‘The Maine Question’ asks how we can get the most out of technology

Refrigerators tell us when we’re out of juice. Digital assistants schedule appointments and alert us to the weather forecast. Driverless cars get us into tight parallel parking spaces. Today, many of us increasingly rely on devices, apps and artificial intelligence in our daily lives.

How can technology be designed to do the most good? How can scientists make it easy to use and put people, rather than the technology, in charge?

This is the work of the University of Maine VEMI Lab. VEMI stands for Virtual Environment and Multimodal Interaction. This week, directors Rick Corey, Nick Giudice and Caitlin Howell talk with The Maine Question host Ron Lisnet about the lab’s mission, its many projects, and the answer to the question: How can we get the most out of technology?

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Are there topics you’d like to learn more about? Do you have questions for UMaine experts? Email them to mainequestion@maine.edu.