Science fiction coming to life

Flying cars was where Phoebe and I started this radio Sydney ABC Local radio conversation, but we quickly got talking about how many science fiction dreams have turned into reality with a look at the movies and books that inspired the iPad, iPhone, water-bed, robots, video chats, ear buds and more.

So listen in to see where some of our everyday tech gadgets started their lives.

Which devices is sold more every day, than there are babies born?

What else could it be, but the iPhone.

In its 2012 1st quarter sales figures, Apple sold 37.04 million iPhone’s across the planet accounting for 53% of all of its revenue.

More people across the planet now take home new iPhone’s every day (402,000 units per day), than take home human babies (300,000 human births per day).

The figure needs to be seasonally adjusted as it includes Christmas sales, but nevertheless the numbers are huge and the implications for consumer preferences for their tech and connectivity needs even bigger.

In this weeks FutureTech segment Jason Jordan of Perth’s 6PR and I chat about what this means; what technological road we’re going down and where to from here for mobile technology.

Listen now:

and listen live each week at around 5:05 p.m. (AWST).

One person has made a difference

The online virtual world most of us take for granted is only 20 years old.

In the very short space of two decades we have eagerly and voraciously moved our lives and businesses into it and become dependent on it.

Look around you and see people everywhere staring longingly at their mobile screens, checking status, checking in and checking up.

Each seems intent on their interaction, to the point where it appears to the innocent passer-by as if they are greedily sucking air from their virtual breathing apparatus.

This new online and PC world required a pioneer, a visionary.

Someone to stare far into tomorrow and beyond and see what can be done. Someone to bravely say “what if” and then see about getting it done.

In our generation that forward looker was Steve Jobs, pioneering products, brands and people.

He started Apple Computers at a time when the PC was unknown and unwanted. He built software platforms far in advance of their marketplace needs. He innovated digital films when he purchased and breathed new life in to Pixar films. He returned to Apple after his forced departure, to take an ailing almost irrelevant company to corporate world dominance, with a suite of new horizon products that include iTunes, iPhone and iPads.

Steve Job’s gift seems to be his unwavering consumer focused vision of technology and what they could become as he uncannily built category definers that would be purposeful, useful and intuitive.

He thought nothing of relentlessly driving his handpicked tribe to seemingly reach far into the future and drag back to today unseen of and unheard of technology.

His ability to make the world see the future is also clear as he regularly ignited the passion of the everyday consumer, geek and non tech ahead alike, to stand for hours outside one of his global retail stores to be the first to buy and use one of his latest who would have known I needed gadgets.

From a corporate viewpoint he rebuilt Apple over the last decade and a half to tack into the wind. To seek and desire difference in order to find market opportunity. To work for Apple requires checking in the obvious at the door and joining the Don Quixote search for virtual and technological windmills.

This and where to from here for Apple was the on air discussion between myself and Jason Jordan of Perth radio’s 6PR in this weeks FutureTech segment as we paid tribute to the life and times of a gone to soon true innovator.

Listen now:

and listen live each Sunday at 4.40 p.m. (WST)

The Weekender–6PR Radio–21 March 2010

My 4th year on Perth radio’s 6PR’s Weekender program comes to end this week as it goes into hiatus until after the footy season in October; so in this weeks segment Harvey Deegan and I look ahead to what the future of tech and business may be over the next 7 months, including:

• iPad and iPhone
• Google android phone
• eReaders
• USB 3.0
• 3D – computers, laptops, televisions, billboards
• Augmented and virtual reality
• Location based services – rise of foursquare, gowalla and others
• Visual and semantic search
• Continuing rise of cloud computing

It’s always sad when the show breaks for winter and the footy season, but it’s been a great series and I’m counting down the days until St Kilda wins the AFL grand final and we’re back on air in October.

Listen here for this weeks segment, click here for my other interviews between now and October and of course let’s keep in touch on Twitter.

Radio ABC International – Today Show – Future Tech Segment

Teenage proof cars, man arrested for not using Twitter, new iphone app takes you to the Louvre and the Iraq museum, the future of newspapers as well as live crosses to Jeremy Wagstaff in Singapore for the top tech stories of the week and a chat with Phil Whelan on Hong Kong Radio about what’s happeining in Australia and the future of technology.

These were just a few of the many and varied things discussed in this weeks very busy segment- Future Tech – on ABC Radio International’s Today Show with Phil Kafcaloudes, Adelaine Ng and Morris Miselowski. Recorded live 27 Nov 2009. Listen live each Friday at 12.25 Aust EST.

ABC International Radio – Tech Spot 24 July

In this weeks segment we chat about Amazon.com’s acquisition of Zappos.com for $847 million (who I think is one of the best online retailers of all time), Britain’s National Gallery offering its art on the iPhone, Microsoft announcement that windows 7 is finished cooking, before finsihing up with a discussion of the Tech jobs that cloud computing will eliminate over the next decade and what are the jobs of the future?