Inevitable/Human

They say there’s no such thing as bad ideas, only bad timing. 3M was clearly a little ahead of the curve when they launched augmented reality sticky notes in 2012. It was a huge moment for AR, not in the sense of being able to write virtual notes. The major development was their use of… Continue reading AR-based Messages Will Change the Way We Shop, Work, and Send Texts

This behavior just isn’t sustainable. The entire world will be ruined if we keep this up. A decade from now, we’re all going to regret our actions. We’ll wish we’d done things differently. We’ll wish we hadn’t had such poor posture when using our phones and computers. If you don’t think that this is a… Continue reading Why Apple Should Fix Texter’s Neck with Posture Mode

What if in the next 5 years wireless, connected headphones had the same degree of impact on our lives as the smartphone? How would connected headphones, like the AirPods, change our lives? What does life look like when half the world walks around with headphones all day? Most people would say that’s a very isolating… Continue reading How the AirPods and Audio Augmentation Could Replace Our Smartphones

For a long time, the only way to get a job was through apprenticeship. To work in someone else’s shadow was a real honor. And it was the swiftest way to learn a trade, eventually getting a stamp of approval from a known master. Today, many of us vastly overlook the opportunity to be Digital… Continue reading Why You Should Seriously Consider Digital Apprenticeship

When I’m old, retired, and telling my grandkids what it was like to live in the early part of the 21st century, I’m going to describe it like this: “We all willingly deprived ourselves of healthy social interaction when we agreed to be digital citizens.” Now, I hope that by the time I get to… Continue reading Digital Life Has Deprived Us of Positive Community Building

There seems to be endless missions out there to teach kids STEM, enroll them in coding camps, and ensure they understand the language of technology. Meanwhile, kids are severely lacking in learning the language of humans. 64% of all eighth-grade students are unable to read proficiently. Further, 82% of black students and 77% of Hispanic… Continue reading Solving the Literacy Crisis with Music Lyrics

You arrive in a new country and what’s the first thing you do? Exchange your currency, of course. Dollars to Pesos. Euros to Yen. Even when making international purchases from home – a designer Italian handbag or a Samsung TV – a currency exchange has taken place. Global markets and free flow of capital allow… Continue reading Fortnite is the 20th Largest Country by Population. Do They Need a Currency?

Who hasn’t Googled their health symptoms before only to find out that their lower back pain is scoliosis, their cough is meningitis, and their fever is swine flu? Our first reaction to health concerns is Google. But what if our first reaction was to FaceTime or video chat our doctor? Telehealth (virtual doctor’s visits) seems… Continue reading Why Don’t More People FaceTime Their Doctor?

When’s the last time you binged an entire book on a Saturday? Probably not in a long time. But I’ll bet you can tell me the last show you binged. And I’m sure it wasn’t long ago. Reading is the “not-so-secret” secret weapon of most high-achievers. Everyone knows they should read more, but rarely do… Continue reading The Instagram Bookstore: Reading Novels in 2020 and Beyond

At least a couple of times a month I’m hyping something new about the metaverse. How companies are preparing for life in the metaverse, restaurant menus in the metaverse, how workplaces are being uploaded to the metaverse. That’s because it’s one of the bets I continue to stand by. People frequently ask me what the… Continue reading Why Artists are the Key to Creating the Metaverse

In statistics, there’s a phenomenon where random variables will regress to the mean. In culinary conquests, there’s a phenomenon where humans will naturally regress to take-out food. We love ordering in and when our favorite options are less than five clicks away, it’s just too easy. However, this new abundance of take-out requires a better… Continue reading Why Ghost Kitchens and InstaChefs are the next great culinary business

Arguably, the pop-up ad was the single greatest and (simultaneously) the worst thing to happen to the Internet. It’s what birthed the Ad-Supported Internet – lending a simple default business model for new creators – keeping information free to users. But, it also created the wrong incentive system for Internet creators. As an independent content… Continue reading Can the Internet Exist Without Advertising?

The very way in which we share our experiences and upload remnants of our lives online is going to completely change once the metaverse swallows up the Internet. (If you need a quick refresher on the metaverse, check out this video.) As we transition into the metaverse and change our digital lives, how we interact… Continue reading This hologram told me what to order at a restaurant

Nearly a year ago, Amazon launched The Subscription Box Store, which has steadily grown to offer a massive variety of more than 100 brand boxes – everything from Crayola packages to German Food samplers to beard treatment boxes. Amazon’s unique customer trust, proven Prime subscription service (with 100-million subscribers), access to nearly every product on… Continue reading Amazon won’t be the only one dominating the 2030 Subscription Economy

The Internet has evolved to the point where we can share and communicate almost anything we want across space and time. We find love through apps. We trust our digital neighbors to give us the best suggestions for food and housing. We place our most precious photographic memories in the hands of digital giants to… Continue reading How does the Internet evolve into the Metaverse?

Everything that we once considered essential to becoming an entrepreneur is now reversed. The standard “Entrepreneurial Checklist” used to go in this order: Identify a problem in the market Generate solutions and prototypes Sell and find product-market fit Create media, advertisements, partnerships, and promotions You can still do it the traditional way, however, you’re putting… Continue reading We’re Living in the Era of the Robopreneur

There will be a digital life after the Internet. Not in the sense that our digital infrastructure might collapse. Rather, there will come a social invention that outdoes the Internet, believe it or not. That invention, it appears, will be the Metaverse – a culmination of the Internet and the boundless possibilities in augmented and… Continue reading What is the Metaverse and how will it replace the Internet?

Why is your comment so important that thousands of strangers need to see it? This is the question I asked myself the other day after realizing I was one of the top comments on a YouTube video with over 300,000 views. It’s popular opinion to believe the Internet would be better off without comments sections.… Continue reading The complicated history and frightful future of the Internet comment section

“Imagine a world without fax machines”, is a talking point you’ve probably never encountered. Wedged somewhere in the timeline between the telephone and the personal computer, fax machines are a technology afterthought and are almost never referenced as an influential 20th-century technology among the ranks of the automobile, the radio, and the computer. However, fax… Continue reading The fax machine: A technological anomaly

Finding time to read these days is tough. Between social media algorithms constantly flooding us with notifications and our tendency to choose more entertaining alternatives, it’s not uncommon to go long stretches without reading something meaningful, fulfilling, or impactful. Not for a lack of desire, though. We all want to be able to read that… Continue reading Today, Siri can read to you. Soon, Siri will read for you.

For over twenty years, parents have been prolonging their kids’ requests for a pet by buying them virtual pets. Released in 1997, Tamagotchi was the first virtual pet to hit store shelves. Trapped in a small egg-shaped toy, Tamagotchis were simple pets you fed snacks, played with, and mostly let sleep. From then on a… Continue reading Why robot dogs will replace phones, not real dogs