Futurum Tech Webcast

From technology to business and politics to culture, we're eager to put the trade wars, the corporate hacks, and the shutdown brouhaha behind us to purge the old and usher the new into 2019. We dive into the top trends we're tracking and offer our predictions for what the new year might bring for Artificial Intelligence, Autonomous Vehicles, the Blockchain, China (from trade to hacks to privacy),...

Amid a move by the Defense Department to shift towards a centralized, single-contract cloud service worth up to $10b over the next ten years, a nasty tale of insider dealings, procurement irregularities, and personal innuendo suggesting ethical misdeeds have come to light. And yes, they're all in a salacious dossier. It's Amazon vs IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, and a slew of others in this tale of the D...

Apple and Qualcomm are close to setting the record for ongoing litigation in the technology sector, but Qualcomm may have found a way to gain an edge after it convinced the courts in China to enforce Qualcomm's patent claims through a ban on Apple's iPhone. Plus our Fast Five: Facebook and Google's latest data breaches; Apple moves to Austin; Imax shutters its VR business; and a really cool techno...

Apple and Microsoft are atop the leader board when it comes to both product success and market capitalization, or valuation. We take a look at the pro's and con's of each, and layout our predictions on which we think has the right stuff long-term (and why LinkedIn is more important that you might think). Plus our Fast Five: Trend Micro identifies some major security gaps in Industrial IoT (IIoT) p...

Edge Computing: In this special 'research' edition we take a deep dive into the world of Edge Computing - what it is, why it's so important, and how is it enabling the rise of technologies such as IoT and AI, and why it just might upend the market for cloud services! Plus our Fast Five: The rise and fall of Bitcoin and crypto currencies; an update on HPE's Discover event; Amazon steps into the Blo...

In this special "call in" issue, we ask is technology all that we think it is? And why does it always seem to get us into trouble? Sure, we have some great times, but what about the lies, the lack of transparency, and all the misinformation? Could it be time to break up (with) high-tech? Plus our Fast Five: iPhone manufacturer Foxconn slices $3b in costs; Using AI, predictive analytics, and connec...

While Amazon was out hunting for a second (and third) Headquarter's location, every major city in the US was hunting for Amazon. In the end, it's a split decision, with 25,000 employees being sent to both NYC's Long Island City and Virginia's National Landing, sort of. But was it a good deal for Amazon and the cities selected? Or is there more to this story (and the looming protests) yet to play o...

The future of customer experience will be driven by massive amounts of data used to understand the past, the now, and the next. But making sense of that data requires real-time analytics to engage and anticipate customer needs and demands with real currency. In this Interview Series of the Futurum Tech Podcast, Daniel Newman sits down with Wilson Raj, who heads up global product marketing for SAS'...

Samsung has demonstrated its flexibility once again, this time with flexible screens for its line of mobile phones. But is this really the future of mobile? We dive into the flexible vs foldable debate and discuss the larger market impact and the need for that elusive killer app. Plus our Fast Five: The troubling merger of fake news and deep fakes into #DeepFakeNews; Harley Davidson's Project Live...

IBM has taken the next step in its ongoing transformation with the $34 billion acquisition of Linux, JBoss, and OpenShift provider Red Hat. With a long history of working together, there is no doubt about the synergy. But can this really boost IBM's status as a true cloud provider (and the go-to team for hybrid cloud migrations)? Plus our Fast Five: Earnings from Apple and Spotify; Browser extensi...

The promise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is high, very high. But can we really trust AI systems today to be reliable, accurate, and free from bias? We take a look at three areas were bias is creeping into AI and automated systems. Plus our Fast Five: Tesla pulls its Level 4 Autonomous driving option from its site, while thieves hack a Tesla key fob; Russia and China really hack the POTUS iPhone...

Few brands or businesses have been under fire quite like Facebook. From high-profile data leaks and fake news to experiments on the emotions of its users, Facebook has been a leader in all the wrong ways, but Mark Zuckerberg has remained at the helm. Now it's facing an investor revolt seeking an independent Chairman of the Board. Will Zuckerberg remain as Chairman & CEO? Should he? Plus, our Fast...

Google does a lot of things right, from search and advertising to cloud and apps they are one of the best. But when it comes to creating a sense of brand or digital trust? They fall short. We take a look at Google's overall business model and the Pixel 3, discussing how they can both dominate and come up a bit short. Plus, our Fast Five: Amazon's advertising growth is amazing; Better Batteries for...

Bloomberg Businessweek bet big with an accusation that China embedded rogue hardware into the products of Elemental Technologies (a company since acquired by Amazon) allowing it to gather information on Amazon, Apple, and a couple of dozen other US firms. China, Amazon, Apple, and the US gov't have all called and/or raised Bloomberg's bet with a wave extremely strong denials. We're not sure what t...

Digital technology has radically changed how businesses gather, process, and gain insights from data. In this Interview Series of the Futurum Tech Podcast, Daniel Newman sits down with Jason Shepherd, IoT and Edge Computing CTO at Dell Technologies, to take a look at how digital tech is reshaping the operational enterprise and offering a path to transforming both business processes and business va...

Qualcomm and Apple must like each other a lot. Over the years they've found creative ways to spend so much time together, either as partners or in court as frenemies. What else could it be? This go-round it's Qualcomm amending a prior litigation to allege Apple of having intentionally stolen and provided Qualcomm's modem code to Apple's partner Intel. It doesn't get much uglier than it is right no...

At the risk of becoming the guest who wouldn't leave, Amazon has put a new twist on being Home Alone, as in it doesn't ever want you to be truly home alone. With a slew of product announcements, from better, faster, cheaper Echo products to Alexa-enabled microwaves to in-car kits, Amazon is staking a serious claim on the privacy of our homes. Is it too much? Is there risk? Can Apple, Google, or ev...

Apple's Sept 12 event had a Mission: Impossible theme w/ cool #healthtech (Slip/Fall detection, FDA-approved ECG) and improved specs (A10 bionic, 7nm, IP68). But it felt like a really, really polite political rally w/ lots of applause but little action. Here's our take on the Good (solid incremental improvements & healthcare focus), the Bad (not much breakthrough or disruptive), and the Who Really...

Our Main Dive: Apple continues to be one of the driving forces in technology. But over a decade into the iPhone, and with an aging Macbook lineup, does Apple still have the mojo it needs to innovate? Bottom Line: Apple's innovations are increasingly incremental, but that's not too surprising given the maturity of the core markets in which it plays. But that doesn't mean we let them off the hook -...

Our Main Dive: North Korea's Kim Jong-un has risen to a new level of bravado, allegedly getting set to host Pyongyang's first Korean International Blockchain Conference. We have our doubts also our concerns about how North Korea is leveraging commercial technology to create its own black market. Our Fast Five: Salesforce earnings & Mulesoft impact; Microsoft's aggressive paternity program; Google'...

Australia's 5G mobile rollout promises high speeds and high profits, but not for Huawei or ZTE who have been banned from participating amid allegations of "extrajudicial directions from a foreign government" - China. Yes it's political but it's also security focused. This week we dive into the challenges and realities of China's influence over the tech industry. This week's Fast Five: Netflix trie...

From security breaches to companies tracking users through biometrics and behavior, the gap between privacy expectations and privacy reality are growing, with both policies and data security increasingly less concrete and reliable than we'd like. This week we dive into the risks of cybersecurity and the challenge of creating digital trust in the growing global economy. Plus our Fast Five: Google's...

The Q2 earnings announcement from "camera company" Snap was good from a revenue and earnings perspective but sour from a user growth perspective – it lost 3m users! Is this part of a larger shift that we've seen with Facebook and Twitter? Should we be evaluating social media (and camera) companies differently? Plus our Fast Five: Intel's Persistent Memory, Qualcomm's 5G Antennas and its litigation...

Apple's Q3 performance and some strong guidance pushes it into the Trillion Dollar Club, but why? Is Apple really that good? Is there a bubble? And why doesn't rival Samsung (our Tech Bites winner of the week) get any love? Plus our Fast Five featuring Alibaba's DingTalk, Consumer Viewing Habits, Macy's digital push, Cisco's Duo security acquisition, and Facebook's vanishing security officer - plu...

Facebook's lackluster Q2 performance cost CEO Zuckerberg two spots on the World's Richest list, but it cost investors a lot more - $119 billion dollars to be precise. What's the real story here, and will we ever look at user growth as the key metric for social companies? Plus our Fast Five featuring Twitter's Facebook week, IPO at the Opera, The Fear of Autonomous Cars, and LinkedIn's Voice Gambit...