In this episode of The Digital Life, we discuss the rise of voice recognition and voice user interfaces. More so than any other interface type, the VUI has the potential to be seamless and "magical". We've all used Siri, and there are plenty of VUI's for car dashboards, but what's coming down the road? From a first take on the new Amazon Echo to the future possibilities of voice services, we share our thoughts on the landscape of speech recognition. 

Exploring the Voice User Interface

At Apple's big unveiling on Monday, we got a better look at the Apple Watch, what the company hopes will be its next category-busting tech product. At the event, Apple also announced HBO NOW, fulfilling the dreams of cord-cutters everywhere; ResearchKit, the open source health study software; and the next generation of its CarPlay system, rolling out with 40 new autos next year. In this episode of The Digital Life, we consider whether Apple has jumped the shark with its new Watch, the implications of CarPlay for the rolling tech boxes that used to be just transportation, and the promise of ResearchKit for the medical research community.

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Apple Watch Fever

Is South by Southwest the big tent tech revival for the American creative class? As knowledge workers make their annual pilgrimage to Austin this week to participate in a giant festival filled with the latest in technology, music and film, it's worth asking if conferences like this one are the 21st century's communities of engagement.

As traditional organizations, civil and religious alike, like Lions Club International and Rotary International, churches, and even unions lose membership, there is a need for new structures to organize and engage people in meaningful ways, especially those in the creative class.

Witness the rise of the conference, the unconference, the meetup and the ascendancy of the professional group as one of the primary binding elements of our society — at least for those involved in the information economy. In this episode of The Digital Life, we discuss this phenomenon examined through the lens of the popular SXSW festival.

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SXSW and Social Organization for the Creative Class

On this episode of The Digital Life, we discuss open organization culture in theory and in practice. As the creative economy continues to grow and evolve, knowledge workers are discovering and developing new ways of working together. In contrast with the closed, hierarchical structures of 20th century industrial enterprises, in the 21st century open organization, transparency, authenticity and access are foundational elements. 

But how do these open source organizational principals really work in a business context? Join us as we examine the impact of the open organization, on companies small and large. 


On Open Organizations

This week, on The Digital Life, we chat about the Volkswagen scandal and the increasingly important role that software plays in controlling our physical world.

Last week, Volkswagen, the biggest automaker in the world, got caught cheating on its diesel engine emissions tests. The automaker installed software, a “defeat device” in its cars to make them appear cleaner while they were being tested. As a result, the company faces $18B in fines in the US alone.

While this is probably not the first time software has been used to circumvent regulation, the VW scandal is so high profile that it feels like a game changer. In this, the digital and physical worlds are colliding in ways we haven’t seen before. What is the responsibility for software in the real world? And what is the responsibility of design and user experience?

The Volkswagen Software Scandal

This week on The Digital Life, we chat about designing for enterprise user experience with UX designer, strategist, author and consultant, Uday Gajander.

Uday tells us about "Wicked Craft", the current state of enterprise software UX, and how designers can better understand enterprise users.

Design for Enterprise UX

This week on The Digital Life, we chat about Apple and the state of its software design. Is Apple off the rails? Is Google nipping at its heels? You could argue that Google is getting better at design at the same time Apple is getting worse.

An interesting article on Fast Company by Don Norman and Bruce Tognazzini, “How Apple is Giving Design a Bad Name” sets the stage for this discussion. With the mobile iOS, Norman and Tognazzini argue that Apple has abandoned some of the fundamental principles of good design including discoverability, feedback, and recovery.

In contrast, Google is doing some interesting things with its Android OS. Experimental design is part of the conversation and the company is unafraid to evolve in the open.



Apple Software UX

On The Digital Life this week, we chat about media decline in the digital age. In its current state, media has ceased to be the gold standard and alarmingly, is becoming just another kind of noise in the cacophony of the 24-hour always on news cycle.  

The media appeals to the lowest common denominator. And, it's a valid question as to whether it's a well-designed product at all anymore. Worse still, in the Internet age, our smorgasbord of media choices perpetuates the dangerous world of self-validating viewpoints. We can’t remember things correctly. We edit our memories. Has it always been like this? Or are our minds being transformed by the age of information?

Media Decay

On The Digital Life podcast topic this week, we chat about philanthropy and patronage in the digital gilded age.

Mark Zuckerberg and his wife recently announced that they were giving 99% of their Facebook stock to charitable causes over the course of their lifetimes and were rewarded by the public and the media with equal parts praise and criticism.

With a select few mega donors helping to drive the agenda on everything from education to politics to climate change, is the billionaire philanthropist of today, the new patron of progress, or just another manifestation of elite control? Join us as we discuss all this and more.   

Digital Patronage

This week on the podcast, we discuss accessing the digital life in 2016. How do you get online? A recent Pew Research Center study indicates that fewer Americans have high-speed Internet at home in 2015 than they did two years ago in 2013 — a drop from 70% to 67%. And while broadband use is declining (ever so slightly), people who access digital services solely via smartphones is actually up 5%. The competition between wireless high speed internet and broadband has clearly begun to heat up.

Is there an upper limit to high speed mobile internet growth?
Network saturation — too many consumers using too few towers — is one bounding constraint. And signal quality can be variable based on the weather. But high speed mobile access is less costly to roll out than broadband. 

In this episode, we chat about the ever growing need for online speed and the battle between broadband and mobile. 


The Need for Speed: Mobile vs. Broadband

We all know it’s nearly impossible to avoid the veritable deluge of invitations to join the latest Facebook game. This week, Facebook game or “social game” designers Brenda Brathwaite and Soren Johnson make the case that we should give this maligned game genre a chance.

Social game design with Brenda Brathwaite and Soren Johnson

This week on The Digital Life, we chat about the rapid evolution of design and innovation practice. Chinese companies are increasingly taking an assembly line approach to R&D, which allows them to accelerate the process using multi-functional problem solving teams. By industrializing the process, Chinese companies are looking to make innovative product development quick and inexpensive, using simultaneous, parallel engineering and design. Additionally, IP sharing is commonplace in China: Designs move quickly from one company to the next. For example, the hit toy of the holidays, the hoverboard, was created seemingly simultaneously by several Chinese manufacturers. Join us as we discuss the future of innovation.

Get the full transcript:
http://thedigitalife.com/bull-session/rethink-innovation

Rethink Innovation

On The Digital Life this week, we discuss future crime and the surveillance state in light of China’s recent efforts to use predictive analytics and big data to stop terrorism. China Electronics Technology Group, a state-run defense contractor, is developing the software to analyze data on everything from employment to hobbies to purchasing habits of ordinary citizens to try to predict terrorist acts before they happen. The software, in more ways than one, echoes the fantastical pre-crime technology featured in the science fiction film Minority Report. In this week's episode we explore the question of predicting crime using technology and its consequences.

Future Crime and the Surveillance State

On The Digital Life this week, we chat about the intersection of computer science / engineering and synthetic biology and Cello, a programming language for living cells.

At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Boston University (BU) synthetic biologists have created software that automates the design of DNA circuits for living cells. This software, called Cello, has the potential to help people, who are not necessarily skilled biologists, to quickly begin designing useful, working biological systems. Using Cello, oil companies, for example, could develop smart bacteria that could clean up oil spills. Cello, which is open source, can be downloaded from the online repository GitHub or accessed via a Web interface.

Engineering Synthetic Biology

On this episode of The Digital Life we discuss Google's Sidewalk Labs and its radical plans to design a smart city from scratch. Sidewalk Labs wants to work with cities to build applications that solve big urban problems and accelerate innovation around the world. However, in their pursuit of these solutions, the company is  seeking autonomy from many city regulations, so it can build free of the many constraints that come with the design of streets, parking, and utilities.

Sidewalk Labs already has two solutions in progress: Flow, a transportation coordination platform in partnership with the U.S. Department of Transportation; and LinkNYC, kiosks with gigabit fiber connections delivering WiFi, USB charging, free voice calls, and a tablet for access to the Internet.

Smart Cities and Sidewalk Labs

In this episode of The Digital Life, we discuss the myriad products launched at Google I/O 2016.

To begin with, this summer the latest and greatest version of Android, the master platform for much of the Google software ecosystem, will make its debut. No longer just a mobile device OS, Android supports wearables (Android Wear 2.0), virtual reality (Daydream), and even automobile interfaces. In addition to the many flavors of Android, Google also showcased Allo, its AI-powered messaging app; Duo, its FaceTime competitor; as well as Google Home, its voice-activated product for the smart home.

Google I/O 2016

On this episode of The Digital Life, we discuss the plan to create a complete artificial human genome. A few weeks ago, scientists, entrepreneurs, and government officials met in a closed door meeting at Harvard University at an eventintended to create interest and momentum around the follow-up to the Human Genome Project — apublic / private collaboration to synthesize a human genome.

Over the past decade, the technology for encoding genes has improved at a fantastic rate. Since the early 2000s, the cost has dropped from four dollars to just three cents per base pair. However, while big pharma and big agriculture currently synthesize gene sequences for products including biologic drugs and GMO plants, these strands of genetic material are usually only a few thousand letters in length. Contrast that with the 6 billion letters needed for the human genome, and we can begin to see the ambition of this new proposed endeavor. In this episode, we explore some of the arguments in favor of and against writing human code.

Writing Human Code

In this episode of The Digital Life, we discuss the next wave of innovation in technology and new forms of design that will come along with it. Emerging technology needs design —from the IoT to AI, virtual reality to robotics, nanotechnology to 3D printing, genomics to synthetic biology. We talk about where we've been, and where we're going next.

The Digital Life

The Next Wave of Innovation

Just last week the Associated Press announced that it's covering Minor League Baseball games using AI software. The software from Automated Insights, draws upon supplied game data to create a written narrative. This AI is already being used by the Associated Press to create earnings stories on U.S. public companies and by corporate customers like Edmunds.com, which uses it to generate descriptions of cars for its Web site.

So, AI can cover a baseball game, parsing the data and creating a narrative, but is the writing any good? So far, it seems to generate stories that are readable, but not really compelling or interesting beyond the most mundane facts. Is this the future of sports journalism? Join us as we discuss AI and baseball.

AI Goes to the Ballpark

This week on The Digital Life, we discuss human-animal chimeras and bioethics. If you know your Greek mythology, you might be familiar with the chimera — a monstrous fire-breathing hybrid creature, part lion, part goat, with a tail that ends in a snake’s head. Today, the term chimera is used in embryology to describe a hybrid organism that has tissues from multiple species. And there’s interest in producing chimeras for studying disease pathology, testing drugs, and eventually organ transplantation. 

Last year, however, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) said it wouldn’t support this research and banned funding for it, due to bioethical and animal welfare concerns. Now, the NIH is requesting public comment on a proposal to amend sections of their guidelines for human stem cell research on the proposed scope of certain human-animal chimera research.

Chimeras and Bioethics

This week on The Digital Life, we discuss the question: "Are we too trusting of technology?"

It takes time to build trust in technology — using e-mail instead of mail, for instance, or using a credit card to purchase something online, rather than going to the store and paying there. But we now have a host of new, emerging technologies that could help us navigate life and death situations. How do we develop trust in these new systems?

An study conducted by the Georgia Institute of Technology, placed people in a fake emergency situation to see whether they would blindly follow a robot, rather than trust their own instincts. According to the researchers, 26 out of the 30 participants decided to follow the robot, even though it was clear that it was potentially leading them in the wrong direction and into a dangerous scenario. What kinds of questions does this raise for battlefield robots or even surgical robots? How do we maintain a healthy skepticism, but still incorporate such emerging technologies into our lives?

Are We Too Trusting of Technology?

On The Digital Life podcast this week, we discuss diversity in the world of tech, and the cultural, economic and societal factors that contribute to the oftentimes difficult landscape of inclusion in the industry.

Diversity in Tech

On The Digital Life this week, we chat about Facebook's new censorship tool, which features largely in the company's attempts to get back into China. The software, among other things, will regulate what kind of content is allowed in the Facebook news feed. The Chinese government is particularly concerned about unfavorable news reports, on subjects from pollution to protest, that have the potential to go viral. While critics cry foul, Mark Zuckerberg's response is that having some access to Facebook is better than none at all. Is this just a pragmatic view from Facebook, as it continues to grow its global user base? Join us as we discuss all this and more.

Facebook in China?

On this episode of The Digital Life, we discuss Amazon Go and the future of retail. As e-commerce continues to rise in popularity, retail stores are taking a huge hit, losing billions of dollars in transactions which have migrated online. What should physical retail look like then, in the 21st century? Ironically, Amazon, the e-commerce giant, might have the answer. 

Amazon Go, the company's new retail offering being beta tested in Seattle, is a IoT-enabled grocery store which forgoes the checkout line. Customers can walk in, grab what they like from the shelves, and just walk out again — no waiting in line required. How does Amazon Go work? When customers walk in, they tap their mobile phones on a turnstile, which logs them into the store's system. It connects them to their Amazon account via an app. Amazon Go uses machine learning, sensors, and AI to track the food items that a customer selects and adds them to the app's virtual cart. If the customer picks up an item and puts it down again, the item is likewise removed from their cart. 

Amazon Go is just one of a host of ideas for retail store formats that re-define that experience: product curation, showrooms (a la the Apple Store), immersive environments, etc. Join us as we discuss the evolution of the retail store.

The Future of Retail

On this episode of The Digital Life, we discuss the next wave of drone technology. Most of the country saw the massive swarming drone light display that was part of Lady Gaga's Super Bowl halftime show. The Intel Shooting Star drone system created effects not unlike sophisticated fireworks.

Have we entered the age of the drone? The possibilities seem endless: search-and-rescue missions to assist emergency crews after natural disasters, crop inspection and fertilizer / pesticide distribution for agricultural producers, delivering humanitarian supplies and medicine for NGOs, or even land surveys using heat-sensing cameras for scientists and archaeologists. Facebook is even preparing to deliver Internet to underserved areas using drones.

The Next Wave of Drone Technology

On The Digital Life this week, we chat about biomimicry and nature-inspired design. As design and science intersect, biomimicry is becoming an increasingly important method for engineering new products. Recent examples include bullet train engineers imitating the beak of the Kingfisher bird to improve the aerodynamics of the train's nose; wind turbine designers creating fins inspired by the Humpback whale to reduced drag and improved lift; and automobile engineers at Ford developing a recycled paper honeycomb material to gives the cargo area of the new EcoSport exceptional strength. Scientists, engineers, and designers across many different industries are drawing inspiration from nature’s materials and seeking to understand and imitate them.

Biomimicry

On The Digital Life this week, we discuss ethics and bias in AI, with guest Tomer Perry, research associate at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. What do we mean by bias when it comes to AI? And how do we avoid including biases we’re not even aware of?

If AI software for processing and analyzing data begins providing decision-making for core elements critical to our society we'll need to address these issues.

For instance, risk assessments used in the correctional system have been shown to incorporate bias against minorities.
When it comes to self-driving cars, people want to be protected, but also want the vehicle, in principle to "do the right thing" when encountering situations where the lives of both the driver and others, like pedestrians, are at risk. How we should deal with it? What are the ground rule sets for ethics and morality in AI, and where do they come from? Join us as we discuss.

Ethics and Bias in AI

On The Digital Life this week we’ll look at automating knowledge work, and scientific discovery, in particular. There’s no doubt that knowledge work will change significantly in the coming decades due to massive computing power coupled with AI. It's fascinating to consider the aspects of science, technology, and design that might be easily automated. AI and deep learning are rapidly changing areas of activity that were previously thought to be the exclusive arena of human cognition. For instance, in the pharmaceutical industry, AI might automate aspects of drug discovery and development, by helping to characterize drug candidates according to likely efficacy and safety. Additionally, the number of scientific papers published each year far exceeds any scientist's ability to read and analyze them. It's reasonable to assume that AI and deep learning could assist scientists in navigating this data.

Automating Scientific Discovery

Our special guest this week on The Digital Life is design strategist, Ben Sauer, who's investigating the idea of secret design skills for his new book. Design is filled with cross-pollination from other fields, from writing to architecture, acting to music. From these other fields we find ways of seeking, thinking and doing that are useful to a designer. What's your secret design skill? Join us as we discuss.

Secret Design Skills

On The Digital Life this week, we chat with special guest Katja Grace from AI Impacts, whose research is focused is the future of AI. Where will AI be in 10 years and what kind of impact will it have on the world? The buzz now is that deep learning will increasingly automate knowledge work. AI and automation will change creative fields, from research science to journalism, fiction writing to graphic design, software engineering to management activities. Join us as we discuss.

AI and Knowledge Work

This week on The Digital Life, we speak with special guest, Jason Grant, CEO of Integral, about human development models and the role of human development in creativity.

Human Development Models

On The Digital Life this week our special guest this week is Dr. Carie Little Hersh, an American cultural anthropologist, teaching professor in Anthropology at Northeastern University, and producer and host of podcast Anthropologist on the Street. We chat about human creativity and technology through time, from an anthropological perspective.

Which came first: humans or technology? And what is the relationship between homo sapiens and the species who came before us, or those such as the neanderthals with whom we competed? We consider the anthropological relationship between technology and creativity, as well as patterns in technological progression through time. Join us as we discuss.

Sapiens, Creativity, and Technology

This week on The Digital Life, we discuss the pitfalls of predicting AI. AI predictions range from the measured and meaningful to highly unrealistic and downright hysterical. But how can you tell the difference? In this episode, we dig into some rules of thumb for thinking through the AI predictions we encounter, as laid out in the article "The Seven Deadly Sins of AI Predictions" by Rodney Brooks, a founder of Rethink Robotics. From better understanding the properties of narrow AI to asking "how will it be deployed?", questioning supposed magical properties without limit, to admitting, in the long term, we just don’t know, we'll explore the many factors that counter the breathless hysteria of AI predictions. Join us as we discuss.

The Pitfalls of Predicting AI

This week on The Digital Life, we discuss emerging technologies and the self. What makes us ourselves, the way we take in information, the way we share, communicate, collaborate and interact with people has gone digital in a number of ways. In particular, we delve into the topic of virtual reality experiences and empathy, based on the article in Aeon, “It’s dangerous to think virtual reality is an empathy machine”. VR can change how we think about the world, helping us understanding different perspectives. For instance, the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford University created a simulation from the perspective of a cow, of being raised for the slaughterhouse. There are immersive VR experiences of becoming homeless and experiencing racism. But what is the true impact of these early experiments? Join us as we discuss.

Emerging Technologies and the Self

This week on The Digital Life, we discuss the Productivity Paradox, inspired by the recent article in MIT Technology Review, “Advanced tech, but growth slow and unequal: paradoxes and policies”. While we're experiencing an unprecedented boom in technology, the accompanying massive productivity boost that we might expect to see has failed to materialize. In fact, in many major economies, productivity growth is slowing. So, what's the reason for this unexpected outcome? To begin with, our ability to absorb, integrate, and leverage technologies effectively — from mobile to artificial intelligence to the internet of things — has limits. While the technology might be present, it is not been distributed and utilized in ways that have yielded productivity gains in rapid fashion. Constructing the systems, workflows, and roles to take advantage of these new technologies will take time. And, in concert with these, it will be vital that, as a society, we develop policies that support and enable people to shift into new work roles and invest time in learning new skills. Join us as we discuss.

The Productivity Paradox

This week on The Digital Life we discuss the possibilities and perils of editing human genes in light of the news, earlier this week, that Chinese scientist He Jiankui of the Southern University of Science and Technology, claimed to have created the first gene-edited babies using CRISPR, the revolutionary gene-editing tool. The twin girls had the CCR5 gene deleted to make them resistant to HIV and other diseases. The scientist is now being investigated over whether the experiment was in violation of Chinese laws and regulations. This technology is particularly sensitive from an ethics standpoint because any changes will be inherited by future generations. What are the consequences that stem from this experiment, perhaps, the first gene-edited humans? Join us as we discuss.

Gene Editing and CRISPR Babies

This week on The Digital Life, we talk about the future of work, the anxiety of the gig economy, and how we might re-imagine digital platforms, inspired by the essay “Do platforms work?” on Aeon.co. In the Gig Economy, work is an on-demand affair, driven by the needs of the moment, whether you're an Uber driver, freelance marketing expert, or contract product designer. The temporary nature of this work — which is arbitrated by software which matches buyers and sellers — puts much power in the hands of the platform owner. For gig workers, earning a living is dependent on demand, reputation, and ultimately, the whims of a digital overlord. But what if there was a way for these workers to own a piece of that all important platform? Join us as we discuss.

Gig Economy Anxiety

This week on The Digital Life, we talk with author and designer Cennydd Bowles about ethics and emerging technologies. Cennydd’s new book “Future Ethics”, published in September, is available in print and digital from Amazon and the book's Web site (https://www.future-ethics.com/).

How do we conceive of  ethics for emerging technologies? From data privacy issues, to embedded bias in software systems, to the myriad problems posed by artificial intelligence, what ethical issues should really matter to us, as a society? And, how do we grapple with these as new technologies emerge and gain traction?

For instance, mainstream conversations about ethics and artificial intelligence are typically centered around science fiction-type topics such as machines that are smarter than, or even from an evolutionary standpoint replacing, humans. This might be entertaining but is not addressing the real ethical issues that matter in the years and decades ahead. Join us as we discuss.

Ethics for Emerging Technologies

From AI to gene editing, wearables to 3D printing, we take a look at the emerging tech trends for 2019 in this, our final episode of The Digital Life 2018 season.

Emerging Tech Trends for 2019

This week, on The Digital Life we discuss emerging tech and the transformation and fear of change that comes with it. For instance, over the past two years there have been at least 21 attacks on driverless vehicles in Chandler, a city located near Phoenix, Arizona, where Google spin-off company Waymo tests its vans. The reaction of Chandler's residents to this encroaching technology represents the worries that we face as a society when confronting an automated future. Join us as we discuss.

Transformation

This week, on The Digital Life, we discuss the future of education and the business models that will drive it.

Business Models for the Future of Education

This week, on The Digital Life, we discuss the impact of AI on the future of creative work.

The Future of Creative Work

The Digital Life http://www.thedigitalife.com is an online radio show that explores important, timely topics in the world of design and emerging technologies like genomics, robotics, and the Internet of Things.

The show is created by GoInvo http://www.goinvo.com, a studio designing the future of healthcare, whose clients include market leaders like Apple, Johnson and Johnson, and Walgreens, as well as micro startups that will create the markets of the future.

Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tdlpodcast

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