TechFirst with John Koetsier

We’re chatting with Apptopia’s VP of Insights Adam Blacker about the top 100 apps of 2019. Which made the cut … what surprised us … what this means for tech giants like Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, and all the others in 2020 ... Mobile app categories we hit: Games Social/messaging Entertainment Food & drink Dating Shopping Music & audio Health & fitness Finance Companies and apps we talk about: WhatsApp TikTok Helo Netflix YouTube Twitch HBO Disney McDonalds Uber  Tinder Badoo Wish! AliExpress Pinduoduo Spotify  Apple YouTube ... Google Amazon Samsung  Xiaomi Sberbank

We’re talking about autonomous driving ... specifically … how soon we can expect self-driving cars? And what changes will they bring in our economy and our society? My guest is Blair Lacorte, the president of AEye, a Silicon Valley company that “develops advanced vision hardware, software and algorithms that act as the eyes and visual cortex of autonomous vehicles.” He says: we’ll have self-driving cars within 3 years. What we cover: Many experts say that full self-driving is many years away. Some say we’ll never get there. Talk about how you think we’ll get there in 3 years. You also say we’ll need to redefine what self-driving means … maybe redo the Levels of Automation. How so? What’s unique about your technology? You have something you’ve call iDAR … what is it, and how does it work? Who are you working with right now on this? Elon Musk says we don’t need LIDAR. Agree? How important is critical mass of instrumented cars and shared data to accelerate the AI that we need for self-driving cars? Robotaxis … will we see fleets of personal cars roaming the roads as taxis? Other models? There are those who say that autonomous cars -- and their development -- is unsafe. How do you respond? Anything else?

We talk to Robert Scoble about iOS spellcheck: is it really that bad (yes), why it's that bad (privacy?), and how this will impact Apple's competitiveness against Google and Android. "80% said it got at least a little worse than before than two years ago" "Swipe is a good new feature that comes with this system, but it's an immature system. It hasn't been trained very well." "I had dinner with the guy who runs Siri at Apple. He said ... Google is beating us ... we see Google's learning at a faster rate."

You either love Cybertruck or you hate it. Designer Fede Ponce has worked for Nissan and BMW. He's currently consulting with Mercedes, and won awards for his work on the Iron Man and Thor movies. He's worked on autonomous vehicles and heads-up displays. Hear why he's ordered a Tesla Cybertruck.

chat with Amazon VP of smart home Daniel Rausch about: what’s in HIS smart home what drives consumer adoption why voice is better than phones for a smart phone hub the growth of the Alexa universe Amazon’s new “Certified for Humans” program, which lets you set up device by voice alone Alexa’s new “Did You Mean” feature Making smart homes … actually smart Alexa Guard, which makes your home look like you’re home … even when you’re away Privacy Adding Alexa to anything How Amazon grades itself on its progress with Alexa and Echo

Are we wasting billion on smart home technology? 70% of smart home tech that gets returned ... has nothing wrong with it. TechSee CEO Eiten Cohen surveyed smart home owners to find out what the biggest problems are ... and gives us the goods.