TechFirst with John Koetsier

A staggering 40% of the top 20 TV shows and series in the U.S. are produced, owned, and delivered on one network that isn’t available over the air or on standard cable TV and didn’t exist much more than two decades ago. It’s Netflix, of course ....

The Android DJI Go 4 app lets you fly your drone. It also contains sophisticated hidden functionality that can “phone home” every hour to Sina Weibo, one of the most popular Chinese social media sites, asking for fresh commands. Those new commands could include installing new apps on your phone for almost any purpose. In addition, the app restarts itself automatically when you try to quit it.

Ads suck and we all know it. They’re invasive, they track us, they create horrible user experiences, and most of the time, they’re incredibly annoying. The future’s not like that ... and here's why. In this edition of TechFirst with John Koetsier, we chat with the creator of Javascript, Brendan Eich (co-founder/CEO of Brave Software) and Carolina Abenante (founder of NYIAX). Using micropayments, permission, edge AI, blockchain, and crypto, they're creating a future in which you only see ads from brands you want to, you don’t sacrifice privacy when you see an ad, and you get paid for your attention. In a lot of ways, that future is now.

Apple’s App Store has reasonable commission rates that are roughly comparable to other online services, significantly cheaper than traditional offline retail, and are generally in line with commissions at art auctions, consignment shops, and car dealerships. At least, according to a new report written for Apple by hired competition and antitrust experts. Two things the report doesn’t mention? Only the two biggest elephants in the App Store room.

During COVID-19, we can't really go to the gym. So many of us are working out in our (new?) home gyms. Is that making us fitter? And, can an AI coach motivate us? In this episode of TechFirst, we chat with Freeletics CEO Daniel Sobhani about what we're doing to stay fit during Coronavirus, what's working, and how men and women are reacting differently ... including with regard to mental health. We chat about: - the biggest ways fitness changed during COVID-19 - what are people doing differently - how Sobhani's AI coach for fitness works - how the AI coach compares to a human coach? - how the AI works, at a high level - what’s different about working out at home? - how meditation is up, and how men vs women deal with mental health differently - what people are doing with regard to investment in new equipment

Facebook is one of the two most dominant companies in an $80 billion industry that impacts hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions, in consumer spend. But a huge percentage of that revenue is now at risk, thanks to an obscure privacy move by Apple at the company’s World Wide Developer Conference in June. The move? Deprecating a mobile device identifier called the IDFA. That threatens billion in Facebook revenue. And Google could be next ...

The electricity that powers our digital future is very, very analog. Is that about to change? We don’t think a lot about the technology that drives our computers and homes ... we flip a switch and get to work, or turn on the TV. But the actual mechanics of what happens in our walls and wires is very 18th century. One company is working on making it better. In this edition of TechFirst with John Koetsier we’re joined by Thar Casey, founder and CEO of Amber, to dive in and check it out.

Everyone is investing in India lately. In April, Facebook announced it was investing $5.7 billion in India. In January it was Amazon, investing $1 billion in India. Today’s it’s Google (or its parent company, Alphabet) investing $10 billion in partnerships, infrastructure, and ecosystems. Since China’s closed, the giants have to invest elsewhere, apparently.

TikTok was THE mobile phenomenon of 2019 with almost 700M app installs. But with the ban talk getting louder and louder ... are other contenders poised to steal its thunder?  We chat with one of the owners and board members of Triller, which has over 100M installs ... and just got a bump of 40M new installs in India after the TikTok ban.  Triller thinks TikTok will get banned in the U.S, as well as in India. And Triller is trying to take full advantage of that by poaching all of TikTok's creators and helping the monetize 2X more on Triller than they did on TikTok ...

Ads suck and we all know it. They’re invasive, they track us, they create horrible user experiences, and most of the time, they’re incredibly annoying. The future’s not like that ... and here's why. In this edition of TechFirst with John Koetsier, we chat with the creator of Javascript, Brendan Eich (co-founder/CEO of Brave Software) and Carolina Abenante (founder of NYIAX). Using micropayments, permission, edge AI, blockchain, and crypto, they're creating a future in which you only see ads from brands you want to, you don’t sacrifice privacy when you see an ad, and you get paid for your attention. In a lot of ways, that future is now.