, Burberry, launched its latest augmented reality feature, which allows shoppers to view 2019D digital renderings of products in the real world via Google search. It is worth recalling that already during the I/O XNUMX programming conference, which took place last May, . In the era of the coronavirus, luxury retailers want to take advantage of this feature by allowing shoppers to view AR images related to bags or shoes on offer.

Home appliances online store AO.com integrated augmented reality technology into the purchase process back in April last year. For this company, as for many other e-commerce companies, returns are a major concern.

We hope that the opportunity to get closer to the item you are buying in augmented reality will lower their level. AO.com buyers via Apple smartphone they can virtually place items in their homes, checking their size and fit before purchasing. “Augmented reality means customers don’t have to use their imagination or a tape measure,” David Lawson, one of AO.com’s managers, commented to the media.

AR can also help personalize products. This mainly concerns expensive purchases of top-shelf goods. For example, car brand Jaguar has partnered with Blippar to personalize the interior of cars to suit individual tastes. It is likely that these techniques will move to cheaper products, which is in fact already happening because, for example, many eyewear brands and shops are using face scanning and tracking techniques to match models and styles to customers. For this, the Topology Eyewear application and many others are used.

The apparel and especially footwear sector has so far resisted the e-commerce invasion. began to change this even before the pandemic, and the shutdown of the economy contributed to a more active search for alternatives. Last year, for example, GOAT introduced a new Try On feature to the market, allowing shoppers to virtually try on their shoes before making a purchase. Also in 2019, the Asos app appeared, showing clothes in different types of silhouettes on smartphone displays. This "See My Fit" app, developed in partnership with Zeekit, allows shoppers to see the product on virtual models at the touch of a button in sizes 4 to 18 (7).

However, these are only models and sizes so far, and not a virtual fitting of a real, specific user on the body image. A step in that direction is the Speedo app, which scans your face in 3D and then applies it to it. virtual swim gogglesto get an accurate XNUMXD visual representation of how they would look on a person's face.

A relatively new type of product in this industry are the so-called smart mirrorswhich have different functions, but most of all can help both buyers and sellers to remotely try on not only clothes and cosmetics using AR technology. Last year, Mirror introduced a smart mirror with an LCD display. home fitness.

And it was such a mirror that made it possible to really try on clothes at a distance. This can be done using the MySize ID app, which works with the Sweet Fit augmented reality virtual mirror. MySize ID technology allows users to quickly and easily measure their body with smartphone camera.

Shortly before the pandemic, the social network Pinterest launched a color that best suited the user with a featured portrait. Nowadays, virtual makeup try-on is a well-known feature found in many apps. YouTube has introduced the AR Beauty Try-On feature, which allows you to virtually try on makeup while watching beauty tips videos.

The well-known brand Gucci has released a new augmented reality tool on another well-known social network, Snapchat, which allows users to virtual shoe fitting "Inside the application". In fact, Gucci has taken advantage of Snapchat's augmented reality tools. After trying on, shoppers can purchase the shoes directly from the app using Snapchat's "Buy Now" button. The service has launched in the UK, USA, France, Italy, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Japan and Australia. Popular Chinese online sportswear retailer JD.com is also independently working on a virtual shoe fitting service combined with sizing.

Of course, even a good visualization of shoes on the feet will not replace actually putting shoes on the foot and checking how the foot feels in it, how it walks, etc. There is no technique that would adequately and accurately reproduce this. However, AR could add a little more to the shoe, which Puma took advantage of by releasing the world's first augmented reality shoe that was covered in QR codes to unlock. a number of virtual functions when scanning with the Puma mobile app. The limited edition LQD Cell Origin Air is almost ready. When the user scanned the shoes with their smartphone, they opened up a lot of virtual filters, 3D models and games.

Take a break from the screen next to the display

Whether it's work and school, or entertainment and shopping, the number of hours in the digital world is approaching the limit of our endurance. According to a study commissioned by the optical company Vision Direct, the average daily use of screens and monitors of all kinds by people has recently increased to more than 19 hours a day. If this pace continues, a newborn with a life expectancy will spend almost 58 years this life, bathed in the splendor of laptops, smartphones, TVs and all other types of screens that will appear in the coming decades.

Even if we feel sick because of excessive use of displays, more and more help comes ... also from the screen. According to a study by the American Psychiatric Association, the percentage of patients regularly using medical telepaths from multidisciplinary medical professionals increased from 2,1% before the pandemic to over 84,7% in the summer of 2020. Teachers who wanted to give their children a break, tired of online lessons in front of a computer monitor, they invited schoolchildren to ... virtual trips to museums, national parks or Mars for exploration, along with the Curiosity rover, of course, on the screen.

All sorts of cultural and entertainment events that were previously torn off the screen, such as concerts and shows, film festivals, library walks and other outdoor events, have also become virtual. Rolling Loud, the world's largest hip-hop festival, typically draws around 180 fans to Miami each year. Last year, over three million people watched it on Twitch, the live streaming platform. “With virtual events, you are no longer limited by the number of seats in the arena,” enthuses Will Farrell-Green, head of music content at Twitch. It sounds attractive, but the number of hours spent in front of the screen is increasing.

As you know, people have other needs when it comes to getting out of the house and screen space. It turned out, for example, that dating sites quickly developed (and sometimes only expanded on pre-existing) video features in applications, allowing users to meet face to face or play games together. For example, Bumble reported that its video chat traffic increased by 70% this summer, while another of its kind, Hinge, reported that 44% of its users had already tried video dating. More than half of those surveyed by Hinge said they were likely willing to continue using it even after the pandemic. As you can see, in the "sector of the heart" changes due to the coronavirus have also accelerated significantly.

It turns out that the development of remote methods and the use of screens can also combat what is widely recognized as its bad effect: physical decline and obesity. The number of active users of Peloton apps and fitness equipment more than doubled in 2020 from 1,4 million pre-pandemic to 3,1 million. Users have also increased their workout frequency from 12 per machine per month last year to 24,7 in 2020. The Mirror (8), a large vertical screen device that lets you enter classrooms and connect with personal trainers, reported a five-fold increase in the number of people under 20 this year. This is still a different screen, but when it is used for physical activity, stereotyped opinions somehow cease to operate.

Bicycles, touchless restaurants, e-books and movie premieres on TV

As a result of lockdowns in some parts of the world, car traffic has fallen by more than 90%, while sales of bicycles, including electric two-wheelers, have skyrocketed. Dutch manufacturer electric bicycles Vanmoof recorded a 397% increase in worldwide sales compared to the previous year.

When it became dangerous to touch objects such as banknotes and pass them from hand to hand, people quickly turned to contactless technologies. Many gastronomic establishments of the world, in addition to developing food delivery services, offered customers who came to the establishment a service that minimizes contact, that is, ordering via a smartphone, for example, scanning a QR code on a plate with a menu, as well as paying with a smartphone. And if there were cards, then with a chip. Mastercard said that in countries where they were not yet so widespread, their number was almost halved.

Bookstores were also closed. Sales of e-books have increased. According to US data from Good E-Reader, e-book sales there have increased by nearly 40%, and e-book rentals through Kindle or popular reading apps have increased by more than 50%. Obviously, the audience of television has also increased there, and not only Internet video on demand, but also traditional. Sales of 65-inch or larger TVs rose 77% between April and June compared to the same period a year earlier, according to the NPD Group.

It is connected with events in the film industry. Some major premieres, such as the next installment of James Bond or the adventures of Fast and Furious, have been canceled indefinitely. However, some film producers have taken more innovative steps. The Disney remake of Mulan is now out on TV. Unfortunately for the creators, it was not a box office success. However, some films, such as Trolls World Tour, have broken digital box office records.

More tolerance for surveillance

Along with the specific restrictions and requirements of the time of the pandemic, your technical solutions got a chancewhich we have reviewed previously rather reluctantly. It's all about monitoring systems and equipment that controls movement and location (9). All kinds of tools that we have tended to dismiss as excessive surveillance and invasion of privacy. Employers have looked with great interest at wearables that help maintain proper distance between factory workers, or apps that monitor building density levels.

9. Pandemic application

Virginia-based Kastle Systems International has been building systems for decades. smart buildings. In May 2020, it launched the KastleSafeSpaces system, which integrates various solutions, offering features such as contactless entry doors and elevators, a health screening mechanism for employees and visitors in the building, and social distancing and space occupancy control. Kastle has been offering a contactless authentication and IDless entry technology called Kastle Presence for about five years now, which is linked to the user's mobile phone.

Before the pandemic, it was seen more as an add-on for office and elite tenants. Now it is perceived as an indispensable element of office and apartment furnishings.

The Kastle mobile app can also be used directly to conduct health researchrequiring users to answer health questions in order to activate the app. It can also serve as an identity document that grants access to office gyms or other amenities, or restricts access to bathrooms to a reasonable number of people while maintaining social distancing.

WorkMerk, in turn, came up with a system called VirusSAFE Pro, a technology platform designed to give employees in restaurants, for example, a digital checklist of tasks to make sure they complete them. It is not only about making sure that employees follow the necessary sanitation and safety protocols, but also informing customers that they can feel safe in a given place by scanning the QR code on their phone or following the link provided by restaurant. WorkMerk has created a similar platform, Virus SAFE Edu. for schools and colleges that parents can access.

We have already written about applications that control distance and health safety in Młody Technik. Many of them have appeared on the market in many countries. These are not only applications for smartphones, but also special devices similar to fitness belt, worn on the wrist, controlling the environment for sanitary and epidemiological safety, capable of warning of danger if necessary.

A typical product of recent times is, for example, the FaceMe Health platform, which combines facial recognition, artificial intelligence and thermal imaging techniques to determine whether someone is wearing a mask correctly and to determine their temperature. Cyberlink Company. and FaceCake Marketing Technologies Inc. in this system, they used augmented reality technology originally developed for selling makeup cosmetics through virtual fitting rooms.

The software is so sensitive that it can identify people's faces even if they are wearing a mask. “It can be used in many cases where facial recognition is needed, such as contactless authentication or login,” said Richard Carrier, vice president of CyberLink in the United States. Hotels could use the system to grant room access, he said, and it could also be paired with a smart elevator to recognize a guest's face and take them to a specific floor automatically.

Scientific crop failure and computational superpowers

In science, aside from some problems associated with the implementation of projects that require travel, many experts believe that the pandemic has not had a major disruptive impact. However, she did significant impact on the sphere of communication in this area, even developing its new forms. For example, many more research results have been published on servers with so-called preprints and are analyzed on social media platforms and sometimes in the media before proceeding to the formal peer review stage (10).

10. Increase in scientific publications about COVID-19 in the world

Preprint servers have been around for about 30 years and were originally designed to allow researchers to share unpublished manuscripts and collaborate with peers regardless of peer review. Initially, they were convenient for scientists who were looking for collaborators, early feedback, and/or a timestamp for their work. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, preprint servers became a lively and fast communication platform for the entire scientific community. A large number of researchers have placed pandemic- and SARS-CoV-2-related manuscripts on preprint servers, often in the hope of later publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

However, it is worth remembering that the massive influx of papers on COVID-19 has overloaded the system of scientific publications. Even the most respected peer-reviewed journals have made mistakes and published false information. Recognizing and quickly debunking these ideas before they are circulated in the mainstream media is key to preventing the spread of panic, prejudice and conspiracy theories.

Ta intensive communication can affect the level of collaboration and efficiency among scientists. However, it is not unambiguously assessed, since there are no clear data on the consequences of acceleration. However, there is no shortage of opinions that excessive haste is not conducive to scientific validity. For example, in early 2020, one of the now discontinued preprints helped advance the theory that SARS-CoV-2 was created in the lab and it has given some people grounds for conspiracy theories. Another study that was designed to provide the first documented evidence of asymptomatic transmission of the virus turned out to be flawed, and the resulting confusion led some people to misinterpret it as evidence of an unlikely infection and an excuse for not wearing a mask. Although this research paper was quickly debunked, sensational theories spread through public channels.

It was also a year of bold use of increasing computing power to increase the efficiency of research. In March 2020, the US Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, NASA, industry, and nine universities pooled resources to access IBM supercomputers with Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google cloud computing resources for drug development. A consortium called COVID-19 High Performance Computing also aims to predict the spread of the disease, simulate possible vaccines, and study thousands of chemicals to develop a vaccine or therapy for COVID-19.

Another research consortium, the C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute, is founded by Microsoft, six universities (including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a member of the first consortium), and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications in Illinois under the umbrella of C3.ai. the company, founded by Thomas Siebel, was created to combine the resources of supercomputers to discover new drugs, develop medical protocols, and improve public health strategies.

In March 2020, the Distributed Computing Project [email protected] launched a program that has helped medical researchers around the world. Millions of users at the peak of the coronavirus pandemic downloaded the application as part of the [email protected] project, which allows you to combine the computing power of the world's computers to fight the coronavirus. Gamers, bitcoin miners, Companies large and small join forces to achieve unparalleled data processing capabilitiesthe purpose of which is to use unused computing power to speed up research. Already in mid-April, the total computing power of the project reached 2,5 exaflops, which, according to the release, was equal to the combined capabilities of the 500 most productive supercomputers in the world. Then this power grew rapidly. The project made it possible to create the most powerful computing system in the world, capable of performing trillions of calculations necessary, among other things, to simulate the behavior of a protein molecule in space. 2,4 exaflops means that 2,5 trillion (2,5 × 1018) floating point operations can be performed per second.

"Simulation allows us to observe how each atom in a molecule travels through time and space," said AFP project coordinator Greg Bowman of Washington University in St. Louis. Louis. The analysis was carried out to look for "pockets" or "holes" in the virus into which a drug could be pumped. Bowman added that he is optimistic because his team had previously found an "injectable" target in the Ebola virus, and because COVID-19 is structurally similar to the SARS virus, which has been the subject of much research.

As you can see, in the world of science, as in many fields, there has been a lot of fermentation, which everyone hopes will be creative fermentation and something new and better will come out of it for the future. It seems like everyone can't go back to how it was before the pandemic, whether in terms of shopping or research. On the other hand, it seems that everyone wants most of all to return to “normal”, that is, to what it was before. These conflicting expectations make it difficult to predict how things will unfold next.