Episodes

The buzz X 3: Make me laugh! Though seemingly innocuous, cartoons, caricatures, comic strips and comic books are representative of important issues in society. Years ago, cartoons were handmade, frame by frame. Now many use flash, aftereffects or other software with interpolation features to produce movement illusion. (engadget.com) Caricature artists once heavily relied on pens and paper. Now, many use digital artistic tools for molding their imagination. (bmmagazine.co.uk) Storytelling using p...

The buzz: “Web marketing is about delivering useful content at just the right moment that a buyer needs it.” (David Meerman Scott, The New Rules of Marketing and PR) For companies trying to sell you something right now, while you’re listening to us and in the midst of a pandemic, is this the right moment? How do you want them to find you, pitch you, engage you, earn your trust and get you to buy their products or services? Are you annoyed by their intrusion or do you welcome it? Today’s dynamic ...

The buzz: According to Engineering the Future of Creativity: How Technology is Revolutionizing Art (techspective.net 2019, technology has created more accessible tools for the production of art, changed the arena of self-expression, and accelerated the process of art funding and distribution. The artist’s palette now includes 3D printers. Eyal Gever is working with NASA scientists to create visualizations of human laughter that will be 3D printed on the International Space Station. Technology is...

The buzz: Hard to imagine, but not so long ago, products and services were sold in the physical world and salespeople were the go-to experts before a sale. Remember being invited to coffee or lunch by a salesperson? But consumer habits change, often due to technology. Over the past few years, social selling has gained the attention of sales professionals. With nearly 3.6B people now using social media worldwide, and consumers now 5 times more reliant on digital content than in the early 2,000’s,...

The buzz: Cyberpsychology is the study of the human mind and behavior and how the culture of technology, specifically, virtual reality, and social media affect them. Hot topics: online identity, online relationships, personality types in cyberspace, transference to computers, addiction to computers and Internet, regressive behavior in cyberspace, and online gender-switching. An example: comparison, low self-esteem, depression, loneliness, and negative relationships are possible detrimental conse...

The buzz! “As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, restaurants are still doing what they always do: taking care of their communities.…free food to medical workers on the frontlines, laid-off restaurant staff and their families, and basically anyone else in need.” (blog.opentable.com) “Giving back to others has had another much-needed consequence: It’s helping keep those restaurants in business and their staff working.” (cnbc.com) “Through the generosity of patrons, the fundraised meals are provided ...

A social good is something that benefits the largest number of people in the largest possible way, such as clean air, clean water, healthcare, and literacy. Aka common good, social good can trace its history to Ancient Greece philosophers and implies a positive impact on individuals or society in general… Today, social good is used to refer to corporate initiatives that aim to enhance the social contract of corporations by promoting practices that are better for the environment and overall socie...

The buzz! Europe-based Just Eat Takeaway, a merger between U.K.’s Just Eat and Netherlands-based Takeaway, is set to acquire its US competitor Grubhub in a $7.3B deal, beating out Uber. The new company will have an active customer base of 70M. When the pandemic forced restaurants to close on-site dining and find other ways to stay in business, Glasserie, a Brooklyn, N.Y. Mediterranean restaurant, experimented with delivery and takeout apps including Seamless, Grubhub and DoorDash. But they were ...

The buzz! Yogurt is a food produced by bacterial fermentation of milk. Yogurt is related to the verb yogurmak, to be curdled or coagulated; to thicken”. Ancient Greek cuisine included a similar dairy product, oxygala. Yogurt was introduced to the US in the early 20th century. In 2017, the average American ate 13.7 pounds of yogurt. Because it may contain live cultures, yogurt is often associated with probiotics, postulated as having positive effects on immune, cardiovascular or metabolic health....

The buzz! themuse.com “Social media can also be a powerful tool for your professional life…build your personal brand, grow your network, establish yourself as an expert in your field, or give prospective employers a glimpse into your personality. It can also be full of pitfalls. More employers…check candidates’ social media profiles before hiring…screenshots of status updates and tweets mean your electronic words can live forever, even if you delete them later…not just your own posts—your activi...

Ripped from the headlines: transwood.com: “Technology is becoming an increasingly important part of everyday trucking life…improving trucker safety, efficiency and saving transportation companies…a new mobile app [Jan. 2019] helps truckers find safe and close-by parking spaces via smart phone, in-cab information systems and the DOT 511 platform.” trucks.com: “Zero-emission (ZE) truck and bus models are on the verge of a major surge in the United States and Canada. Among the fastest-growing vehic...

The buzz: Lifeboat Foundation Scientific Advisory Board member Michael Anissimov says, “Transhumanists advocate the improvement of human capacities through advanced technology. Not just…in gadgets you get from Best Buy, but technology in the grander sense of strategies for eliminating disease, providing cheap but high-quality products to the world’s poorest, improving quality of life and social interconnectedness…Technology we don’t notice because it’s blended in with the fabric of the world, bu...

The buzz: Ripped from the headlines. WebMD.com: “Contact tracing is essentially detective work.“… “One of the oldest public health tactics, dating back centuries.” CNN.com: …public health staff work with a patient to help them recall everyone with whom they have had close contact during the timeframe while they may have been infectious. To protect patient privacy, contacts are only informed that they may have been exposed to a patient with the infection…not the identity of the patient… [CDC) . Z...

The Buzz: “The Factory of the Future…Perhaps manufacturing will at last be able to leave behind the public impressions of labor-intensive, dirty and dangerous worksites…There is only one characteristic of the Factory of the Future that is essential: A creative mindset for problem-solving and out-of-the-box thinking is key to embracing new technologies.” (industryweek.com) So many questions! What will future factory jobs look like – only programmers, AI experts and supervisors in Silicon Valley a...

The Buzz: “For better and for worse, robots will alter humans’ capacity for altruism, love, and friendship…‘hybrid systems’—where people and robots interact socially—the right kind of AI can improve the way humans relate to one another” (theatlantic.com). “The internet acts like a kind of digital-fuelled alcohol, freeing us to say things to strangers that we would never dare to say if we met them” (bbc.com). “Being a good online citizen is more than being a safe Internet user—it’s about being re...

The buzz: “Pet adoptions are way up amid coronavirus crisis, even with shelters closed to public” (USA TODAY). “Like everyone else forced to improvise in the face of an unprecedented crisis, America's animal shelters are coming up with creative ways to stay open, so they can continue pairing people and pets. Americans are rushing, well, not to their local shelters but to their phones and laptops to check out available pets, to donate money and supplies, to share the word on social media about re...

The buzz: “Even incubators/accelerators [in India] that have been around for years, and have “processed” 50+ startups, usually don't have even one startup that has achieved impressive revenues/valuations” (Source). 90% of startups fail. Doomed from the start? Likely if they work with accelerators, which invest low seed capital in multiple startups for 12-week mentoring, expecting most to flop when Demo Day investors say No. If you’re a wannabe entrepreneur or a serial entrepreneur with your eye ...

The buzz X2: “Humans have been co-evolving with their technologies since the dawn of prehistory…. Coping with this new means liberating ourselves from such categories as ‘human,’ ‘technological,’ and ‘natural’ to embrace a new techno-human relationship” (Allenby & Sarewitz). “Growing up I always considered the interaction of humanity and technology presented in the original Star Trek series as a fairly accurate representation of the way things would someday go. Then came the Next Generation’s Bo...

The buzz: “The Factory of the Future has an evolving definition…even different names…Smart Manufacturing, Industry 4.0 or the Digital Enterprise…Perhaps manufacturing will at last be able to leave behind the public impressions of labor-intensive, dirty and dangerous worksites…Only one characteristic of the Factory of the Future that is essential: A creative mindset for problem-solving and out-of-the-box thinking is key to embracing new technologies…Stubborn adherence to traditional processes…wil...

The buzz: Ripped from the headlines. “Your Apps Know Where You Were Last Night, and They’re Not Keeping It Secret” (NY Times 12/18): “Dozens of companies use smartphone locations to help advertisers and even hedge funds. They say it’s anonymous, but the data shows how personal it is…One path tracks someone from a home outside Newark to a nearby Planned Parenthood, remaining there for more than an hour…” And April 3, 2020: “Google is publicly releasing the data it's already collecting about peopl...

The Buzz: “Entertainment is ultimately an attention business, and the competition for attention has never been fiercer with new entrants from tech firms and non-media brands jumping into content production … With the explosion in content, consumers today are often overwhelmed when choosing content to watch.” Apple unveiled star-studded content slate for its TV+ streaming service. Walmart is reportedly developing Vudu-branded streaming original content. Quibi, mobile-first short-form video conten...

The Buzz: “To become a Hacker you need skills, a strong presence of mind and what not? But before that all you need is an inspiration with a pinch of motivation….” (www.tech2hack.com). “What hackers do is figure out technology and experiment with it in ways many people never imagined. They also have a strong desire to share this information with others….” and “Most hackers are young because young people tend to be adaptable. As long as you remain adaptable, you can always be a good hacker” (Emma...

The Buzz: “As video adoption for content marketing continues to rise, there’s no doubt that more organizations are looking to online video to improve their strategies…smartphone and tablet adoption has created a prime opportunity for more mobile video content” (www.brainshark.com). Still not convinced? “The sheer cost of video production has come down to a point where there are no barriers to entry. Buyers have devices that can play videos with them at all times” (Joe Pulizzi). “Humans are incre...

Today’s buzz: “Auto makers look into their crystal balls – and their shops – to get an idea as to what's fueling the car of 2025. Most car makers agree: The next 10 years will see more change in the auto business than the last 20” (theglobeandmail.com). “Self-driving cars…once found only in science fiction, are about to become a reality” (Goldman Sachs, 2016). “When you think of a flying car one might think of The Jetsons. The company Terrafugia is working to get its flying car off the ground by...