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John Koetsier

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TechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierRobotic hands: a $50 trillion opportunityAre humanoid robots distracting us from the real unlock in robotics ... hands? In this TechFirst episode, host John Koetsier digs into the hardest (and most valuable) problem in robotics: dexterous manipulation. Guest Mike Obolonsky, Partner at Cortical Ventures, argues that about $50 trillion of global economic activity flows through “hands work,” yet manipulation startups have raised only a fraction of what locomotion and autonomy companies have. We break down why hands are so hard (actuators, tactile sensing, proprioception, control, data) and what gets unlocked when we f...
2025-10-0130 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierHacking reality: Apple Vision Pro and securityCan someone hack your reality if you're wearing an Apple Vision Pro? In this episode of TechFirst, John Koetsier discusses the arrival of Apple's Vision Pro, a groundbreaking VR headset, and its associated privacy and security concerns with Synopsys principal security consultant Jamie Boote. They chat about how the device's advanced sensor systems can map out user environments, posing potential risks and security threats if hacked. Koetsier and Boote also consider Apple's past experience with hardware security and predict potential vulnerabilities and threats that may accompany this new technology. 00:00 Introduction to Apple Vision Pro 00:23 Privacy and Security Concerns 02:02 Potential...
2024-02-0514 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John Koetsier3-hour discussion on everything AI :-)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 ...
2023-03-013h 36TechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierCincinnati Children’s using supercomputer, AI for mental healthStudies say you can prevent about 50% of mental health challenges if you catch and address them early. Doctors from Cincinnati Children’s hospital are using the world’s second-most powerful supercomputer to help solve mental health right at the start: when we're kids. This is a big deal. About 13% of us suffer from some form of mental health disorder ... that’s 971 million people globally. And it’s only gotten worse since Covid. In this TechFirst with John Koetsier, we meet and chat with Dr. John Pestian, who is leading the effort. ...
2022-02-1018 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierMetaverse in your pocket? The tech behind world's largest virtual eventCan 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 o...
2021-09-2518 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierCyborg or avatar: will you wear a robot, or operate it?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...
2021-09-0816 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierBuilding autonomous robots 10X faster with 3D printing and a modular robotics platformWhat 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...
2021-06-2413 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierDrone delivery is here. Right now. For real. And it's awesome.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...
2021-06-1223 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierThey made the first-ever NBA championship ring NFT. Cool enough to go all Beeple on the world?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: Support TechFirst w...
2021-06-0418 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierWould you pay $60/month to be 20% smarter?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.
2021-05-2722 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierTwitter spaces versus Clubhouse: access vs ego?Clubhouse is the hot new social audio star. But Twitter Spaces is available to 30X the audience out of the box … and draws on a social graph you already own. Does that mean it’s the new winner just waiting to be crowned? In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, I chat with Paul Armstrong, CEO and founder of Here/Forth … and owner of the very first sponsored show on Twitter Spaces … sponsored by a Fortune 500 global brand, too yet. At least, as far as Armstrong knows. Links: Support...
2021-04-1311 minLow Code Ninjas
Low Code NinjasUnlocking innovation in IoT via low code with Xerox's Momin MirzaCan low code help you build tools out of molten metal? Today, we’re chatting with an amazing leader from an amazing company ... one with literally 115 years of history inventing some of the most critical technologies we use today. The company is Xerox ... one of the few whose name became a verb. Xerox literally invented modern computing -- think the mouse, or WYSIWYG --  and now they’re re-inventing manufacturing, among other things. And guess what: low code and no code are helping. In this episode of Low Code Ninjas, Peggy Anne Salz...
2021-03-3134 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierAre shared virtual experiences the future of meetings and work?I take a virtual tour of a virtual learning environment from The Leadership Network based on a collaboration they're doing with Toyota. Is this the future, or is it more like Microsoft Mesh's rich, textured, augmented reality? There's probably multiple modalities for the future of meetings and collaborative remote work. In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, I get a tour of TLN's Gemba VR learning and training environment, and compare it to Microsoft Mesh. Episode links: The Leadership Network: https://theleadershipnetwork.com  TechFirst transcripts: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/
2021-03-3008 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierA computer for your brain? Neurosity releases the Crown to boost productivityWould you wear a computer on your head? In public? What if it made you more productive? Today on TechFirst with John Koetsier we’re chatting with Alex Castillo of  Neurosity, which just released the Crown. It's a brain-sensing computer you wear like a hat, and which … one day … may be a hat. Or … inserted under your skull like Elon Musk's Neuralink. Episode links: Neurosity: https://neurosity.co TechFirst transcripts: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/ Keep in touch: https://twitter.com/johnkoetsier  Forbes columns: https://www.forbes...
2021-03-2513 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierImagine 80 million self-driving trucks. Nuport Robotics wants to make every truck autonomousNuport Robotics just landed a deal with Canada's largest retailer, Canadian Tire, and the Canadian government to test its self-driving truck capability. The technology uses lidar, cameras, and radar to guide trucks. And the company has a vision to make every truck self-driving ... not just brand-new ones coming right out of the factory. That's a big deal, because there's about 80 million trucks on the planet right now that don't have self-driving capability. And transport companies aren't going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for new trucks just for some new tech. Not, at least...
2021-03-2315 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierThis smart contact lens packs 14,000 pixels per inch into its micro-LED displayWhat is the future of technology? Mobile is the thing right now, but augmented/mixed/virtual reality via headsets and smartglasses is coming But what about moving the tech right onto our body ... on our eyes ... with a smart contact lens. In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier we’re chatting with former Google and Apple exec, now SVP for Mojo Vision, Steve Sinclair about smart contact lenses. Episode links: TechFirst transcripts (in about a week): https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/ Keep in touch: https://twitter.com/johnkoetsier...
2021-03-1122 minRetention Masterclass
Retention MasterclassThe new mobile economy runs on subscriptions. How do you optimize them?Subscriptions are the new revenue. The new economy runs on subscriptions. News, games, videos … transportation … homes … meals … almost everything is or can be a subscription. Which means: if you want to win in the new economy, you’d better get good at driving subscription revenue.In this episode of Retention Masterclass, Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier interview Vitaly Davydov, CEO and co-founder of Adapty.
2021-02-2427 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierRobot spas, here we come: the LUUM lash extension robot in actionWould you let a robot make you prettier? The LUUM lash extension robot could soon do all kind of spa treatments ... and even do hair transplants. We have robot surgery, robot manufacturing … so why not robot aestheticians? Or … lash artists? I wouldn’t know from personal experience, but getting fake lashes takes 2-3 hours. A new robot can do it in just 30 minutes ... snd could eventually do everything from makeup to hair transplants. In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, we chat with Philippe Sanchez, CEO of LUUM, and we watch his robot apply fake l...
2021-02-1817 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierThis startup prints camera lenses like computer chips, 5000 at a time, with full EM spectrum sensingA new startup out of Harvard Labs has invented a way to print camera lenses 5,000 at a time just like computer chips, and in the same semiconductor foundries that make our computer’s CPUs. They’re 100X thinner than standard smartphone camera lenses, are simpler and cheaper to make, sense the full electromagnetic spectrum — not just visible light — and have excellent 3D-sensing capabilities that could bring Lidar-based dimensional sensing functionality that’s currently only on high-end phones like the iPhone 12 to smartphones across the price spectrum. In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, I interview Metalenz co-founder...
2021-02-0425 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierVeteran to janitor to physicist: how Josh Carroll changed his life with YouTubeCould you learn trigonometry in 3 weeks if your life depended on it? In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier we chat with Josh Carroll, who volunteered with the US Army after 9/11 before he finished high school,  did 3 tours of duty in Afghanistan, then came back and worked, among other jobs, as a high school janitor. In the library of the high school he was cleaning he found A Brief History of Time, by Dr. Stephen Hawking, and rediscovered his love of science. Then he taught himself advanced math via YouTube on his path to b...
2021-02-0317 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierBiden’s Peloton vs national security: the danger of smart products to all of us (and our leaders)Biden’s Peloton vs national security: what’s risky about the president of the US using a Peloton or a Fitbit? And ... what does that mean for the rest of us? In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, we chat with ex-googler Ben Barokas, founder and CEO of Sourcepoint, who is now running a privacy-focused company for, as he puts it "the sins" of his prior jobs in adtech.
2021-01-2916 minLow Code Ninjas
Low Code NinjasUnlocking fun for the next billion gamers - via low codeHow do we unlock fun for a billion underserved gamers? In this edition of Low Code Ninjas, Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier talk to Jason Chapman, Managing Partner of Konvoy Ventures, about unlocking creativity for the next billion gamers ... and the millions who will make their games with low code or no code platforms.  People in major existing global markets have plenty of gaming options, Chapman says. But not everyone all over the world. So … if we need millions of new games, we also need something else ... millions of new game developers. ...
2021-01-1130 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierBattery-free IoT: this bluetooth-based tag harvests energy from radio wavesThe internet of things sounds great, but has huge issues. Ubiquity is one. Battery power is another. Cost of sensors -- and sensing tech to sense the sensors -- is another. But perhaps ... we're about to solve all the problems. Wiliot makes a super-smart ARM-based chip with onboard sensors that harvests energy from environmental radio waves to enable battery-free IoT. In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, I interview Stephen Statler, a senior VP at Wiliot. The chip uses a custom-built operating system operating on nanowatt power and communicates to the cloud...
2020-12-1742 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierQuantum computing, quantum supremacy, and a new Quantum Moore's Law with D-Wave CEO Alan BaratzWhat changes when quantum computing is mainstream? Quantum computing is on the far reaches of science, using technology that accesses aspects of matter at quantum scales where physics almost overlaps with magic.  Classical computing is simple: deterministic. You have something, or you have nothing. Quantum computing is complex: you can have something, or nothing, or both something and nothing at the same time. If that’s hard to wrap your head around, you’re in good company. Even Richard Feyman, 1965 Nobel Laureate in Physics and one of the founders of quantum computing famously said, “I think I...
2020-12-1034 minRetention Masterclass
Retention MasterclassWhy NPS is narcissistic. And ... how to achieve 95% accuracy in predicting churnForecasting leaky buckets is super-helpful whether you're adding new users to your mobile app or new customers to your SaaS startup. In this episode of Retention Masterclass, Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier chat with Lift founder and CEO Dan Hestbaek.He works with companies in 90 countries to reduce church by an average of 30% and is able to predict church with astounding accuracy. But NPS is not a great measure, according to Dan.We chat about why ... the signs of churn ... the causes ... the solutions ... and how to stop churn before it even starts.
2020-12-0729 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsieriPhone 12 Pro's lidar enables 100X faster 3D scanning than conventional photogrammetryThere’s a brand-new sensor in the iPhone 12 Pro, and it’s a big clue about the future of technology.  Already just 1 month after iPhone 12 launch, the phone accounts for 5% of new uploads to Sketchfab, the largest global platform for immersive and interactive 3D models. It's much faster, high-quality especially at room-scale, but not the best at small-scale objects. In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, we chat with Alban Denoyal, the CEO of Sketchfab about why. And about the implications of 3D scanning: where it's used, what it can do, and what...
2020-12-0723 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierFrom phone to Star Trek tricorder: This company is working with Qualcomm to put a spectrometer in your phoneI've always wanted a Star Trek tricorder ... a mobile sensor unit that tells you all about the world around you. (Who doesn't?) Now a company in Germany, Trinamix, has partnered with Qualcomm to deliver mobile spectroscopy in mobile phones. No attachments required. All onboard your smartphone. The first applications are in skin care and cosmetics, but the tech can also sense what is on your plate to help you record your diet, or tell you the composition of just about anything around you. In this edition of TechFirst with John Koetsier, we chat...
2020-12-0311 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierDeepfakes, synthetic humans, and the future of stardom with Reface.ai cofounder Dima ShvetsDo deepfakes foreshadow the fall of civilization and the end of all truth? Or are they just good fun?  Or is there a third possibility: that they're the foundation of a massive new opportunity to experience what could never be real (for most of us) and a massive new opportunity (for influencers and stars) to essentially become a merger of real person and synthetic being in millions of ways in dozens of languages for billions of people ... simultaneously. In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier we chat with Dima Shvets, one of the cofounders o...
2020-11-3028 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierApple GateKeeper: Macs phone home whenever they open an app ... but one hacker's blog post forced the world's largest corporate to change courseDid you know your computer transmits a log of every single app you open? Apple has made privacy a core part of the brand -- including entire TV commercials dedicated to it -- but as a self-described hacker and security researcher recently found, every Mac sends a stream of data about every app you open (and more) to Apple. And ... sends it unencrypted. And … bypasses any local VPN software you’ve installed. In this edition of TechFirst with John Koetsier we're chatting with Jeffrey Paul, the hacker who found and wrote about the problem. We chat...
2020-11-2423 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierFrom Bali with love: this meditation app with 17M users has a unique approach to making moneyIn an era of massive budgets, invasive ads, buy now subscription models, and incessant noise, can the good guys still win? In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, we chat about Insight Timer. You’ve never heard of Insight Timer, but it’s ranked higher than TikTok, Facebook, Netflix, and Twitter for session durations, it has 5X the retention of better-known competitors like Calm, and it has 17M users. All of which it achieve while spending $0 on marketing. And abiding by a "no selling" policy. To learn how Insight Timer is changing the...
2020-11-1326 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierThis AI creates movies from hundreds of smartphones automagicallyCan AI combine data from hundreds or thousands of smartphones simultaneously to make great videos? IMINT algorithms are in 100s of millions of devices globally from smartphone manufacturers like Huawei, Vivo, Opportunity, Sharp, Motorola, Asus, and more.  Now the company is working on a collaborative video system that will auto-create movies from the best clips of hundreds or even thousands of people. In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier we're chatting with Johan Svensson, CTO of IMINT
2020-10-2812 minRetention Masterclass
Retention MasterclassMobile measurement in the age of privacy with Brian Krebs of MetricWorksAs every mobile marketer on the planet knows … iOS 14 will in effect deprecate the IDFA by making it opt-in. The IDFA is likely going the way of the dodo bird and the third-party cookie. The Google Ad ID (GAID) might follow in a year or so.Does that mean the end of mobile marketing measurement?Not according to Brian Krebs of MetricWorks. In this episode of Retention Masterclass, Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier chat with Brian about measurement and retention in the age of privacy.
2020-10-2838 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierFacebook Gaming head talks cloud gaming: Facebook launches free cloud gaming serviceFacebook is launching a cloud gaming service to compete with Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Nvidia, Stream, and all the other cloud gaming services.  In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, we chat with head of Facebook Gaming Vivek Sharma about what makes Facebook's cloud gaming service unique and, in his opinion, better than other options.
2020-10-2617 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierSocial media, censorship, politics: the NY Post, Biden's laptop, and the right path forwardShould social media censor free speech? Something fairly unprecedented happened this past week: Facebook and Twitter both blocked a NY Post story. Now … whatever you think about that story (and I think it’s pretty flimsy) blocking it almost immediately is pretty shocking. How should social media deal with controversial subjects … or false information? In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier we chat with Bill Ottman, founder and CEO of the open source social network Minds.com, about what big tech and big social should do, about algorithms, shadow banning, free speech, virali...
2020-10-1737 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierWearable DNA sequencing devices just 4-5 years away: Dr. Roel Wuyts, principal scientist at IMECDo we now have near real-time gene sequencing? And if so … what does that unlock? In this edition of TechFirst with John Koetsier we chat with Dr Roel Wuyts, principal scientist at IMEC and a professor at KU Leuven about gene sequencing, which used to take a lot of time. Remember the Human Genome project? It started October 1, 1990 and completed in April 2003. Now there’s a way of sequencing a whole genome in just 10 minutes for some sequences and a few hours for a whole human genome, which should unlock major new capabilities like...
2020-10-1513 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierFormer Apple CEO John Sculley on Apple vs Google: the emerging healthtech battleCould Apple and Google soon be two of the most important companies in health? In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier we chat with former Apple CEO John Sculley, who has invested in multiple health tech companies. Apple owns the most popular healthtech wearable on the planet, and Google bought Fitbit to compete. Both are investing in health, fitness, and wellness technology. Current Apple CEO Tim Cook has even said that Apple’s greatest contribution to history will be in the field of health. Amazon's jumping into health too, with Amazon Halo. We talk ab...
2020-10-0924 minRetention Masterclass
Retention MasterclassWhat can 120 million members and $1.7 billion in cash rewards teach us about retention?What can 120 million members and $1.7 billion in cash rewards teach us about retention? You’ve probably never heard of Prodege. But you’ve probably heard of SwagBucks, or MyPoints, ShopAtHome, CouponCause, or Shoply, or a bunch of other different brands. They’re all brands from Prodege, which connects brands and consumers around coupons and cash rewards for buying or taking action on a company’s offer. Prodege is a customer acquisition giant that has quietly become one of the world’s largest non-social and non-search marketing channels. With that kind of scale … you’d think they’d know a li...
2020-10-0835 minLow Code Ninjas
Low Code NinjasFITNESS SF: from locked-down gyms to a sophisticated, personalized, video-based fitness app and a whole new businessHow do you build 37,000 personalized gyms for 37,000 different people when Covid-19 hits ... and your San Francisco gyms are completely locked down? In this episode of Low Code Ninjas, John Koetsier and Peggy Anne Salz chat with FITNESS SF president Don Dickerson, whose gyms were completely shut down for six months. For 3 years, Dickerson had been trying to build a FITNESS SF mobile app. During COVID, he built one in 2 months, with personalized video, diet and wellness functionality, hooks into HealthKit and data from wearables, and much, much more, that will soon be a paid subscription-based...
2020-10-0724 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierThis AI makes fake faces for privacy-safe photo sharingCan 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 ph...
2020-10-0214 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierMapping the creator economy: 50M YouTube, Instagram, Twitch creators, 2M full-time pros ... and growing fastAre 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...
2020-10-0119 minRetention Masterclass
Retention MasterclassThe mobile user retention tech stack with Christian Eckhardt, CEO of CustomlyticsWe all know about the mobile growth tech stack ... but what tech stack do you need for world-class mobile user retention?In this episode of Retention Masterclass, Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier chat with Christian Eckhardt, CEO of Customlytics. Formerly from Delivery Hero, Christian is a mobile user retention expert. We chat about "CRM" for mobile, the tech that supports it, and messaging formats and channels that help.One quote from the show:"My co-founder and I, well I think it's fair to conclude that we never really have done anything else...
2020-09-2532 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsieriOS 14: Google's former iOS app head reveals what apps will win and whyIs iOS 14 fundamentally changing what kinds of apps can be successful? And … with iOS 14 … is Apple building a fundamentally different future for software? In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, we chat with Nick Hobbs, the former head of Google’s iOS app. Hobbs says that iOS 14 is fundamentally different and that it will benefit certain kinds of apps while de-prioritizing others. We chat about when Google's traffic from iOS massively dropped, and what will happen this time with games, Facebook, Google, and more. And, of course, we also chat about The Social Dilemma.
2020-09-1826 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierSmart contact lens from Ghent University: an artificial iris that can dynamically change your visionCould smart contact lenses grant millions the gift of sight? In this episode of  TechFirst with John Koetsier with chat with Andrés Vásquez Quintero, a professor at Ghent University in Belgium, where researchers have just presented an artificial iris embedded in a smart contact lens. It has an artificial iris, an all-day battery, an on-board ASIC, or application-specific integrated circuit, and a very small LCD screen. And it can do very basic augmented reality for people with limited vision. PLEASE NOTE: the wifi at Ghent was not great, so Andres' audio and...
2020-09-1710 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John Koetsier4 ways Tesla self-driving ‘falls short’ in Consumer Reports testingConsumer Report says extensive testing on Tesla’s “full self-driving” capability shows that it falls short of its name, isn’t worth the $8,000 price tag, and actually makes Tesla drivers less safe. “Tesla has repeatedly rolled out crude beta features, some of which can put people’s safety at risk and shouldn’t be used anywhere but on a private test track or proving ground,” says William Wallace, manager of safety policy for Consumer Reports.  Get the full details in this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier ... Also, see my written column at Forbes: https://w...
2020-09-1406 minRetention Masterclass
Retention MasterclassProduct is the new marketing: chatting with the chief product officer of CleverTapRetention is simple. But simple … doesn’t mean easy.In this episode of Retention Masterclass we chat with Vishal Anand, the CPO of CleverTap. Marketers spend a lot of time focused on how to retain users: what to do, when. How to onboard. What to show first. How to train. What messages to send. But sometimes, we forget the simplest things.It’s all about the product! It’s all about the user experience … the customer experience. I mean, technique matters and technology matters, but if you don’t have a good product ... TikTok isn’t...
2020-09-1128 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierHow American Express uses AI to automate 8 billion decisions ... with $1 trillion at stakeHow do you automate risk 8 billion times a year? In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier we chat with Anjali Dewan, American Express’ VP of Risk Management.  Credit card companies have some serious challenges ... with trillions of dollars in transaction volume, they’re target #1 for fraud. But customers expect everything to work perfectly every time. So American Express started managing every single risk decision on risk using AI in 2015, which makes them much faster. They can now make billions of decisions in nanoseconds, using what might be the largest commercial machine learning system on the p...
2020-09-1013 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierAutonomous robots & drones: working where no humans shouldWe talk a lot about self-driving cars. But what about autonomous robots, doing work that isn’t safe for people? We’re talking environments like mines a mile deep … nuclear reactors … remote locations.  In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, we're chatting with Nader Elm, CEO of Exyn Technologies. Exyn is building robots that have to think for themselves and communicate with each other where they don't have GPS or radio communication. Exyn just signed a deal with a Finnish mining to provide drones for autonomous mapping and exploration.
2020-09-1015 minLow Code Ninjas
Low Code NinjasLow Code Ninjas: full-featured e-commerce app for top global brands in just weeks?This is the debut episode of Low Code Ninjas, where Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier explore the world of low code and no code app development. Our first guest: the founder of FollowAnalytics, Samir Addamine, who talks about low-code apps he's built for global brands include Jessica Alba's The Honest Company, Sephora, and the Hudson's Bay Company.  Samir talks about the 3Fs of mobile commerce, the costs (and time factor) of building from scratch, and the top features the leading 100 retail apps on the App Store and Google Play share.
2020-09-0923 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierFitbit VP Larry Yang: Is the Fitbit Sense the complete health smartwatch?Are smartwatches becoming table stakes for modern health? Chatting with Fitbit's VP of product, Larry Yang, about the new Fitbit Sense. Arguably the first smartwatch was invented in 1927 ... you could buy little map scrolls and find your way around. The first digital watch came out in 1972 … calculator watches in the 1980s … and fitness trackers on your wrist launched in the early 2010s … including Fitbit. Apple Watch launched 2015, and now about 1 in 4 wear a smartwatch and/or a fitness tracker. Now Fitbit is launching the Fitbit Sense … which is widely viewed as a full-on assault on the Appl...
2020-09-0620 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierAdvertising after identity: IBM on AI, marketing, and privacyThe history of advertising recently has been one of identity ... specifically, knowing identity across sites and apps.  That’s changing: the third-party cookie is dying, Apple’s identifier for advertisers is going opt-in, and Google's GAID might as well. What does that mean for the future of advertising? And … what does it mean for the ad-supported services we’ve all come to enjoy? In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, we chat with Sheri Bachstein, Global Head of Watson Advertising and The Weather Company.
2020-09-0416 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierCOVID-19 'accelerated digital transformation by an average of 6 years,' with Twilio's chief customer officerCovid-19 was the 'digital accelerant of the decade,' pushing brands' digitization strategies up an average of 6 years. In this edition of TechFirst with John Koetsier, we're chatting with Twilio chief customer officer Glenn Weinstein about a major report Twilio put together on digital transformation. COVID-19 is clearly a medical and economic disaster, but it also vastly accelerated technological change and changed how companies think about the tech that drives their business. In this discussion we chat about who's winning and who's losing in the fight to stay relevant as customer behavior changes massively.
2020-09-0213 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierMalicious Chinese SDK found in 1,200 iOS apps with billions of installs: Helix Jump, Talking Tom, PicsArt, more ...iOS is safer than Android, right? Usually ... because getting on the iOS app store is harder than getting on Google Play. There’s more scrutiny of apps, their code, and functionality.  But now, for the first time ever, security researchers have found an ad fraud network on Apple iPhones that uses click injection to steal potentially hundreds of millions of dollars. It’s in over 1200 apps with billions of downloads, and has been since mid 2019, in apps like Talking Tom, Asphalt 9, PicsArt, Gardenscapes, and Helix Jump. It works by spying on your activity on the phone...
2020-08-2433 minRetention Masterclass
Retention MasterclassFat funnels, marketing, and doctors that drive customer retentionAre fat funnels good, even for medical professionals?Every smart marketer knows that customer retention is about much more than marketing. So today we’re talking to a head of product. She happens to be Dr. Ruth Guthoff-Rechnagel from Doctor Care Anywhere and, as you can guess from the name, she's been pretty busy during the current Covid-19 period.So busy that, she says, her funnels are fat. In this episode Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier chat with Ruth about marketing, product, and -- of course -- retention.
2020-08-2222 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierPhone spam is worth a massive $100B/year .... can custom verified caller visuals save old-fashioned phone calls?Phone calls suck, right? It's always the IRS or your "bank" or some other scam. Well ... can a custom verified caller visual save phone calls? As in a guaranteed way to know who's calling AND WHY before you pick up? There's just way too much voice spam, so most people don't pick up calls from unknown numbers.  In this edition of TechFirst with John Koetsier we chat with First Orion CTO Mark Himelfarb about phone spam, verified visual caller IDs, and more. The question is: will it be good enough to save phone calls?
2020-08-1409 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierIf data is the new oil, where’s the refinery?Where do Google, Microsoft, and IBM go for training data and data enrichment? AI is driving innovation, competitive advantage, and speed to market ... but what if you don’t have enough training data? And what if your data is raw, not enriched, and you have no metadata to help your AI engine make sense of it? In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, we chat with Wendy Gonzalez, President and CEO of Samasource, which supplies training data for Google, IBM, Microsoft, and a quarter of the Fortune 50.
2020-08-1117 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierRemote health revolution: heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, stress rate, all via videoThere’s a new app that can tell your heart rate, heart rate variability, oxygen saturation, respiration or breathing rate, and mental stress just by taking a short video. Soon, blood pressure is coming too. Sounds crazy, right? In the episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, we're joined by David Maman, CEO and co-founder of Binah.ai, to find out ...
2020-08-0726 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierState of the global app economy: growth, diversity, and real-world impactTwo things have grown like crazy in 2020: Coronavirus, and the global app economy. 2020 has been crazy, but there’s been massive growth in some sectors, and mobile is one of them In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier we chat with Lexi Sydow, a senior market insights manager at App Annie, about the state of the global app economy. The good news: some newbies are winning and it’s not all the rich becoming richer. And, mobile isn’t just about what happens on your phone anymore. We talk about:  - downl...
2020-08-0623 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierHigh school student builds AI framework to predict air pollution with 92% accuracyA high school student at Jericho High School in New York has built an AI framework that can predict air pollution levels with 92% accuracy using neural networks, random forest, and other techniques. That ... could be better accuracy than most weather forecasters. In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, we chat with Richard Ren about his framework, including how he learned to code, why he got into AI and machine learning, what data he's using, what technologies he's implementing, and what data is most predictive of high pollution levels.
2020-08-0513 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierAlexa, Siri, Google: The future of smart assistantsAlexa, Siri, Google: which is the smartest? Dumbest? Most useful? Growing the fastest?  And ... what capabilities will AI assistants have in the future? In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier we chat with Brian Jackson from Info-Tech Research Group. On the one hand … Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant are amazing technology ... on the other, they face-palm on some ridiculously simple tasks. We chat about: - which are leading (and getting smarter faster) - Google Duplex - Alexa and smart home - Privacy - Why App...
2020-07-3021 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierDon’t laugh: The future of advertising is more exciting than you could possibly imagineAds 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, a...
2020-07-2430 minRetention Masterclass
Retention MasterclassHooked: how to build mobile habits for better user retention, with Fouad Saeidi from App Growth NetworkHow do you hook mobile users to maximize retention?In this episode of Retention Masterclass, Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier interview Fouad Saeidi, the founder of App Growth Network. He's a gamer, he makes games, and he markets games ... so it's kind of the full meal deal.We talk about: - growth - monetization - retention (of course) ... a 40% jump, even - user engagement -  gamification - habit formation - push notifications - key learnings - and, as al...
2020-07-2333 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierDisrupting electricity: Is solid state the new hardwired?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.
2020-07-1728 minRetention Masterclass
Retention MasterclassBenchmarks are bogus and measurements are meaningless, with Brian Balfour of ReforgeAre benchmarks bogus? Is measurement meaningless?In this edition of Retention Masterclass, Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier chat with Brian Balfour about the perils of benchmarks and measurement.Brian was the VP of Growth at Hubspot, which now has almost 80,000 customers. He’s been a founder and an entrepreneur in residence. He’s also the founder and CEO of Reforge, maybe the best place on the planet for the best marketers to learn how to be even better.1We chat about: - retention - benchmarks - measure...
2020-07-1651 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierCrypto, AI, blockchain, and privacy: The future of ads is right in front of us ...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, a...
2020-07-1331 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierHow Intel and the National Science Foundation want to use AI to connect trillions of smart devicesCan AI help us connect trillions of smart devices? There are currently perhaps 20 billion devices connected to the internet: things like laptops, phones, smartwatches, TVs, smart speakers, smart home devices ... In a decade, that could be 50 billion … and a lot of it is enterprise IoT. In this edition of the The AI Show with John Koetsier we chat with Intel and the National Science Foundation, which has funded $30M+ into projects to use AI to figure out how we'll manage ultra-dense wireless networks ... how we'll keep it secure, and how we'll keep everything connected. ...
2020-07-1130 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierWhat the Hey email app fiasco tells us about Apple App Store submission guidelinesRecently Apple blocked updates to the Hey email app on the iOS App Store and threatened to delete it. What does this tell us about App Store guidelines? And unwritten rules? In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier we chat about Apple's App Store guidelines with Denys Zhadanov, a VP at Readdle. Readdle has 7 top-30 apps in the App Store including the Spark email app which competes with Hey. There’s always been controversy that Apple isn’t allowing competition for its own apps and services, and the EU antitrust division is looking into it n...
2020-07-0820 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John Koetsier50% of food is wasted while 25,000 starve daily. Can AI fix this?50% of the food produced globally is wasted. At the same time, a child dies from hunger every 10 seconds, and 25,000 people starve to death every single day. Another billion, almost, are malnourished and don't have enough food. Can AI fix this? In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, we chat with SPRK.Global CEO Alexander Piutti, who is a finalist in Samsung's Extreme Tech Challenge startup competition.
2020-07-0817 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierHelm.ai is using "deep teaching" to make self-driving cars AI 100,000X cheaper to trainCan we design AI that will teach itself how to drive a car?  Self-driving cars will unlock trillions in market value and probably change our lives with fractional car ownership, better ride-sharing ... maybe even cars that pay for themselves. Also … they'll give us back months if not years of our time that we currently spend driving. In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier we chat with Helm.ai CEO Vlad Voroninski. Helm.ai has developed a new AI technology it calls "Deep Teaching" which it says will make it 100,000 times cheaper to tra...
2020-07-0319 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierTelling stories for warm robots with the queen of LinkedIn, Goldie ChanWhat can we learn from the queen of LinkedIn about telling stories for warm robots?  If you’ve been around LinkedIn, you’ve probably noticed Goldie Chan. The green hair makes her stand out … but her consistent calm, positive, and supportive content help you center and ground and ... sure, even feel good about yourself. Goldie started doing video on LinkedIn, and never really stopped. She has the longest daily video streak on LinkedIn, and got shoutouts from top execs there as well as elsewhere, which has turned into an amazing career in speaking, consulting, writing for For...
2020-06-3036 minRetention Masterclass
Retention MasterclassSuperheroes of mobile: Getting, keeping, and monetizing users with the best in the businessHow do you grow your mobile business sustainably for the long term?In this episode of Retention Masterclass, Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsiertalk about what every mobile publisher wants: great users and great customers. And they don’t just want to get them, they want to keep them. And guess what … they also want to monetize them. So ... we interview a lot of retention heroes on this show and we figured it's time to start talking to some of the radioactive spiders that turn them into heroes. One company that helps publi...
2020-06-2646 minThe AI Show
The AI ShowHow Intel and the National Science Foundation want to use AI to connect trillions of smart devicesCan AI help us connect trillions of smart devices? There are currently perhaps 20 billion devices connected to the internet: things like laptops, phones, smartwatches, TVs, smart speakers, smart home devices ... In a decade, that could be 50 billion … and a lot of it is enterprise IoT. In this edition of the The AI Show with John Koetsier we chat with Intel and the National Science Foundation, which has funded $30M+ into projects to use AI to figure out how we'll manage ultra-dense wireless networks ... how we'll keep it secure, and how we'll keep everything connected. ...
2020-06-2631 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierApple killed the IDFA. Is this the end of mobile marketing as we know it?At WWDC this year Apple essentially killed the IDFA, the identifier for advertisers. It’s not completely gone … but it’s now opt-in with a big scary warning. Now we’re wondering … will this kill modern mobile marketing as we know it? In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, we chat with Eric Seufert former VP of User Acquisition for Rovio. He runs Mobile Dev Memo, QuantMar.com, and is a consultant. What we chat about: Is this a mobile marketing apocalypse? Attribution Look-alike audiences AEO and...
2020-06-2633 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierHow Guitar Hero's chief architect is using VR to make fitness funCan virtual reality make your home gym less boring ... and maybe improve your workouts? In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier we chat with Eric Malafeew, former chief architect of Guitar Hero. He's worked on Mars landers and the Xbox Kinect, among other things, and now has VZfit, a VR app that makes workouts feel like a game I’ve been using Beat Saber to get a bit of a workout at home in VR. But according to Malafeew, VZfit can make your workouts better … longer … more frequent ... and more intense without you even really...
2020-06-1921 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierDid Apple just reinvent eyeglasses: chatting about Apple smartglasses with Robert ScobleGlasses haven’t changed much in 500 years: Take glass, grind it to a shape, refract the angle of light impacting your eye … see better, hopefully. But a new Apple patent, however, seems to indicate that Apple is working on glasses that will change as your prescription changes. And just maybe … do even more. In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, we’re joined by Robert Scoble, now former Chief strategy officer, Infinite Retina, and co-author of "The Infinite Retina: Spatial Computing, Augmented Reality, and how a collision of new technologies are bringing about the next tec...
2020-06-1037 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierScientific data on 5G and radiation exposure from a research scientistIs 5G safe or is it dangerous to humans, animals, and the environment?  There are a lot of concerns and worries about 5G. Pictures of dead birds near cell towers. Even snake oil products to protect you … USB sticks with a "bio shield." In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, we’re going to get the facts by talking to a research scientist in Belgium. What we'll talk about:  - is 5G dangerous  - what is the difference between ionizing and non-ionizing radiation?  - how much RF radiation does 5G...
2020-06-0418 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John Koetsier2-time NBA dunk champion Zach LaVine on sports, eSports, GIF vs JIF, Android vs iOS, self-driving cars, and JBL headphonesYou’re an NBA all-star ... what do you do when the league’s shut down thanks to Coronavirus? If you’re Chicago Bull and 2-time NBA dunk champion Zach Lavine … you work out … you play Call of Duty or Apex Legends, and apparently … you give away free JBL headphones. In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, we chat with Zach as well as JBL VP Chris Epple and learn more. We also get Zach's take on some of the most important matters in tech ... GIF or JIF ... EV or gas ... Windows or Mac ... iOS...
2020-05-2911 minRetention Masterclass
Retention MasterclassPersonalization is a plus in a pandemic: Ian Leslie, CMO of Industry WestHow do you get people to spend $3,000 online for a sofa they’ve never couchsurfed? And how do you increase sales while decreasing cost of customer acquisition?In this episode of Retention Masterclass Peggy Ann Salz and John Koetsier chat with Ian Leslie, CMO at Industry West. Industry West supplies modern furniture to the likes of Facebook, Airbnb, and Google ... and you! The company has seen consistent 25-30% growth over the past few years, and AOV for repeat visitors is massive. In a pandemic, their online-first retail sales approach is working better than ever.How?...
2020-05-2939 minThe AI Show
The AI ShowAI-generated music: can AI make music that’s worth listening to?Can AI generate music that’s worth listening to? In this episode of The AI Show with John Koetsier we explore music created by artificial intelligence. Music is one of our oldest art forms, and we think of art as creative ... we think of people as creative. What about computers? Or AI? It might surprise you: I’ve been listening to AI-generated music for much of the past few days. In this episode we chat with Edward Balassian, the CEO of Aimi.fm. 
2020-05-2915 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierDigital Census 2020: How the US Census Bureau is surveying 330M people in a pandemicHow do you survey 330 million people across 4M square miles?   Every 10 years: the United States government is constitutionally required to take a census, which then gets used as the basis for distributed hundreds of billions of tax dollars.   In 2010, doing the census cost $12 billion. They printed 17 million pages of paper maps and 50 million paper questionnaires.    In 2020, the Census Bureau is going digital in 59 languages. Good timing too: COVID-19 happened, and the Census Bureau had to cut back some of their door-to-door surveying.   In this TechFirst with John Koetsier, we chat with the U...
2020-05-2228 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierWorking from home with 1M clients, 55K employees, 52 countries, 75B annual transactions totaling $10 trillionI work from home. Many others do too.  But not many companies with 55,000 employees with a million clients in 52 countries. Especially fintech companies managing the flow of $10 trillion via 95 billion transactions annually. In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, I chat with the chief risk officer of FIS, Greg Montana. We talk about the company moved to working from home, what technology it takes, how they've managed security, and how Montana views the back-to-work timetable.
2020-05-1413 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John Koetsier9 things we lost when Google canceled its smart cities project in TorontoThree years ago Google subsidiary Sidewalk Labs floated visions of smart self-driving cars and smarter technology making Toronto, Canada, a leader among smart cities. Last week, that all died. Sidewalk Labs canceled the Quayside project on May 7. But we lost something when that happened. In fact, we lost at least nine things, as I discuss in this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier. To read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/05/13/9-things-we-lost-when-google-canceled-its-smart-cities-project-in-toronto/
2020-05-1411 minThe AI Show
The AI ShowBiological AI: this company combines actual brain cells with silicon chips for smarter AIIf your AI chip requires a life support system, you know you're doing something pretty funky. In this episode of The AI Show with John Koetsier, I talk to the CEO and CTO of Cortical Labs, who are combining mice neurons with silicon chips, then training their system to play ping pong. Almost all AI uses silicon chips ... that’s the “artificial” in Artificial intelligence. Brain Chip One uses biological components for potentially faster learning systems. Is biological computing the future of AI? And, will it some day be literally correct to say...
2020-05-0821 minThe AI Show
The AI ShowAI and neuromorphic computing: How Intel built a chip with a sense of smellDoes artificial intelligence have a sense of smell? Welcome to The AI Show with John Koetsier Plenty of AI systems are built to solve simple problems, like sorting Legos of different colors and shapes. Intel is building AI chips with neuromorphic architecture. Intel's goal: solving complex real-world problems. And, doing that with less training: sometimes even just one training sample. In this episode, we chat with Mike Davies, the director of the Neuromorphic Computing Lab at Intel.
2020-05-0119 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierGetting robots, drones, self-driving vehicles, and smart machines to work togetherWe know how to get people to work together. How do you get robots, drones, autonomous vehicles, and smart systems to collaborate? Welcome to TechFirst with John Koetsier. No jobs are simple ... getting a pizza requires multiple steps, processes, and hands, not to mention a car. Everything in factories takes steps and processes too. If we're going to get to an autonomous reality ... smart machines need to work together. In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, we talk to Kumardev Chatterjee, CEO of Unmanned Life. His company is working with Walmart, Vienna, Deutsche Telekom...
2020-05-0115 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierFake news: the truth about liesFake news: the truth about lies .... what is fake news? How can you spot it? And what can we do about it?   In this edition of TechFirst with John Koetsier, we chat with Mitch Chaiet, who is the Media Innovation and Entrepreneurship Coordinator at the University of Texas at Austin.   We'll discuss computational propaganda, reality bubbles, and Misinformation, Disinformation, and Malinformation, as well as how to spot fake news and how to fight fake news. (Including how to bring it up with Uncle Bob, who won't like it if you tell him his news is fa...
2020-04-2431 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierVonage: 2000% increase in telehealth video usage thanks to CoronavirusJust one health-care startup had 139,000 new doctors join and 1.35 million patients use telemedicine last week. Is this temporary or the evolution of a trend with staying power?   In this edition of TechFirst with John Koetsier, I chat with the CEO of Vonage, Alan Masarek.   Some of the increases he's seen:   - Total video traffic up 6.5x in last six months   - Total video traffic up just over 2x in the last 3 weeks of March   - Healthcare is specifically up more than 20x
2020-04-1020 minRetention Masterclass
Retention MasterclassCustomer acquisition and retention in a COVID-19 world with Rebecca Nackson (iHeartMedia, Audible, IBM, Notable)Do marketers have funnel vision? Do they have the right tools, tech, and tactics for customer retention? And the right teams working in harmony?Rebecca Nackson, who led marketing for teams at iHeartMedia, Audible, IBM, and multiple startups, talks to Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier about marketing, retention, and acquisition ... and the changes taking place with Coronavirus sweeping the planet.We discuss: - customer journeys - "messaging moments" - 3T: teams, tech, tactics - segmented by recency, frequency, and monetization - marketing spend and focus...
2020-04-0442 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierIs Coronavirus good for the mobile app economy?Mobile app spend in Q1 2020 was the highest in history. And mobile app use was up 20%. In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, I talk about a story I just published at Forbes based on a new App Annie report. Lots of apps, especially social, education, business, and fitness, are up and to the right. But will this last?
2020-04-0204 minRetention Masterclass
Retention MasterclassMagnetic brands: attraction is the new acquisitionIf your brand disappeared tomorrow … would anyone care?Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier interview CleverTap's head of brand Charles Orlando. He's a 25-year veteran of marketing, branding, and telling stories, with stops at Cisco and Intuit as well as Humanity.We talk about: - what does "magnetic" mean for a brand? - how does a brand become magnetic? - what does "brand" really mean? and where does it really exist? - companies that are doing it right - brands that are doing it wrong...
2020-03-2327 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierCOVID-19 and the app economy: crisis & opportunityInstacart is getting record downloads. Uber and Lyft are seeing record lows. How is Coronavirus impacting the app economy? Will Coronavirus be the death -- or the savior -- of our digital economy? Welcome to TechFirst with John Koetsier.   COVID-19 is changing everything. When it comes to mobile apps, some industries are way up, and some are way down. With us today to discuss which is which is Adam Blacker from Apptopia.   Airlines are in tough. So are hotels, but the drops are not completely consistent. And Uber and Lyft are ex...
2020-03-1818 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierDigital obesity: 2000-person study shows how tech increases loneliness, social isolation, stressIs technology making us lonely, stressed out, insecure, and narcissistic? In this TechFirst with John Koetsier we dive into a 2,000-person study on the impact of technology and mobile devices on:   - mental health   - loneliness   - narcissism   - social isolation The news is not great ... I chat with futurist Nikolas Badminton and researcher Nick Black to go through their study.
2020-03-1321 minRetention Masterclass
Retention MasterclassCustomer retention for on-demand services: learning from Uber and WagJessy Hanley has led marketing and retention roles at Uber and Wag, and she's now leading similar efforts at a multi-billion-dollar global brand.In this episode, Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier interview her to learn the secrets of retention in on-demand marketplaces, and she shares her insights on cohorts, peeling back the onion of what an app or service does, and much more.TOPICS INCLUDE: - segmentation via RFM: recency, frequency, and monetization - the GREAT product lifecycle: greet, ramp, evolve, amplify, and treasure - why you never jus...
2020-03-1245 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierWhere billions go to die: a deep dive into ad fraudAd fraud costs billions each year.   Why does that matter to you … and how can we stop it?  Welcome to Tech First Draft, with John Koetsier   Ad fraud is huge ... I’ve seen estimates from $10B to even $40B a year, globally. Just today, Google kicked 600 apps with 4.5B downloads out of Google Play.   Luke Taylor, the founder and COO of TrafficGuard, is going to tell us how it works ... and … how to stop it. And yes … we’ll even talk about how ad fraud impacts you, or any average person.   The types of fr...
2020-02-2129 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierDigital 2020: a state of the union with HootsuiteWe now have almost 8 billion people on the planet ... what kind of digital growth are we seeing from those billions on social, mobile, and the internet as a whole? Welcome to Tech First Draft, with … yours truly ...  John Koetsier Hootsuite just put together a massive series of reports -- 200+ pages -- about everything, basically, in terms of digital growth … social adoption … mobile penetration … top social networks ... emerging trends ... you name it. So we’re going to dive into all that … we’re going to chat with: Simon Kemp, who wrote the report, and Henk Campher, a...
2020-02-1438 minThe AI Show
The AI ShowThe top 3 mistakes companies make when adopting AI: Amazon head of data science at AWS machine learning solutions labLarry Pizette, Head of Data Science for Amazon’s Machine Learning Solutions Lab., reveals the 3 biggest mistakes companies make when they're building smart systems. Welcome to the first official episode of The AI Show, brought to you by VentureBeat and hosted by John Koetsier.  Our topics:  - how to get started  - training engineers ... AND executives!  - kicking off AI projects when you do NOT have a lot of data  - the top 3 mistakes companies make when implementing AI  - where AI is now on the cont...
2020-02-1232 minThe AI Show
The AI ShowKilling botnets: Can AI fix broken IoT and smart home?Chatting with Marcio Avillez from CUJO AI, which manages over 500 million devices daily for clients like Comcast, about AI solutions to monitor and protect security, control, and privacy. Intro to show The smart home industry is projected to be worth over $150 billion by 2024. But smart home tech has a horrible privacy and security record. From internet-connected cameras with default usernames and passwords to insecure home security systems … we’ve seen it all. If the industry can’t figure it out … all that growth is at risk. Our question today: can AI fix this?
2020-02-0731 minThe AI Show
The AI ShowWelcome to The AI Show, with John KoetsierThe AI Show is a live video broadcast to our community on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. It's also a story on VentureBeat. It's a podcast as well. And it's all of them at once. There is a revolution happening in AI and ML across business, and across the workforce, that is profound, and it will totally change the way we do work within the next decade, says VentureBeat CEO and editor-in-chief Matt Marshall. This is the podcast that will document that revolution.
2020-01-3105 minTechFirst with John Koetsier
TechFirst with John KoetsierTFD10: How to make your headphones better … with softwareAre your headphones not providing the quality sound that they might actually be capable of? Can you get audiophile quality sound with hardware that doesn’t cost thousands of dollars?    This company says it can make your headphones better … with software.   Welcome to Tech First Draft.    See all TFDs here: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first-draft/  My guest, Matthias, is from Dirac: https://www.dirac.com   My name is John Koetsier, and today we’re speaking with Mathias Johansson, the CEO of Dirac.   He’s fixing crappy audio with software, a...
2020-01-2818 minfuture39 with John Koetsier
future39 with John KoetsierFunding moonshots: Creating tomorrow’s futures with today’s dollarsTesla. Apple. Google. Facebook.  Every company inventing the future started somewhere … with an idea and an investment.  Where will tomorrow’s futures be invented? Welcome to future39. I’m John Koetsier, and today we’re speaking with former Apple executive and current venture capitalist Daniel Gross. Daniel says he wants to fund “moonshot ideas from hackers, side hustlers, builders, and tinkerers all over the world” What we talk about:  - What are the biggest problems in the world today?  - Are solutions to those problems getting funded b...
2020-01-1829 minfuture39 with John Koetsier
future39 with John KoetsierFuturist Nikolas Badminton: we're too late to stop climate change (and smart drugs and the future of food)Journalist John Koetsier spends 30 minutes with futurist Nik Badminton on smart drugs, smart food, and the coming "year of resiliency," in which we start to learn to live with higher temperatures ... and all their consequences. On nootropics: “Has it fundamentally changed my life? I don’t think so ..." On the future of food "If you really want to understand the future of food … speak to farmers … they’re hugely technological." On climate change "We’re never going to be able to reverse it; we’re never going to get cooler as a planet...
2019-11-1529 min