TechFirst with John Koetsier

Do you want sushi by drone? Ice cream or coffee in 2 minutes? Wing is Google's drone division (OK, Alphabet's!) and is doing just that right now in three locations around the world. They're planning to scale globally and in the U.S., but are working out all the kinks and regulatory permissions. And they just announced some exciting news: first of its kind rooftop drone stations at a mall. You orde...

Avi Bar-Zeev has been working on the metaverse for 30 years. He’s one of the key people behind Microsoft’s Hololens, co-founded Keyhole which became Google Earth, helped define Second Life’s technology, and has worked with Apple on, presumably, its rumored smartglasses. In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, I chat with Ari about the metaverse, what it is, what it isn’t, and how AR and V...

Here's (almost) everything Amazon announced for smart home just two days ago, including Amazon Astro, Ring Always Home Cam, Ring Alarm Pro, Ring Video Doorbell, and more Ring, Ring, Ring everything. There's also the Echo Show 15 and the Amazon Glow. But the big picture is how Amazon is competing with Google and Apple in smart home ... and it's not even close. Apple has almost nothing for smart hom...

Can 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 al...

We know carbon fiber is strong: 60X stronger than steel. The problem has always been finding ways to 3D print it at speed, and for large objects. Arevo says it's found the solution: "'the world's first high speed additive manufacturing system for continuous carbon fiber composite structures." It's literally the size of a shipping container, and it can print a volume about a meter cubed. Companies...

Epic sued Apple for the right to sell in-app purchases in Fortnite itself and not pay Apple a 30% cut. And it won ... but also lost, as the judge ruled in favor of Apple on nine of the ten claims Epic made. But the big deal is payments in apps. And that changes everything. Here are the most interesting rulings, findings, and facts unearthed in U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers' 185-page r...

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. We...

Four months ago I interviewed Lightmatter CEO Nick Harris on his photonic supercomputer. There are now almost 400K view and 2,600 comments ... with lots of questions. In this episode, Harris answers the biggest ones.  - is this real?  - does the chip do what Lightmatter says it will do?  - RGB vs CMYK?  - how do you do linear algebra with light?  - where can I get this? &n...

US President Biden said his goal is that 50% of cars sold in 2030 will be zero-emission vehicles: less than 9 years away. So … is that doable? Maybe, but the US needs 10X more rare earths for magnets. Currently, less than 2% of cars on American roads are electric. About 17-19M cars are sold in the US annually, and a little over 300,000 are EVs. So we’re at about 2%. One of the things you need is b...

Presumably Tesla isn’t busy enough building “full self driving” or cars that have half-year waitlists for new buyers. (Or worse: anyone wondering where Cybertruck is?) Now CEO Elon Musk has revealed a new project: Tesla Bot. Tesla Bot is a 125 pound 5’8” humanoid robot. Launch goal: some time next year. Links: Support TechFirst with $SMRT coins: https://rally.io/creator/SMRT/ TechFirst transcripts...

What could an AI-focused 22nd most powerful supercomputer in the world and 100 new AI faculty do for the University of Florida? I chat with UF provost Dr. Joseph Glover and NVIDIA's Cheryl Martin about what they're planning. Short version: massive impact. We're talking AI-driven climate change research, medical research and infusing artificial intelligence throughout the entire curriculum of a mas...

There are now seven mobile games that pull in over $100 million in an average month, according to a new App Annie report. And 810 scoop up more than $1 million every month. In 2019? Only two made over $100 million/month. In other words, mobile gaming is huge and massive and still growing fast ... 16X faster revenue growth than PC/Mac gaming and home console gaming. Links: Support TechFirst with $S...

If I had a dollar for every 3D startup that has failed, I'd probably have ... a few hundred bucks. Getting no-glasses no-headset 3D right is insanely difficult. But Look Glass Factory CEO Shawn Frayne says he's done it. It's shipping now, and I have friends who say it's the best thing they've ever seen. He's been working on it for literally half his life ... and it has the potential to revolutioni...

Amazon is the beast, the bear, the devil that controls over half of digital retail in America. And they've copied successful products for Amazon Essentials ... because they see all the data. But could that be a great thing for brands? Perch has raised over $900 million to buy, build, and grow microbrands, mostly on Amazon. And executive Mike Frekey is pretty pumped about it, calling Amazon the lar...

Will AI replace us, or make us better? According to AI expert Slater Victoroff, AI is a bionic arm that's going to make us better and faster, whether we're a doctor, lawyer, data scientist, builder, carpenter, or care aide. I also chat the Victoroff, the CTO and co-founder of Indico, about what work will look like in the future, how much white collar and blue collar work will get taken over by AI...

Mashing those buttons may not take massive muscles. But long-term success in eSports takes physical and mental fitness. At least according to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive star JW, a member of the Fnatic esports team. With other eSports stars he's been working out with Freeletics, an AI-powered fitness program. The biggest benefit? Faster, clearer thinking, JW says. Links: Support TechFirst wit...

Smart electricity startup Amber just signed a significant agreement with German giant Infineon to bring its technology closer to market. Amber's tech is a solid state solution for managing and controlling electricity, including transforming AC to DC. That makes electricity software controllable: a 100-year leap in technology. "By controlling the sine wave electricity and you can chop it and dice i...

Throw everything cool and techy in a blender and what do you get? Million Doge Disco. It's an augmented reality game similar to Pokemon Go with NFTs ✅ and blockchain ✅ and augmented reality  ✅  and partying  ✅  and Tamagotchi  ✅  and Dogecoin  ✅  and ... free money. Or free Dogecoin, at least. One million free Dogecoin.  Which you have to capture,...

There's a dirty little secret of most wearable tech, and the dirty little secret is ... it's not actually wearable. It's strappable, it's mountable.  It's not actually something that you wear in any traditional meaning of that word. One startup in New York, however, is trying to change that. Imagine smart thread woven right into all of your clothing -- no straps, no attachments, just clothing...

What 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 G...

Whether you want to be Dick Tracy or you want to just not take your phone on a hike, there is now a solution: Wristcam. It's the only camera available globally for Apple Watch, and I got a sample to test. I also spent some time with the CEO and CMO of Wristcam chatting about what it does, how it works, what quality people can expect, and whether it's a boat anchor on your wrist. You can take pictu...

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: regul...

Medical AI has a bright future. Apple’s focus on health data collected by wearable technology and new capabilities for streaming that data to doctors just guaranteed it. I just posted to my Forbes column, and here's a few expanded thoughts on what we just saw at Apple's World Wide Developer Conference. Support TechFirst with $SMRT coins: https://rally.io/creator/SMRT/ TechFirst transcripts: https:...

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...

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...