Artificial Intelligence: Not A Panacea For Supply Chain Issues, But Extremely Helpful
“Supply chain,” once an insider industry term, is now a common phrase uttered by consumers across the globe — and for good reason. From baby formula to beer to semiconductors, supply chains have been breaking down. Can technology help mend these frayed and fractured supply chains?
Intel Wayfair Red Hat
Intel, Wayfair, Red Hat and Aible on getting AI results in 30 days
Companies are rushing to invest in AI — but less than 20% of AI investments are resulting in the transformations that AI promises. VB Transform 2022 brought together business leaders from Intel, Wayfair, Red Hat and Aible to discuss how they’re beating the odds to actually harness the full value of AI.
Covid Aftermath: Hyper-Focus On The Customer That Technology Needs To Help Sustain
The Covid-19 crisis was like a proverbial whack on the side of the head, getting organizations to fly right, finally focusing their energy and technology to where it counts — the customer. Can it last?
Salesforce’s latest survey of 7,000 customer service executives documents the aftermath of a year in which companies suddenly faced a reckoning: to reach and serve customers digitally, or not at all.
Read the article in Forbes
Liability Debates Inch Along
How the debate over holding internet platforms accountable is changing under Biden
Two people were dead; one was injured; and Jason Flores-Williams wanted to hold Facebook responsible.
But after filing a lawsuit in September alleging that the website’s lax moderation standards led to 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse killing two protesters in Kenosha, Wis., over the summer, Flores-Williams withdrew the suit in January. His fight for accountability had collided with a law the activist attorney came to see as a “brick wall.”
Read the Article in The Lost Angeles Times
Opinion: Some tech workers are leaving San Francisco. They won’t be missed
By Therese Poletti
While Silicon Valley’s tech industry is not suffering the exodus many have foreseen, S.F. is losing some people, and that’s for the best
The post-recession tech boom in San Francisco appears to be reaching some form of an ending. Thank goodness.
Amid much discussion about a potential tech exodus, recent data shows that, writ large, people are not moving away from Silicon Valley and the Bay Area. They are moving out of San Francisco, though. And that is causing much rejoicing throughout the city.
How not to kill your spouse and other tips for working from home from someone who hates it
Experts weigh in on how to survive isolation, cabin fever as COVID-19 forces workers to stay at home
I thought my working-from-home situation was bad until I spoke with Juan Pablo Buriticá, an expert on remote work who has been leading distributed engineering teams for a decade.
Buriticá and his partner are both working from home in a 700-square-foot studio apartment in lower Manhattan, where they are now sharing their calendars to coordinate their conference call schedules and usage of the one designated working space, as they self-isolate along with millions of others around the world, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hybrid robo looking to offer financial wellness to retirement plan sponsors
BrightPlan Coach fashions a financial plan for each employee and provides guidance on spending, financial goals, investing, debt management, estate planning and insurance.
Financial advisers promote services like “comprehensive financial planning” and “financial wellness” to differentiate themselves from digital advice startups and justify their fees, but now at least one robo-adviser is looking to do the same.
Partnerships & Alliances (July/August 2019)
The latest training industry mergers, acquisitions, partnerships, and more.
Article Author:
Edited by Lorri Freifeld
Skillsoft, a global leader in corporate learning, and MIT xPRO, an affiliate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a provider of online learning courses for technology and business professionals, entered a licensing agreement. Beginning spring 2019, Skillsof…
M&A in Corporate Training
Investments and Acquisitions of the Second Quarter of 2019
Each quarter, we gather the industry’s mergers, acquisitions and funding from the previous three months to share some of the major trends. The second quarter of 2019 saw significant activity in assessment and analytics, compliance training, e-learning, IT and technical training, leadership training, learning technologies and human capital management (HCM) platforms, and sales training and enablement.
Continue Reading
The Ledger: China’s Bitcoin Ban, Crypto Endowments, Arbitrage bots
China appears poised once again to clamp down on the cryptocurrency industry. But people should welcome, not fear, the proposal.
The National Development Reform Commission, China’s top economic planner, last week recommended eliminating the digital “mining” business altogether, echoing similar guidance the commission published in 2011. The country has dominated this lucrative specialty for the better part of Bitcoin’s history thanks to an abundance of cheap electricity, sourced from coal and hydropower, as well as the presence of a well-established manufacturing base capable of supplying the necessary machinery.
Fintech gets pressure-tested, but ‘crypto winter’ may not be as cold as it feels
For many participants in the world of financial technology, 2018 was a year to forget.
The market for initial coin offerings ground to a halt, buffeted by regulatory issues and a steep collapse in value. Miners have come under fire for the massive amounts of electricity used to mint new coins. Questions plagued the security of cryptocurrencies and their vulnerability to attackers.
Sleep tech at CES aims to beat Vegas at its own game
LAS VEGAS — If there’s a town that fights harder to keep you from getting a good night’s sleep than this one, I sure haven’t found it. Which may help explain why the sleep-tech collection of exhibits at the massive CES trade show here has become so popular.
Companies aren’t sleeping on the growing popularity of sleep tech. Although total CES exhibit space is roughly flat from last year, the sleep-tech section has swelled 22 percent, making it one of the fastest-growing concentrations in the hot digital health, wellness and fitness area.
CES 2019: “Family tech” gadgets appeal to parental anxiety
Every year, the CES gadget show brings more devices promising to make life a little bit easier for harried parents.
Sure, the kids might love them too: who wouldn’t want a computerized Harry Potter wand that also teaches coding? The Las Vegas show’s growing “family tech” sector encompasses products that range from artificially intelligent toys and baby monitors to internet-connected breast pumps.
Their common thread is an appeal to parental anxiety about raising smart kids, occupying their time, tracking their whereabouts and making sure they’re healthy and safe.
Magid: Health, fitness and a ‘smart bra’ at CES
There are enormous number of products on display at CES, ranging from the wacky to the fun to the useful to the essential. And some are potentially life saving.
So, in between looking at big screen TVs, cool concept cars, robots, home appliances and all the other products on display, I spent my time at the health and fitness-and-wearables area at the Sands Convention Center and spoke with some of the speakers at the 10th annual Digital Health Summit, sponsored by Living in Digital Times.
Crescenta Valley High senior named one of five ‘Young Innovators to Watch’
In case Crescenta Valley High School student Lyron Co Ting Keh needed validation he was, indeed, young and innovative, the senior will soon receive more than his share of confirmation.
Co Ting Keh, 17, was named one of five “Young Innovators to Watch” from the United States and Canada by technology and lifestyle event producers Living in Digital Times, and is heading to Las Vegas to be honored at a giant consumer electronics show produced by Living in Digital Times on Thursday.
CES 2019 Liveblog: We’re Here in Vegas, Touching All the Gadgets
Welcome to day one of our CES 2019 liveblog. Monday is the unofficial first day of the show—unofficial because it’s mostly just press conferences and events for the media. CES proper, with all of its gaudy excess, begins on Tuesday when the expo halls open to the public.
Living in Digital Times
Living In Digital Times Press. Click the image to view pressroom and all slides
What Will Be the Last Gadget Standing at CES 2019?
Every year, I enjoy judging the annual Last Gadget Standing competition at the CES show. The products in the competition are rarely the ones that get the biggest headlines at the show—no 8K TVs or 5G phones this year—but they are usually fun and interesting. This year’s nominees include a variety of products that stand out by doing something different from the everyday.
Here are the 8 tech trends you’ll see this year
LAS VEGAS — Last year was a rough one for the tech world.
Customers seemed consistently underwhelmed with the new “innovations” that companies like Apple were billing as amazing breakthroughs, and we all became painfully aware that our personal data wasn’t as personal as we’d previously thought.
We’re entering 2019 with a lot of the same problems (albeit with a better idea of how to fix them). In fact, companies have more data now than they know what to do with.
How to give kids good body image in the age of Snapchat
Welcome to Small Humans, an ongoing series at Mashable that looks at how to take care of – and deal with – the kids in your life. Because Dr. Spock is nice and all, but it’s 2018 and we have the entire internet to contend with.
During a recent date night with my husband, my beloved babysitter let my 4-year-old daughter take a few (unpublished) pictures with a Snapchat filter that added blush and eyelashes while smoothing out her already blemish-free skin. My daughter was transfixed, and started referring to those pictures as “the pretty ones.” My jaw instantly dropped, as did my heart.
“By age 4, children begin to compare themselves to others,” says Dr. Pam Roggeman, academic dean for the University of Phoenix College of Education. “There is now a new task added to the job of being a parent: teaching our kids to be critical viewers to help them develop an identity that is beyond their appearance.”
CES 2019 WEARABLES: FUTURE GROWTH IN HEALTH AND MEDICAL
Wearable Technology moves into Pharma and Healthcare Industry.
The Apple Watch 4 can perform now an ECG (electrocardiogram). Apple is not a medical company, but they are able to develop a smartwatch that can do ECGs. This just shows the potential what companies in the healthcare and pharma industry would be able to do with wearable technology. The future of treatments will be much more technical and include smart devices that patients wear or even get implanted.
The Digital Health Summit at the CES 2019 will be the stage for new digital solutions in health including wearables. Another location to find new wearables in the health segment is the Wearable Tech event
The Digital Money Forum Presents the Great Crypto Debate
What: The Digital Money Forum at CES® introduces the hottest financial trends and opportunities in the emerging world of money and payments, with an emphasis on the blockchain, cryptocurrency and the coin economy. Join the most passionate, 
risk-taking, and possibly smartest people on the planet rewriting the rules defining money. Our experts will keep you at the edge of your seats!
Top Financial Trends and Experts at The Digital Money Forum
- SIM Swap Crimes: Digital Identity and Robbery in the Age of Crypto with Michael Terpin, Founder & CEO, Transform Group International & Rob Pegoraro, Journalist, Yahoo! Finance
- The Tokenization of Everything with Matt Roszak, Co-founder & Chairman, Bloq
- VCs in an ICO World with Tim Draper, Founder, Draper VC
- Investing in Blockchain with Jonathan Johnson III, President, Medici Ventures
- Making Blockchain Work with Tom Anderson, CEO, Devv.io
- Plugging the Holes in Mobile Security with Bimal Gandhi, CEO, Uniken
I lost my identity at Money20/20 so you don’t have to
Two of the main themes echoing throughout the halls of the recent Money20/20 finance conference in Las Vegas were trust and identity. Knowing that you are who you say you are has become trickier than ever. According to Javelin Strategies, in 2018, identity theft and fraud hit a new record high, costing the U.S. consumer $16.8 billion dollars. In 2018 we watched wild-eyed as everything came under attack, from our Facebook accounts to our mobile devices to our election votes.
Is Yeast the Future of Manufacturing?
John Melo believes that the path to making sustainable development mainstream is to create environmentally-friendly products so appealing that demand forces the replacement of traditional manufacturing methods. He hopes this will eliminate a great deal of pollution and environmental degradation, as he builds synthetic genomics firm Amyris, where he is CEO.
He wants to “make it easier for people to choose better for themselves and for the planet,” he says. “For the average consumer in 10 years, sustainably made products should become the new normal, and harmful products will be the exception.”
Living In Digital Times Taps Varney Business
Living In Digital Times Taps Varney Business Communication For Public Relations For CES™ 2019®
Laser media focus on hottest consumer technology trends and innovations
NEW YORK, Oct. 17, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — Living in Digital Times, LLC (LIDT) today announced that it has engaged Varney Business Communications as its public relations team handling all media relations for CES 2019 in Las Vegas, January 6-11, 2019.
For the past fifty years, CES has set the global stage for next-generation innovators and is the gathering place for business leaders and entrepreneurs in consumer technologies. Living in Digital Times, founded in 2007 by veteran journalist and technology maven Robin Raskin, is a supporting partner of CES and has created exhibits, conferences, and awards showcasing the technologies shaping health, money, retail, family, and other “emerging slices” of the tech industry.
This year at CES 2019 attendees will experience the newest and coolest innovations in, and markets for, the Internet of Things (IoT), Personal Voice Assistants, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and the blockchain.
T+E NYC Preview: Voices of Responsibility
I’ve spent the last two weeks talking to the speakers and panelists joining us at next week’s Techonomy NYC. One theme came through consistently: business, infused by tech, must be responsible for its impact, and for doing good.
This is not hyperbole. Businesspeople are people, and the world is in bad shape. Our governments are not doing what we need. And many of our problems are global. Bizarrely, companies are operating globally in ways that no country’s government ever can be.
Net-neutrality is over. Now California, Oregon are stepping in
Net neutrality is dead. Long live Net neutrality.
The longtime hot-button issue — essentially about whether your Internet service provider should be able to block or slow legal traffic, or charge for faster delivery of some content — won’t likely recede any time soon, even though a milestone nears in the national tussle about the topic.
Could a tax incentive pry empty nesters from their oversize homes?
One problem afflicting the Bay Area and other regions is that a growing percentage of people are “over-housed” or living in homes with unused bedrooms. This is largely because Baby Boomers make up a growing portion of the population and, like generations before them, can’t bear the stress of leaving a home full of memories and stuff.
Network test tools from Fluke, NETSCOUT and SignalTEK
Network testers are ideal for IDing bad cabling, helping to troubleshoot network issues, estimating cable lengths and determining cable rates. Here’s a look at three that can do the job and provide a range of features.
It’s not good enough to run cables and just hope they work, or simply say it’s all good if they provide a working network connection to the computer or device. You should double-check by testing or qualifying the cable runs before you call the job complete.
You should use a tester to check if all the cable pairs are intact and correctly wired and see if the cable can truly handle the data rates you desire. Network testers can also be a lifesaver when troubleshooting network issues or making changes to the wired network.
FCC repeals net neutrality amid criticism from politicians, startups
The Federal Communications Commission voted Thursday to repeal Obama-era net neutrality regulations that guaranteed equal access to the Internet, a controversial reversal that drew swift rebuke by companies and politicians in the Bay Area, where many advocates for the rules said they counted on them to protect Internet users and foster the growth of startups.