TechFirst with John Koetsier

Aimi is a generative AI application for music that make songs that are everlasting: collaborations between artists and audiences that start, but never have to end. In this TechFirst I chat with Edward Balassanian, the CEO of Aimi, a generative AI for music that musicians can use to create, generate, and even code music ... while allowing audiences to add, customize, extend, and personalize the sound. There's free music, monetization for artists, and over 200 artists onboard who are creating something entirely new in music.

The 500-year ceramic geodesic dome home is now an actual physical reality. I first wrote about Geoship's plan to build long-lasting, inexpensive, earth-friendly, community-centric homes about 3 years ago. Last year, Geoship showed me a prototype. Now there's an actual built, powered, and furnished dome home in Nevada City, California. In this TechFirst, we chat with Geoship founder Morgan Bierschenk, see the dome first-hand, and get some insight into pricing, availability, technology, and livability. The first dome home is the 18-foot diameter model. But ultimately, Geoship plans to make domes that are anywhere from 1500 to 3000 square feet. A large individual dome might be 1,000 square feet, but can be combined and connected with smaller domes for bedrooms, kitchens, home gyms, living rooms ... pretty much anything.

Is generative AI the beginning of the end for humans ... or the end of the beginning? And, did you know generative AI has been around since 1972? In this TechFirst we chat with Ilke Demir, a research scientist at Intel who is working on ethical generative AI applications, like a speech synthesis project that aims to enable people who have lost their voice to talk again, an open urban driving simulator developed to support development, training, and validation of autonomous driving systems. And a privacy-focused face generator that allows researchers to mix and match facial regions (nose of person A, mouth of person B, eyes of person C, etc.) to create an entirely new face that does not already exist in a dataset, so that people can request anonymization in public photos. We also -- of course -- talk about OpenAI and Chat GPT, and how Ilke feels that it is not actually generative AI.

On November 16th, revenue for skippable ads dropped 50%, 60%, even 90% for many YouTube creators.  They say YouTube variously admits it was a bug, says it was fixed or will be fixed, or claims the payment drops are due to invalid traffic: code for "you're cheating." However, looking at their YouTube analytics doesn't support that claim. In this TechFirst, I chat with 5 creators who say they were impacted by the bug ... including several who have been impacted so severely they're not sure if they're going to be able to pay their bills, or keep creating content on YouTube.

So I did a Twitter Space with a bunch of really smart people, and they said I could upload the results to TechFirst. The only thing ... it's literally over 3 hours. So ... listen however long you'd like! The people on the Twitter Space include the host, Robert Scoble, as well as: Bryan Talebi, CEO of Ahura AI Tiarne Hawkins, director of AI at WeLocalize Chris Nakayama from Nufa/Mimesis Labs Ajay Juneja, CEO of Speak with Me Adryenn Ashley, founder of Wow is Me Martine Paris, AI columnist Jon Swartz, senior reporter at Dow Jones Ben Parr, co-founder of Octane AI and former tech reporter John Bigs, former TechCrunch journalist  ... and ... of course ... yours truly, John Koetsier!

Drone delivery is super-hot, but there aren't that many major players yet. Google's Wing is doing well, but Amazon is still just getting started, and few other significant players have major traction. Tiny Irish drone delivery company Manna Aero, however, has completed over 100,000 drone deliveries, is expanding to Dublin shortly, and will be expanding to mainland Europe and the United States this year. In this TechFirst with John Koetsier, we chat with Bobby Healy, CEO of Manna Aero.

Imagine building a digital twin of an entire country: all inputs, outputs, activity, infrastructure, issues, challenges ... That hasn't happened yet, but a client used Bentley Systems's tools to create a baseline digital twin for Singapore. In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, we chat with Greg Demchak, who leads digital innovation at Bentley. Increasingly, the company is using digital twin technology, AI, and drones to monitor, protect, and maintain massive infrastructure projects including wind farms and power lines, and Bentley is helping build the ITER nuclear fusion plant in France. Links: 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

The wetware in a casket of bone that we each carry on our shoulders is 1 million times more efficient than the AI models run by services like ChatGPT, Stable Diffusion, or DALL-E. In this TechFirst with John Koetsier we chat for a second time with Gordon Wilson, CEO of Rain AI, which is building a neuromorphic artificial brain simulating the structure of our biological brains, and aiming at 10,000 to 100,000 greater energy efficiency than current AI architectures. We also discuss "mortal computation" and a radical co-design of the hardware and software for AI systems, which could lead to much more efficient (and more effective) smart tools, machines, and companions. Links: 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

What will 2023 bring for mobile apps and games? We chat with Data.ai's Ted Krantz about 21 new billion-dollar mobile apps including Call of Duty Mobile, Bumble, and HBO Max.  We also chat about entertainment, about third-party app stores competing with Apple, and the decline in ad revenue growth for mobile apps. One category that's growing fast: travel, hotel, airplane ticket booking, and rental car booking apps. Links: 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 

A massive aerospace corporation cancelled an order for 40,000 Oculus Quest VR headsets when they saw the technology in this video. In this very special TechFirst, I've received permission from TechBeach Retreat to share the first global unveiling of a technology called AirGlass from Mobeus HQ which, the founder Richie Etwaru says, is finally the Z-axis of tech: the depth to the horizontal and vertical of our flat screens. The most interesting part to me is that AR/VR/MR headsets are bulky and limiting. This potentially works right on every computer's screen in the world: no additional hardware needed. After Richie's demo of Airless 2, we chat about the consequences and uses of technology you can engage with physically, as well as get into some of the details of how it's made, including that it doesn't really touch the operating system but operates between the camera and the GPU in pretty much any computer. Links: Mobeus: https://mobeus.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