The three Asia Pacific airlines with the highest customer expectations of high quality in-flight Wi-Fi are all from China—Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines.

A report released last month by Inmarsat, a London-based leading provider of global satellite communication services, said these airlines would lead the industry as they recognize the value of making in-flight broadband available to passengers, who are increasingly seeing it as a necessity and a major factor when choosing an airline.

“In order for Chinese airlines to win the competition and lead the connectivity market in the Asia-Pacific region, ensuring the availability of high quality onboard Wi-Fi is essential. This would differentiate customer experience and develop loyal customer relationships.”

Currently, adults in China spend an average of 1 hour and 38 minutes daily, with their smartphones, according to data provided by consultancy eMarketer.

The report found that 55 percent of respondents from China said they were willing to give up their preferred airline in the next year if poor quality in-flight connectivity was offered.

With airlines in every market racing to install or upgrade their Wi-Fi offering, passengers will have a choice for an airline that offers high-quality broadband, and will soon turn their back on airlines not offering this, according to the report, which surveyed more than 9,000 passengers worldwide in February.

“Specifically, passengers in China are most conscious of the quality of in-flight Wi-Fi. Passengers in China look forward to the flexibility and freedom to continue the lifestyle on the plane as they would on the ground,” Gergye said.

“Good quality Wi-Fi in the air is changing the way people think about flying. Whether using the time to work, to connect with friends and family, or to pass the time shopping or viewing entertainment, the availability of in-flight broadband has become a major factor when choosing an airline. It’s clear the opportunity that connectivity presents to airlines cannot be underestimated.”

Meanwhile, passengers in the Asia-Pacific region are among the most willing-to-pay group globally for in-flight Wi-Fi, with 91 percent of them willing to pay on long-distance flights and 79 percent on short-distance flights. The report also found that more than half of passengers in the Asia-Pacific region would take advantage of the ability to purchase items from the plane and collect them on arrival at the airport, and one third of respondents said they would choose to have in-flight purchases delivered to their home.

Finnair has enjoyed the benefits of its onboard connectivity. Since June, passengers have been able to use Alipay and Wi-Fi on all routes between China and Finland.

For thousands of years, traditional Chinese medicine(TCM)has been used across China and Southeast Asia. Its practices have developed over time and now, scientists are giving it a high-tech update.

Developed by Singaporean company AiTreat, “EMMA”is a robot masseuse（女按摩师) designed to give Tui Na, a type of TCM bodywork similar to a deep tissue massage (深层组织按摩)，a 21st-century makeover. Using sensors and 3D vision to measure muscle stiffness (僵硬)，EMMA (which stands for “Expert Manipulative Massage Automation”) identifies pressure points and gives massages to patients to help offer pain relief and relaxation. AiTreat founder and CEO Albert Zhang hopes that EMMA can create low-cost massage treatments that can be part of the growing attraction of preventative medicine.

In 2015, Zhang founded AiTreat. A trained TCM physician, Zhang has firsthand experience treating patients.

Patients lying on the table might not even notice the difference between EMMA and a real-life masseuse -but Zhang doesn't want robots to replace masseuses. Instead, he says that they can help by taking away the back-breaking work masseuses do every day, and enable them to “focus on the 10% highly skilled part,” which can increase their productivity and income while reducing the cost for patients. “One physician can only see one patient at a time,but with EMMA, the physician can control two robots and see up to four patients at the same time,” he says.

While TCM practitioners accept years of training, EMMA’s AI system has been trained with thousands of “data points”-bodies of different shapes, sizes and ethnicities-to find the acupoints (穴位) in each individual, says Zhang.

Currently, Zhang says 11 robots are working at eight different clinics (诊所)in Singapore, with plans to send them overseas. “We are seeing great responses from practitioners in the US and China,” he adds.

Imagine you’re standing in line to buy an after-school snack at a store. You step up to the counter and the cashier scans your food. Next, you have to pay. But instead of scanning a QR code (二维码) with your smartphone, you just hold out your hand so the cashier can scan your fingerprint. Or, a camera scans your face, your eyes or even your ear.

Now, this type of technology might not be far away. As technology companies move away from the traditional password, biometric(生物识别的) security, which includes fingerprint, face and voice ID, is becoming increasingly popular.

In 2013, Apple introduced the iPhone 5s, one of the first smartphones with a fingerprint scanner. Since then, using one’s fingerprint to unlock a phone and make mobile payments has become commonplace, bringing convenience to our lives. And since last year, Samsung has featured eye-scanning technology in its top smartphones, while Apple’s new iPhone X can even scan a user’s face. But despite its popularity, experts warn that biometrics might not be as secure as we’d imagined. “Biometrics are ideally good, but in practice, not so much” said John Michener, a biometrics expert.

When introducing the new iPhone’s Face ID feature, Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president, said, “The chance that a random person in the population could look at your iPhone X and unlock it with their face is about one in a million.” But it’s already been done. In a video posted on community website Reddi, two brothers showed how they were each able to unlock the same iPhone X using their own face. And they aren’t even twins.

“We may expect too much from biometrics,” Anil Jain, a computer science professor at Michigan State University, told CBS News. “No security systems are perfect.”

Earlier this year, Jain found a way to trick biometric security. Using a printed copy of a thumbprint, she was able to unlock a dead person’s smartphone for police, according to tech website Splinter. “It’s good to see biometrics being used more,” Jain told CBS News, “because it adds another factors for security. But using multiple security measures is the best defense.”