TechFirst with John Koetsier

I 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 techn...

Three 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 th...

Texting is nice. Zoom is great for work and birthday parties. And Facebook works for our wider circle of friends.   But there's something about good old-fashioned audio that has us returning to voice calls on our phones during quarantine. TextNow says its users spent more than 450 million minutes talking on the phone in the first full month of shutdown, March. While once that might not have b...

Haircuts, pedicures and massages are big business in Georgia again. Restaurants, too. The state started re-opening businesses on April 24 and dropped its shelter-in-place order a week later. Now mobile data shows that visits to nail salons, spas, tattoo parlors, and barber shops is back up to 80% of pre-Coronavirus levels. Visits to restaurants are also up. With dine-in service allowed again, Geor...

We 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...

Will your next home be a bioceramic dome? They last 500 years, are bugproof, don't rot, mold, or rust ... and they're carbon-neutral. They're also much cheaper, according to Geoship.   I interview the CEO, Morgan Bierschenk, on live social video.  We talk about construction, materials, permitting, whether they're built on-site or off-site, and what kind of maintenance they need. We also...

Fake 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 Malinfor...

Are WiFi, Bluetooth, massage, adjustable positions, and built-in speakers essential for a good night’s sleep? For the past few weeks, I've been sleeping in a adjustable position bed with more tech than my whole bedroom used to have. In this episode of TechFirst, we talk to Intellibed CEO Colin House about the $70 billion sleep industry, what technology matters (and what doesn't) and what works bes...

Today we're stuck at home. Wouldn't it be great to virtually wander the world in virtual reality? (At least until we can go out for real again!) In this episode of TechFirst we chat with Simon Che de Boer from New Zealand’s Reality Virtual, who took 4,000 photos in Queen Nefertiti's tomb and digitally reconstructed King Tut's mask.  They're working on technology to virtually re-create real ph...

Just 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...

Jeff Pulver created VOIP and founded the $3B Vonage. Now he's reinventing video, voice, and text communications online to fix security issues with Zoom and other platforms.   Is secure, private communication a complete pipe dream?   Jeff Pulver literally created VOIP. He also got the US government to issue the Pulver Order, which ensured that voice over IP was not restricted. Now he's wo...

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?

Coronavirus is leaving our elders alone, lonely, and frightened. In this episode of TechFirst, we dive into the tech you need to stay connected.   I talk to photographer and technologist George Krieger about the tech he's set up for his dad, who built the Iomega Zip drive. It includes a remotely controllable PC, a camera, a TV that shows who he's talking to on a large screen, a wearable devic...

Instacart 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 i...

Is 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 g...

Coronavirus is changing how we work ... most tech companies are now telling their employees to work from home.   Well, if you work from home, you need tools to do that.   One company says it’s going to offer a free productivity suite to everyone. Zoho created a product literally this week called Remotely, which it is offering for free for all.   We’re chatting with Raju Vegesna, the...

What is it like to be living and working in China right now, during the coronavirus epidemic? What's different?   We chat with James Ren, who’s currently living and working in Beijing, China. He leaves his home every three days for food and hasn't seen his family for weeks, but he's trying to do business, meet clients virtually, and keep working through the crisis. What we talk about:  W...

Ad 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 wo...

We 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 penetrat...

Fake reviews are killing our ability to google for the truth Two of the top 9 google suggestions for “fake reviews” are “fake reviews generator” and “fake reviews generator free” So we know that it’s hard to trust reviews for consumer products What about reviews for B2B software? Consumer products might cost $50 to $500 B2B software? Could be $500,000, and easily more with multi-year contracts Tod...

Are 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...

Why is technology so important for the next decade of business? Why is every company a tech company? And how are expectations changing over the next decade? I talk about State Farm, NASCAR, Allbirds, and TikTok in an interview with Sean Moffit of FutureproofingNext.

Let’s start with TikTok. It gained over 500 million new users just last year. Why is it growing so quickly? When you’re on TikTok -- and other, similar social platforms -- there’s an almost compulsive view and flick, view and flick as you scroll through bits of content. What’s happening in the brain while this is going on? And … what does this do to people? Does it kill their attention span? Does...

Intro to guest Christoph Burkhardt is the CEO of OneLife They’ve developed a revolutionary new air purifier that they’re releasing at CES 2020 We’re getting a sneak peek What we talk about: What are the worst problems with indoor air? What percentage of people even know that they might have a problem? There’s a lot of existing air purifiers out there … what’s wrong with them? Replaceable air filte...

We’re chatting with Apptopia’s VP of Insights Adam Blacker about the top 100 apps of 2019. Which made the cut … what surprised us … what this means for tech giants like Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, and all the others in 2020 ... Mobile app categories we hit: Games Social/messaging Entertainment Food & drink Dating Shopping Music & audio Health & fitness Finance Companies and apps w...