From fast food cooks to doormen at restaurants and hotels, robots are slowly entering the workforce in nearly every industry. Most recently, the world welcomed its first operational robot policeman.

“Robocop”, the newest member of the Dubai police force, made the first public appearance on Sunday at the Fourth Gulf Information Security Expo and Conference, where it greeted guests. At about 70 inches tall and weighing nearly 220 pounds, Robocop seeks to engage with residents and tourists. Featuring an “emotion detector (探测器)”, the robot can recognize a person’s gestures and body language from about 5 feet away.

Robocop’s skills don’t stop there—the emotionally intelligent bot can detect if a person is happy, sad and even angry by studying his or her facial expression. And just like your human friends would do, if Robocop sees you’re unhappy, it will try to lift your spirits. More importantly, when it comes to fighting crime, the robot uses the Internet, artificial intelligence and other smart technologies to spot offenders using facial recognition. Its navigation (导航) skills grant it the ability to map out areas and travel on its own. Equipped with a built-in tablet, Robocop can communicate with people, speak six languages, respond to public inquiries, shake hands and even make military salutes.

“With the aim to assist people on the streets,” said Brigadier-General Khalid Nasser A1 Razzouqi, director-general of smart services at Dubai Police, “the Robocop is the latest smart addition to the force and has been designed to help us fight crime recently, keep the city safe and improve happiness levels.”

The Notre Dame fire has been put out, but its spire and a large portion of its wooden roof have been damaged. The terrible destruction causes a sudden sharp pain to people around the world. On Chinese social media network Wechat a common comment on the disaster is: "What a pity that we cannot see the damaged parts of the wonder anymore. "

But the good news is that there is at least one way of seeing them, namely via a video game called Assassin's Creed: Unity. In this game, the player can travel to one city after another and enter the buildings exactly like what they are in reality, and see Notre Dame as it was before the fire. Further, with virtual reality technology, which is already quite mature, one can even look around the undamaged Notre Dame as if it is still there. Maybe digital technology could help to better protect architectural cultural heritage.

The idea of digitizing ancient buildings, making digital models of them so their data can be saved, dates back to the 1990s and the necessary technology has continued to advance since then. By scanning the ancient buildings with lasers, building 3D models with multiple images, as well as measuring everything precisely, engineers can make a copy as accurate as the real one.

As computers and smartphones are hugely popular, the digital replica（复制品）has great use value. First, it allows tourists to feel the cultural relics without touching them, which helps protect them. The virtual tour of Dunhuang Grottoes in Gansu Province is a good example of this as tourists can view the paintings without standing near them. Furthermore, it can make the digitized cultural relics more famous by spreading awareness about them via the Internet. In 2000, a virtual tour of the Great Wall became very popular at the Hannover World Expo, which increased the number of foreign tourists visiting the site in the following years. Above all, it preserves all the information of the cultural relics. Even if the original ones are damaged one day, people can still know what they were like and can build a replica if desired.

Of course, however precise a model is, it is not the original. Time is the biggest threat to a country's architectural heritage, which will always become ruins with the passing of time. Maybe we will have better technologies in the future, but the digital technology offers a practical way to preserve architectural cultural heritage at the moment.

The widespread use of Internet technology has made our lives easier but causes a big challenge to senior citizens(长者), who are not always comfortable with smartphones and so many new apps.

Only a few senior citizens are able to enjoy the benefits that new technologies offer. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the number of people aged 60 and above was 253.88 million in 2019, about 18.1% of China's population. But only 23%of the senior citizens were able to use the Internet. That means more than three-fourths of the elderly are deprived (剥夺) of the digital benefits.

Many senior citizens who can't use smartphones are facing difficulties during this pandemic (流行病). Even with a smartphone in hand and Internet available, many of them still feel helpless. They don't know how to call a taxi through the apps. There have been reports of many shops turning away elders who don't know how to pay using smartphones, instead of letting them pay with cash. Worse still, as they don't know how to get the Internet-based health code (健康码), they are refused to enter many public places. Presenting individual health code is part of the epidemic prevention (防疫) and control measures.

New technologies become popular because they are often of great use in our daily lives. But many senior citizens, especially those living in the country-side or those whose grown-up children don't live with them, are not able to use the Internet or smart-phones, either because of financial (经济的) problems or because they cannot learn new things beyond a certain point. The digital gap between the elderly and the young is becoming more obvious.

However, the senior citizens should not become a silent group deprived of digital benefits. It is our responsibility to help them bridge the digital gap, and be patient with them when they face difficulties catching up.