Today, SpaceX unveiled its Dragon Version 2 spacecraft, the next generation spacecraft designed to carry astronauts to Earth orbit and beyond. The spacecraft will be capable of carrying up to seven crewmembers, landing propulsively almost anywhere on Earth, and refueling and flying again for rapid reusability. As a modern, 21st century manned spacecraft, Dragon v2 will revolutionize access to space.

 

Dragon v2’s powerful launch escape system, the first of its kind, will provide escape capability from the time the crew enters the vehicle all the way to orbit.  Eight SuperDraco engines built into the side walls of the Dragon spacecraft will produce up to 120,000 pounds of axial thrust to carry astronauts to safety should an emergency occur during launch.

 

This system also enables Dragon v2 to land propulsively on Earth or another planet with the precision of a helicopter, making possible interplanetary trips that would otherwise be constrained by ocean landings.

 

Landing propulsively is not only convenient, but also enables rapid reusability. As long as we continue to throw away rockets and spacecraft, we will never have true access to space. After landing, Dragon v2 can be refueled and flown multiple times, drastically lowering the cost of space travel.

 

Dragon was designed from the beginning to carry humans, and the upgraded vehicle revealed today will be one of the safest, most reliable spacecraft ever flown. The vehicle holds seats for 7 passengers, and includes an Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) that provides a comfortable environment for crewmembers.

 

With a minimal number of stage separations, all-liquid rocket engines that can be throttled and turned off in an emergency, and launch escape capability all the way to orbit, Dragon v2 will be capable of delivering American astronauts to the space station and beyond with incredible reliability.

 

Dragon v2 represents a leap forward in spacecraft technology from its Version 1 predecessor. Additional upgrades include a SpaceX-designed and built ISS docking adapter, impact attenuating landing legs, and a more advanced version of the PICA-X (Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator-X) heat shield for improved durability and performance. Dragon v2’s robust thermal protection system is capable of lunar missions, in addition to flights to and from Earth orbit.

 

Dragon v2 builds on SpaceX’s track record of successfully delivering critical cargo and science experiments to the space station for NASA. The Dragon spacecraft currently resupplies the space station under a $1.6 billion Cargo Resupply Services contract with NASA.

 

 

New Technology

Medical-3D Printing

 

Alex’s 3D Printed Bionic Arm E-Nables Volunteers to Form Limbitless Solution

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

E-Nable’s first bionic arm.

Alyson Pring, the mother of a six-year-old born without a right arm, couldn’t afford the industry standard $40,000 for a prosthetic limb and, so, she approached E-Nable to find some solution for her son, Alex. It was then that Pring was connected with Albert Manero, a PhD candidate and Fulbright scholar from the University of Central Florida Armory, who was volunteering with the organization at the time. Manero pooled together fourteen friends from various backgrounds and the team spent the next eight weeks designing what became the Limbitless Arm.

 

 

Speech Analytics

 

Innovative Speech Technologies to Unveil Hidden Insights

Speech analytics is a key capability of NICE Interaction Analytics. It helps identify the reasons why customers call the company and what causes customer dissatisfaction. It also helps contact centers uncover training opportunities to improve agent performance.

 

NICE speech analytics combines several best-of-breed speech technologies to gain powerful insights into customer interactions:

 

Real-time speech analytics

A cutting edge technology that analyzes spoken interactions in real-time as they occur. It enables real-time agent guidance for next-best-action, as well as supervisor alerts for call intervention.

 

Phonetic indexing

This powerful speech analytics technology breaks down speech into phonemes, the smallest units of language, and creates an indexed voice database. Since phonetic indexing is a fast and highly scalable technology, it can analyze 100% of call recordings to understand why customers are calling. It also enables free text search for specific words or phrases.

 

Speech-to-text transcription

Transcription of calls from spoken to written words is a foundation of speech analytics. It enables text and data mining models to uncover root causes and hidden insights in frequently mentioned topics as well as the context in which these topics were mentioned.

 

Speaker separation

It’s not enough to know what was said during calls, but to know who—customer or agent—said it. Speech analytics leverages speaker separation to provide valuable context for the content of customer interactions. 

 

Emotion detection

Certain words spoken during an interaction may indicate high levels of emotion. However, sometimes emotion can only be detected by analyzing the voice and tone of the speaker. Emotion detection is a speech analytics technology that analyzes the voice of the speaker and identifies emotion via slight variations of pitch or tone. High levels of emotion are a reliable gauge of both customer dissatisfaction and agent skills.

 

Talk-over analysis

This useful speech analytics capability identifies portions of calls in which the customer and agent are talking simultaneously—a common indicator of customer dissatisfaction. In addition, talk-over analysis identifies periods of silence during calls that may be related to agent knowledge gaps.

 

NICE speech analytics, central to the cutting-edge capabilities of NICE Interaction Analytics, can help companies gain deep insights from customer interactions that can be used to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, and improve operational efficiency.Click to learn more about NICE solutions for contact center operational efficiency, customer experienceand revenue growth.