Surpassing all projections, GSMA Mobile World Congress, the world’s biggest and most influential mobile event, had a record-breaking 93,000+ attendees from 200 countries.

Hosted in the Mobile World Capital Barcelona for the 10th year, Mobile World Congress 2015 attendees were treated to a wealth of learning and networking opportunities; product showcases and announcements; inspiration and innovation.

MWC 2015

The field of non-invasive Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI) is gaining massive momentum as startups, companies and researchers are pushing hard. The race on BCI research is on improvement of the efficiency and the accuracy of the systems, while some of the first commercial efforts are testing the waters with several affordable devices already available to consumers. Professor Bin He, a pioneer in the field of Biomedical Engineering, talks about the ground-breaking research currently being done at the University of Minnesota in decoding brainwaves more accurately and reliably using non-invasive interfaces. We discuss the already impressive results of a  brain-controlled helicopter experiment, some of  the present challenges and the upcoming breakthroughs in the field of Brain Computer Interfaces. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks central.

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TTC #109 Your brain as the ultimate controller, Prof. Bin He

Norbert Sagnard a man of many hats talks about the Northern Ireland pavillion at MWC, what kind of startups they were hosting ie. security; what it takes to succeed in Northern Ireland and how the state is helping startups get off their feet with grants, schemes and accelerators. He goes on to talk about his own investment interests and the opportunities he sees in the mobile and technology fields. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.

TTC #139 Investing in Northern Ireland and Mobile Startups, Norbert Sagnard

Peter Chau, Chief Executive for the newly formed China Connected Health Alliance talks about the need behind the formation of the new alliance and how their European counterpart will be able to pass on their experience and provide access to its existing members. He goes on to describe the Chinese health status and how the government is taking actions and policies for change; the opportunities available for foreign companies within this broad market and amongst the 600 million Chinese users of smartphones. He finishes off with some good advice on how to go about doing business in China. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.


TTC #138 Tackling the Chinese Health Challenges and Opportunities, Peter Chau

Brian O’Connor picks up the thread from the eHealth Forum in Athens and the legacy that was created there leading to an expansion of new country members and stakeholders. They have created over 25 ecosystems that include governments and industry members with over 15000 organisations involved, and more than 100 meetings, yearly. He explains how ECHAlliance came about to helping in the creation of the China Connected Health Alliance upon the request of the Chinese Health Minister and what the Great Leap Forward is all about. He analyses what it takes to do business in health within China and where ECHAlliance is aiming for in the future. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.

TTC #140 We make collaboration in Health work, Brian O'Connor

Guy Martin, Senior Strategist at Samsung Open Source Group and Head of Digital Marketing at Open Interconnect Consortium explains how OIC intends to connect the next 50 billion devices that will make up the Internet of Things. What the need was and how some of the members like Samsung, Intel, Cisco, HP, GE Software have realised that there is not much differentiation in intellectual property but mostly infrastructure. Which means building the Standards and specifications through OIC and the open source code and reference implementation of the standard within the Iotivity project, which is hosted at the Linux Foundation; OIC funds the project. Guy predicts which verticals will be the next big thing in IoT, including smarthome and industry and he answers on a personal level what his opinion is on data protection. Kimberley Lewis, Marketing Program Manager for Standards and Advanced Technologies at Intel was present during the interview and fully aligned with Guy’s responses, judging from her nodding of the head. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.

TTC #141 Common Standards For The Next 50B Devices In Internet Of Things, Guy Martin

David O’Neill describes how Seattle based APImetrics offers the industry’s first and only intelligent, analytics-driven API performance solution built specifically for the enterprise. He explains what the current problems are with APIs are and how companies need to monitor their APIs with analytics, receive alerts and take action in order to meet service level agreements(SLAs) and customer expectations. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.

TTC #142 When APIs Need To Meet SLAs, David O’Neill

Ian Parness and Brad Folkens explain how the difficulty of searching on the mobile led to the creation of Camfind; a mobile application that returns results for anything you snap an image of, ranging from a lady’s handbag to a living animal. Ian mentions the interest they have received from companies to integrate their product into their own platforms, mainly retail for product matching, price comparison, but also stock photography vendors or even applications for the visually impaired. Brad explains how valuable their app is with over 11 patents filed; how it always returns results (successful image recognition 100% to a varying degree of detail); what their revenue model is and how their $5M funding will help the product develop.  The third founder, Dominik Mazur, was mentioned but not present at the interview. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.

TTC #144 Image Search That Always Returns Results, Ian Parness and Brad Folkens

James Tagg, author of the book ‘Are the Androids Dreaming Yet?’ presented in front of an audience his own beliefs on the Singularity issue. He started out by answering his own question ‘Can a Machine think Creatively?’ and argued mathematically on how much artificial intelligence has progressed, which are the crucial parity point dates and why he doesn’t believe that machines can surpass the creativity of humans. The speech was conducted during a Heroes of Mobile event organised by its founder Helen Keegan, on the 2nd of March at the Talent Garden(TAG).


TTC #145 Are The Androids Dreaming Yet, James Tagg

Background, context, and poem text: http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/05/28/keeping-quiet-sylvia-boorstein-reads-pablo-neruda

Excerpted from https://soundcloud.com/onbeing/what-we-nurture-with-sylvia

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Sylvia Boorstein reads "Keeping Quiet" by Pablo Neruda

Marcello Melgara Responsible for International eHealth Projects, Italy /
Karima Bourquard, IHE-Europe Director of Interoperability, France

How does compliance with the European Interoperability Framework(EIF) help a National health system’s sustainability? At what percentage would you say your country’s NIF is aligned w/ the EIF when it comes to eHealth? What are the obstacles? Does your country have a published eHealth Strategy and what are its core objectives? In what percentage is it being implemented?


TTC #204 Interoperability & eHealth Strategies In Italy & France

Dimitra Liveri, Network and Information Security Expert at ENISA /
Marcello Melgara Responsible for International eHealth Projects

European eHealth companies have a huge potential to grow, by approaching an ever growing market inside and outside EU borders. Apart from the obvious innovation potentials in a broad number of health & patient care sectors, markets like that of the US, Latin America and China have come ‘closer’ due to international agreements. What kind of impediments will European eHealth companies have to overcome, in order to reach these markets effectively?


TTC #205 Extroversion of eHealth Companies

George Crooks, Medical Director for NHS24 and Director of the Scottish Centre for Tele-health and Telecare. President of the European Telematics Association (EHTEL) & leader of the Integrated Care Action Group of the European Innovation Partnership for active and healthy ageing for the European Commission

George Crooks responds to our questions on whether Scotland has a published eHealth Strategy and what are its core objectives. Also, how does compliance with the European Interoperability Framework(EIF) help a National health system’s sustainability? 


TTC #210 George Crooks on Scotland’s eHealth Strategy & Interoperability

Grab a cocktail, put on your favorite karaoke track, and let’s talk some more about disentangling audio data!

The Cocktail Party Problem

Centuries ago, Germany came up with a way to keep books that contained "dangerous" information without releasing them to the general public: The Giftschrank.
The word, a combination of "poison" and "cabinet," has a variety of meanings in different contexts. At its most literal, a Giftschrank is a space for storing controlled substances in places like pharmacies. Colloquially, it can refer to spaces reserved for all kinds of hidden and forbidden objects, ideas or stories.

203- The Giftschrank

So... about those bots. Bots bots bots. Bots!

In this episode of the botcast, a16z partners Benedict Evans and Connie Chan -- along with Chris Messina, longtime advocate of the open web and more -- pull apart various threads related to the topic of bots, mobile, and beyond: the (evolution?) from web to apps to messaging to bots; chat as an interface; “conversational commerce”; and so on. They also discuss why framing messaging through the lens of WeChat both reveals useful things (what works/ might not work) and not-so-useful things (such as seeking the “WeChat of the West”).

More importantly, how can we keep bots, and what they represent, in perspective -- beyond the fad? Especially when it comes to considering innovation on the 'web' vs. 'mobile' (remember the mobile browser!) and when it comes to removing friction (vs. adding limited interaction). What contexts (like customer service) are most useful for thinking about bots? And how can we even know, given it’s early days yet and we haven’t moved much beyond the command-line interface... 

Finally, as computing moves outside the classic work-centric paradigm to room- and urban-scale, how do we think about integrating online and offline, ubiquitous and “diffuse” computing through bots?

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a16z Podcast: Bots and Beyond

The Tech Talks Central web radio covers all the hot topics and trends in the connected world and features interactive interviews with thought leaders, as well as movers and shakers of the tech industry.
It’s a joint venture between entrepreneurs working in the mobile and technology field and people who love the radio waves!

TTC #144 Image Search That Always Returns Results, Ian Parness and Brad Folkens

Tech Talks Central

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