How will AI change games? How is AI changing games? In this TechFirst we chat with Morgan McGuire, Roblox's Chief Scientist and a former Nvidia research scientist. He tells host John Koetsier how AI is not only enhancing game creation through generative AI but also revolutionizing multiplayer game safety with advanced AI moderation systems. We chat about the explosive growth of Roblox and share insights into how AI is shaping the future of interactive, social, and immersive gaming experiences. Ultimately, McGuire says, we might be creating games with our voices in the not-so-distant future ... 00:00 Future of AI in Game Development 01:28 Roblox's 4D AI Initiative 03:24 Roblox's Impressive Growth 07:33 AI and Safety on Roblox 09:52 Voice Moderation Technology 17:49 Translation and Global Reach 20:10 Open Source Voice Safety Model 20:49 Native Language Translation Approach 21:20 Insights from AI Systems 22:09 Human Communication and AI Moderation 25:23 Generative AI in Roblox 26:13 User-Generated Content and Platform Growth 28:10 AI-Powered Content Creation 31:02 Quality and Community in Roblox 32:48 Innovative Social Roleplaying Experiences 35:46 Challenges and Future of AI in Gaming

Is an AI system smart when it can do what a human can do? Or … when it can do things humans can’t do? For years we’ve had the Turing Test … measuring AI’s ability to mimic being human. But is that really the right benchmark? In this TechFirst, host John Koetsier chats with a computer scientist who has been working in AI for more than a decade. He’s currently VP strategy at Intuition Robotics, which makes an AI-powered robotic care companion for the elderly called ElliQ His name is Assaf Gad, and we talk about intelligence, AI and OI (organic intelligence), as well as how smart machines like ElliQ engage with people. 00:00 Introduction to AI and Machine Intelligence 00:57 Defining Machine Intelligence 02:01 The Role of Memory in AI 04:20 Human Interaction and AI Design 06:32 ElliQ: The AI Care Companion 11:02 Proactive AI and User Experience 13:22 Challenges and Solutions for Elderly Care 17:34 The Future of AI and Multiple Intelligences 20:53 Ethical Considerations and Control in AI 23:07 Impact of ElliQ on Social Isolation and Independence 27:42 Technical Aspects and AI Integration 29:45 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

In January of this year, Peregrine Mission One launched with at least 22 payloads. One was intended to be the first American made rover to land on the moon since the Apollo days: 1972. It was called Iris, and it was also the first lunar rover constructed with carbon fiber. It was designed and built by students at Carnegie Mellon University. Today, we’re going to chat with them ... Despite a mission failure due to the lander experiencing a propellant leak and missing its lunar target, the Iris team achieved significant milestones. They successfully demonstrated that student-made rovers could survive space conditions, including the Van Allen Belt's radiation, and maintain communication and functions in space. This project, despite its setbacks, marks a significant achievement in democratizing space exploration and contributes to the broader vision of establishing moon bases and Mars bases as stepping stones for further space exploration. 00:00 The Future of Space Exploration: Moon and Mars Bases 00:42 Introducing can the Iris Lunar Rover Project 05:17 The Team Behind Iris: Roles and Experiences 09:00 Scientific Goals and Achievements of the Iris Rover 12:58 Overcoming Failure: Lessons from a Mission Gone Wrong 22:03 The Next Steps: Future Missions and Career Paths 25:59 Reflecting on the Golden Age of Space Exploration

Quantum computing currently costs $10,000 a qubit: just one of the reasons why it's hard and expensive to scale. SEEQC is taking a different approach to building scalable million-qubit machines that can actually deliver on the promise of quantum computers and revolutionize computing.

Will they succeed?

Hard to say, but SEEQC just announced that they are building a commercially-scalable, application-specific quantum computer for pharmaceutical drug development. Merck has bought one, and the company is partnering with Riverlane and Oxford Instruments to make it a reality.

The real challenge here is to take quantum computing from a V2 rocket era, CEO John Levy says, and bring it into the SpaceX era. In other words, to generate real, massive, lasting, and provable value from quantum computers ... which, let's be honest, we haven't really seen yet.

Links:

SEEQC: https://seeqc.com

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Drones are super-cool and fun. They could also be a terrorist's favorite weapon, allowing them to strike from a distance in safety.

But how do you defend against tiny, almost invisible flying machines that fly fast, elevate over fences, and can carry explosives or toxins into dangerous proximity to infrastructure and people?

In this episode of the TechFirst podcast, I chat with the CEO of Dedrone, which "dedrones" sensitive airspaces using sensors, AI, machine learning, and orchestration of defense and interdiction activity via lasers, jamming, and yes ... "putting lead on it."

Links:

Dedrone: https://www.dedrone.com

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Billions of people have jobs that require heavy lifting, and most of them will lose health and ability over years of repetitive stress. German Bionic thinks its Cray X bionic exoskeleton, powered, by AI, will not only help workers do their jobs safely, but also help others: sick, injured, or old.

Cray X helps workers lift with 66 pounds of lifting support, and uses rechargeable batteries so you can wear it all day. It's built with carbon fibre so it's light, and it's built-in AI learns your patterns to assist better.

Best part: at the end of the day the AI tells you how many tons you've lifted and what you've done ... essentially gamifying work.

Links:

German Bionic: https://www.germanbionic.com/en/home/

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It is NEXT YEAR PREDICTIONS time again :-)

This TechFirst we're chatting with App Annie CEO Ted Krantz about what's hot, what's big, and what's growing in mobile in 2022. Fintech, sure. Social monetization, yep. TikTok continuing to blast off, yes. Plus billions being spent in metaverse (yes! already!) and the ever-expanding billion-download-app club.

We also chat some Roblox, NikeLand, crypto, Subway Surfers (still around! still killing it!) and The Company Formerly Known As Facebook.

Enjoy!

Links:

App Annie: https://www.appannie.com/

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If crypto is the future of finance, the future sucks. It’s hard. Complicated. Easy to screw up. And when you do screw up, you can simply drop tens of thousands of dollars worth of crypto into the void, never to be seen again.

(And we haven’t talked about the scams or the hacks yet.)

Coincast is trying to solve that by making sending crypto as easy as texting. The genesis of the company: a techie trying to get his aunt to buy some crypto, back when Bitcoin was cheap.

In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, we chat with Albert Renshaw, CEO of Coincast, and long-time mobile app developer, founder, and entrepreneur.

What we chat about:

- Coincast

- Cryptocurrency wallets

- Crypto and stress

- Gas fees

- Business model

- The future of crypto

- And much more …

Links:

Coincast: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/coincast-send-crypto/id1517543384

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Unity might be better positioned than any other company to usher in the Oasis ... AKA the metaverse.

71% of the top thousand mobile games are made with the technology. Half of all mobile PC and console games are also made with Unity. Unity is inherently open, running on over 20 different platforms. The world's already there: 2.5 billion people are playing games built with Unity.

So I'm wondering ... Unity has the planets, the rooms, the solar systems ... when is it going to build the galaxy, the corridors, the connections?

In this episode of TechFirst I chat with Julie Shumaker, who leads growth at Unity.

Links:

Unity: https://unity.com

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Adtech is in upheaval. We've seen 7 billion-dollar acquisitions so far this year and we've seen massive change: Uber Eats has an ad network. Doordash has an ad network. Gaming company Zynga owns an ad network. CVS and Walgreens recently launched ad networks too.

So what is an ad network these days?

And are emerging titans like Unity, ironSource, Applovin, and Liftoff+Vungle going to be able to challenging the reigning heavyweights: Google & Facebook?

In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, I'm chatting with Mark Ellis, the CEO of Liftoff or … Liftoff + Vungle or … name-to-be-revealed-at-some-point-in-the-future ...

Links:

Liftoff: https://liftoff.io/

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Crypto is hard. Wallets are hard. NFTs are hard. Connecting to DApps, distributed apps, is hard. Brave is trying to make that simpler by building all of this functionality right into its privacy-safe browser.

In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, I chat with Brendan Eich, CEO and co-founder of Brave.

We chat about the new functionality in the Brave browser, why building a wallet natively into a browser is safer than doing it via an extension, and his vision of the future.

Links:

Brave: https://brave.com

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Photo by Executium on Unsplash

Most smart homes are aftermarket affairs: cobbled together bits and pieces of Alexa and Google and Apple HomeKit to make our lights go on, our music play, our security systems work, and our blinds to go up and down.

What about building it in from the start?

KB Home has built over 650,000 homes in the US. The company was the first builder to make every home ENERGY STAR® certified, and is now making a concerted effort to make every home smart. In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier I chat with Dan Bridleman, the company’s SVP of technology.

Links:

KB Home: https://www.kbhome.com

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There are perhaps a billion buildings on the planet. Maybe a million of those are of significant size, and all of them are going to be smart at some point in the future.

The problem?

Every smart building is a one-off. Every building is unique. There's no way to make them -- or 10s of millions of warehouses or factories -- smart in the same way, at the same time, quickly, cheaply, easily.

That's a problem Mapped is trying to solve.

In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, I chat with CEO and founder Shaun Cooley (and his dog) about scaling the smartification of the world's buildings.

Links:

Mapped: https://www.mapped.com/

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What happens after AGI? AGI is artificial general intelligence: it’s when AI achieves human-level intelligence nd likely quickly thereafter super-human abilities, maybe even ushering in the Singularity. I was recently at the Beneficial AGI conference in Panama. One of the speakers was the founder of Emerj Artificial Intelligence Research. He’s interviewed nearly 1,000 AI leaders, his name is Dan Faggella, and he has some good insight into what AGI might do. Or at least what the experts think about it … We discuss artificial general intelligence (AGI), the potential for post-human bliss through advanced simulations, and various perspectives on AGI's ethical and societal impacts. Fagella shares insights from interviews with nearly a thousand AI experts, outlining a matrix to categorize thoughts on AGI's future and human interaction. The discussion covers the balance between control, collaboration, and open-source development in AI, along with personal reflections on humanity's potential paths in an AI-dominated future. Themes include the ethical implications of AGI, the role of human values in AI development, and speculative futures where humanity merges with or is overshadowed by superior AI entities. 00:00 Exploring Post-Human Bliss and the Power of AI 01:31 The Matrix of AI Perspectives 02:50 Exploring the Future with AI: Preservation, Progression, and Ascension 04:26 Navigating the Path to AI: Control, Collaboration, Openness 07:11 Personal Stances and the Future of AI 19:00 AI's Impact on Society and the Future 24:23 Envisioning a Post-Human Future: Choices and Consequences 29:53 Reflections on Humanity's Path Forward with AI

How do CISOs sleep at night? By failing fast, apparently.

In this episode of TechFirst we chat with HP chief information security officer Joanna Burkey and Siemens USA CISO Kurt John on hacking, cracking, and yes ... even sleeping at night.

You are going to get hacked, says John. And yet, he can sleep at night because the point of his cybersecurity is to fail fast but fail noisily and recover quickly. 

45% of workers are buying their own computers

68% say security wasn't a factor

74% of IT teams are seeing jumps in phishing

49% of us click on suspicious emails

70% of those don't report it to IT

It's tough out there. These two CISOs share their strategies for living and working in an era of increased hacking and security breaches.

Links:

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Can an entire farm be a complex multi-component robot? According to AppHarvest CTO Josh Lessing ... sure. Kind of.

AppHarvest builds greenhouses that know what's happening. Can control light. Control fertilizer and irrigation. Even control pollination, and when is the right time to harvest the crop. Plus, of course, actually harvest the crop by robot.

In this episode of TechFirst, we chat about the future of farming ... and there's a lot of technology involved.

Achieving 20-100X better productivity with 70% less water and far less CO2 emission is key. So is the development of Virgo, a universal picking robot that is designed to emulate the flexibility and control of a human hand for soft crops like tomatoes, strawberries, and cucumbers.

Links:

AppHarvest: https://www.appharvest.com

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Apple is complicit in Chinese censorship. There’s simply no other way to put it. Thousands of apps have been deleted from the Chinese Apple App Store, including recently a Quran app and a Bible app.

Plus hundreds of games, social apps, and more.

Apple has to do business in China. That's just realistic. And it has to obey the laws of countries it does business in. That's also just realistic. 

Sideloading could enable both.

Links:

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The Carbon Robotics self-driving farm bot kills weeds with lasers: 8 150-watt lasers, to be precise. That’s pretty cool, but much cooler is that no toxic herbicides are required.

That’s safer for the farmer, better for the soil, and produces better crops.

In this episode of TechFirst, we check out the robot, talk to the CEO of Carbon Robotics Paul Mikesell, and see the results on the fields.

Links:

Carbon Robotics: https://carbonrobotics.com/

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0:00 Laser-powered weed killer

0:47 AI, computer vision, robotics

1:48 Herbicides and weeds

3:50 Health impact and food quality

5:42 Robots with lasers

8:18 How it works

12:13 Autonomous driving

13:08 Speed and ROI

15:11 Solar powered?

17:31 Lighting and computer vision 

21:21 Future of farm robots

Do you want sushi by drone? Ice cream or coffee in 2 minutes? Wing is Google's drone division (OK, Alphabet's!) and is doing just that right now in three locations around the world.

They're planning to scale globally and in the U.S., but are working out all the kinks and regulatory permissions. And they just announced some exciting news: first of its kind rooftop drone stations at a mall.

You order on an app, a retailer preps your item, attaches it to a drone, and it flies to you at 110 km/hour.

In this edition of TechFirst, we're chatting with Jonathan Bass, Wing’s head of marketing and communications.

Links:

Wing: https://wing.com

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0:00 50X more efficient

1:12 Rooftop delivery service

2:54 How long does drone delivery take?

3:59 How Wing's drone delivery works

6:34 What customers say

7:00 Retailers and drone delivery

9:01 Where's Amazon?

11:00 When will Wing scale?

Avi Bar-Zeev has been working on the metaverse for 30 years. He’s one of the key people behind Microsoft’s Hololens, co-founded Keyhole which became Google Earth, helped define Second Life’s technology, and has worked with Apple on, presumably, its rumored smartglasses.

In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, I chat with Ari about the metaverse, what it is, what it isn’t, and how AR and VR connect (if they do).

We also talk about what AR should be, about how it could fail, and the very real dangers it could represent. 

We discuss the one absolute necessity of the metaverse: interoperability. We ask whether a visual metaphor for the presentation of information is just unnecessary most of the time. We also we explore the future of life in an augmented reality rich environment, and the privacy implications of the metaverse.

0:00 Virtual enslavement

0:25 What is the metaverse?

4:52 Lessons of Hololens

7:05 Dangers of augmented reality

11:26 VR, the metaverse, and interoperability

14:22 Visual metaphors and metaverse

17:21 AR vs VR: convergence?

22:13 Life in the metaverse

26:10 Admin privs to your reality

28:07 Building the future

Links:

RealityPrime: https://www.realityprime.com/

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Here's (almost) everything Amazon announced for smart home just two days ago, including Amazon Astro, Ring Always Home Cam, Ring Alarm Pro, Ring Video Doorbell, and more Ring, Ring, Ring everything.

There's also the Echo Show 15 and the Amazon Glow.

But the big picture is how Amazon is competing with Google and Apple in smart home ... and it's not even close. Apple has almost nothing for smart home beyond HomeKit. Google has a few Nest products, but has been very slow to release more ...

Links:

Support TechFirst with $SMRT coins: https://rally.io/creator/SMRT/

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Can I only experience a Facebook metaverse in Oculus Quest? Can I only enter your virtual event with an HTC Vive Pro? Or can we build connections, doors, windows, and pathways through all digital realities that anyone can access with smartphone, laptop, or -- yes -- a VR headset?

In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, I chat with Hans Elstner, the CEO of Rooom. Rooom offers the "first all-in-one platform for content in 2D, 3D, AR and VR." In other words: digital realities that anyone can access. 

This is super-important in a era of silos and platforms and barriers. And if you want literally hundreds of thousands of people to attend your virtual event ... as Rooom did with IFA 2020.

Links:

Rooom: https://www.rooom.com/

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We know carbon fiber is strong: 60X stronger than steel. The problem has always been finding ways to 3D print it at speed, and for large objects.

Arevo says it's found the solution: "'the world's first high speed additive manufacturing system for continuous carbon fiber composite structures." It's literally the size of a shipping container, and it can print a volume about a meter cubed.

Companies pay hundreds to thousands of dollars per kilogram for carbon fiber products, and Arevo says it has the fastest and best way to make them on the fly. Stronger and better because it's true 3D printing, not 2.5D, and faster: a monocoque carbon fiber bike frame in about a day.

Links:

Arevo: https://arevo.com/

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0:00 60X stronger than steel

1:23 3D printing carbon fiber

3:40 Shipping container-sized 3D printer

5:11 Monocoque thermoplastic printing

8:55 $SMRT coin

9:25 3D printing speed

13:23 2000 3D printed bikes per month

15:40 3D printing vertically AND horizontally

17:01 Future of 3D printing

19:34 National security and manufacturing

21:55 3D printing ... 1 order of magnitude away

Epic sued Apple for the right to sell in-app purchases in Fortnite itself and not pay Apple a 30% cut. And it won ... but also lost, as the judge ruled in favor of Apple on nine of the ten claims Epic made.

But the big deal is payments in apps. And that changes everything.

Here are the most interesting rulings, findings, and facts unearthed in U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers' 185-page report.

Links:

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If you have an iPhone, you've got a notch. Now there's tech that can get rid of that notch ... and the same tech can bring secure Face ID to Android: at a fraction of the cost. In this TechFirst, I chat with Metalenz CEO Rob Devlin about his meta surfaces product. Not only can they produce about 10,000 lenses on a single 30-centimeter wafer, just like computer chips, they can now decode polarization information on surfaces from the light reflecting off of that. That gives them data on what that surface is made from, and that is a huge advancement for biometrics, phones, medical devices, and robots. The technology, which can capture and process unique wavelengths and polarization information, enables the creation of smaller, cheaper, and more efficient optical systems. Metalenz's partnership with ST Microelectronics has led to the integration of metasurface optics in products that have been previously sold in over 150 different smartphone models. 00:00 Revolutionizing Optics with Metal Lens Technology 00:30 The Journey of Metalenz: From Concept to Market 01:34 Exploring the Impact of Meta Surface Technology 02:39 Understanding Metasurfaces and Their Potential 10:48 Introducing Polar ID: A Game-Changer for Biometric Security 22:20 The Future of Polarization Technology and Its Applications 22:33 Collaboration with Samsung and the Path Forward 27:14 Envisioning New Horizons: Beyond Polar ID 32:36 Wrapping Up: The Future of Metal Lens and Polar ID

Some robots won't replace us. Some will augment us: make us faster, stronger, bigger, more capable. Sarcos Robotics has built both robots that you can wear and robots you can operate, and just recently unveiled the Guardian XT to complement the Guardian XO.

One you wear, and it helps you lift 200 pounds with minimal effort. The other you teleoperate in VRwhile wearing motion-capturing clothing. Weld, cut, lift, bolt ... you can do it all in dangerous situations from the safety of the ground, or your home.

In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, we chat with Ben Wolff from Sarcos about the Guardians, how they work, and what they mean about the future of work.

Links:

Sarcos https://www.sarcos.com

Support TechFirst with $SMRT coins: https://rally.io/creator/SMRT/

Buy $SMRT to join a community focused on tech for good: the emerging world of smart matter. Access my private Slack, get your name in my book, suggest speakers for TechFirst ... and support my work.

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Contents:

0:00 Fleet of thousands

1:06 Robot avatars

2:11 Wearable robots

4:43 Merging human and machine

5:08 Where these robots work

8:41 Fine motor control

10:03 Power supply

10:58 Range of motion

13:30 Robots & work in 5 years

Four months ago I interviewed Lightmatter CEO Nick Harris on his photonic supercomputer. There are now almost 400K view and 2,600 comments ... with lots of questions. In this episode, Harris answers the biggest ones.

 - is this real?

 - does the chip do what Lightmatter says it will do?

 - RGB vs CMYK?

 - how do you do linear algebra with light?

 - where can I get this?

 - capacitance issues

 - can it run DOOM?

 - can it run Crysis?

 - why hasn't NVIDIA done this already?

 - how does this interface with quantum computing?

 ... and much more.

Links:

Lightmatter: https://lightmatter.co

Support TechFirst with $SMRT coins: https://rally.io/creator/SMRT/

Buy $SMRT to join a community focused on tech for good: the emerging world of smart matter. Access my private Slack, get your name in my book, suggest speakers for TechFirst ... and support my work.

TechFirst transcripts: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

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US President Biden said his goal is that 50% of cars sold in 2030 will be zero-emission vehicles: less than 9 years away. So … is that doable?

Maybe, but the US needs 10X more rare earths for magnets.

Currently, less than 2% of cars on American roads are electric. About 17-19M cars are sold in the US annually, and a little over 300,000 are EVs. So we’re at about 2%.

One of the things you need is batteries. The other is electric drivetrains, and for that you need rare earths for magnets: neodymium,  praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium. Plus, of course, lithium for batteries. It't not just electric cars ... the F-35 fighter jet needs a ton of rare earths. Wind power requires it, and so do batteries that power energy storage for green economy plans.

In fact, according to Pini Althaus, CEO of USA Rare Earth, the U.S. needs 10X more by 2030, and maybe 25X more by 2050.

Links:

Support TechFirst with $SMRT coins: https://rally.io/creator/SMRT/

Buy $SMRT to join a community focused on tech for good: the emerging world of smart matter. Access my private Slack, get your name in my book, suggest speakers for TechFirst ... and support my work.

TechFirst transcripts: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

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0:00 USA electric vehicle goals

2:00 Rare earths

5:06 China and rare earths

6:59 How much do we need?

10:50 Increasing production of rare earths

12:28 Environmental concerns

14:08 How China secures resources

15:24 Is there enough in the US?

17:41 National security implications

Presumably Tesla isn’t busy enough building “full self driving” or cars that have half-year waitlists for new buyers. (Or worse: anyone wondering where Cybertruck is?) Now CEO Elon Musk has revealed a new project: Tesla Bot.

Tesla Bot is a 125 pound 5’8” humanoid robot. Launch goal: some time next year.

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What could an AI-focused 22nd most powerful supercomputer in the world and 100 new AI faculty do for the University of Florida? I chat with UF provost Dr. Joseph Glover and NVIDIA's Cheryl Martin about what they're planning.

Short version: massive impact.

We're talking AI-driven climate change research, medical research and infusing artificial intelligence throughout the entire curriculum of a massive university that graduates 10,000 students annually.

Links:

Support TechFirst with $SMRT coins: https://rally.io/creator/SMRT/

TechFirst transcripts: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

Forbes columns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/

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There are now seven mobile games that pull in over $100 million in an average month, according to a new App Annie report. And 810 scoop up more than $1 million every month.

In 2019?

Only two made over $100 million/month.

In other words, mobile gaming is huge and massive and still growing fast ... 16X faster revenue growth than PC/Mac gaming and home console gaming.

Links:

Support TechFirst with $SMRT coins: https://rally.io/creator/SMRT/

App Annie's report: https://content-new.appannie.com/en/insights/mobile-gaming/2021-mobile-gaming-teardown

TechFirst transcripts: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

Forbes columns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/

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If I had a dollar for every 3D startup that has failed, I'd probably have ... a few hundred bucks. Getting no-glasses no-headset 3D right is insanely difficult.

But Look Glass Factory CEO Shawn Frayne says he's done it. It's shipping now, and I have friends who say it's the best thing they've ever seen. He's been working on it for literally half his life ... and it has the potential to revolutionize photography, memories, and maybe more.

Think collaborative work in 3D. Think your everyday monitor being 3D capable. 

Or stop thinking. Just watch.

Links:

Support TechFirst with $SMRT coins: https://rally.io/creator/SMRT/

TechFirst transcripts: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

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0:00 Road to hell

1:32 Marty McFly and holograms

2:48 Why does holography matter?

4:35 Sponsored by $SMRT coin

5:31 3D is the next major paradigm shift

8:15 4K and 8K holographic displays

10:36 Interactivity

11:45 How the 3D tech works

14:49 Getting your photos into Looking Glass

15:55 Future of holography

Amazon is the beast, the bear, the devil that controls over half of digital retail in America. And they've copied successful products for Amazon Essentials ... because they see all the data.

But could that be a great thing for brands?

Perch has raised over $900 million to buy, build, and grow microbrands, mostly on Amazon. And executive Mike Frekey is pretty pumped about it, calling Amazon the largest platform brands have at their disposal for growth.

We chat about the future of retail, e-commerce, direct-to-consumer (DTC), and what Amazon is becoming. Also about shadow ratings on Amazon, advertising on Amazon and if that's pay-to-play, microbrands and their future, and much, much more.

Links:

Support TechFirst with $SMRT coins: https://rally.io/creator/SMRT/

Guest: Perch https://www.perchhq.com/

Sponsor: Serial Marketers https://serialmarketers.net 

TechFirst transcripts: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

Forbes columns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/ 

Subscribe to the podcast: https://anchor.fm/techfirst 

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0:00 Largest platform for growth

1:31 Microbrands at scale

3:57 Sponsored by Serial Marketers

4:30 Future of retail

6:10 Retail employees = engineers

8:15 Invisible Amazon product ratings

9:38 What is Amazon for brands?

13:50 Amazon Ads: Pay to play?

18:44 The future of brands

Will AI replace us, or make us better?

According to AI expert Slater Victoroff, AI is a bionic arm that's going to make us better and faster, whether we're a doctor, lawyer, data scientist, builder, carpenter, or care aide.

I also chat the Victoroff, the CTO and co-founder of Indico, about what work will look like in the future, how much white collar and blue collar work will get taken over by AI and robotics, and how we're using AI now for work ... and will be in the future.

Links:

Support TechFirst with $SMRT coins: https://rally.io/creator/SMRT/

Indico: https://indico.io/

TechFirst transcripts: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

Forbes columns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/ 

Subscribe to the podcast: https://anchor.fm/techfirst 

Keep in touch: https://twitter.com/johnkoetsier 

Contents:

0:00 Work in a decade

1:00 AI in work today

3:50 GPT-3 and general AI

5:10 The human work "black box"

8:30 General AI and a personal Jarvis

13:11 An "AI lawyer" is not an AI lawyer

16:22 Enterprise AI adoption

19:24 AI and job loss

Mashing those buttons may not take massive muscles. But long-term success in eSports takes physical and mental fitness.

At least according to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive star JW, a member of the Fnatic esports team. With other eSports stars he's been working out with Freeletics, an AI-powered fitness program.

The biggest benefit? Faster, clearer thinking, JW says.

Links:

Support TechFirst with $SMRT coins: https://rally.io/creator/SMRT/

TechFirst transcripts: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

Forbes columns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/

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Billions of robots within a decade? A similar growth curve to smartphones? We currently have about 30 million robots on the planet, not counting Roombas and similar small bots. RobotLab CEO Elad Inbar says that will hit BILLIONS with a B within 10 years. We discuss the exponential increase in commercial robots globally and predict billions of robots integrating into daily activities, from service industries to personal assistance, over the next decade. We chat about the evolution of robotics from novelty items to essential aspects of business operations, highlighting the role of robots in automating mundane tasks and their future potential in enhancing customer service and living standards. Inbar also emphasizes the importance of service infrastructure to support the widespread adoption of robotics technology, drawing parallels with past technological advancements like mobile phones and cars.

And we dive into specific applications of robots in restaurants, cleaning services, and healthcare, particularly for dementia patients, and the franchise model RobotLab is adopting to expand its reach and capacity to deliver robotics solutions. 00:00 The Dawn of the Robot Decade: Envisioning a Future with Billions of Robots 01:02 The Big Picture: Robots Transforming Business and Society 07:10 The Current State of Robotics: From Hospitality to Manufacturing 09:50 The Future of Work: Robots Filling the Gaps in the Workforce 12:40 Enhancing Customer Service: How Robots are Changing the Game 13:31 The Restaurant Revolution: Robots Taking Over Service Roles 16:35 Exploring the Role of Robots in Restaurants 16:47 Adapting Robots to Different Restaurant Environments 18:18 Growth Areas Beyond Restaurants: Cleaning and Retail 22:47 The Future of Customer-Facing Robots 24:00 Robots in Assisted Living: A Compassionate Solution 27:09 Unlocking the Potential of Robotics in Business

Smart electricity startup Amber just signed a significant agreement with German giant Infineon to bring its technology closer to market. Amber's tech is a solid state solution for managing and controlling electricity, including transforming AC to DC.

That makes electricity software controllable: a 100-year leap in technology.

"By controlling the sine wave electricity and you can chop it and dice it and slice it and you can manipulate it and you can even turn it to a straight line DC by with the elimination of electrolytics, magnetics, transformers, relays, rectifiers ... that's mind-boggling to a lot of electrical engineers," says founder and CEO Thar Casey.

Links:

Support TechFirst with $SMRT coins: https://rally.io/creator/SMRT/

Amber: https://www.ambersi.com

TechFirst transcripts: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

Forbes columns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/ 

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Throw everything cool and techy in a blender and what do you get? Million Doge Disco. It's an augmented reality game similar to Pokemon Go with NFTs ✅ and blockchain ✅ and augmented reality  ✅  and partying  ✅  and Tamagotchi  ✅  and Dogecoin  ✅  and ... free money.

Or free Dogecoin, at least. One million free Dogecoin. 

Which you have to capture, then dance with, and babysit while they increase in value.

Yes, it's insane. And so is (in a good way!) its founder and CEO Gary Lachance, who co-created the Distributed Dance Party and sees gaming as a way to bring about world peace.

Links:

Support TechFirst with $SMRT coins: https://rally.io/creator/SMRT/

Million Doge Disco: https://dogedisco.com/

TechFirst transcripts: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

Forbes columns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/ 

Full videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/johnkoetsier?sub_confirmation=1

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There's a dirty little secret of most wearable tech, and the dirty little secret is ... it's not actually wearable. It's strappable, it's mountable. 

It's not actually something that you wear in any traditional meaning of that word. One startup in New York, however, is trying to change that. Imagine smart thread woven right into all of your clothing -- no straps, no attachments, just clothing and data. To chat more and learn more, I'm talking to the CEO and founder of Nextiles, George Sun.

Links:

Support TechFirst with $SMRT coins: https://rally.io/creator/SMRT/

Nextiles: https://www.nextiles.tech

TechFirst transcripts: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

Forbes columns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/

Full videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/johnkoetsier?sub_confirmation=1

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What if building a robot was like picking options on a car? I'll have the vision module, the speech module ... better give me a wheeled transportation package for this one, a flying navigation module for that one ... I'll take LIDAR and a natural vision module ... and so on ...

Ohmnilabs offers an modular robotics platform that lets companies configure autonomous robots. They have customers like Google, Amazon, Apple, and Toyota, and they 3D print components so you can test new versions quickly. The idea: pick your hardware, pick your software, build your robot.

In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, I chat with Ohmnilabs' CEO Thuc Vu about how it works, what's possible, and how much faster/better/cheaper this model is ... 

Links:

Support TechFirst with $SMRT coins: https://rally.io/creator/SMRT/

Ohmnilabs: https://ohmnilabs.com

TechFirst transcripts: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

Forbes columns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/ 

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Whether you want to be Dick Tracy or you want to just not take your phone on a hike, there is now a solution: Wristcam. It's the only camera available globally for Apple Watch, and I got a sample to test.

I also spent some time with the CEO and CMO of Wristcam chatting about what it does, how it works, what quality people can expect, and whether it's a boat anchor on your wrist.

You can take pictures, video, and yes ... even video chat live with Wristcam.

Links:

Wristcam: https://www.wristcam.com

Support TechFirst with $SMRT coins: https://rally.io/creator/SMRT/

TechFirst transcripts: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tec...

Forbes columns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoet... 

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0:00 What is Wristcam?

2:02 Sample video and pics

4:33 Live demo

6:58 The technology

11:02 Feature - live video

12:53 Future of wearable video

Next-day delivery? Same-day delivery? Super-lame. What about 5-minute delivery?

That's Manna from heaven ... or manna from drones. Manna is running autonomous drone delivery right now in Galway, Ireland, and has the licenses in place to take the service across Europe and maybe Canada. This tiny startup is beating Amazon to the immediate delivery punch in Europe.

And the US? That's a problem: regulation is way, way, way behind.

In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, I chat with Bobby Healy, CEO of Manna, about drone delivery, how it works, what it's accomplishing right now, and how soon you might see it in your backyard. Plus, what drone delivery as a service means for the future of commerce.

Links:

Support TechFirst with $SMRT coins: https://rally.io/creator/SMRT/

Manna: https://www.manna.aero

TechFirst transcripts: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

Forbes columns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/

Full videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/johnkoetsier?sub_confirmation=1

Keep in touch: https://twitter.com/johnkoetsier

Medical AI has a bright future.

Apple’s focus on health data collected by wearable technology and new capabilities for streaming that data to doctors just guaranteed it.

I just posted to my Forbes column, and here's a few expanded thoughts on what we just saw at Apple's World Wide Developer Conference.

Support TechFirst with $SMRT coins: https://rally.io/creator/SMRT/

TechFirst transcripts: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

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If we thought crypto was polarizing, NFTs are 10X worse. Are they cool? Are they awesome? Are they nonsense? Are they a cash grab? Are they even anything real at all? 

Well, even the Olympics have NFTs.

In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, I chat with Harrison Schulman and Francisco Lopez, both co-founders of one of the newest NFT marketplaces, New Renaissance. New Renaissance is the first to create an NFT out of a major sports championship icon ... in this case, Danny Green's NBA championship ring.

Links:

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Coin holders get exclusive access to $SMRT Space

https://johnkoetsier.com/smrt-space/

TechFirst transcripts: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

Forbes columns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/ 

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Humm is a small grey patch you wear on your forehead that boosts the normal electrical signals in your prefrontal cortex, making you learn faster, retain memories longer, and assimilate complex data quicker. 

In research studies, subjects had a 20% boost in cognitive abilities.

In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, I interview Humm CEO Iain McIntyre. We talk about what Humm is, how it works, the benefits it provides, how he's planning to take it to market ... and why McIntyre (a dual law and physics major) is in this business at all.

Links:

Support TechFirst with $SMRT coins: https://rally.io/creator/SMRT/

Humm: https://thinkhumm.com

TechFirst transcripts: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

Forbes columns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/

Full videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/johnkoetsier?sub_confirmation=1

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Pilot free level 4 drone autonomy? Exyn Technologies says they've achieved it, and in this episode we chat with CEO Nader Elm.

Topics: what drone autonomy means, what level 4 looks like, and, crucially, what this unlocks for search, rescue, research, security, surveillance, inspection, delivery, and many more drone operations.

According to Exyn, this is no longer point-to-point flight, but open exploration flight at double the speed with a smoother flight path and higher quality data accuracy.

Links:

Support TechFirst with $SMRT coins: https://rally.io/creator/SMRT/

Exyn: https://www.exyn.com

TechFirst transcripts: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

Forbes columns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/ 

Full videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/johnkoetsier?sub_confirmation=1 

Keep in touch: https://twitter.com/johnkoetsier 

Is the Apple Vision Pro the future of surgical training? In this episode of TechFirst, host John Koetsier discusses the transformative impact of virtual reality (VR) on surgical training, highlighting the cost-efficiency and effectiveness of VR in reducing the learning curve for surgeons. The conversation features Richard Vincent, CEO of Fundamental VR, who elaborates on how VR technology, particularly the Apple Vision Pro, is revolutionizing surgical education by offering rapid, repeatable training sessions without the logistical setbacks associated with traditional methods. They explore the hardware agnosticism of Fundamental VR's software, ensuring compatibility with various VR platforms, and delve into the new possibilities unlocked by the Apple Vision Pro's advanced features, including its intuitive control system, powerful compute capacity, and exceptional optics. The discussion also touches on the incorporation of haptics for a more immersive training experience, the potential of VR for remote collaborative training, and the broader implications of VR technology in the medical field. 00:00 Unlocking the Future of Surgical Training with VR 01:15 The Cost-Effectiveness of VR in Surgical Training 03:13 Achieving Competence: The Role of VR in Surgery 04:45 Hardware From Oculus to Apple Vision Pro 07:04 The Revolutionary Apple Vision Pro in Surgical Training 10:35 The Power of Haptics: Enhancing VR Training with Physical Feedback 13:07 The Impact of Device Cost on VR Training Accessibility 14:34 Expanding Horizons: VR's Role in Remote Surgery Training 17:03 The Future of Medical Training and Collaboration with VR 18:48 Apple Vision Pro: A Game-Changer for Medical VR Applications 20:15 Closing Thoughts and Future Prospects

iOS 14.5 is perhaps the biggest change in the mobile ecosystem in a decade. 

While most iPhone owners might not see that much change, for the first time they are getting a choice about whether they allow adtech companies and brands to track them around the internet. For the first five years of mobile, anyone who wanted it got our hard-coded UDID, or universal device identifiers. After about 2010, anyone who wanted got our IDFAs, or identifiers for advertisers. There was an opt-out, but few saw it.

Now, we'll all be asked for permission to track, like GDPR cookie notifications on the web..

App Annie CEO Ted Krantz and I chat about what that means for apps, companies, and people.

Links:

Support TechFirst with $SMRT coins: https://rally.io/creator/SMRT/

App Annie: https://www.appannie.com/

TechFirst transcripts: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

Forbes columns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/

Full videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/johnkoetsier?sub_confirmation=1

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Imagine the ability to have a say in who I interview next. Imagine owning a token from your favorite creator or artist that gives you special access or a closer connection.

Now imagine it’s a currency that can grow as the community does. And can be used to purchase goods and services ... or even exchanged for US dollars

That’s a creator coin.

Recently Rally.io raised $57M to make literally a million of them. Including #SMRT​ coin, which is my creator coin.

In this episode of TechFirst I interview Bremner Morris, former Patreon executive and now chief marketing officer of Rally.io.

Links:

#SMRT coin: https://rally.io/creator/SMRT/

TechFirst transcripts: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

Forbes columns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/

Full videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/johnkoetsier?sub_confirmation=1

Keep in touch: https://twitter.com/johnkoetsier

Would you feel awkward wearing hearing aids?

About 20% of people have hearing loss. But only a third of them will actually wear hearing aids. Too many people just don't want the stigma of hearing aids. (Or all those finicky wires!)

But what if they looked just like regular earbuds?

Like for example, Signia Actives.

They look just like regular earbuds, and they adapt to different listening needs on the fly via an app.

Noisy room? There's a setting for that.

Music? No problem.

Need to hear what’s in front or behind? Just change a setting.

Need to hear what someone’s saying through a mask? There's a mode for that.

Need more volume? Less? Just turn a dial via the provided app.

Links:

Support TechFirst with $SMRT coins: https://rally.io/creator/SMRT/

Signia Active: https://www.signia.net/en-us/hearing-aids/active/

TechFirst transcripts: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

Forbes columns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/

Full videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/johnkoetsier?sub_confirmation=1

Keep in touch: https://twitter.com/johnkoetsier