NEXT with John Koetsier

President Trump wants to ban TikTok in the U.S., but he’ll consider allowing a U.S. company to purchase it. As long as, in a novel twist, the U.S. government gets a cut. Meanwhile, U.S.-owned Triller is positioning itself as the biggest beneficiary to India’s TikTok ban, with 40 million new installs, and by extension, the likely winner of an American ban.

But in this latest episode of Meet the Kardashians, White House edition, they’re all potentially being played.

Because the fastest-growing non-TikTok short-form video entertainment app is also Chinese-owned. Economic and trade policy, meet Whack-A-Mole.

Two things have grown like crazy in 2020: Coronavirus, and the global app economy. 2020 has been crazy, but there’s been massive growth in some sectors, and mobile is one of them

In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier we chat with Lexi Sydow, a senior market insights manager at App Annie, about the state of the global app economy.

The good news: some newbies are winning and it’s not all the rich becoming richer. And, mobile isn’t just about what happens on your phone anymore.

We talk about:

 - downloads and growth

 - countries that are growing in time in apps and on devices

 - surprises in the data

 - time for new apps to get on to top downloads and top grossing lists

 - why new apps are getting so big so quick

 - new features apps are adding

 - the overall economic impact of apps

A high school student at Jericho High School in New York has built an AI framework that can predict air pollution levels with 92% accuracy using neural networks, random forest, and other techniques.

That ... could be better accuracy than most weather forecasters.

In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, we chat with Richard Ren about his framework, including how he learned to code, why he got into AI and machine learning, what data he's using, what technologies he's implementing, and what data is most predictive of high pollution levels.

Wind power has been around for a long time. For commercial applications, there are massive turbines with wings the size of 747s. 

For home, there have been a number of options, but durability has been a concern, as well as bird safety. Solar has seen much wider adoption, but it doesn’t work everywhere ...

Now there’s a solution from an Icelandic company that looks safe and affordable. To learn more, we chat with Sam Gerbus from IceWind “extreme energy solutions."

Alexa, Siri, Google: which is the smartest? Dumbest? Most useful? Growing the fastest? 

And ... what capabilities will AI assistants have in the future? In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier we chat with Brian Jackson from Info-Tech Research Group.

On the one hand … Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant are amazing technology ... on the other, they face-palm on some ridiculously simple tasks. We chat about:

- which are leading (and getting smarter faster)

- Google Duplex

- Alexa and smart home

- Privacy

- Why Apple's challenged to make Siri truly smart

- Smartglasses ... how they'll work with AI assistants

If you’ve been around marketing, you'll have heard the phrase "customer journey." It's what people do when they buy ... or don't buy.

Naturally, marketers want to optimize that trip, and Adobe has developed an AI system that finds out where those journeys break. Theoretically, that will help brands sell more.

Our guest this episode: Steve Hammond, a director at Adobe Experience Cloud.

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, permission, edge AI, blockchain, and crypto, they're creating a future in which you only see ads from brands you want to, you don’t sacrifice privacy when you see an ad, and you get paid for your attention.

In a lot of ways, that future is now.

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 the two biggest elephants in the App Store room.