ItSeemstoMe is my personal blog and newsletter. It is for business decision makers and is about disruptive technologies. I mostly cover Immersive Technologies such as AR and non-gaming VR as well as AI-powered products such as autonomous cars, robots, chatbots, drones and wearable tech. I am always looking for a good story and if you have one, we should talk.
I recently attended the 10th annual Augmented World Expo (AWE) at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Silicon Valley. With 7,000 attendees— up almost 25 percent from last year— over 350 speakers and 250 booth exhibits, it was by far the biggest event ever for the Immersive Technology community.
I am about halfway through Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe by Roger McNamee. I am only halfway through because I am reading more slowly and carefully than I usually read. This is partly because almost every page causes me to stop and think about the deteriorating relationship between people and technology and the self-evident truth of this broadside against the most powerful company in history is painful for me to accept.
I am about to complete my first ghostwriting assignment, and it has convinced me that this is something I want to continue to do.
The following has nothing to do with tech at all: but it has a great deal to do with life,…
Let’s begin with my apology. In ISTM #15, I referred to Synthesia Technologies as a purveyor of Deep Fake news…
I am an advisor to the San Francisco chapter of the VR/AR Association. At a recent event, I learned about…
I met Exit VR co-founder Ilya Druzhnikov on an extremely rainy night at a tech event in Pacifica. We were two of only three people who showed up, so it gave us time to talk. I learned that he and Yoni Koenig, his business partner, had devised a rare business model that promises to be lucrative and sustainable.
In 2016, at a time when both the tech and entertainment communities were going bonkers over the near-term promise of VR and AR, Ilya and Yoni decided to run a field test. They took a battered old van and converted it into a mobile VR lab. Equipped with state-of-the-industry VR gear, they would park it where people gathered in the many diverse neighborhoods of San Francisco. They would vary the price for viewing as well as the time per visit and the apps that were shown.
Continue Reading →Many years ago, when I first stepped away from employment to go my own way, I developed a mantra: Work hard.…
So much is being said about the dangers of AI. I share many concerns related to autonomous cars, massive unemployment…