Tag Archives: Lifestyle

AVG

Three reasons to be excited about: 3D printing

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The fledgling industry has grown rapidly and is estimated to be valued around $16 billion by 2018. Now it seems that almost anything is possible. Here are some of the three great uses of 3D printing technology emerging today.

 

Clinical testing

Cosmetics company L’Oreal has started developing 3D printed skin to help them test cosmetics without the need for animals or real human skin. Working in collaboration with bio engineering company organovo, L’Oreal said “Our partnership will not only bring about new advances in vitro methods for evaluating product safety and performance, but the potential for where this new field of technology and research can take us is boundless.”

This is clearly a big step forward for a whole range of cosmetics and can help build a future less dependent on animal testing.

3D Skin

Image courtesy of BBC

 

Fashion and textiles

While it most fashion conscious people may take some convincing before they agree to don a garment made out of 3D printed fabrics, the emerging industry shows a lot of promise and potential.

The opportunity to create custom pieces, built to specific physical dimensions could potentially give clothes of the future a convenience and suitability rarely found in traditional clothes.

It doesn’t stop there though, when you consider the market for fashion bags and accessories, the possibilities for customization and personalization are as broad as they are deep.

Video

3D Printed Fashion Accessories

 

Body Parts

Perhaps the biggest success story for 3D printing thus far has been in the area of prosthetic limbs and body parts. Recently, a seven year old California girl received a new 3D printed prosthetic hand that was created for only $50.

Video

3D Printed Prosthetics

Clearly this is one of the most inspiring and uplifting ways that 3D printing technology can touch lives for the better, but it’s not just for humans.

In the last few days, a loggerhead turtle that was gravely wounded in an accident with a boat propeller received a brand new 3D printed jaw. Without its brand new 3D printed titanium jaw, the turtle would have had to spend a lifetime in captivity, unable to fend for itself in the wild.

3D Turtle Jaw

Photo: BTech Innovation

 

What most excites you about 3D printing. I’d love to hear from you on Twitter or Facebook.

Title image courtesy of CNN.com

AVG

Distracted Drivers Pose a Greater Challenge on our Roads than Driverless Cars

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Google announced last Friday that a prototype of its own self-driving car will hit the streets in its hometown of Mountain View, CA in a pilot test.  Each car will be equipped with a human ready to take over the wheel, if needed, and the car speed will be capped at 25 mph.

Google also revealed its track record for autonomous vehicle safety with impressive results thus far. In the 1.7 million miles of the manual and autonomous driving Google has logged in the past six years, there have only been 11 minor accidents—all of which were caused by other drivers—and none resulting in injuries.

Google’s Chris Urmson, director of its driverless car program, said in a statement: “…not once was the self-driving car the cause of the accident.”

These early numbers are impressive, especially since these driverless cars have been on the road for 10,000 miles a week and in some crazy driving conditions.

About those accidents, Urmson noted: “Rear-end crashes are the most frequent accidents in America, and often there’s little the driver in front can do to avoid getting hit; we’ve been hit from behind seven times, mainly at traffic lights but also on the freeway. We’ve also been side-swiped a couple of times and hit by a car rolling through a stop sign.”

You can see a detailed report by Urmson in his article on Medium.

Video

Ready for the road

Though some continue to question the safety of testing driverless vehicles on public highways, and we have a ways to go before autonomous driving hits prime time… it’s also good to keep in perspective the impact of human error (the cause of 94% of accidents) and the risk of distracted drivers.

Lot’s of people aren’t paying attention on our roadways, which Google’s driverless cars have experienced.

People are eating, drinking, smoking, talking on cell phones, adjusting their entertainment consoles, navigating via digital maps, or you name it.  On any given day, Distracted.gov estimates over 660,000 vehicles are being driven by someone using a hand-held cell phone… And it has been shown that a lot of our distraction has to do with drivers using smartphone technology while behind the wheel.

In fact, AT&T this week released an alarming new survey that shows that motorists have expanded their behind-the-wheel activities from just talking and texting to use of Facebook, Twitter, taking selfies and even videos.

Here are a few of AT&T’s salient numbers of smartphone activities undertaken while driving:

  • 70% people engage in smartphone activities while driving
  • 61% text
  • Nearly 40% use social media
  • About 30% surf the net and/or use Facebook
  • 17% snap selfies
  • 14% use Twitter, Integra
  • Around 10%-plus use video chat and Snap Chat

 

AT&T revealed the research along with its launch of its expanded “It Can Wait” ad campaign, moving its focus from just texting while driving to include other smartphone driving distractions.

Other recent studies indicate that anything that takes your attention away from the road for just two seconds or longer can increase the risk of an accident from four to 24 times…Sending or reading a text takes your eyes off the road for 5 seconds, according to info collected by Distracted.gov. Imagine the seconds devoted to viewing real-time social media feeds, or framing a selfie?

People very well should be concerned about bumps in the road for fully autonomous cars, which are a lot more than smartphones on wheels. But the usage of smartphone technology inside our autos poses another and very real safety challenge and far bigger threat today that we need to be more focused on and deal with!

I applaud AT&Ts effort and those of others to educate the public on the problem of technology-induced distracted driving – although a lot more than education needs to be done.

And I also applaud Google’s goal to have smart self-driving cars in the future to at least share the burden of driving with humans. It may not solve all of our roadway safety problems in the future – but it sure may help!

In the meantime, it’s incumbent upon all of us in technology industry who are contributing to our increasingly connected mobile future, to be vigilant about all aspects of our products’ safety, security, and privacy.

Title image courtesy of Google.

AVG

Distracted Drivers Pose a Greater Challenge on our Roads than Driverless Cars

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Google announced last Friday that a prototype of its own self-driving car will hit the streets in its hometown of Mountain View, CA in a pilot test.  Each car will be equipped with a human ready to take over the wheel, if needed, and the car speed will be capped at 25 mph.

Google also revealed its track record for autonomous vehicle safety with impressive results thus far. In the 1.7 million miles of the manual and autonomous driving Google has logged in the past six years, there have only been 11 minor accidents—all of which were caused by other drivers—and none resulting in injuries.

Google’s Chris Urmson, director of its driverless car program, said in a statement: “…not once was the self-driving car the cause of the accident.”

These early numbers are impressive, especially since these driverless cars have been on the road for 10,000 miles a week and in some crazy driving conditions.

About those accidents, Urmson noted: “Rear-end crashes are the most frequent accidents in America, and often there’s little the driver in front can do to avoid getting hit; we’ve been hit from behind seven times, mainly at traffic lights but also on the freeway. We’ve also been side-swiped a couple of times and hit by a car rolling through a stop sign.”

You can see a detailed report by Urmson in his article on Medium.

Video

Ready for the road

Though some continue to question the safety of testing driverless vehicles on public highways, and we have a ways to go before autonomous driving hits prime time… it’s also good to keep in perspective the impact of human error (the cause of 94% of accidents) and the risk of distracted drivers.

Lot’s of people aren’t paying attention on our roadways, which Google’s driverless cars have experienced.

People are eating, drinking, smoking, talking on cell phones, adjusting their entertainment consoles, navigating via digital maps, or you name it.  On any given day, Distracted.gov estimates over 660,000 vehicles are being driven by someone using a hand-held cell phone… And it has been shown that a lot of our distraction has to do with drivers using smartphone technology while behind the wheel.

In fact, AT&T this week released an alarming new survey that shows that motorists have expanded their behind-the-wheel activities from just talking and texting to use of Facebook, Twitter, taking selfies and even videos.

Here are a few of AT&T’s salient numbers of smartphone activities undertaken while driving:

  • 70% people engage in smartphone activities while driving
  • 61% text
  • Nearly 40% use social media
  • About 30% surf the net and/or use Facebook
  • 17% snap selfies
  • 14% use Twitter, Integra
  • Around 10%-plus use video chat and Snap Chat

 

AT&T revealed the research along with its launch of its expanded “It Can Wait” ad campaign, moving its focus from just texting while driving to include other smartphone driving distractions.

Other recent studies indicate that anything that takes your attention away from the road for just two seconds or longer can increase the risk of an accident from four to 24 times…Sending or reading a text takes your eyes off the road for 5 seconds, according to info collected by Distracted.gov. Imagine the seconds devoted to viewing real-time social media feeds, or framing a selfie?

People very well should be concerned about bumps in the road for fully autonomous cars, which are a lot more than smartphones on wheels. But the usage of smartphone technology inside our autos poses another and very real safety challenge and far bigger threat today that we need to be more focused on and deal with!

I applaud AT&Ts effort and those of others to educate the public on the problem of technology-induced distracted driving – although a lot more than education needs to be done.

And I also applaud Google’s goal to have smart self-driving cars in the future to at least share the burden of driving with humans. It may not solve all of our roadway safety problems in the future – but it sure may help!

In the meantime, it’s incumbent upon all of us in technology industry who are contributing to our increasingly connected mobile future, to be vigilant about all aspects of our products’ safety, security, and privacy.

Title image courtesy of Google.

AVG

Three reasons to be excited about: Facial Recognition

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Facial recognition software has a bad reputation. Associations with surveillance state and future visions of corporate tracking and advertising like in the movie Minority Report make facial recognition seem like an intrusive and objectifying technology tearing at the last remnants of our privacy.

Video

Minority Report

 

While there are legitimate concerns about some uses of facial recognition technology, there are also a huge number of wonderful and innovative ways it can be applied to improve our daily lives.

 

People with disabilities

Facial recognition software and the growing accuracy with which technology can accurately discern human features is starting to become a real benefit to people with disabilities.

The recently unveiled “XploR mobility cane” uses facial recognition technology to scan approaching people and alert the user when someone they know is approaching.

Likewise, the Samsung Memory Recaller is an app designed to help Alzheimers sufferers recognize the faces of friends and loved ones.

Samsung Memory Recaller from Bbdo Proximity Thailand on Vimeo.

 

 

Search and recovery

While Google has recently shelved planned to commercially release a facial recognition search due to privacy concerns, their acquisition of PittPatt shows there is still interest in the technology. The recent earthquakes in Nepal have underlined the importance of international search and rescue efforts.  Facial recognition can be a huge help when used in conjunction with other online search and recovery tools such as Google’s Person Finder to help identify missing people and put them in touch with friends and family.

PiP My Pet

 

When most people think of facial recognition, they naturally think of people, but work is already afoot applying this technology to our furry friends. Apps such as PiP My Pet use the same facial recognition technology to identify lost pets.

 

Security and convenience

Despite what many people may think, facial recognition will almost certainly make the technology of the future more secure and easy to use. I’ve written before about the merits and shortcomings of biometric security but recent buzz around Microsoft’s How-Old.net and Facebook’s DeepFace tagging technology show that there is a lot of research going into this area.

Very soon, web enabled devices will be able to discern our identity with complete accuracy meaning that identity specific items such as keys, wallets, ticket and passports could become things of the past. Using technology will also become easier with facial recognition helping alleviate some of the headaches caused by remembering multiple passwords and login credentials.

 

Do you have a favorite use for facial recognition technology? Do you think it is a good or bad thing? Let me know on Twitter or on Facebook.

Title image courtesy of Engadget.com

AVG

Stepping Up Efforts to Support Emerging Women Entrepreneurs

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The White House brought together emerging entrepreneurs from across the United States and the globe – joined by several of the celebrity investors from the hit TV show Shark Tank.  The stated goal was to raise awareness of “the importance of investing in women and young entrepreneurs to create innovative solutions to some of the world’s toughest challenges, including poverty, climate change, extremism, as well as access to education and healthcare.”

Brava!

The White House event comes as President Obama prepares for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Kenya later this summer. You can read more about this week’s event here and get the transcript of the President’s remarks here.

A highlight of the White House event was the President’s announcement of the creation of the Spark Global Entrepreneurship initiative and its goal to generate over a billion dollars in private investment for emerging entrepreneurs around the world by the end of 2017.  Half of this goal will be specifically for women and young entrepreneurs.

The White House event also featured the introduction of the newest Presidential Ambassadors for Global Entrepreneurship (PAGE).  Nine new ambassadors were named to join 17 who were appointed when he launched PAGE last year.

I’m thrilled to say one of the new ambassadors is my friend Julie Hanna, the executive chair of the board of the non-profit Kiva, the first and largest crowdfunding marketplace for underserved entrepreneurs.

Julie joins Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky; Elizabeth Holmes ,the founder of Theranos; and Alison Rosenthal, the vice president of Strategic Partnerships Wealthfront, among other new appointments to PAGE.

As part of her commitment, Julie introduced Kiva’s new $100 million initiative,  “Global Capital Access,” which is committed to delivering crowdfunded Kiva loans to 200,000 women and young entrepreneurs across 86 countries, including the U.S.  Entrepreneurs will have an opportunity to receive crowdfunded loans through Kiva and its global network of 1.3 million lenders in 198 countries. (Since 2005, Kiva and its global community have crowdfunded $700 million loans to 1.6 million entrepreneurs in 86 countries. For as little as a $25 loan, anyone can back an entrepreneur.)

Julie is truly an amazing entrepreneur, leader and mentor.  She also generously participated in a video for my SXSW “Boardroom or Baby” presentation earlier this year, to give advice to young women seeking VC investment.

Video

Boardroom or Baby 2015

 

I am particularly delighted to say that I will be joining her for a “Women in Tech Executive Roundtable 2015” sponsored by the Churchill Club this Friday in Palo Alto, CA. For more info and to sign up to attend go to www.churchillclub.org.

The roundtable is designed to be a frank and lively conversation about what matters most for advancing women in business and technology. We hope to share actionable insights and takeaways to empower women and to help create a new conversation in the year ahead.

I’m looking forward to our discussion, as well as the opportunity to personally congratulate Julie and hear about the White House event and her plans as ambassador.

As Julie noted at the White House event, one of the most encouraging things happening toward empowerment of female entrepreneurs is the public conversation occurring about public and hidden bias. As she said: “We need to elevate the discourse to make it an issue for humanity, not just for women – much like Martin Luther King did on Civil Rights.”

Title image courtesy of Levo.com

AVG

Three reasons to be excited about: Augmented Reality

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Whether for personal entertainment or in the workplace, augmented reality has some exciting applications for all of us.

Entertainment

One of the most exciting applications for augmented reality is in the entertainment industry. As highlighted by the incredibly popular game Ingress, the ability to capture the world around us and add fantastical features will take entertainment to the next level.

Video

Ingress

Videogames and movies that emerge the world around you will give each of us an incredibly personal and interactive entertainment experience.

In fact, the allure of augmented reality in the gaming industry is so big that, by 2020, it is predicted to be worth around $120 billion. That total is three times that of virtual reality, underlining its wide range of applications.

 

Business and industry

It’s not all fun and games though. Augmented reality has a lot to offer businesses and industry too. Any industry where skilled workers such as engineers or manufacturers need to access information in real time can benefit greatly from augmented reality.

Among it’s wide number of applications, augmented reality could be used to help train staff, improve effectiveness of industrial maintenance checks and make your products easier to find and purchase.

 

Education

Augmented reality is already in use as an educational tool around the world and is a great way to make information exciting and engaging for students.

Whether studying the human body with digital 3D figures that leap out of screens to bringing old fashioned text books to life,  augmented reality could possibly be the next big step in teaching tools.

Aurasma, an augmented reality app available on tablets has been working with schools for a few years already.

Video

Aurasma in school

 

What are the uses of augmented reality that most excite you? Let us know on our Facebook page or via Twitter.

 

Image courtesy of solidworks

AVG

Three Exciting Things In: Connected Cars

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The motor industry is one of the most innovative spaces in business right now. From driverless technology to remote access and electronic cars, there is an abundance of exciting technology that promise to make a real difference to the way to move around our lives.

 

Augmented Reality Driving Goggles

Covered in this fascinating Wired article, these driving goggles (seen above) are being developed by the automaker Mini and have the potential to change the way we drive for good.

Mini Goggles

Headsup display: Make sure the most important information is available to you wherever you’re looking with speed and directions fed directly into the goggles.

Zero latency: Using special technology to predict how your head will move, the goggles approach to close to “zero latency” meaning that the augmented images displayed in the goggles are happening in real time.

Look through walls: By using cameras and microphones outside of the vehicle, you can look straight through the frame of the car to see potential hazards.

 

 

Remote Control Parking:

BMW recently revealed that they have developed remote control parking for the 2016 BMW 7 Series.

Video

2016 BMW 7 Series

 

But that’s not all, BMW are looking to change “interaction between the driver and the car” by introducing in-car gesture control to the 7 series and improved voice commands. This means no more fiddling with that radio or satnav.

BMW Gesture Control

 

 

Wireless Car Charging

Electronic cars are slowly but surely making their way into the mainstream. One of the largest obstacles to their adoption is the lack of charging stations. A research team at Qualcomm  has developed a wireless form of charging for electronic cars that could potentially make it much easier to charge vehicles.

Using inductive charging, the electronic car will charge wirelessly when parked over a magnetic plate.

Inductive charging

 

Inductive technology has only recently taken off in the consumer space with wireless smartphone charging stations so don’t expect to see these on the road any time soon.

 

The importance of privacy

As these three exciting technologies demonstrate, the Internet of Things is growing and advancing at an incredible rate. It’s important though to ensure that we are building and developing advanced functionality with privacy and security in mind.

The benefits of smart, connected vehicles are obvious for all to see but as AVG has highlighted several times already, vulnerabilities in system security can pose real risks to human safety and property damage.

AVG

Apple Watch and the smartwatch revolution

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The brand has done an excellent marketing campaign in rolling it out, including high-profile celebrity seedings (Katy Perry, Beyoncé and Christy Turlington Burns, to name a few) and a high-touch, pre-order program that included in-store previews for customized “fittings.”

Initial reports by analysts estimate Apple have already taken 2.3 million pre-orders, giving it the familiar headache of demand outstripping supply.

Some reports indicate the anticipated April 24 ship date has been quietly removed for their website, and Apple’s retail chief acknowledged in internal memos that the watch won’t be available for sale with inventory in its retail stores until June.

Meanwhile, research firm ABI estimates Apple will sell over 13 million Apple Watches this year.  Whenever the Apple Watch arrives, it’s a big and much-anticipated step in the wearable marketplace – and one of the major reasons pundits are calling this “the year of wearables.”

No doubt, this is an exciting time and a major step in wearable technology becoming mainstream.

Excitement may be tempered by the mixed initial reaction to the Apple Watch from testers who have concerns over battery life and functionality. Others have had trouble navigating through the various features. You can see a good summary of the media reactions here.

My thoughts? The Apple Watch is certainly more attractive than most wearable technology, having that great Apple sense of style. It has many fitness features (if not all the health apps originally envisioned) and allows you to use Apple Pay along with all sorts of other apps, whose number and magnitude will rapidly increase as third-party developers come along.

Currently, the pricing may be the biggest drawback. I’m not talking about the $10,000 gold watch, but the starting price point of $349/$549 for the sport watch depending on finishes. This, in my view, makes it an early adopter choice and not yet truly mainstream.

Not to be overlooked, is Google’s Android Wear OS for watches –which recently  received a major software update to greatly expand its watch capabilities. It comes just in time for the Apple Watch debut and looks to give that smartwatch platform a boost.  The Android Wear watches made by Samsung and LG have opening prices in the more demur range of $150-$300. (Researchers estimated that 720,000 smartwatches based on Android Wear shipped in the last six months of 2014.)

For now, these smartwatches all seem like more of a sidekick for our smartphones. An iPhone 5 ($549 unlocked) or above is required for Apple Watch, and an Android device (around $249 and up, depending on the maker) for the Google watch platform. But then, smartphone tethering is the case with most wearable devices today.

Still, it remains to be seen whether the new category of smartwatches will become really useful tools vs. timepiece status symbols. At AVG, we have already integrated our AVG Zen product into smart watches so that you can monitor and control the protection, performance and privacy of your devices with a single touch.

AVG Zen wearable

Personally, I will be keeping privacy and data in mind as smart watch manufacturers add more functionality to their devices. Using the Apple Watch as an example, it already has access to my personal health and payment information as well as my contacts, email and calendar.

How smart watches store, transmit and share this information will be a major influencer on whether or not I decide to experiment with a smart watch of my own.

AVG

Using Technology to Celebrate Earth Day 2015

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Given the enormous swings in climate change we are witnessing around the world, Earth Day takes on more meaning for many of us than ever before. Whether you acknowledge climate change, or not, protecting Mother Earth should be an imperative for us all.  Here’s a reminder for all of us living in the tech world about a few steps we can take to help protect the earth:

Recycle your technology

If you have an old cell phone or smartphone that you can donate for a good cause, that’s a wonderful place to start. Carrier Verizon, for example, has a program where your donation aids victims of domestic violence. It’s safe to recycle or donate smartphones, just be sure to wipe the device and take out the memory card first!

For those of us who work from home, many of us have printers and accumulate empty printer cartridges that can pile up. You don’t want those to end up in a landfill, though sadly, millions do…to the tone (sorry for the pun) of 350 million a year, according to Cartridge World. So please contact your equipment manufacturers about recycling programs. For example, HP has a robust program.

In the UK, Recycle4charity is an initiative that works with dozens of charities to generate donations from recycling old mobiles and printer cartridges.

For more advice on recycling technology check out CNet’s latest report. And, iRecycle by Earth911 is a free app on both Android and iOS that details more than 1,600,000 ways to recycle more than 350 materials.

 

There’s an app for that…

An ever-growing number of eco-friendly apps out there can help us protect the planet. By one estimate from IBM’s Smarter Planet there were 400 million green-related apps downloaded in 2014. That’s a lot of apps!

Here are a few of my favorites:

  • Monitor & reduce your energy consumption. By now, most people are familiar with the Nest thermostat to monitor and control your home thermostat. But there are many other examples such as The Wiser Energy Management System, by Schneider Electric. It’s a home energy management solution that lets you track and control your energy expenditures (and thus your costs).
  • Eliminate junk mail. How often do you find your mailbox still cluttered with junk mail? PaperKarma by Reputation.com is a free app that allows you to take a picture of the unwanted mail, and then handles it from there, contacting the distributor and cancelling further contact.
  • Travel energy-wise. Carma Carpool is an app available for free to cut down on costs, traffic jams, greenhouse gas emissions and overall pollution. Carma enables you to find rides and share your commute in many major cities in the U.S. and Ireland, as well as Oslo. It’s also a great way to use the Diamond lane, and the San Francisco Bay Area you get free tolls!
  • Shop eco-wise. Many of us also like to shop for eco-friendly products in environmentally friendly stores. GoodGuides, which I’ve mentioned before, is a free app that helps you find health, environmental, and social performance ratings for over 120,000 food, personal care, and household products — from baby shampoo to bathroom cleaner.
  • Get the game. Finally, the Earth Day Network has announced it will work developers of the “Angry Birds” game to create a game experience, called “Champions for Earth” to raise environmental awareness. Stay tuned. The game is due out in the fall.

I hope some of these ideas will help inspire you to celebrate Earth Day this Wednesday and every day.

AVG

Is Hotel Wi-Fi Safe?

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Recently, a new authentication vulnerability was identified in the firmware of routers that are used in hotels around the world.

This means that new files can be written to the routers and then potentially all connected machines (meaning hotel guests) could become infected.

Public Wi-Fi is not a new risk as these networks are unencrypted and send all your data in clear text, unless of course the web site you are visiting offers encryption.

Why does it matter that your data is unencrypted? Imagine all your regular post arriving at home written on postcards so that anyone in the delivery chain could read them. It would be a huge invasion of your privacy and unacceptable.

The risk of similar but you just can’t see that it was all sent for others to read, should they be so inclined.

Stay safe while using public Wi-Fi

  • When using public Wi-Fi in café’s, airports, hotels or even when visiting a place of work that has guest Wi-Fi you should always be cautious on which services you use while connected.
  • Where possible use a virtual private network (VPN). This will encrypt the data being send over the public Wi-Fi network that you are connected to, or put another way it will put your mail back in envelopes.
  • Many scammers set up fake Wi-Fi networks to conduct what is known as a man in the middle attack. If you are in a hotel or airport, make sure you are using the legitimate free Wi-Fi  service.

For more tips on keeping your data safe while using public Wi-Fi, check out the infographic below.

WiFi