NEXT with John Koetsier

Would 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.com/sites/johnkoetsier/

Nuport 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, if they can get it aftermarket.

In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, I chat with the CEO of Nuport, Raghavender Sahdev, about how his solution works, and what their new project with Canadian Tire means.

Episode links:

TechFirst transcripts: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

Nuport: https://www.nuport.ai

Keep in touch: https://twitter.com/johnkoetsier 

Forbes columns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/

Clubhouse is the media darling of the social audio world ... the hot date. Why? And … can Facebook and Twitter catch up?

To get some answers, we’re chatting with Josh Constine. He's a former TechCrunch writer and editor-at-large who is now a venture capitalist at SignalFire.

And ... Josh Constine is a Clubhouse influencer with 3.5M+ followers.

Episode links:

TechFirst transcripts (in about a week): https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

Keep in touch: https://twitter.com/johnkoetsier

Forbes columns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/

Full videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/johnkoetsier?sub_confirmation=1

Can you think a sleep tracker you haven't even tried might just be the best sleep tracker ever?

Apparently yes.

But hear me out ... there's reasons :-)

Episode links:

TechFirst transcripts (in about a week): https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

Keep in touch: https://twitter.com/johnkoetsier

Forbes columns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/

Full videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/johnkoetsier?sub_confirmation=1

Forbes story: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2021/03/16/googles-new-nest-hub-is-the-sleep-tracker-i-want/

Late in 2019 two Theo Priestly and Bronwyn Williams brought together 18 futurists to share visions of tomorrow. I'm super-pumped to have a chapter in the book on our need for an AR cloud commons, and it's coming out in about a month.

(Can't wait!)

Now that book is available for pre-order. In this episode of TechFirst we chat with a number of those futurists and get some sneak peeks at what's coming. Plus, of course, chat with the editors: Theo and Bronwyn. In this podcast, beside those editors and me:

 - Kristina Libby

 - Nikolas Badminton

 - Andrew Vorster

 - Doug Vining

 - Duena Blomstrom

Note: I don't make any money if you buy the book :-)

Episode links:

The book: https://www.amazon.com/Future-Starts-Now-Insights-Technology-ebook/dp/B08HWHV62G/

TechFirst transcripts (in about a week): https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

Keep in touch: https://twitter.com/johnkoetsier

Forbes columns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/

Full videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/johnkoetsier?sub_confirmation=1

What 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

Forbes columns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/

Full videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/johnkoetsier?sub_confirmation=1

Social audio is having a moment. We're seeing an explosion of players in the space: up to 30 at analyst and thought leader Jeremiah Owyang's last count.

And that's just the beginning. We'll see an explosion of hundreds of apps in social audio shortly, says Owyang.

I caught up with Jeremiah recently to chat about social audio: why it's hot, what's happening, what's driving this trend, who the key players are, why it's here to stay, and what innovation this new sector will give birth to.

Episode links:

TechFirst transcripts (in about a week): https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

Keep in touch: https://twitter.com/johnkoetsier

Forbes columns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/

Full videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/johnkoetsier?sub_confirmation=1

Jeremiah Owyang: https://web-strategist.com/blog/

Do self-driving cars need LIDAR? Elon Musk says no, but most other experts say yes. And we’re going to talk to one of them today

Omer Keilaf, founder and CEO, Innoviz, who supplies lidar for BMW and other manufacturers, says LIDAR is essential, because water or mud or dust can disrupt visual sensors.

And, of course, all this is happening in an era when LIDAR is getting so cheap we can have it in our phones. Right now it's at $1000 for automotive uses; that's coming down to $100 or even less.

Episode links:

TechFirst transcripts (in about a week): https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

Keep in touch: https://twitter.com/johnkoetsier

Forbes columns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/

Full videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/johnkoetsier?sub_confirmation=1

Would 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 lashes to a client.

Episode links:

TechFirst transcripts (in about a week): https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

Keep in touch: https://twitter.com/johnkoetsier

Forbes columns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/

Full videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/johnkoetsier?sub_confirmation=1

In this episode of TechFirst we chat with Google director of engineering Ivan Poupyrev. He's making the world smart, starting with clothing (we buy 150 billion items of clothing a year, according to one estimate) released with Google's Jacquard technology.

That's going to help us all move beyond screens and make technology ambient in our lives, not central, he believes.

But the vision extends beyond clothing to every object in our worlds. Join this chat to see what Poupyrev is working on, and how he sees the world in 10 years.

Episode links:

TechFirst transcripts (in about a week): https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

Keep in touch: https://twitter.com/johnkoetsier 

Forbes columns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/ 

Google Jacquard: https://atap.google.com/jacquard/