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.

Emerging from the pandemic, people are more concerned than ever before about their health and well-being. As a result, increasingly they're turning to digital solutions to address their needs. The E-Commerce Times talked with health and wellness experts from a variety of sectors for perspective on how e-commerce has been brought into service in this new -- and newly health-conscious -- world.

As the digital health space continues to expand, new opportunities are emerging that enable companies to act in the public good by making healthcare accessible online. Along with the emerging opportunities available in this industry it's important to understand the dynamics that have, historically, made it difficult to enter the health e-commerce space.

Some 400 million patients worldwide are affected by more than 7,000 rare diseases; yet treatments for rare genetic diseases remain an underserved area. The father of a boy born with a rare disease created the RareCamp project, and the OpenTreatments Foundation, to enable patients to create gene therapies for rare genetic diseases; then work with their doctors and nonprofits to develop drugs.

A set of flaws in a widely used network communication protocol that could affect millions of devices has been revealed by Forescout Research Labs and JSOF Research. The nine vulnerabilities discovered by security researchers dramatically increase the attack surface of at least 100 million Internet of Things devices, exposing them to potential attacks that could take the devices offline or to be hijacked by threat actors.

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.

We are in the midst of what many are calling the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This is a time of disruption, massive change, opportunities, and significant risks. Fortunes will shift, companies will fail, and new companies will rise from the ashes. Let's look at where we are in this latest Industrial Revolution, and where we'll likely be when this wave ends in 10 to 40 years. We'll close with the product of the week, a new conferencing camera/speaker from Poly.

Researchers have discovered a way to identify existing drugs that can be potentially repurposed to fight COVID-19 in the elderly. The researchers said they have plans to share their findings with pharmaceutical companies, but added that before any drugs can be repurposed for use on elderly COVID-19 patients, clinical testing will be required.

Foci is a "Focus Wearable" device by U.K.-based company Tinylogics that combines cognitive biometrics with artificial intelligence and machine learning to help you focus better. That combination of technologies presents an eerie yet intriguing approach to help people easily bothered by mental distractions a way to clear out their brain clutter.

A team of scientists and engineers has invented a cryogenic computer chip capable of functioning at temperatures near absolute zero, which could enable a new crop of high performance quantum computers capable of performing calculations with thousands of qubits, or more. Quantum computers, up to now, could only accommodate a few dozen qubits. That's why the new cryo chip is such a breakthrough.

Do you welcome physical fitness like a fish in water, or does it take a trip to the clothing store for larger sizes to get you moving? If you need a push, perhaps a new motivational tool called KrowdFit will be more to your liking. It pays you cash to put your fitness tracking devices on. The KrowdFit wellness app uses a novel twist to a childhood motivational method. It pays you cash to keep physically active.

The last thing George Kramb expected from years of walking surgeons through actual operations using medical machinery was to step into a role that helped guide patients worldwide through their own medical journeys. Kramb and his partner Patrick Frank are now listed on the "2021 Forbes 30 Under 30" list in recognition of their status as rising stars in the business world.

An international group of scientists is demanding scientific journals demand more transparency from researchers in computer-related areas when accepting their reports for publication. They also want computational researchers to include information about their code, models and computational environments in published reports.

Americans seem to have little interest in using contact-tracing applications used to identify people who have come into contact with a person infected with COVID-19. Adoption rates in areas using an app based on technology introduced by Google and Apple six months ago are higher, but even in the most successful of those states -- Connecticut -- only about 20 percent of residents have chosen to activate the software.

A 23-year-old biomedical engineering student is one of two first-place winners in the 2020 James Dyson Award. Her invention aims to help women around the world afford the cost of early testing for breast cancer. Judit Giró Benet captured the $35,000 cash prize for developing The Blue Box, an at-home reusable breast cancer screening device. Her mother's diagnosis of breast cancer inspired Benet to find an affordable and effective screening mechanism.

Amazon is getting into the online pharmacy prescription business in a big way. The e-commerce giant is setting up a new drugstore on its platform, Amazon Pharmacy, that will allow customers to complete a pharmacy transaction on their desktop or through the company's mobile app. Amazon said that filling prescriptions at its pharmacy would be as easy as shopping anywhere else on the platform.

The rise in consumer adoption of e-commerce in the wake of the pandemic is pushing the rebirth of brick-and-mortar stores as potential bastions of interactionless shopping that resembles an e-commerce experience. Amenities for redesigned in-store floor space include no-contact kiosks that offer circulars and coupons. Robot greeters and sales assistants to help maintain social distancing are also in some plans.

Healthcare is a mess, not just here in the U.S., but in most countries. Some of the biggest problems in this data-rich era are the lack of interoperability and fact-based advice. Two companies that stand out as aggressively trying to fix this are IBM and Microsoft. Let's contrast IBM's and Microsoft's healthcare efforts this week -- and we'll close with my product of the week: the most advanced electric motorcycle on the market.

This Bluetooth-enabled portable workout and strength training device coaches users through five-minute full body workouts and measures data such as strength, precision, and other personal metrics. No sweat and no gym required. That phrase piqued my interest to try this new approach to strength building.

The world of fitness and exercise has been fundamentally changed by the pandemic. People are doing more workouts at home, purchasing home gym equipment, and relying more than ever on remote fitness coaching. The E-Commerce Times caught up with insiders from the health and wellness industry for perspective on how the population is staying active at home.

One of the most interesting parts of Dell World is the session on the future. This year, they spoke on a new branch of engineering that is solely AI-focused, the blended technology revolution surrounding food production, how AIs were intentionally corrupted, and how music, math, and the Internet create new entertainment types.

Healthcare records were digitized to help prevent medical errors such as misdiagnoses and mistakes with medication, but electronic health records have made it easier for bad actors to steal patients' highly personal information. Cybercriminals are further motivated by the fact that patient medical records are worth up to 10 times more than credit card numbers on the Dark Web.

Apple pulled the wraps off two new Apple Watches, two iPads and several services bundles at an event Tuesday held online. The new watches include the Series 6, which boasts performance improvements over the previous generation of the product, and the SE, an economy watch model. Apple also refreshed its basic iPad and the iPad Air, which is now based on the new A14 processor, a five-nanometer fabricated powerhouse.

Tech and finance professionals are joining the ranks of workers in other industries by delaying their return to in-person office work. According to thousands of employees and managers polled about their companies' plans regarding working from home, many U.S. employers have postponed return-to-office plans until as late as the third quarter of next year.

In-person workout sessions these days might seem like a thing of the past, while solitary workouts at home replace gym visits as an ongoing result of the pandemic. The use of artificial intelligence is not yet a common feature in fitness apps, but it is a main component in a popular India-based app now focused on growing users in the U.S. and Canada.

Earthquake alerts are being incorporated into Android, Google's mobile operating system. The feature will be included in a refresh of Google Mobile Services, so a full operating system upgrade won't be necessary. That means the new addition will be available to most Android users -- except those in China, which doesn't use GMS.

Amazon has cleared a major regulatory hurdle in its quest to deliver Internet service to unserved and underserved areas of the earth. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has approved, with some conditions, Amazon's Kuiper Project, a US$10 billion low-orbit constellation made up of more than 3,000 satellites.

Our infrastructure wasn't set up to suddenly shift massive amounts of traffic from companies to homes. Exacerbating this are cable networks with shared capacity because they were built with the idea that most folks wouldn't be using them at the same time. 5G might be the only realistic way to deal with these issues on a sustained basis.

As traditional gyms, fitness centers, and health and wellness studios shutter during COVID-19, technology has kicked in to provide a replacement or an alternative for growing numbers of online shoppers. Digital at-home exercise sessions and sales of home exercise and health equipment purchased online are fueling new consumer trends that could permanently supplant old shopping routines.