In this episode of The Digital Life, we discuss rapid prototyping, the coming hardware renaissance and the Internet of Things with Technical Machine co-founder, Jon McKay. 

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Disrupting Product Design

In this episode of The Digital Life, we explore Google’s corporate transformation to holding company Alphabet, what that means for unleashing innovation in the company, and how that effects the firm's chief technology rivals, Amazon and Apple. So far, Wall Street has loved the move and the company has increased its worth by $20B. 

Alphabet is well-positioned to be the dominant emerging tech company of the 21st century, with fingers in the IoT, wearables, self-driving cars, robotics, and genomics. But what does that dominance mean for our data, when innovation is reliant on advertising revenue for financial fuel?

Alphabet

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 fantasy sports, big data, and the user experience.

It’s an interesting time for fantasy sports, to say the least. With 57 million players in the US and Canada, the industry is seeing booming growth. However, both the Justice Department and the FBI are investigating two of its biggest players, FanDuel and DraftKings. In particular, the Justice Department is looking at whether fantasy sports fall outside of a Federal prohibition on Internet gambling, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, which outlawed online poker and sports betting.
Is it a game of skill or gambling, pure and simple?

And, on the digital side, we ask, what are the implications for fantasy sports, when your big data product is derived from the activities of athletes whose personal licensing is, at least for the time being, entirely controlled by larger interests, the sports leagues and players associations themselves? 

Fantasy Sports and Big Data

For our final podcast of 2015, we chat about the big themes, learnings and insights on the show and our favorite episodes over the past year. We had conversations on design and tech with some wonderful guests including Niti Bahn, Madeleine Price Ball, Uday Gajander, Kelly Goto, Bill Hartman, Suzanne Livingston, Jon McKay, Scott N. Miller, Juhan Sonin, Scott Stropkay, Scott Sullivan, and Giuseppe Taibi. 

From UX in the enterprise to emerging technologies like wearables and robotics to the disruptive nature of creative class work, we covered a wide range  topics on The Digital Life in 2015. So what did we learn from a year talking design?

Enterprise UX is on the rise

Enterprise users — from employees to customers to managers — face experiences that are antiquated and needlessly complicated when compared with the experience of consumer-facing software. For those large, complex businesses, government agencies, and other organizations, UX research and design can provide enterprise products with a competitive edge. What is the current state of enterprise software when it comes to UX? What is the scale and complexity of enterprise UX problems? And, most importantly, how is UX changing the way the enterprise works?

Emerging technologies require design to be successful

From robotics to wearables to bio-inspired materials, emerging technologies represent a future that desperately needs design. There are immediate, significant opportunities for emerging technologies in energy, health, and manufacturing. Designers working in these areas will need to help identify the major challenges in these areas and seek proactive solutions — not an obvious or easy task.

The innovation economy is changing the way we work, collaborate, and live our lives

How do we separate work from play, busyness from leisure in the digital age? Is South by Southwest the big tent tech revival for the American creative class? What is the connection between creative routines and output? Creative work and digital automation are changing the economics of the American middle class. The need for meaningful work is an essential one for humanity, and one that increasingly is falling prey to technological change.

A Year Talking Design

This week on The Digital Life, we discuss privacy, security, and the hubbub around the FBI request of Apple to unlock an iPhone owned by one of the San Bernardino shooters. Last week, Apple CEO Tim Cook stated that Apple would not comply with the FBI request, as it would force the company to build a backdoor to the iPhone, an outcome that no reasonable person would find acceptable. The US government and the FBI in particular has a history of misusing information in the name of security, dating back to J. Edgar Hoover. And Apple's defiance of the FBI comes at a time when the US government is still trying to repair the damage of the Snowden revelations about surveillance and massive data collection. Nonetheless, the government is attempting to force Apple's compliance insisting that the law, not the company's technology, should not be the final word on access for data critical to an investigation.

Apple vs. FBI

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

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.

The Digital Life

AI Goes to the Ballpark

This week on The Digital Life we chat about augmented reality's first big hit — the Pokemon Go craze. The massively popular game has some good points— it forces people to get out and walk around, and it can be part of family playtime—and some not so good—it can engender fan obsession bordering on downright e-addiction.

Pokemon Go may be augmented reality’s introduction into pop culture, but how long will it last? Other attempts at AR apps, from shopping to games, have failed to catch on. What makes Pokemon Go so different? And, all the attention being paid to the app has had some negative consequences as well. This weekend, Niantic rolled out Pokemon Go to 26 countries and the game was plagued with server issues. This may have been caused by the onslaught of new players, but hackers were likely involved also in the server outages.

Let's (Pokemon) Go Crazy

This week on The Digital Life, we discuss the strange and exciting world of quantum computing. Quantum computers operate on an atomic level, harnessing the power of quantum mechanics to perform processing tasks much more rapidly than computers designed using classical physics. They have the potential to perform calculations much, much faster than any of our silicon-based super computers today — up to 100 million times faster, in fact.

Research in quantum computing has up until recently, been largely theoretical, with the practical technology needed to achieve it beyond reach. But now both Google and D-Wave, a Canadian company, have made some significant progress. Will there be a coming revolution in computing power? Will quantum computers one day replace our silicon chip based computing devices?

Quantum Computing

This week on The Digital Life we discuss innovation, game design, and the mind of Albert Einstein. Dirk Knemeyer has been working with the Einstein Archives at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to create a new game based on the scientist's life. We explore insights gained from Dirk's research, his approach to designing the game, as well as takeaways helpful to today’s technology innovators.

Einstein and Innovation Thinking

On The Digital Life this week, we chat about the top tech stories of this year. From Twitter's acquisition woes to exploding batteries in the Galaxy Note7, Apple vs. the FBI to the Wikileaks influence on the US presidential election, it's been an eventful and notable year with plenty of surprises.

The Top Tech Stories of 2016

For our final podcast of 2016, we chat about the big themes on the show and our favorite episodes over the past year. We had conversations on design and tech with some wonderful guests including ground breaking geneticist George Church and open science advocate and researcher, John Wilbanks. From AI to genomics to cybersecurity, we covered a wide range topics on The Digital Life in 2016. So what did we learn from a year talking tech?

AI is too smart for its own good.

Artificial intelligence is evolving rapidly, with both high profile public failure and success by a number of tech giants this year. For instance, Microsoft had to terminate Tay, its teenage chatbot, after the bot started tweeting neo-Nazi propaganda and other abusive language at people. Meanwhile, Google's DeepMind created an AI capable of beating some of the very best human players in the world at Go, the Asian strategy board game. And, we were introduced to a brand new "Rembrandt", which was 3D-printed with eerie accuracy by an artificial intelligence algorithm, trained by analyzing the artist's paintings.

DNA replaces silicon as the new material for innovation.

The fields of genomics and synthetic biology continue to press forward in astonishing ways. In Seoul, Korea, a controversial lab revealed plans to clone endangered animals in order to save them from extinction. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Boston University (BU) synthetic biologists created software that automates the design of DNA circuits for living cells.

Hacking and cybersecurity are front and center as online and offline worlds collide.

In 2016, cybersecurity became a primary issue in a host of critical areas including communication, energy, and politics. Power grids, airports, and other infrastructure were increasingly subject to cyber attacks and an increasing number were successful. The debate over privacy and security was reinvigorated by the hubbub around the FBI request of Apple to unlock an iPhone owned by one of the San Bernardino shooters. And, Wikileaks distributed e-mails obtained by sources who hacked the DNC and individuals associated with the Clinton campaign during the U.S. presidential elections.

The automation of work is coming.

We got another startling look at what the future of work could become as software, robots, and the IoT continued to automate activities previously completed by humans. According to preliminary findings of a recent McKinsey report, 45 percent of all work activities could be automated today using technology already demonstrated. From fulfilling warehouse orders to suggesting medical treatments for ailments, the coming wave of automation will redefine jobs and business processes for factory workers and CEOs alike.

Design and science are intersecting in new and significant ways.
Whether it’s in the creation of high tech clothing, embeddables, or materials, design and science are coming together in new and significant ways. Clothing designers are working with multi-disciplinary teams, integrating input from engineers and synthetic biologists into their work. From 3D-printed couture to scarves dyed with bacteria to textiles grown in the lab, emerging tech is creating rapid innovation in the fashion industry. And this year, in the burgeoning world of designing embeddables, the U.S. Patent Office approved Google’s patent for electronic lens technology, which implantable directly in the eye. These mechanical eyes might  give you superhuman abilities — to see at great distance or view microscopic material, and document it all by capturing photos or video.

A Year Talking Tech

To start off the new year on The Digital Life, we discuss cyber rights including the "right to disconnect" law that took effect in France on January 1. It looks like the enlightened humanists in France are now staking out new territory for human rights in the digital age. After hours, the French no longer need to pay attention to work e-mail for reasons of health and well being. What should digital human rights or cyber rights include? A right to our data? A right to not be harassed? A right to privacy? Maybe even a right to vote? Join us as well discuss all this and more.

Our Cyber Rights

On this episode of The Digital Life, we discuss how data on human behavior has become an increasingly important asset in the 21st century. We start with an examination of Uber Movement, which offers access to the company’s data on traffic flow — meant for use by city planners and researchers looking for ways to improve urban mobility. This is a global data trove with information from cities all over the world, and it reflects the growing use of data assets by tech companies to influence local and national policy and law. Data on human behavior will be come an increasingly important asset in the years ahead. We can already see how Amazon, Netflix and Uber are using the data at their disposal as leverage. The big question is: what comes next?

Human Behavior as Asset

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 workplace automation and the technologies that will make it happen — from robotics to artificial intelligence (AI) to machine learning. The McKinsey Global Institute released a new study on the topic this month, "A Future that Works: Automation, Employment and Productivity", which contains some interesting insights.For instance, almost every occupation has the potential to be at least partially automated, and it's likely that more occupations will be transformed than automated away. However, people will need to work in conjunction with machines as a part of their day-to-day activities, and in this new age of automation, learning new skills will be critical.Add to this the fact that working-age population is actually decreasing in many countries, and we can see how the story of automation is multi-faceted. The path to automating the workplace is a complex one that could raise productivity growth on a global scale.

Automate

On this episode of The Digital Life, we discuss the high-powered Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society, an initiative whose founding members include Amazon, Facebook, Google, IBM, Microsoft and Apple. Apple was just recently added as a founding member.

The mission of the group is to educate the public about AI, study its potential impact on the world, and develop standards and ethics around its implementation. Interestingly, the group also includes organizations with expertise in economics, civil rights, economics, and research, who are concerned with the impacts of technology on modern society. These include: the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the MacArthur Foundation, OpenAI, the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, Arizona State University and University of California, Berkeley.

Will AI build upon our society's biases and disparities and make them worse? Or does it have the potential to create something more egalitarian? Join us as we discuss all this and more.

AI Goes Mainstream

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 Ford's recent billion dollar investment in self-driving cars and what that might mean for the future of the auto industry. Ford Motor recently announced their $1B investment in Argo AI, a start-up developing autonomous vehicle tech in Pittsburg with former Google and Uber experts at the helm.

The Autonomous Auto Industry

On The Digital Life this week, we chat about how open source design is being brought to bear on some of the most important problems of the 21st century, including creating new tools for urban agriculture, home building, and medicine. For instance, furniture retailer Ikea recently released open source designs for a garden sphere, an urban agriculture project that can feed a neighborhood. Open source design, the Maker movement and desktop / DIY manufacturing are converging in interesting ways. Join us as we discuss.

Open Source Design

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 deceptive software in light of the recent revelations that Uber used its Greyball application to evade and thwart municipal officials nationwide, who were looking to regulate or otherwise monitor the service. This has a similar flavor to the Volkswagen story from last year, in which the company installed special software in its diesel powered cars to specifically reduce emissions during testing by authorities. What are the ways in which consumers now need to be aware of these deceptive practices? And how should we navigate the marketplace?

Designing Deception

On The Digital Life this week, we discuss bioprinting, its various applications, from 3D printing bones to organs, and the implications for design and science. There are, of course, many uses for 3D printing in healthcare — for instance, the creation of prosthetic limbs. Bioprinting, in contrast, involves the construction of living tissue via the output of multiple layers of living cells. While bioprinting is still very much at its nascent stages, the various techniques for creating 3D organic objects have had some early triumphs, including the construction of functional blood vessels. While reproducing cells in the lab has been done for many years — skin tissue, blood vessels, etc — bioprinting, which leverages natural processes, offers the opportunity to create more complex tissue, and perhaps even complete organs. Join us as we discuss the future of bioprinting.

Bioprinting

On The Digital Life this week we take a look at designing trust in human-robot relationships. More so than with other technologies, robots require a certain level of trust. Our comfort level with robots will dictate whether we're willing to ride in driverless cars, work on the assembly line with a collaborative robot, or have a health robot caregiver. Designing human robot relationships will be key to overcoming barriers in the transition to a robot filled world. But how do we manage the wide variety of human emotional reactions? And what does this mean for the future of robot services?


Resources:
Most westerners distrust robots – but what if they free us for a better life?
https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/mar/27/most-westerners-distrust-robots-but-what-if-they-free-us-for-a-better-life

My Trusted Robots

For our podcast topic this week, we discuss the digital life, automation, and eliminating the human in our digital interactions. In an essay in MIT Technology Review, David Byrne of Talking Heads fame postulates that “part of making something 'frictionless' is getting the human part out of the way.” He goes on, in his essay to reflect upon how automation is eliminating the human in areas as varied as e-commerce, digital music, online education, and even social media. Does this elimination of the human element lead to less tolerance and understanding of our differences? If cooperation is what has made us successful as a species, how do we survive if we're only self-interested to the exclusion of others? And, is technology headed in this direction?

The Human In Tech

For our podcast topic this week, we discuss product innovation for the smart home and whether Amazon is overtaking Apple when it comes to creating category disruption. Of course, Apple has a long history of disrupting categories — from the personal computer with the Apple II and again with the iMac; to music with the iPod; to mobile with the iPhone; to the tablet with the iPad. But it looks like Amazon is well positioned to be a dominant player when it comes to the smart home, with their television, music, ecommerce, and other systems all driven by the Alexa voice UI. Amazon's new hardware products, announced at the end of September, extend the Echo line in significant ways, with industrial design reminiscent of Apple's groundbreaking work on the personal computer. Is designing hardware and software for a complex ecosystem like the home, fundamentally different from other kinds of consumer product design? Join us as we discuss.

The Smart Home Face Off

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

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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