Steve Jobs wanted to build an electric car as far back as 2008. In 2014, Tim Cook reportedly funded the project. To date, though, Apple has had little to show for it, and the rumors are that its electric vehicle will launch as late as 2025— long after such things become common commodities. Google has already had self-driving electric… Read More
Author: Vivek Wadhwa
Forget the Saudis: Apple or Google should acquire Tesla
How Design Can Make Tech Products Less Addictive
It’s the summer of 2018, the summer of Fortnite, and we all know we are addicted. Addicted to email, Snapchat, Instagram, Fortnite, Facebook. We swap outdoor time on the trail for indoor time around the console. Our kids log into Snapchat every day on vacation to keep their streaks alive and then get lost in the stream.
We move less … Read More
What Silicon Valley still gets wrong about innovation
Silicon Valley well exemplifies the saying “The more things change, the more they stay the same”. Very little has changed over the past decade, with the Valley still mired in myth and stale stereotype. Ask any older entrepreneurs or women who have tried to get financing; they will tell you of the walls they keep hitting. Speak to VCs,… Read More
Trump is the greatest gift that Twitter could have asked for!
In the 1930s, psychologist B.F. Skinner put rats in boxes and taught them to push levers to receive a food pellet. The pushed the levers only when hungry, though. To get the rats to press the lever repeatedly, even when they did not need food, he gave them a pellet only some of the time, a concept now known as intermittent variable rewards.… Read More
My advice to the world’s entrepreneurs: Copy and steal the Silicon Valley way
In a videoconference hosted by Indian startup media publication Inc42, I gave entrepreneurs some advice that startled them. I said that instead of trying to invent new things, they should copy and steal all the ideas they can from China, Silicon Valley and the rest of the world. A billion Indians coming online through inexpensive… Read More
Maybe it is time to #DeleteWhatsApp
WhatsApp differentiates itself from Facebook by touting its privacy and end-to-end encryption. “Some of your most personal moments are shared with WhatsApp”, it says, so “your messages, photos, videos, voice messages, documents, and calls are secured from falling into the wrong hands”. A WhatsApp founder expressed… Read More
Is Facebook causing the end of happiness?
For the past 30 years, most of us around the globe have welcomed modern technology with few questions and fewer reservations. We have treated each new product as a “solution” and paid little attention to its accompanying problems.
The past six months, though, has seen a rapid change of opinion in the United States, … Read More
Don’t believe the hype about AI in business
To borrow a punch line from Duke professor Dan Ariely, artificial intelligence is like teenage sex: “Everyone talks about it, nobody really knows how to do it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it.” Even though AI systems can now learn a game and beat champions within hours, they are hard … Read More
Quantum computers may be more of an imminent threat than AI
Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking and others have been warning about runway artificial intelligence, but there may be a more imminent threat: quantum computing. It could pose a greater burden on businesses than the Y2K computer bug did toward the end of the ’90s.
Quantum computers are straight out of science fiction. Take the “traveling… Read More
The future of education is virtual
Massive open online courses (MOOCs) were supposed to bring a revolution in education. But they haven’t lived up to expectations. We have been putting educators in front of cameras and shooting video — just as the first TV shows did with radio stars, microphone in hand. This is not to say the millions of hours of online content are not… Read More
Intel – Everyone’s Favourite Second Source?