An Uncertain Technology World with Ben Bajarin

We conclude with the second part of our conversation with Ben Bajarin from Creative Strategies and Techpinions. We examined the uncertain future of different technologies from wearables, VR & AR and home automation after the smartphone platform. We also looked at the evolution of AI and the key trends for the coming year.

Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion (with time-stamps included):

• Ben Bajarin (@benbajarin, LinkedIn) from Creative Strategies and Techpinions.
• An Uncertain Technology World [0:57]
  
  • The smartphone has turned out to be a major hardware platform in the past 9 years since the iPhone emerged whereas the wearables (watch, glasses), home automation systems like Amazon Echo and VR/AR have ignited some enthusiasm but nowhere close to the scale of the smartphone.
    • Is it just because the smartphone platform is one that can extend to these new systems but not vice versa? [0:57]
      
    • Does that mean the future technology is a more fragmented and niche world and we do not see a smartphone like platform? [3:12]
      
    • What might be hovering around that might have the propensity to displace the smartphone? What is the technology that might be able to break out into the main platform? [5:03]
      
  • While the smartphone is a major hardware platform integrated with software, we see AI as the other piece in software with how automation is now improved with smartness. How do you evaluate the AI efforts from Apple, Google, Amazon,  Microsoft and even Baidu? [7:59]
    
  • Is Google’s pixel phone and AI to fix the fragmentation problem or incorporating a new strategy into VR/AR? [11:26]
    
  • Moving ahead to the next year as the major announcements are over, where do you see the key trends happening in the next year? There is a mention by Ben Bajarin on privacy and security becoming important next year. [13:04]

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The show is hosted by Bernard Leong (@bleongcw) and are sponsored by Ideal Workspace (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) with their new Altizen Desk on Indiegogo (Twitter, Facebook, Medium). Also check out Ideal Workspace’s new standing desk, Altizen and sign up for their mailing list. Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, “The Beginning” from Red Cliff Soundtrack.