TechFirst with John Koetsier

In the stone ages of mobile a couple of years ago, you actually had to tap on an app icon and open an app in order to access its functionality. While backwards, onerous, and tedious, this ensured that if I was ordering Air Jordans from Shoe Giant #1 or a Big Mac from Ronald McDonald, I would have at least a couple of interactions with the Nike brand or McDonalds. Now, now so much. This story is live at Forbes here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/10/08/developers-google-siri-alexa-are-an-abstraction-layer-over-your-apps/

Drone deliveries won’t be common until we figure out distributed charging. But maybe … we already have ... In this episode of TechFirst, we chat with Leonid Plekhanov from Global Energy Transmission (GET). GET has a last-mile in-air fast charging solution for drones (and another for undersea drones). Amazon’s been touting drone delivery for years. And this summer, Domino’s delivered a pizza to a customer on the beach via drone. But really, no-one's doing this at scale. With the ability to charge your drones wherever they go, the much-needed last-mile solution might now be here. Full transcript will be here: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/ Forbes story will be here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/

Is the future of robotics in the cloud? In this episode of TechFirst we're chatting with and Amazon exec, AWS Robotics general manager Roger Barga, about how Amazon’s “fake” robots are making real robots smarter, faster. We’re seeing more and more robots in manufacturing, services, hospitality, and almost every other industry ... but there are still huge gaps in software to run and manage and coordinate all our robots and drones. Amazon's reducing the cost to train, test and deploy robots by a factor of perhaps 1,000 thanks to AWS RoboMaker and WorldForge. We chat about companies like iRobot that are vastly improving their robots, the future of robotics in both the near and far term, and how Amazon 'eats its own dog food' by using AWS RoboMaker to train and deploy robots in its own warehouses.

Health and fitness apps are winning the Covid-19 era, thanks to closed gyms. But a certain kind of health and fitness app is winning mobile, according to a new report from Apptopia. “Six out of ten of the top Health & Fitness apps are apps that offer video workouts or video-guided exercises,” Apptopia says. “If non-workout apps like Calm, Headspace, and Flo were not included here, the ratio of video to non-video fitness apps would be even greater.” This story is currently live at Forbes here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/10/05/the-top-10-health--fitness-apps-of-2020-have-one-thing-in-common-mostly/ 

Can you share personal photos online … without sharing your face with the giant global database that is the internet? And, can you share photos of crowds of people, or demonstrations, without subjecting everyone in those photos to AI-driven searches and privacy violations? Brighter AI thinks they have a solution, and in this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, we chat with the CEO, Marian Glaeser. Essentially, his technology replaces every face with an AI-generated substitute to ensure you can share your pictures in a privacy-safe way. What becomes a question, however, is how real your photos are now ...

Are 50 million YouTube, Instagram, and Twitch creators the new founders? And … are they far more numerous and economically important than we think? In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier we’re chatting with Yuanling Yuan (AKA YY), a senior associate at SignalFire. She recently did a massive study of the creator economy, finding that of the more than 50 million “creators” in the world on platforms like YouTube, Instagram, Twitch, and TikTok, two million of them are professionals, earning a full-time living. And that number is growing fast. Full transcript will be here: https://johnkoetsier.com/ YY on Twitter: https://twitter.com/YuanlingY SignalFire: https://www.signalfire.com

There’s now a Google TV as well as an Apple TV. A new Chromecast. Google Home is now Nest Audio, and there are now new Google Pixel smartphones. Google released not quite a googolplex of new consumer hardware and software services today in its “Launch Night In” event. Here’s a rundown ... My post on Forbes, with pictures: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/09/30/everything-google-announced-including-pixel-4a-5g-pixel-5-google-tv-chromecast-nest-audio/

Imagine the perfect custom talk radio station tailored exactly to your unique likes, with a never-ending flow of great content. That’s exactly what Apple could soon be delivering with its recent podcasting acquisition, Scout FM. Because that’s precisely what Apple has achieved already — in the music sense — with its new personalized music stations in iOS 14. Get the story in my Forbes column here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/09/25/heres-how-apple-could-use-new-podcasting-acquisition-scout-fm/ And, if you'd like to ping me (check the last 30 seconds of the podcast), here I am on Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnkoetsier

I was not a fan of App Clips when Apple announced them for iOS 14. And wow ... was I wrong. This story is also available in my Forbes column here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/09/28/apples-ios-14-app-clips-seemed-stupid-theyre-awesome/ And, usually, transcripts show up on my personal site here: https://johnkoetsier.com

I happened to see my wife’s screen time analytics on her phone recently. She’s spending an average of over seven hours a day on her phone. And she’s not alone. Apparently, I'm not too far behind, when you add in time from other screen, watching sports and a few TV shows. Full story: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/09/26/global-online-content-consumption-doubled-in-2020/