NEWS
WHO ‘virtual health worker’ designed by San
Francisco and New Zealand-based company,
Soul Machines
The World Health Organization’s first
virtual health worker has been designed
by San Francisco and New Zealand-based
company, Soul Machines. The WHO
launched Florence as a ‘trusted source
of information’, designed to help the
world’s 1.3 billion tobacco users quit. It
uses Artificial Intelligence to dispel myths
on both COVID-19 and smoking. The
organization said quitting smoking is
more important than ever as evidence
reveals that smokers are more vulnerable
than non-smokers to developing a severe
case of COVID-19.
The technology was developed by Soul
Machines, which says the way it is designed
means every interaction is unique.
“We would call Florence a digital person,” said
Greg Cross, Co-Founder of Soul Machines.
“She’s a CGI creation just as we see in the
movies, but what’s unique about Florence
and other digital people like her is she is
autonomously animated by a digital brain.
You’re having a face-to-face interaction with
a digital person. One of the things we know
from our day-to-day lives is we learn to build
relationships, we learn to build trust, with
face-to-face interactions.”
Equinix to extend customer access to Alibaba
Cloud in 17 markets
to Gartner. With the partnership, Alibaba
Cloud can also enjoy secure, direct access
to a robust, interconnected ecosystem of
more than 9,700 customers, including 1,800
network providers and over 2,900 cloud and
IT service providers globally to enhance
performance, lower latency and increase
reliability for its customers.
Equinix, the global interconnection and data
center company, has announced it will
extend access to Alibaba Cloud, the digital
technology and intelligence backbone of
Alibaba Group, through Platform Equinix for
customers from 17 metros globally, including
Dubai, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Jakarta, London,
Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, as well as US
metros such as Chicago, Dallas and Denver.
This expansion, along with its API integration
with Equinix Cloud Exchange Fabric (ECX
Fabric), will help enterprises from these
global markets easily and privately connect
to Alibaba Cloud on Platform Equinix.
Alibaba Cloud is the third largest global
provider of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
and the largest in Asia-Pacific, according
As a key enabler of Digital Transformation,
cloud has been heavily adopted by
multinational enterprises as they seek to
modernize and mobilize their IT systems.
According to Gartner, IaaS is expected to
reach US$62 billion in 2021 globally, and
is forecast to grow at a compound annual
growth rate (CAGR) of 24% during the
forecast period 2019-2024. To deliver on
the expectations of transformation, it is
critical for enterprises to ensure they can
securely and seamlessly access multiple
cloud service providers (CSPs), such as
Alibaba Cloud.
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