April 2020 - Page 2 of 2 -

The best video conferencing software is…

The best videoconferencing software

The world is abuzz about videoconferencing which, along with Internet connectivity, has essentially saved the world from self destruction in the time of sheltering. By now everyone has experimented with a number of video conferencing apps. Wired provides a summary of the top contenders. It reviews Apple FaceTime, Zoom, Skype, Microsoft Teams, Houseparty and Google Hangouts.

dis-rup-shun: Funny how different each of these apps, which all bring people together virtually, really are. Houseparty brings people together to waste time together. Teams brings people together to manage many computer-based tasks, FaceTime is perfect for showing people what you are doing in the moment (action), and Skype is really not good for anything. Zoom remains one of the easiest and best tools. Hopefully all of these providers will enjoy great success in return for the incredible utility they have provided, mostly free, to the world in quarantine.

How to influence millennials

Success of flattening the coronavirus curve, it has been said many times, depends on the millennials. This cohort of young and mostly healthy people can make or break global efforts to slow the virus. A marketing company called Xomad, with the help of the government of Bangladesh, created a Social Leader Council, consisting of 200 social media influencers. The company successfully persuaded the influencers to user their platforms (many on Instragram) to encourage people to stay home. The company has also worked with influencers in Los Angeles, paying them a fee to join the campaign, which, in terms of delivering the message, is proving effective. CNBC

dis-rup-shun: The new rules of marketing are far less decentralized, requiring brands, or causes, to work through dozens of fragmented channels in addition to traditional channels of TV, radio, and even search. The power of influencers is significant, with people viewing dozens of different posts depending on tastes, making the task of messaging more challenging than ever. Xomad will have many important lessons to teach as a result of their public service work.

Palantir a coronavirus winner

Another company making lemonade in this time of lemons is data analytics software company Palantir, a privately held company backed by the controversial billionaire, Peter Thiel. The company’s contract with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services enables the CDC to amass large amounts of data on COVID-19 cases, uses of ventilators, locations of infections, and much more. CNBC

dis-rup-shun: Data analytics is the new plastics (Google The Graduate if you are too young to understand this phrase). The Internet of Things and the future of computing is about connecting end devices such as sensors, smart phones, cars, thermostats to the cloud, where vast amounts of data are collected every second. That’s impressive, but more impressive are the companies that can figure out how to make actionable insights from vast oceans of data.

Happy Easter and Passover

Blessings to you and your family as we celebrate that which is greater than us during the Global Reboot. Let’s take this time to be in touch with what is most important and what we wish to retain on the other side.

Consumer Electronics, IOT, Smart Home

Last Russian rocket ride

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The last ride on a Russian rocket

The U.S. ended the Space Shuttle program in 2011 and since then has depended on Russia to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station. The price of a seat on a Soyuz rocket is $86 million. Today’s launch of Chris Cassidy is the last scheduled trip with the Russians, as the U.S. will turn to both SpaceX and Boeing to launch U.S. astronauts from U.S. soil later this year. Wired

dis-rup-shun: What would JFK say if we asked him how he felt about his space dream being outsourced to Russia? In the age of Trump and renewed nationalism, NASA is relying on the free market to renew the space program and again compete in the space race. While both Boeing and SpaceX have had their share of challenged test flights, the plan to send an astronaut to the ISS this year remains intact, with the Russians on standby to sell a seat “as needed.”

The Animal Crossing phenomena

Animal Crossing: New Horizons, a new version of a beloved Nintendo Switch game, was released on Friday, March 20. It sold an amazing 1.88 million physical copies in Japan in its first weekend, setting a record for Nintendo Switch content. In the rest of the world, the game has created so much social media buzz that many celebrities are joining in the discussion, fueling the excitement for the life sim game. Wired

dis-rup-shun: Now is clearly an exceptional time to immerse oneself in a game. What makes this game so intriguing? Perhaps it is because it gives players a new opportunity to live a sim life as they expect that real life should be — providing new opportunities to build skills, trade, interact and even recreate with others with outcomes following expectations. Life is difficult when it doesn’t follow expectations, and retreating into a fantasy world where things are the way they should be is comforting — until you stop playing.

How to help your car shelter in place

Your car was built to drive. It was not designed to sit in the garage or driveway for weeks. Keeping the battery charged is the primary concern, and running the car for 20 minutes per week keeps up the charge and keeps lubricants circulating throughout engine, steering and brake systems. Cleaning all interior surfaces with a mixture of water and rubbing alcohol will make the vehicle ready for post pandemic use. Wired

dis-rup-shun: Sheltering in place has temporarily decreased air pollution in major cities, and given Mother Earth a little reprieve. It has also decreased the time spent and stress created by commuting in heavy traffic. Will our societies have a different outlook on daily routines post-pandemic, encouraging more work from home and less resource wasted on getting knowledge workers to an office location where they may sit, isolated in cubicles, working on a computer?

Drop a line to Asia

How do you keep the Internet infrastructure across the globe working, especially with a spike in demand caused by the coronavirus pandemic? Answer, you run a new cable connecting the U.S. mainland to Taiwan. Google has gained approval by the U.S. Department of Justice to run a sub-sea fiber optic cable to Taiwan, citing increased demand. CNBC

dis-rup-shun: We are all extremely dependent on the Internet for work, for shopping, for entertainment and for communication. But just who owns the Internet, builds and maintains it? There are a number of articles that answer the question, but many companies own, operate and charge tolls for its use, and one of the big players, of course, is Google. While Google bashing has become en vogue due to aggressive use of personal information, it is important to remember that Google’s sale of your personal shopping and political preferences generates the revenue that pays for the cables on the sea floor that enable you to WeChat or Facebook across the globe for “free.”

Consumer Electronics, IOT, Smart Home

Nintendo Switch nearly unobtainable

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Nintendo Switch hotter than toilet paper

And that is a compliment. The wildly popular game Animal Crossing has added to the frenzy to find the hand held game device which is in short supply. Buyers have gone online to Craigslist and eBay to find devices. “I found someone selling a Switch with a roll of toilet paper and a mini bottle of hand sanitizer for like 720 dollars,” Jennifer Baik, 24, said. “I was like what’s more valuable here, the Switch or the toilet paper?” Charlotte Observer

dis-rup-shun: Online games and gaming devices are COVID winners. While game research Interpret doesn’t have the data, one can expect that many old XBoxes, Nintendos and PlayStations have been dusted off and once again have become part of the daily experience. One could track pricing of second hand games to see if their prices have increased in the past two weeks.

Solve TP shortage — don’t use it

Bidet manufacturer Tushy is facing a 10x increase in demand for its product , a simple, DIY bidet attachment to the toilet. The attachments are about $100 and eliminate the need for toilet paper. The CEO says that given Americans’ reluctance to embrace, like other parts of the world, the bidet, our society flushed 15 million trees down the toilet each year.

dis-rup-shun: Another COVID winner — the bidet. From an environmental perspective, adding a bidet seems like the responsible thing to do, even without a global pandemic, unless, of course, you are in a region where the value of water is greater than the value of paper. Again the question is, how well will these COVID winners due when this is over? Expect long-term gains from higher awareness of companies such as Tushy.

Sex toy and condom sales skyrocket

Sex toy manufacturer Lelo is reporting a 40% increase in sales and online pharmacies are reporting a doubling of condom sales. Experts are mixed on if the pandemic will lead to a large number of conceptions as past crises have. WiredUK

dis-rup-shun: Let’s just hope that the increase in sexual activity does not get mixed up with the spike in use of Internet video conferencing, or a new online amateur industry will be born.

Best work at home laptop games

For people who are living on their laptops and looking for a little diversion between conference calls, CNET offers a lineup of the best games that can be “snacked” — that is, enjoyed in short sessions without requiring hours of indulgence. Top suggestions are: Deep Sky Derelicts, Disco Elysium, Fortnite, Blade Runner, Thimbleweed Park.

dis-rup-shun: Games that help us interact with people are probably the best diversion, especially for those sitting alone in their own home or apartment — isolated from coworkers and loved ones. On the other hand, perhaps games that connect us with other people are even more important for those trapped at home with loved ones!

Consumer Electronics, IOT, Smart Home

T-Mobile CEO: industry game changer

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How John Legere changed the mobile phone industry

John Legere took over the unimpressive carrier T-Mobile in 2012 and transformed not only T-Mobile, but the U.S. wireless industry in a few short years. Here are the biggest innovations to his credit:

He created the “un-carrier” by eliminating contracts for post-paid accounts (no contract pre-paid offerings were already in market).
He eliminated handset subsidies, shifting the industry to pay the full price of the phone over installments.
He enabled rapid upgrade options, giving people the option of switching to the latest equipment and valuing trade-ins higher.
He made international data cheap or free, in some cases, making international traveler much friendlier from a communications perspective.
He is a self-made social media star.
He made bashing the competition a standard practice within wireless marketing
He opened up earnings calls to everyone

Leger has stepped down as CEO of T-Mobile upon the completion of the T-Mobile/Sprint merger. CNET

dis-rup-shun: Legere is yet another example of David vs. Goliath. Legere decided to rewrite the rules of an established industry that put T-Mobile in a distant fourth place. He shunned the corporate image and appeared always in Magenta T-shirt and long hair. Last week, by completing the merger with Sprint, he took the irrelevant T-Mobile and turned it into a very solid third-place contender that will challenge AT&T and Verizon in deployment of 5G services.

Meal kit roundup — Blue Apron wins

Wired has assessed fourteen on-line meal-in-a-box delivery services, and has evaluated them on price, food quality, variety and recycle-ability. A complaint across all services is that they generate a lot of waste, so packaging was a consideration. The winner, Blue Apron, was lauded for reasonable price ($7 per meal per person per day), its efficient packaging, and its Mediterranean-style food offerings.

dis-rup-shun: With at least fourteen offerings, it is likely that a competitive shake out will eliminate some of the variety of this segment, but that could lead to the winners offering more variety of choices. Meals-in-a-box could eventually improve the poor eating habits of low income households and middle income food-lazy households, but still require the patience to follow some simple directions and do some prep. For those who don’t feel empowered in the kitchen or don’t live with a master cook (I’m sorry for you), there are no more excuses for eating less then great food all of the time.

U.K. phone towers attacked by those linking coronavirus to 5G

Attacks on four of Vodaphone’s cell phone towers followed social media posts linking coronavirus to 5G technology. British ministers are taking to social media to clear the record on 5G and dismiss any linkage to the pandemic. CNBC

dis-rup-shun: Where there are people, there are conspiracy theories. If you find it shocking that so many ordinary people could have such wild ideas, then you haven’t yet watched Netflix’ Tiger King — a reminder that ordinary people are, well, not very ordinary.

Smart home technology predicted to be in one-half of homes

ProBuilder features an article by smart home platform company Ezlo’s Roger Gregory. Gregory cites research firm Berg Insight’s prediction that 63 million U.S. households will be “smart” in the next three years. Gregory addresses builders by reminding them that smart home technology is no longer a luxury, but a standard offering that actually increases the sale-ability of new homes and increases revenue.

dis-rup-shun: Smart home adoption will follow behind awareness, which is growing, but still low. Gregory does not address one problem of smart home technology, and that is the concerns of a substantial share of the population that smart home are not secure or are offering a big brother the opportunity to eaves drop. Better provisions and better education by the smart home technology industry is needed to minimize conspiracy theories and maximize privacy.

Consumer Electronics, IOT, Smart Home

IKEA to use AI to remodel your home

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IKEA nabs augmented reality provider

Ikea’s store division, Ingka Group, has purchased U.S. startup GeoMagical Labs — a company that enables AI-based renderings through a smart phone. The technology will enable users to take a smartphone photo of rooms they wish to decorate, and then fill an image with virtual IKEA furniture, becoming their own interior decorators. Reuters

dis-rup-shun: One can assume that this will become the new standard for furniture, paint, floor covering and clothing shopping… take a snap of that which you wish to change, try out virtual samples, then press a button and Amazon, UPS or FedEx will deliver within the same or (godforbid) three days.

Exactly how much have our online habits changed?

App Annie is a research firm that captures actual app usage for IoS and Android. In short, due to the pandemic, app usage has increased between 10% and 30% during the most intense times of shelter-in-place. Gaming usage has soared, and non-games app usage is also substantially higher. Time on apps is up as is spending through apps, as people buy more games, books, music and supplies.

dis-rup-shun: Mapping our pandemic behavior will provide great data for anthropologists, policy makers, doctors and marketers for years to come. Suffice it to say that consumer technology, in general, has been a big winner of the Coronapocalypse. The real question now is how much of the surge in digital services usage will remain when we find a new normal? It is safe to guess that most all of the services that we are using heavily will experience a significant fall back when the crisis is over, but will level off higher then pre-pandemic levels.

Apple accidentally unveils new tracker product

It seems that there are so many Apple watchers, that whenever the company posts something out of the ordinary, people notice. Such a posting was caught by a blogger who reveals that Apple appears to be about to release an object tracking service — similar to Tile. AirTags, as the product is called, will feature some sort of battery operated tracking device that one can affix to wallets, keys, bicycles and other objects that could get misplaced. TechCrunch

dis-rup-shun: For Tile, the news is not so good, though the company may benefit from Apple’s advertising and marketing power, generating more awareness and demand for the product category. Tile may have to price below Apple to find its niche within the object tracker market, and there are plenty of similar case studies of Apple absorbing a technology that is already in market. A few to study are smart watches, sleep monitors, and even ear buds.

New product from Ring — Doorbox

In another inadvertent product leak, it appears that Ring is about to release the Doorbox. A picture is captured by CNET fuels guessing on what the device will do. It could be a mailbox that detects motion and affixes to a door or gate. The picture suggests that the device does not have a camera.

dis-rup-shun: Ring is working quickly to move from provider of niche connected smart home products, to provider of do-it-yourself integrated systems. The fact that the company is owned by Amazon makes for an interesting future, with tighter integration between the devices and Echo-powered devices. Other than SimpliSafe, there aren’t many complete DIY smart home system offerings in market. Nest comes and goes leaving Ring an opening to be the most complete provider of low-priced smart home products at retail.

Consumer Electronics, IOT, Smart Home

Toilet paper, monitors and laptops: in high demand

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Monitors, laptops and toilet paper

Sales of monitors and laptops have surged since we sheltered in place. NPD, the market research firm that counts sales receipts, shows computer monitor sales doubled in the first week of March while laptop sales were up 10% CNBC

dis-rup-shun: Setting up home offices and getting screens just right for all of those Zoom calls has been critical to WFH. As stated before, many sectors of the tech market will thrive as the result of the pandemic: video conferencing, Internet infrastructure, cloud services, computing devices, streaming gaming and entertainment.

Apple purchases weather app Dark Sky

The popular weather app, Dark Sky, has won multiple awards for its IOS version. Apple confirmed that it has purchased the company and will shut down the Android version. CNBC

dis-rup-shun: Why does Apple want another weather app? The company has, in the past, purchased technologies that it views as best-in-class. But what’s more is that a number of apps, and weather apps in particular, feed data to a number of other apps and get paid per transaction. It is likely that Dark Sky offers a strong data source to multiple apps and can feed data to a number of Apple products and services. Owler.com lists Dark Sky’s revenues at only $2.5 million. We know Apple is working hard to build out its services business and maybe Dark Sky will be the foundation for a premium weather service.

Microsoft purchases Affirmed Networks

Affirmed is a company that provides software that enables wireless carriers to expand their networks by using cloud services. While terms of the transaction were not disclosed, it is speculated that the transaction is valued at over $1 billion. Affirmed Networks is in a strong position to capitalize on the 5G network build out, currently underway. CNBC

dis-rup-shun: Another victory lap for a tech company despite the pandemic. Microsoft Azure is working hard to catch up to Amazon Web Service, which is way ahead. But Microsoft has shown several times that there are advantages to being a tech company with a cloud service. Cloud services can be leveraged into existing tech tools and infrastructure, creating a seamless platform. Amazon, on the other hand, has done a good job building new tech tools that extend the cloud into the premise, but the online retailer has to convince companies that it know tech down deep. Everyone has their strengths and has to work twice as hard to build strengths where they don’t already exist.

Beta Technologies builds recharging platform for electric flying taxis

Beta Technologies is building a flying taxi and, fittingly, needs a place for the craft to land and quickly recharge. The facility also offers comfortable quarters for pilots (or are they called taxi flyers?) to recharge while their craft is getting juiced up. The test facility is located in Burlington, Vermont. Wired

dis-rup-shun: If taxis will become electric and will fly, then they have to go somewhere to recharge. Some very forward looking business people at Beta Technologies want to be ready when the time comes. This combination of a futuristic service station, helipad and sky diner is certainly way ahead of its time, but when the time comes, Beta will have a well-researched offering.