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, p...

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...

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...

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 bil...

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 Ko...

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,...

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, p...

Can 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, whi...

3.8 billion people on the planet don’t have access to the internet. But that could be about to change soon. While Elon Musk’s SpaceX is building internet access from satellites 340 miles off the earth in space, Google’s Project Loon is doing something similar. In Loon’s case, however, internet access comes from just 12 miles up in the stratosphere. Via balloons floating in the wind.

Recently 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....

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 start...

Are subscriptions the new retail? We know digital retail is way up, thanks to COVID. But … surprisingly ... subscription purchases are way up too.  Streaming: jumped up to 89.8% Consumer goods: growth of 105%-145% Education: growth as high as 60% SaaS/Cloud: subscriber growth peaked at 51% That's interesting because we tend not to want long-term commitments especially during a downturn. We ch...

Can 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 wit...

What 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...

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 co...

Need offbeat growth tactics for uncertain times? These are definitely uncertain times. COVID would have been enough, with its massive health and economic consequences. Add George Floyd’s murder as a flashpoint to decades of simmering racial inequities, and we’ve got a perfect storm. In the middle of all this, we’ve got people trying to do their startups afloat in one of most challenging times ever...

Can 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...

Can we really decentralize the internet with blockchain? The internet was originally designed to be decentralized ... and that’s how it was supposed to work for emergencies and disasters. Lately, it's been getting more and more centralized controlled by major corporations, as well as countries like Russia and China. One company thinks it has a solution.  In this episode of TechFirst, we chat...

What are the top reasons you want to keep working from home after Coronavirus? Here's what about 150,000 people said in a survey. Time with family (34%) No commute (29%) Flexible schedule (17%) Saving money (11%) More productive (5%) Less office politics (4%) Listen to the show for the full story, or check it out in my Forbes column.

Why games are making record revenues in a recession, with Unity VP Julie Shumaker. In a recession revenues generally go down. That’s not been the case in 2020, at least for games. Games have been seeing record-high revenues over the past few months ... we'll chat about what's hot and why ... What we talk about:  - First off, what happened with games over the past 3-5 months?  - What kind...

Switzerland is the safest country in the world right now for COVID-19. South Sudan is, according to a massive 250-page report , the most dangerous nation. The United States? It ranks number 58, just behind Romania, and two places ahead of Russia. The Forbes story I reference in this episode is available here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/06/05/the-100-safest-countries-in-the-worl...

Glasses 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...