In January of this year, Peregrine Mission One launched with at least 22 payloads. One was intended to be the first American made rover to land on the moon since the Apollo days: 1972.It was called Iris, and it was also the first lunar rover constructed with carbon fiber. It was designed and built by students at Carnegie Mellon University.Today, we…

What happens after AGI?AGI is artificial general intelligence: it’s when AI achieves human-level intelligence nd likely quickly thereafter super-human abilities, maybe even ushering in the Singularity.I was recently at the Beneficial AGI conference in Panama. One of the speakers was the founder of Emerj Artificial Intelligence Research. He’s interv…

If you have an iPhone, you've got a notch. Now there's tech that can get rid of that notch ... and the same tech can bring secure Face ID to Android: at a fraction of the cost.In this TechFirst, I chat with Metalenz CEO Rob Devlin about his meta surfaces product. Not only can they produce about 10,000 lenses on a single 30-centimeter wafer, just li…

Billions of robots within a decade? A similar growth curve to smartphones? We currently have about 30 million robots on the planet, not counting Roombas and similar small bots. RobotLab CEO Elad Inbar says that will hit BILLIONS with a B within 10 years.We discuss the exponential increase in commercial robots globally and predict billions of robots…

Is the Apple Vision Pro the future of surgical training?In this episode of TechFirst, host John Koetsier discusses the transformative impact of virtual reality (VR) on surgical training, highlighting the cost-efficiency and effectiveness of VR in reducing the learning curve for surgeons. The conversation features Richard Vincent, CEO of Fundamental…

When will AI match and surpass human capability? In short, when will we have AGI, or artificial general intelligence ... the kind of intelligence that should teach itself and grow itself to vastly larger intellect than an individual human?According to Ben Goertzel, CEO of SingularityNet, that time is very close: only 3 to 8 years away. In this Tech…

Can you use sentinel oysters and other mollusks to track water quality near your cities, beaches, or the Great Barrier Reef?Actually ... yes.In this episode of TechFirst, host John Koetsier chats with the CEO of Moloscan, a company focused on bio-monitoring and protection of marine environments using live shellfish.The company uses aquatic bivalves…

Do you need ChatGPT integrated into your new bike? How about an all-wheel drive bike? (OK: a 2-wheel drive ... but yeah, that's all-wheel drive!)In this episode of TechFirst, host John Koetsier chats the CEO of Urtopia about their new AI-integrated 'smart bike with a mind'. The e-bike market is predicted to grow to about $26 billion by 2028, but Dr…

Can you deliver medical treatment by changing brainwaves instead of injecting drugs? Elon Musk has recently implanted his first Neuralink into a human patient. But can we get neurotech medical treatment without drilling holes in our skulls?Maybe ...According to Element, a startup with roots in MIT, we can. And they say they can read your brainwaves…

Can someone hack your reality if you're wearing an Apple Vision Pro?In this episode of TechFirst, John Koetsier discusses the arrival of Apple's Vision Pro, a groundbreaking VR headset, and its associated privacy and security concerns with Synopsys principal security consultant Jamie Boote.They chat about how the device's advanced sensor systems ca…

In this episode of TechFirst, host John Koetsier talks to Dan Hollenkamp, the CEO of Toggled, about the future of smart buildings in 2024. They discuss the difference between devices that are smart and just remote controllable, the continuous improvement in building systems, and emphasize on the usage of data for smart devices. Dan sheds light on h…

In this end-of-year podcast of TechFirst for 2023, host John Koetsier explores the future trajectory of Virtual Reality (VR) technology, especially its potential in 2024. The podcast features Rolf Illenberger, founder & CEO of VR Direct, who believes that 2024 will be a critical inflection point for VR with wide-scale adoption, particularly in ente…

You’ve probably heard of Bhutan, and you may have heard of Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness measurement, which is about measuring how happy a country is as well as how wealthy a country is.Now the royal family in Bhutan is establishing an AI center to teach AI to locals ... and maybe bring Bhutan happiness -- and ethics -- to AI. To bring, as the …

Are you ready to dive into the emerging world of robot coworkers? In this video, originally recorded at Web Summit in Lisbon, I chat with special guest David Reger, CEO of Neura Robotics. We chat about what it will be like to work with robots, how we can ensure robots don't kill us (as is happening now, occasionally), and what will change about wor…

In this episode of TechFirst, host John Koetsier explores the global transition from traditional coil and magnet speakers to solid-state semiconductor alternatives with Mike Householder, a VP at XMEMS. The discussion includes the history of the speaker, the advantages of using solid-state semiconductors, and the future vision for sound technology. …

In this episode of TechFirst, host Jon Koetsier welcomes Emmy award-winning XR director Michaela Ternasky-Holland to delve into the world of immersive storytelling through technologies such as virtual reality (VR). Using her VR documentary project, On the Morning You Wake, as a case study, Michaela explains how the deeply immersive nature of VR can…

It all started with a stolen car. In 1983 Chicago resident David Meilahn's car was stolen. He bought a new one, a Mercedes Benz 280SL 2-seater. But then he needed to replace his old radio-phone ... and the sales rep told him there was something new: a cellular phone.He was one of the first few to be selected, then won a race to place the very first…

Generative AI won't be building Falcon 9s or new space shuttles just yet. But can it help with all the work that goes into running an organization that builds the future?According to Kendall Clark, CEO of Stardog, yes.Generative AI that democratizes access to data and insight and knowledge speeds up organizations can help with launching space ships…

How will generative AI impact work? And why are smaller companies adopting generative AI more than enterprises? Generative AI is almost literally exploding: there are so many possibilities. But how is it changing work and business? Recently GBK Collective, a consultancy founded by top academics at Wharton, studied 672 businesses in the US with annu…

Is equity, inclusion, and diversity in AI a solved problem? I’ve written a lot of stories lately about AI. AI is critical to our future of automation ... robots ... relf-driving cars ... drones ... and … everything: smart homes, smart factories, safety & security, environmental protection and restoration. A few years ago we heard constantly how var…

Who will win the race to have the world’s first usable general purpose humanoid robot? I thought I knew all the companies making general purpose robots: - Tesla - Sanctuary AI - Figure AI - Fourier Intelligence - Agility Robotics - Boston Dynamics I was wrong ... there’s probably a bunch I don’t know. But one that popped up as interesting is Apptro…

Could artificial intelligence make you MORE human? Help you become your best self? And, maybe, 10-15X your output? In this TechFirst we chat with author, flow coach, and entrepreneur David Passiak, who has gone way down the generative AI rabbit hole and made tools like ChatGPT his CMO, CEO, CRO, chief strategy officer, chief content officer, and mo…

GPUs are rare and expensive right now. Every company doing AI model training needs more, and NVIDIA can't build enough, especially of the NVIDIA H100 GPU. Run.ai CEO and co-founder Omri Geller says he has a software solution to this hardware problem. The key: GPUs are mostly idle, even in high-demand settings. According to Geller, his software 2X t…

Dronamics just got a license to operate in Europe. Its Black Swan cargo delivery drone is the size of a 2-seater aircraft and carries 800 pounds for 1500 miles. It's also 50% cheaper with 60% fewer emissions and 80% faster than standard airfreight. In this TechFirst, host John Koetsier chats with Dronamics CEO and co-founder, Svilen Rangelov. Topic…

It looks like we will soon be delivering power wirelessly to NASA robots on the moon. Yank Tech just won a NASA contract to to develop wireless charging solutions for autonomous vehicles on the moon. In this TechFirst, we chat with CEO Josh Yank. Topics we cover include: - Wireless power on the moon ... how does it work? - What’s the power source ……

"ET phone home" has never been more relevant. We're seeing a wave of phone calls to space, or at least space connectivity from relatively ordinary cell phones. - Apple added SOS - T-Mobile is working with Starlink - AT&T is working with AST SpaceMobile Why? And where is this going? To answer, we chat with a senior director from Ciena. It's a networ…

Right now might be the golden age of humanoid general purpose robot development. Tesla, of course, is building the Optimus robot. Figure.ai is working on one as well, plus others like Chinese company Fourier Intelligence with the GR-1 Boston Dynamics, and Agility Robots.So is Sanctuary AI.Sanctuary says they’re on a mission “to create the world’s-f…

Elon Musk calls him "batshit crazy," but Dan O'Dowd has built software for the F-35 fighter jet, the B2 bomber, and to secure U.S. nuclear forces. He's also built a microprocessor for Mars, worked on the Mac at Steve Jobs' request, and completed a ton of test drives of Tesla full self driving. His conclusion: it's worse than a drunk driver. And: it…

Optimus, the Tesla bot, has been in development for 2 years and still can’t really do that much. There’s another dream team of engineers and roboticists who are building a humanoid robot that they call the “kinder, gentler” robot. In this TechFirst we chat with 2 investors in Figure.ai: Jesse Coors and Gregg Hill. They think humanoid bipedal robots…

Can we get an open source medical AI that saves millions of lives? Everywhere on the planet, health care is a problem. In the US it's too expensive. In Canada it's too busy. In much of Africa and India it's too rare, and in many other countries including Western Europe, it's overwhelmed and overrun. AI could help, but only if we can get our act tog…

ChatGPT is not actually generative AI, says Intel senior research scientist Ilke Demir. In this TechFirst we chat with an Intel scientist who has been working on generative AI for years. We talk about the genesis of generative AI, which is as far back as the 1970s, and we talk about ethical uses of generative AI and how we can use neuromorphic comp…

I’ve done a lot of shows on alternative energy ... green energy sources like wind, geothermal, solar ... but should nuclear be in the mix? Nuclear’s having a bit of a resurgence lately as a green option for reliable energy. To talk about why and where it might fit we chat with the founder and president of Nano Nuclear Energy, Jay Yu, and the CEO, J…

Would you get a whole-body MRI scan to check for cancer and other problems even if you don’t feel any symptoms? Some have done just that and saved their lives. Others simply find out that they're relatively healthy. I seem to fall somewhere in the middle. I recently did a 60-minute full-body MRI scan. I learned I'm mostly healthy, but there are som…

Apple's likely releasing its massively expensive VR/AR/mixed reality headset, Reality Pro, next week at WWDC 2023. One key VR competitor says he's much less worried about Apple winning than he is worried that Apple will fail. Why? That would devastate the consumer VR market, setting back the industry years. In this TechFirst I chat with Varjo CEO a…

Generative AI is going to drive a 10X transformation in gaming, says Unity CEO John Riccitiello. It'll create truly believable worlds ... so believable it might even become more real that our "real world." It will transform NPCs -- non-player characters -- into deep, intelligent, and differentiated characters who might be more fun to hang out with …

Huge chunks of our lives are already managed by AI. The songs we listen to, the routes we drive, the search results we see, the climate in our homes?When AGI takes over, will you even notice?In this TechFirst, we chat with Evan Coopersmith, a data scientist and AI researcher who says that when AI fully takes over ... we probably won't. And, he says…

Imaging using an entire podcast as a prompt to GPT-5, or GPT-10. What would a massively capable generative AI do with a podcast? Create a movie? Score a soundtrack? Build an immersive world? John Gauntt is the host of The Augmented City podcast. He’s also a journalist, analyst, founder, and story teller who has been building an audio sci-fi ghost s…

Facebook isn't what it used to be. It's shedding staff, dismantling efforts to create the metaverse, losing ground to TikTok in short-form video, bleeding ad revenue thanks to Apple's privacy changes, and generally following rather than leading tech industry trends. But it still has a massive number of users and some of the biggest apps on the plan…

Is technology and AI out of control? Is AI already beyond our ability to manage and monitor?In this TechFirst, we chat with David B. Auerbach. He's a software engineer who has worked for Google and Microsoft and recently wrote a book. The title is a bit on the scary side ... MEGANETS: How Digital Forces Beyond Our Control Commandeer Our Daily Lives…

Aimi is a generative AI application for music that make songs that are everlasting: collaborations between artists and audiences that start, but never have to end. In this TechFirst I chat with Edward Balassanian, the CEO of Aimi, a generative AI for music that musicians can use to create, generate, and even code music ... while allowing audiences …

The 500-year ceramic geodesic dome home is now an actual physical reality. I first wrote about Geoship's plan to build long-lasting, inexpensive, earth-friendly, community-centric homes about 3 years ago. Last year, Geoship showed me a prototype. Now there's an actual built, powered, and furnished dome home in Nevada City, California. In this TechF…

Is generative AI the beginning of the end for humans ... or the end of the beginning? And, did you know generative AI has been around since 1972? In this TechFirst we chat with Ilke Demir, a research scientist at Intel who is working on ethical generative AI applications, like a speech synthesis project that aims to enable people who have lost thei…

On November 16th, revenue for skippable ads dropped 50%, 60%, even 90% for many YouTube creators. They say YouTube variously admits it was a bug, says it was fixed or will be fixed, or claims the payment drops are due to invalid traffic: code for "you're cheating." However, looking at their YouTube analytics doesn't support that claim. In this Tech…

So I did a Twitter Space with a bunch of really smart people, and they said I could upload the results to TechFirst. The only thing ... it's literally over 3 hours. So ... listen however long you'd like! The people on the Twitter Space include the host, Robert Scoble, as well as: Bryan Talebi, CEO of Ahura AI Tiarne Hawkins, director of AI at WeLoc…

Drone delivery is super-hot, but there aren't that many major players yet. Google's Wing is doing well, but Amazon is still just getting started, and few other significant players have major traction. Tiny Irish drone delivery company Manna Aero, however, has completed over 100,000 drone deliveries, is expanding to Dublin shortly, and will be expan…

Imagine building a digital twin of an entire country: all inputs, outputs, activity, infrastructure, issues, challenges ... That hasn't happened yet, but a client used Bentley Systems's tools to create a baseline digital twin for Singapore. In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, we chat with Greg Demchak, who leads digital innovation at B…

The wetware in a casket of bone that we each carry on our shoulders is 1 million times more efficient than the AI models run by services like ChatGPT, Stable Diffusion, or DALL-E. In this TechFirst with John Koetsier we chat for a second time with Gordon Wilson, CEO of Rain AI, which is building a neuromorphic artificial brain simulating the struct…

What will 2023 bring for mobile apps and games? We chat with Data.ai's Ted Krantz about 21 new billion-dollar mobile apps including Call of Duty Mobile, Bumble, and HBO Max. We also chat about entertainment, about third-party app stores competing with Apple, and the decline in ad revenue growth for mobile apps. One category that's growing fast: tra…

A massive aerospace corporation cancelled an order for 40,000 Oculus Quest VR headsets when they saw the technology in this video. In this very special TechFirst, I've received permission from TechBeach Retreat to share the first global unveiling of a technology called AirGlass from Mobeus HQ which, the founder Richie Etwaru says, is finally the Z-…

This year we saw consumers push back hard on BMW's decision to include heated seats in vehicles but only make them actually work if people paid a monthly subscription fee. Why? And how does the concept of ownership change when everything is smart, everything is remotely configurable, and everything can report its own level of usage? In this TechFir…