It’s our seasonal finale where we review our predictions for the year and review what happened. There’s a lot packed into the 45 minute show (the prediction show, #275, was 3 hours!) Each of the predictions are captured below.
315: How Truckers Can Stop The Automation Revolution
Tesla announced their newest contribution to the automation revolution: a new electric semi-truck. It’s sleek, safe, and high performing (also, not cheap, though the total cost of ownership should be lower). But this is one step in a much bigger trend to automate semi-trucks. For example, a new law to install ELDs (Electric Logging Devises) is already one huge step in automating the tracking of drivers… Drivers, btw, don’t love these new devices. There’s definitely some friction with something called the “Golden Triangle of Freedom”. We dive deep into each of these in our show.
294: Amazon Shows Off Their New Echo And Microsoft Builds A New Platform
Amazon showed off their new echo: Echo Show, which comes with a display to augment Alexa’s voice control. Think of it as a video conference landline, which the possible potential to be MUCH more. At $320, it isn’t going to be for everyone, but if you have the right use case, it’s a great product. The rest of the stories are below.
292: If It’s Not A Flying Car Then This Isn’t A Podcast
This week’s podcast was all about self driving and flying cars. For whatever reason Tesla, Waymo, Apple, Uber, and Kitty Hawk all felt the need to share updates. There’re all super cool (below) and it’s clear that many companies are getting closer to real products. We also touch on stock trading, social sharing and net neutrality. All the summaries are below.
285: Nintendo’s Titanic
When the movie titanic first came out, it wasn’t very popular: it took a few weeks to become the sensation we know it as today. The Nintendo Wii was the same way: people needed to play Wii Sports before realizing how fun the system was. In effect, the Wii was Nintendo’s Titanic.
The Switch, on the other hand seems much more straight forward, and therefore the initial sales are much higher. Personally, I still want to buy a Switch. :)
The rest of the stories are below.
281: Android Wear and Mobile, Both 2.0
Mobile 2.0 is underway. The fundamental assumption is that everyone has access to high-speed mobile internet, and a computer in their pocket. If that’s the case, what kinds of services and devices would you make? For one, you get Snap’s Spectacles. You get Android Wear 2.0. You also get things like Amazon’s Echo and DJI Drones. We should continue to see further unbundling of services and hardware in the coming years.
Oh yeah, and solar is now less expenses than traditional coal power. So that’s awesome. See below for all the stories.
280: The Ephemeral Snapchat IPO
Oh Snap! That ephemeral photo sharing company is going to IPO in March! That’s right, Snapchat (or Snap, or those really cool) shared more of their details this week. To be honest, not all the numbers look great. For example, after Facebook copied their Stories product, Snapchat’s growth stalled almost immediately. For a company that’s still losing money, that’s not great. That story and more below.
278: Tesla And Samsung Deal With Disasters
This week Tesla and Samsung deal with disasters that happened last year. A report showed that Tesla’s vehicle did everything it could to avoid a fatal accident. Samsung’s report showed that their batteries were the cause of the explosion and they have a new 8-point safety check to avoid it in the future.
We also talk about the improvements of the Raspberry Pie computer, how micro-software companies are the future, Airbus getting into flying cars, and how Google discovers malware. See below for all the stories.
275: Exactly What Will Happen In 2017
To kick off 2017 we spend over 3 hours talking about our predictions for the year. We cover the big guys: Apple (big expectations for the 10th anniversary of iPhone) Alphabet (AI. AI. AI.), Facebook (VR & M), Microsoft (keep kicking butt and taking names) and Amazon (Echo refresh, something crazy and new). Then we move into the smaller companies like Uber, Twitter, HPI, Tesla, Space X, and Snapchat. We then talk about broader topics like gaming, AI, IoT, AR/VR, and autonomous vehicles. It’s a jam packed show!
There aren’t any show notes to go with this show. So sit back, get comfortable and enjoy.
270: The Local Maximum Of Gratefulness
Showing our gratefulness, James and Matthew offer a new and interesting way to look at innovation and the world of technology. We also discuss James’ experience with the HTC Vive, an interview with Marc Andreessen and how Google will end humanity with AI. Also, we take a short look at Tesla’s solar power installation and how GPS is killing us, probably.