technology

3 Reasons why SXSW 2018 is Magical

By Paul B. Kaiser on March 12, 2018

SXSW 2018 is in full swing in Austin, and from what I can tell the “experiential” factor tops the interactive cake. I mean they have built sets, taken over houses, and created mind-blowing events before, but these three interactive promotions below are incredible. They have taken the 5 senses and added a sixth – “mind melt”. The event truly looks informative and magical.

If you’re a fan of HBO’s Westworld, than this SXSW event will make you wish you were in Austin. It might be one of the best publicity stunts of the 21st century.

The new movie Ready Player One, directed by Steven Spielberg, is coming out this month. But in Austin it has already arrived. This movie and SXSW stunt elevates VR to the next level. Not just with special effects but weaving it into life.

The tech giant is showing off about a dozen interactive demos at an air-conditioned warehouse here in Austin, and the event sounded like it would be really chill.

Sony wanted to make its visitors feel connected to its technology, and what better way to engage than through physical exertion.

They focused less on explaining the tech or convincing people why you’re here — just wow your audience with magical experiences.

The Gigafactory is Elon Musk’s Sonnet to the Future

By Paul B. Kaiser on December 24, 2016

Elon Musk’s Gigafactory is taking shape as seen in the new drone video below. When it opened this year the mode of production was far below expectations. But 6 months later, it is a different story.

Why build this huge factory? The firm foresees it will drive down the per kilowatt hour (kWh) costs of their battery pack by more than 30 percent. And keeping with Tesla’s green theme, the plant will also be powered by renewable resources, ‘with the goal of achieving net zero energy,’ Tesla says.

CEO Elon Musk said “the factory could easily employ 10,000 people in the next three to four years.”

The name Gigafactory comes from the factory’s planned annual battery production capacity of 35 gigawatt-hours (GWh). “Giga'”is a unit of measurement that represents ‘billions’.

Drone footage reveals world’s biggest building has added 2.4 MILLION square feet in just six months

Factoids:

$5 billion structure in Sparks, Nevada will produce 500,000 lithium ion batteries annually to meet demand
New drone footage of Tesla’s Gigafactory shows that it is now 30 percent complete
The north end of the massive building has been finished, adding another 4.5 million square feet of space
The factory will be used to produce batteries for products including Tesla Model 3 car

It’s deemed the biggest factory in the world – but when Tesla opened the doors to its ‘Gigafactory’ earlier this year, only 14 percent was complete. Fast forward six months later and new drone footage reveals that the electric carmaker has more than doubled the size by adding an additional 2.4 million square feet of space to the campus.

By the end of 2017, the company aims to begin production of its more affordable Model 3. And by 2020 it plans to ramp up production to build as many as one million vehicles per year, an ambitious goal considering the company expects to produce about 80,000 to 90,000 vehicles in 2016. Regardless where the numbers end up, there is no doubt that Elon Musk will change the mode of production.

Technology in the Trump Era

By Paul B. Kaiser on November 10, 2016

As we head out of Obamaville and into the Trump 100 days soon, what is the future of the technology industry? Knowing Trump it could go either way but here is what I know. Please note that I’m more than willing to give Trump time to prove himself, but the signs and things he has said have not been promising.

During the Obama years, Silicon Valley has been an economic and social engine for the digital community. Smartphones and social networks have become as necessity to many and are as important to world business as oil is to the automobile. The big four (Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google) have become some of the most prosperous and valuable companies on the planet and have given the USA new hope for generating $$ in the USA.

Obama, has undeniably been a active supporter of these digital tools and his administration deferred to the tech industry for advice and consultation. Baring the recent Apple iPhone privacy debate, the tech industry and big government have worked well together. So how will Mr. Trump carry the baton?. “Mr. Trump had few kind words for tech giants during the campaign.”

He promised to “initiate antitrust actions against Amazon, repeatedly vowed to force Apple to make its products in the United States, and then called for a boycott of the company when it challenged the government’s order to unlock a terrorist’s iPhone.” And his immigration plans are dislike by about every company in tech.

Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft have not commented about Trump’s win, or how the new administration’s stated policy goals would affect their businesses, but it seems clear that a shift is in the wind. For instance, last year, Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, wrote a rebuke to Trump’s plan to ban Muslims from immigrating to the United States. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s co-founder and chief executive, told an audience of developers in April that “instead of building walls, we can help people build bridges.”

Behind closed doors, during the campaign, many tech leaders were positive that their vision would prevail over Trump’s. But when asked about whether they were preparing a strategy to deal with a Trump victory, they did not have an answer. They like many other thought it would never happen.

Among the tech community, there is concern that social media giants, Facebook and Twitter, have helped advance the decline of good and accurate news media. Social media seems to have contributed into the rise of trolling, racism and misogyny that seemed to follow so much of Trump’s campaign.

At the end of the day, I have to imagine that a “mover and shaker” like Trump would want these businesses to succeed and prosper in America. It seems that Trumps business side would rise and squash his inner negativity. Nobody really knows his internet privacy, security positions or technology plans. He barely touched on the issues during the campaign. Privacy and cyber-security aren’t mentioned at all on his website’s positions pages. Everyone buckle up for the ride.

President Obama Stresses Importance of Science and Technology to the Nations Future

Google is in deep with Artificial Intelligence

By Paul B. Kaiser on October 18, 2016

DeepMind is a Google owned company dedicated to making computers that think and act like humans. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is expanding and evolving at a fast pace, much do to big investments.

Google is serious about AI as can be seen by its show of big announcements in recent weeks — the improved Google Translate machine learning tricks, its voice-controlled speaker system Home, and their new smartphone line Pixel (which is equipped with the virtual Assistant). All this is evidence of their dedication to the science of artificial intelligence. But now Google has ramped up its investments in what’s known as “deep learning”. In 2012, Google had two deep-learning projects underway. Today, Google has more than 1,000 deep-learning projects in every major product category, including search, maps, translation, and self-driving cars.

Digital Trends says that deep learning refers to a kind of AI that enables software to train itself to perform tasks, like speech and image recognition. The algorithms behind this kind of AI have been around since the 1980s and 1990s, Fortune reports, but it’s only in recent years that technology companies have been able to harness its true potential thanks to the explosion of easily accessible big data. Google launched its deep-learning project Google Brain in 2011, and in 2014 it bought DeepMind, a pioneering reinforcement learning program that’s been shattering AI landmarks in gameplay this year.

“Deepmind has also invested in healthcare and now has up to 40 employees.”

The expansion of DeepMind Health comes as the company looks to do increasing amounts of work with the NHS. The company has announced three NHS partnerships so far, including an eyecare project, a kidney monitoring project and a cancer detection project. None of the projects hold any commercial value for DeepMind but the company eventually plans to start charging the NHS and others for access to its products and services.

The Idea Factory – The Reinvention of Tech at Bell Works Holmdel NJ

By Paul B. Kaiser on August 14, 2016

The Bell Labs building has been quiet for 10 years, but in 2016 there is a re-found desire, to make this part of NJ the new tech hub. Companies like ICIMS are getting on board to fill the halls of old Bell Labs – now called Bell Works.

So why is Bell Works seeking tech companies? The 2 million-square-foot building where Bell Labs scientists helped launch cellular networks is luring companies to work at a complex surrounded by technological history. Bell Labs was home to ingenious minds that contributed to some of the greatest technological advancements of the twentieth century.

This is a place that honors 8 Nobel Prize Winners
Physics – 1937, 1956, 1978, 1997, 1998, 2009
Chemistry – 2014

The two scientists who shared a Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering evidence supporting the Big Bang Theory 50 years ago reunited in Holmdel, at a friendly outdoor celebration attended by past and present colleagues of Bell Labs.

Arno Penzias and Robert A. Wilson stood together beneath the hulking horn-reflector antenna on Crawford Hill, which they famously employed to detect cosmic microwave background radiation that could help explain the origin of the universe. It is now a national landmark.

When you come up on the building on Bell Laboratory Road, standing in a field is a 60-foot water tower in the shape of a transistor, an invention born at Bell Labs that launched a computer revolution. Computer software developers are envious if their inventions since this is where UNIX and the C programming language were products of Bell Labs scientists. The halls of Bell works will soon be filled with new scientists and new inventions.

Ariel view:

Bell labs in waiting circa 2012:

Future Bell Works:

Tasty videos are a feast for the eyes

By Paul B. Kaiser on April 30, 2016

With short attention spans ruling the internet, Tasty videos has taken over FaceBook and marketing to our appetites is on the rise. Thanks to fast-motion animation, food and technology have intersected on the internet with some fresh thinking on recipes. Tasty videos has taken it to the next level.

The New York-based media company’s Facebook-only cooking channel, Tasty, now has 30 million followers on Facebook. Its videos regularly get tens of millions of views.

“Tasty has become the driver of video views at the company, with 53.6 million likes”

UPDATED May 5, 2016

Digiday reported that in less than a year after it launched with an experimental recipe video, Tasty has become the driver of video views at the company, with 53.6 million likes (its rapid ascent made it look like a spam channel, which caused a Facebook glitch that temporarily halted its growth, according to BuzzFeed) and a global presence that’s spawned a growing number of BuzzFeed video offshoots around kids, moms and cooking gadget unboxings. There’s a DIY offshoot for crafters called Nifty. Tasty has begun opening the door to advertising.
Full story.

Take a look at some good examples of stop-motion foodie videos.

The large majority of Tasty’s videos — which are made by BuzzFeed Motion Pictures — are filmed in Los Angeles. Andrew Gauthier, executive producer for BuzzFeed Motion Pictures, said that the process for what to shoot isn’t especially complicated. “Oftentimes a producer will make a new recipe for their family over the weekend, and then come in on Monday excited to make the video and share the dish with the world,” he explained. “Once we’ve arrived at a final recipe, a video can be shot and edited in as little as a day.”

“Tasty has 50 million Facebook fans”

That quick turnaround yields overwhelming results. Tasty is barely a year old — it launched at the end of last July — but has since amassed almost 50 million Facebook fans, and, as of the beginning of this year, more than 84 million comments. The view count is even more astounding: Tasty has racked up 8 billion views and counting.

Engaging the user

Tasty’s format of fast-motion videos, suck the viewer in and keep them engaged. They’re optimized for Facebook’s autoplay feature, which starts playing videos without the sound on. You don’t need sound to engage either. Your eyes do all the work.

A marketing strategy of publishing your content directly to social media outlets like Facebook, Pinterest, Snapchat, and Instagram, rather than posting links to stories on your website, is not the norm. Unlike conventional thinking at most media organizations, you might want to be less concerned about driving traffic back your website, and concentrate on engagement and acquisition.

A different perspective here is a video that is food for thought.