Author: Tim Bajarin

One of the most influential people in the history of technology was Dr. Andy Grove. Robert Noyce and Dr. Gordon Moore founded Intel. Dr. Grove was the third employee at Intel. He became its CEO in 1987 and gave up that role in May of 1998. He was an expert on physics and the technology of semiconductors and wrote a college textbook on this subject in 1967.

He was also known as one of the top business managers of that period and was well known for his book on management called “Only The Paranoid Survive.”

The book’s paranoia focus was on how a company needs to stay ahead of the competition by not only anticipating trends years in advance. It also focused on being paranoid that a company of even small means and new technology could come out of nowhere to challenge even a big company like Intel. Grove was highly influenced by Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen who wrote an important book entitled “The Innovators Dilemma.”

I was privileged to get to know Dr. Grove and had many insightful discussions with him about his management philosophy. I observed as he guided Intel during his CEO years. During his tenure as CEO, Grove oversaw a 4,500% increase in Intel’s market capitalization from $4 billion to $197 billion.

As I have been thinking about our current situation with the COVID-19 Pandemic and its potential aftershocks for business, education, and consumers, the title and focus of Dr. Groves’s book explaining why only the paranoid survive, could apply to our current situation.

Instead of a new company coming out of nowhere to create a disruptive technology, a virus of questionable origin has emerged and caught the world off guard. Given its dangerous potency and invisible spreading, one could argue that only the paranoid survive in this challenging time.

The disastrous impact COVID-19 has had on world health, and our forced quarantine has made us suspicious of the people around us. It makes us question if it is safe to go out. People are looking over their shoulders and asking how safe are we from the person we see at our doctor’s office, grocery store, gas station, or anyone we come in contact with while running essential errands.

COVID-19 has brought mass paranoia to what I believe will evolve into the Virus Age and will have long-lasting effects even if we get a vaccine to combat this COVID-19 Pandemic.

I use the term Virus age because, as Bill Gates has been telling us for over a decade, due to poverty and lack of sanitation in many parts of the world, a virus of significant nature could emerge at any time. In the past, these viruses mostly stayed within a region, although H1N1 did go global as did the bird flu. Thankfully those were caught early, and WHO and local officials were proactive enough to keep it from becoming a sweeping global pandemic.

However, COVID-19 has become a game-changer and brought home the accuracy of Gates’s warnings about the threat of viruses coming from emerging nations whose food habits and lack of even standard sanitation practices can be breeding grounds for dangerous viruses continually.

Also, I suspect that terrorists are going to school on this Pandemic and looking into using bioterrorism to get their way in the future.

This paranoia effect will be broad as we consider trying to get back to a normal life again, although I suspect the term “normal” will have different meanings for many people in the future.

And looking over our shoulders and keeping a paranoid attitude towards our surroundings and the people we will interact with in the future seems like it will be something we will all deal with for years to come.

However, I believe technology could help minimize that paranoia, especially in our offices. For example, companies who had moved to an open office space environment, where people sit almost shoulder to shoulder to work, will become a thing of the past. These new office spaces will be forced to place people at least six feet apart and bring in tabletop dividers back to give people more privacy and sanitation protection. Office complexes will become more like office hubs where people come to collaborate for a short time and then do the work from home.

At least one company I spoke with is looking at putting ultra-violet blue lamps in each cubicle, to ward off viruses in any desk area. High-intensity ultraviolet lights kill viruses and would give that workspace some level of virus protection.

Copper is another material that repels viruses. A couple of companies I talked with are exploring using copper desktops to keep workers safe.

Apple and Google’s co-developed contact tracing project has come potential, although it comes with serious privacy issues. It also needs the public to record their COVID-9 status for it to work.

New technology will give companies tools to get people back to the office and working together again, albeit in altered states and with significant levels of spacing and sanitation practices that will be new and disruptive for many.

The technology heroes of this virus era will come from the Pharma and biotechnology field. Their work in finding effective treatments for healing the sickness resulting from COVID-19 and an eventual vaccine will be what is necessary to give a fatal blow to this pandemic virus.

However, I sense that the era of virus paranoia will linger for years to come. We will be washing our hands and using hand sanitizers more frequently during the day well into the future. We will be more conscious of being too close to people no matter whether we are at work, school, or shopping.

Businesses will redesign their office spaces to keep the paranoia level down as much as possible. Keeping six feet apart may become the norm, and the handshake may become a relic even when this Pandemic is over.

Andy Groves’s book suggests that ‘Only The Paranoid Survive” could easily apply to our age of viruses. We must be vigilant in our social distancing and become more aware of sanitation and personal hygiene in case another virus pops up out of nowhere. While living a paranoid life is never optimal, it may be the only way we can diligently protect ourselves in the Age of Virus risks.

Around the time Apple made the deal to move from PowerPC chips to Intel Chips, I discussed this move with Steve Jobs. In my conversation with Jobs, he had told me that his ultimate goal was to create their own CPU’s eventually but admitted that it was more of a pipe dream at that time.

The move from the Power PC to Intel was provoked by Apple’s belief that the Power PC could not keep up with the speeds and feeds that Intel was delivering continuously. Also, the AIM alliance behind the Power PC was beginning to falter, and Jobs and the team questioned their long term commitment to the Power PC architecture.

Not long after Jobs and Paul Otellini, who was CEO of Intel at the time, struck a deal for Apple to shift to Intel, and I was asked by Intel to help them with their strategies around supporting Apple. All of that work was under NDA, but I became a fly on the wall of these conversations. During that time, I came to understand the why and how Apple would start the move to Intel and how Intel would create more of a custom approach to supplying Apple with X86 chips for the Mac.

Over the years, Apple and Intel’s relationship grew very close. However, Jobs and the team still believed that Apple’s ultimate strategy would become a silicon chip designer themselves, starting with custom chips to support the iPhone and iPad.

If you have not read Ben’s piece yesterday, that goes into detail about Johnny Scruigi’s explanation of why Apple created their A series architecture and its future impact on all Apple hardware, I encourage you to read it. It is very insightful and gives a good background of their thinking about this switch from Intel to their own A-series processors for use in the Mac. The title is also clever since it plays off the Intel Inside marketing that once showcased Intel innovation as a differentiator.

As I stated earlier, this was part of Jobs’ vision for Apple since 2004. When he and I discussed Apple’s idea of doing their own processors, he only stated it more in the context of it being a “dream of his” to move in this direction. And since Jobs was a man of action with the means to make things happen, we know now that Apple was doing the deal with Intel about the same time. They also were starting to gather their team of silicon processor designers to begin the process of creating their custom chips.

Jobs, by nature, was a control freak. I learned that the hard way during his NeXT days where he blocked me from covering NeXT because I was not a “workstation analyst” as well as for my criticism of him during his last days at Apple in 1985. (Interestingly, he changed his view of me after he bought Pixar and even invited me to the Black Tie preview of Pixar’s Toy Story in SF.)

Part of Jobs’ control-freak nature is that he wanted Apple to own as much of the hardware and software technology in-house so that they could control their destiny.

He was very aware of the traditional PC vendor’s “dilemma”–as he called it- which to be successful, they had to rely on Intel and Microsoft to provide the core CPU and OS to make computers. He understood that by relying on third-party platforms like Intel and Microsoft, the PC makers were just “box makers” with little chance to innovate.

He despised that idea, and while he decided to use an Intel CPU in Macs, he at least had control of the OS and the apps eco-system. Now his dream of Apple owning the CPU, OS, and software tools has been realized. It took over ten years to get there, but unfortunately, he did not live long enough to see this vision of his play out.

Steve Jobs put Apple on this trajectory to become the CPU provider that gives them unique control of their hardware and software. It now allows Apple to innovate in ways that the traditional PC makers cannot, given their reliance on Intel and Microsoft, and Google with ChromeOS.

Although Jobs was the visionary behind this move to their custom processors, Tim Cook and the team realized it. For the first time in Apple’s history, they are in the driver’s seat to drive innovation forward on all three of their core computing platforms, and it will fascinating to see how this plays out now that Apple controls the stack for every product they make.

In my column for Forbes last week, I wrote about how smartphones with cameras have been impacting world history since Apple’s iPhone burst onto the market in 2007.

In the article, I wrote about the integration of a camera and a cell phone and how its history could be traced back to Philippe Kahn, who at the time was CEO of Borland. He jerry-rigged a small camera to his cell phone so that he could send pictures to friends and family of his daughter Sophie, who was born in 1997, from the hospital.

Philippe came to my office and showed me his camera phone idea before he went public with it. He asked my opinion on who he should talk to about his new invention. In a note from Philippe to me last week, he reminded me that he asked my thoughts about going to Kodak, and I told him that they were going through a major repositioning at the time and was trying to prop up their legacy photo business, I told him Kodak would not be a good partner for this in 1997. Instead, I steered him towards some Japanese companies and that is who he eventually partnered with for the first version of a camera phone that came out in 2000 by Sharp. Apple took this idea to the next level with the iPhone intro in 1997 and as they say, the rest is history.

Smartphones with cameras are recording history as it happens. Its impact on catching things like the police killing of George Floyd and, more recently the police shooting of Rayshard Brooks over the weekend in Atlanta, is a powerful example of how smartphones with cameras can hold people, authorities, and governments, responsible for their actions.

Modern historians are actively working within this technological shift. Once having to rely on archives of documents, images, and more from libraries or institutions, they now have images posted all over social media from the vantage points of diverse human beings. Modern history can now be preserved from every angle with rich media thanks to smartphones and their image capture capabilities.

Smartphones with the camera have to be considered one of the most important technological inventions of our current time, and most certainly one of the most important of our last decade.

Besides its use in capturing family pictures and allowing us to post images and videos on sites like Pinterest, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, and many other social media platforms, it has become a vehicle for change.

We got our first glimpse of this with the Arab Spring uprising in 2009 and have seen the rise of what has often been called “citizen Journalism” where cameraphones combined with social media, record the good and evil of our day as it happens.

And the last two weeks this has been amplified by the social injustices we are seeing right before our eyes with the brutal killings the aforementioned black men. While the battle for social injustice and human rights as been ongoing for decades, perhaps this time, and perhaps in part to smartphone cameras, we will see a different outcome and be moved to a better place.

We are still early in this century and I am sure we will have other technologies that will be invented in the future that may have a similar impact on our lives and history. We can hope technology can continue to empower the voices who historically had no voice or no medium to be heard universally. Between social media and smartphones/smartphone cameras, that is becoming a reality.

As I have been reflecting on what has happened in the last few weeks and how the powerful camera in everyone’s pockets has played an important role in recording history and showing it as it happens via social media, I have come to appreciate how this invention is changing the world in real-time and will continue to for years to come.

At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, when people were sent home to work and schools were closed, and kids had to learn from home, demand for PC’s and Laptops rose significantly.

In the case of business demand for laptops, many CIOs sent staff home with PCs that were four-to-five years old that had poor cameras and mediocre sound systems. We saw an immediate demand for new laptops being purchased by IT directors as more and more were sent home to work. Even today, although demand has leveled off, these IT managers have signaled that they will be more aggressive in updating older systems in the future.

When schools closed, kids were forced to learn from home and use either school given Chromebooks or traditional laptops if someone in the home had one. In many cases, it was the laptop of a parent who was also using it for work. The demand for laptops in the home has also leveled out, but we do see more interest in consumer laptops at this time than we did later year in the same time frame.

While all the big PC vendors were happy with the stronger demand for PCs and Laptops in what is normally a slow quarter, they were savvy enough to know that given the uncertainty of the economy going into the end of this year and into 2021, they may need to help their IT customers with ways to keep upgrading at almost no cost in the short term.

All of the major PC makers who serve IT buyers are now offering varying degrees of a buy, now pay later, and device as a service programs. Also, many new leasing programs are being made available to the enterprise to entice them to upgrade sooner than later. These types of financing programs have been in PC Vendors arsenal for years, but our current situation has forced them to highlight them and make their customers more aware of this option.

The PC vendors see that stats. Many surveys of corporate IT directors say that they are open to having 30% to 70% of their staff, depending on sector, work from home. They also know that hundreds of millions of PCs and laptops in use are over four years old or even older.

This is one of those moments in the PC history that vendors know that they have to seize the moment and use it to help companies convert from older machines to new ones that can meet the demands of a new normal where. Mobility and portable computing has gone beyond sales and service forces and now include mainstream working staff too.

In a way, 2020 may be the watershed that Microsoft, Intel, and all of the PC vendors have wanted for over a decade. IT directors have continued to buy new PCs and laptops, mostly driven by current needs tied to new hires and, on some occasions, replacing older laptops that were too expensive to repair.

But with more and more of their staff working from home, and a majority of them using laptops that are older than four years, IT may be forced to move to newer machines much faster than in the past.

It is still very unclear if our economy will rebound in a V-Curve or struggle for some time, as it seems clear now that we have entered into a recession that has no quick fix. Yet companies with staff who are now forced to work from home need their systems to be more up-to-date.

If ever there was a time to highlight -Buy Now, Pay Later and new leasing programs to keep IT purchases of PCs and laptops moving in a down economy, this would be the time.

Our family has gone through a very difficult and trying time during this Covid-19 Pandemic. Like many other families who have had loved ones in the hospital and could not visit them during the stay-at-home orders and hospitals barring any visitors, we too had to deal with a similar situation.

In late January, my brother, a retired Santa Clara Sheriff, had a serious fall that left him paralyzed. He was in serious condition and could not leave the hospital under any circumstances. For most of February, the family was able to visit him and spend time with him. Around early March, our county put out the stay-at-home orders and the hospital he was in, barred any visitors.

Due to the nature of his injury, he could not talk or speak. Even if we called him and a nurse held the phone to his ear, he could only listen. Because the nurses were so busy, they just nestled the phone near his ear and could not even tell us if and how he responded to our calls.

We even tried to do a FaceTime call with him and tried to get a nurse to help, which was very difficult. I even offered to come to the hospital and bring them one of my laptops that they could place on his bedside table and put in front of him and teach a nurse how to answer a Zoom conference call. That was rejected because I would not be allowed to step into the hospital.

Unfortunately, my brother passed away a few weeks back, and he had no visitors in the last six weeks of his life and died alone. It broke our hearts, and we will always live with that hollow feeling of not being able to be with him or even communicate with him during a very difficult time in the last weeks of his life.

The issue of our family and hundreds of thousands of people who cannot visit hospitals to visit loved ones in person during the pandemic, or if they live out of town, presents a real opportunity for someone to create what I will call a Mobile Bedside Video Conferencing System.

I envision it could be as simple as a laptop, or dedicated monitor with a camera and microphone that sits on a cart that could be rolled into a patient’s room and allow them to have a Zoom video conference with the patient at a designated time. Ideally, one of these would be in every patient room but that is likely too costly for most hospitals.

It would have to be provided by a third-party solution and service. I spoke with a hospital administrator who said that if this was done independently and as a service and they could charge patients a small fee for this service, they would love to offer it as an option. It would also have to be very simple to set up, log in, and get connected. Such a solution, like Zoom, would be ideal, although all of the other video services could be used if modified and customized for this type of service.

Regardless of how long our Covid-19 isolation lasts, or when families will be able to go see loved ones in the hospital, a Mobile Bedside Video Conferencing System makes sense. Many people who end up in the hospital have friends and relatives that live long distances from the hospital where they are residing.

This would allow a patient to connect with families or friends who can’t get to the hospital to see them in ways not possible today. Yes, smartphones and laptops could provide a video conference link if a family member can get to the hospital and provide that feature themselves but there would be varying degrees of quality. Ideally, a dedicated solution with great cameras, great video, tied to great broadband would provide a valuable in-patient experience where residents can have virtual visitors and more quality interactions.

A solution like this could also be used for the growing telehealth trend and provide a dedicated solution in hospitals for doctors to do virtual consultations.

A Mobile Bedside Video Conferencing System could be a blessing for anyone whose loved ones are in a hospital or nursing facility. It is impossible to go see them due to several issues or restrictions right now, but even beyond this pandemic for friends or family out of state or country, it is a nice way to allow virtual visitors to those in a hospital or nursing care.

Given the Pandemic, we are in and not being sure how long it will last or if it will have a second wave, I believe that this is a business opportunity for someone to grab and make life much more tolerable when it comes to people being able to connect with loved one’s in a hospital easily and often.

Last week I wrote a piece for Forbes that questions whether CES could move forward with a normal CES in the age of Covid-19.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/timbajarin/2020/05/06/can-ces-2021-proceed-in-the-age-of-covid-19/#3a45247b7be6

CES is a show where social distancing is not possible. Over 180.000 people attended CES, and even with 2.1 million square feet of exhibit space, the aisles are crammed everywhere with people shoulder to shoulder, trying to see what was new and exciting.

My perspective is that given the social distancing requirements that I believe will be in place well into 2021, the possibility of holding a normal CES in January 2021 is highly questionable at this time. That could change if we get some medical miracles in the form of a vaccine or a successful treatment if one gets Covid-19. But most reports suggest we would have a vaccine available for everyone until mid to late 2021.

CTA, the trade organization behind CES, sent me the following note, saying they are moving ahead with CES plans but admit there will be challenges. Here is their official statement they sent me.

CTA’s official position on CES 2021 is as follows:

“Planning for CES 2021 is well underway. We are focused on bringing you the most influential tech event in the world. Major brands are committed for the show, and we look forward to announcing another slate of top-tier speakers for CES 2021. While we plan for our event in Las Vegas, there are new considerations around attending conferences and tradeshows. We are adapting to the evolving situation and want to ensure that CES continues to help make the connections businesses need to grow while keeping the safety, security, and health of all our attendees as a priority. Please check www.ces.tech for an updated list of changes.”

Since I wrote that article on CES for Forbes, IFA, the largest consumer electronics show in the world that takes place in Berlin in early September, has shared how they will proceed with their show this fall.

I spoke this week with Jens Heithecker, the Executive Director of IFA Berlin, and he told me how this new event would work:

“After all the event cancellations during the past months, our industry urgently needs a platform where it can showcase its innovation so that it can recover and rebound. The recovery of our industry starts here at IFA Berlin.” While virtual events were useful, they were “missing the immediacy, hands-on experience and human connections that make events like IFA Berlin so incredibly useful”

He acknowledged that holding IFA in its past format, where close to 400,000 people attend the show in Berlin, would not be possible this year. Instead, they have created an event that is much smaller and more targeted over three days from Sept 3-5, 2020.

Given the fact that they cannot have large crowds this year, they have developed an innovative format to meet industry needs, which includes as many as 1,000 invited guests for each day at specifically focused events.

That means that at any given time, there will only be 4,000 invited guests at the Berlin Conference grounds. (Interestingly, the Berlin government-approved crowds up to 5,000. However, IFA officials wanted a smaller number they believed could be managed better given the social distancing issues they have to deploy with all attendees.)

The IFA event will have four different exhibits or programs. You can read the details of these events here.

One important thing about how this year’s show will be managed by IFA officials is that they will not require any vendors to put up booths of their own. Many won’t even commit to coming to the show until later this summer as they wait to see how things go in terms of being able to travel from the US to Europe or from other countries where travel restrictions are still in place at the moment.

To accommodate these folks, IFA will build booths in these halls that can be set up in advance and are all about the same dimensions. All companies need to be at the show is their signage and products to show to the media, customers, and dealers. This is an interesting move by IFA and one that should serve them well with vendors and make it possible for vendors to commit even weeks before the event starts.

It is tough for me to see a normal CES taking place in January 2021 without some significant lifting of restrictions and medical miracles. I suspect CTA management will be watching IFA’s temporary format for their Sept Show in Berlin and would not be surprised if CES does something similar if needed to keep CES 2021 from being canceled next year.

There have been various reports lately that Amazon, Walmart, and Target, among other retailers, are looking at hiring over 100,000 new employees in the next few months. When I first read about this a few weeks back, I was somewhat puzzled. In the short term, the demand for people buying online and it being delivered made sense, given the kind of restrictions people have during this Covid-19 quarantine.

However, I had initially thought that once we are out of danger from spreading Covid-19, and we got back to a somewhat usual way of life, the need for buying so much of what we used to do in person would go back to normal. That would mean that the hires by Amazon, Walmart, and others would be more of a seasonal move, rather than a permanent one.

As we go deeper into the quarantine and all of us are forced to change the way we work, learn, shop and even play, it appears that Amazon, Walmart, and others big companies who have online stores are preparing for what we may call shortly the “new normal of retail.”

I am not suggesting that big box stores like Costco and Sams or even stores like Walmart, Target, and other big retailers will not have a strong physical presence in the future. Shopping at these stores, as well as grocery stores, will always have a place in our society.

However, I sense that there is something bigger going on in terms of changing social behavior that will transcend the current Covid-19 crises that forces almost all of us to shelter-in-place. As we hunker down, we are learning that buying online or even ordering food to go, would work well even when we get back to busy schedules and can’t get out to a store to get what we need.

Amazon has already conditioned us to buy online for specific items we can’t find readily in stores near us. Forcing us to buy more of even mundane things like cleaning supplies, household items, and groceries, have been normalized during this challenging period in our history.

The proactive hiring by Amazon, Walmart, and others suggests that they see this shift taking place much clearer than the market does. They already had data showing a more substantial swing to online sales. Still, our current situation is making people much more comfortable with online shopping than they were before the stay-at-home mandate was issued.

This level of comfortably shopping online could become second nature. I have been talking to execs in online retail, and they confirm that they see something significant taking place before our eyes. As one executive told me, “if there were objections to shopping online in the past, they are all but gone now.”

It is too early into this phase of stay-at-home trends to see any reliable data on how our current quarantine will impact how much more consumers shift to buying products online. However, it does appear that Amazon, Walmart, and others see the data as it affects them. They are starting to understand that a significant shift to purchasing goods online is growing and will continue to grow even after we all get back to work, and life gets back to a somewhat normal pace.

On a similar note, Covid-19 is also forcing other industries who have resisted going digital to quickly adopt digital transformation policies. Up to now, many have shunned integrating digital technologies into their business models.

Newspapers are being forced to shut down print editions and ramp up digital operations. Restaurants who resisted doing take out orders are now doing this to survive. If and when they can get back to serving people on-site, doing take-out may be part of their long term business model.

Brick and mortar retailers that are closed are quickly jumping into the online ordering business to survive. Sellers, who only offered exclusive products online, are creating full online catalogs of what they have to offer.
On the other hand, those who have no online presence yet, like Marshals and others, are out of business until people can go back to the stores and shop in person.

I have done television interviews from my office with many TV networks over the years, as it is often difficult for me to get to a local studio to comment on a tech subject. Now, most of the networks are doing interviews with commentators from their homes, something that will continue well after this quarantine is behind us.

Our current state of forcing consumers to stay at home has begotten a new level of familiarity with online shopping, online food ordering, digital learning, and entertainment.

Moving to do much online is serving as a powerful educational process for all individuals to adjust to a digitally driven world. I see this not as a short term trend but one that will be longlasting even when our world returns to some level of normalcy.

On Intel’s Q2 2020 earnings call, CEO Intel CEO Bob Swan cited a quote from former CEO Andy Grove that I think is particularly apt for our times. In the call with analysts, Swan noted that Grove once said, “Bad companies are destroyed by crises; good companies survive them; great companies are improved by them.”

During Tuesdays opening keynote of the IBM THINK 2020 customer conference held virtually, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna made a comment I have heard from other CEO’s in tech in the last few weeks.

He pointed out that “Digital transformation has gone from years-long projects to ones that are now being completed in months or even weeks.”

This sentiment was reinforced in an Axios Post from my friend Ina Fried. In her daily Axios newsletter called Login:

She recounts notes from her Axios colleagues Sara Fisher and Kim Hart and relays the following:

“A slew of old-line industries that once hesitated to embrace digital technologies are now being forced to do so for the sake of survival, as Axios’ Sara Fischer and Kim Hart report.

Why it matters: Once consumers get used to accessing services digitally — from older restaurants finally embracing online ordering, or newspapers finally going all-digital — these industries may find it hard to go back to traditional operations.

Media and entertainment: Venerable mediums like television, newspapers, and movies are all quickly moving their content over to digital formats and online delivery as they struggle to adapt.

Newspapers are being forced to shut down print editions and ramp up digital operations. “We will look back on these events as a moment at which the newspaper industry’s transition from print to digital accelerated meaningfully,” says Jim Friedlich, executive director of the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, a nonprofit that supports local news and is the owner of the Philadelphia Inquirer. But, with ads down, many won’t be able to stay open in any form.

Television interviews are overwhelmingly being conducted via Skype or other digital channels.

Some movie studios, like Universal Pictures, have said that they will — for the first time — roll out movies to digital audiences at the same time that they make them available in theaters due to the crisis. There’s been a major uptick in internet video and streaming consumption, per Nielsen. More than a quarter of Americans (26%) are using video streaming services, like Netflix, for the first time, per the Consumer Technology Association.

Retail: Brick-and-mortar shops that never sold goods online are shifting to that mode at a moment when stores nationwide have shut their doors and customers aren’t leaving their homes.

Sellers who had offered a limited selection of their wares online are now shifting to full-catalog service.

Powell’s Books, an iconic Portland independent bookstore, was able to rehire 100 laid-off store employees after a surge of online orders from devoted customers.

By contrast, offline-only retailers, including big names like Marshall’s and TJ Maxx, are basically out of business until in-person shopping returns.

Food and beverage: Restaurants that previously chose not to adopt online ordering or delivery services are suddenly finding that to be their lifeline now that many parts of the country have banned on-location dining.

Topo Gigio, a small mom-and-pop Italian restaurant in Chicago, is using delivery services for the first time in its more-than-30-year history. It sees delivery and takeout as a better option than shutting down entirely, its owners tell CBS Chicago.

Uber Eats, the food delivery service from Uber, announced two weeks ago that it would waive all delivery fees for local restaurants.

Workouts and fitness: Everything from ballet lessons and karate classes to physical therapy sessions and yoga instruction has gone virtual.

In Houston alone, more than a dozen fitness and yoga operations have taken their services online.

Some people like to work out with other people for social motivation. Those people may still prefer to go to group fitness classes, but may choose ones that are smaller or in spaces where they can maintain more distance from others, Yelp data science editor Carl Bialik said. “But for business owners that get really comfortable with that, they will probably continue to see that as a much bigger channel than they had before,” he said.”

My neighbor, who owns a breakfast and lunch diner in Morgan Hill, just south of San Jose, has a very successful eat-in only restaurant and was one of the highest-trafficked eating establishments in this bedroom community. When the shelter-in-place order was issued, his business went to zero customers. However, he very quickly pivoted to a take out model and now serves about 200+ meals a day and over 500+ on weekends.

While his profit margins have been minimal, he has been able to retain much of his staff and keep the lights on during this Quarantine. More importantly for him, he now has a significant new take out service he will add to his business model, something he resisted for years. He added online ordering, pick-up, and delivery and was able to customize his computing system quickly to accommodate this change. In his case, his digital transformation took only about a week.

My nephew in Seattle, who is a physical therapist and had just opened an extreme fitness center, was forced to close down when the Quarantine went into effect in Washington State. He, too, embraced digital technology quickly and created a particular set of virtual workouts and physical therapy sessions for his customers, in order to keep his business going during the Quarantine.

One example in Ina’s story is a favorite. Powell Books in Portland is one of my most favorite books stores. I have spent untold hours in this store, and when the Quarantine hit, they too had zero customers. This store had resisted selling all of their books online, but as the Axios story points out, they embraced the digital world and hired back 100 laid-off employees to handle a “surge of online orders from loyal customers.”

The examples I gave you here are mostly small businesses. But the media examples in Ina’s column are some giant publishers where digital has not been embraced fully in the past and is moving them in that direction quickly.

IBMs CEO’s comments are most interesting in that he is saying that medium and large businesses are moving just as fast as a small business. Their challenges are greater, but their need is just as critical to their survival.

In their case, they are embracing hybrid clouds, AI, and solutions that allow computing to the edge to drive their digital transformations. At its heart is the Work from Home movement. Almost every company to date has had to embrace this in some form or another.

That means that their workers must be connected to corporate clouds and apps on disparate servers that now must communicate with each other in ways not possible even three years ago.

IBM, Dell, Lenovo, HP, and others are creating the tools to make it possible for this digital transformation to accelerate for their customers, and these companies IT consulting services are now in great demand.

At the end of last year, some of the big tech companies I talked to felt that it would take at least another two-to-three years for most big and medium-sized companies to complete a full digital transformation. I went back to those who I spoke with in December, and they have been surprised and pleased to see that our current situation has caused their customers to move much faster to make this digital transformation in record time.

However, they pointed out that even with this urgency, it will take time, especially for the big companies to make this digital transition completely. But they are now more optimistic that they don’t have to spend much time and resources selling the idea of digital transformation. Instead, they can now concentrate on creating the infrastructure, apps, and services that make it possible for their customers to make this digital transformation and prepare for anything they may have to deal with in the future.

One of the more interesting questions we are being asked these days is how and when will companies start bringing their workers back to the office?

As you can imagine, opinions are everywhere on this subject, but after talking to some of my government contacts, and some IT managers whose job it is to get people back to work, I see a bit of a pattern emerge.

The number one thing for sure is that the office they left, with its open spaces and areas to roam campuses freely, will have new rules.

The first rule will be they must sit at least six feet apart, and their spaces will need to have dividers. So companies who had open office spaces, where people sit side by side, will be banned completely.

Company cafeterias will have reduced seating to accommodate six feet spacing. That means people will have to make reservations to eat in cafeterias or company restaurants, while most will probably resort to packing their own lunch pt going offsite if needed.

Even open spaces will have new seating arrangements to favor the six feet rule. Desks may have UV lights at each desk to kill bacteria on contact.

When workers enter the office, they will have to pass through a temperature checking system like the ones they have at the airports in China. These cover wide areas and can identify a person who has a temperature above normal as they pass through the area. If a higher temperature is noted, they will be sent home. These are none intrusive, and unless you know it is there, you would not even know you were going through this temperature check, if not for the signs in the airports in China that that ID them.

The temperature taking systems at first will be done by hand sensor guns, but I am told that government recommendations most likely will include these larger temperature testing system at every entrance.

Conference rooms will have less capacity as people will need to sit six feet apart. And signing up to use one will be mandatory. At first, workers may still be asked to wear masks at work, but as the threat level of virus contact goes down, that could be waived.

No company will bring everyone back at one time. Two valley companies I talked with will bring them back in staggered groups. One company’s plan will be to bring back a 4th the first week, another 4th the second week, and so on. And will offer work-at-home options to at least 30% of their total workforce if they can work from home.

In fact, most companies are seriously looking at allowing many white-collar workers to work from home at least 2-3 days a week, and more if that would work. The biggest complaint we have heard from WFH folks is the disruptions from school-age kids who are also home since schools are closed. Many believe working from home will be much better when the kids go back to school, hopefully in the fall.

Many working from home means that on-site management of staffing could change the demand for commercial real estate. Google recently backed out of a very large real estate project, North of their Mt View campus. On the other hand, downtown San Jose’s transit campus will go forward with an opening date of 2021.

Video conferencing systems will become mandatory in all conference rooms as they will be bringing more people to these in-house conferences from remote locations. This used to be considered a nice-to-have feature but will move to be a strategic one in this new era of office design.

Given the kind of physical changes, companies are going to have to make to their working environment, bringing back most of their staff may still be a way off. These recommendations are about to be floated to the big companies, who will need to start making physical design changes to their campuses before they can bring even half of their staff to on-site facilities.

One thing that seems to be in the mind of a lot of business leaders is that they need to invest and design around the fact that another Pandemic could happen in the future. The smart CEO’s and CIO’s are thinking way ahead and are putting into place new office designs and worker protections so that they are never caught flat-footed in the future.

These fundamental rule changes for office design and worker protection are just the start of a major business, work, and life transformation caused by this Virus. I suspect it is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the radical changes all industries will have to adapt to in order to get people back to work.

One of the essential tech shows for the PC and CE industry is CES. It takes place every January. As of the last CES, I have attended 45 shows dating back to my first one in 1977.

While I missed a few over the years, I think going to 45 shows makes me a veteran of this show. For many years I served in an advisory capacity for this show. I understand well that, even today, it is an important gathering place for PC and CE companies as well as buyers and industry professionals who attended CES to further their business interests for the new year.

While it is an important show and draws over 160,000+, it is one of those shows where just walking the show floor, you are shoulder-to-shoulder with attendees. The idea of social distancing is not an option even though the show covers over 2.9 million square feet of exhibit space.

That fact that CES by nature is a packed show, many are pondering the question of whether this show could go on given the current Pandemic and the reality that it might not be safe for people to go to large events until a vaccine becomes available. If you read the current projection for an effective vaccine, most predictions suggest it would not be available until at least late mid-to-late 2021.

One company, Facebook, has already taken a proactive position on its events and canceled all large gatherings until June of 2021. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and IBM already canceled their major events for most of 2020, and some late-year customer events may not come off as planned by Microsoft and IBM. As of yesterday, IFA also announced it is canceled which is a blow to the European consumer electronics market.

Although I do expect that once a vaccine comes out that we will again see large trade shows, I am not convinced they all come back in the same form they had in the past.

One thing I have picked up from some major show planners is that the big shows try to put many of their products and services under a single venue to get as many people to the event to experience what the entire company has to offer. Now they are thinking of smaller shows targeted at more specific customers and highlight the things that are most important to that customer.

As for broad trade shows, they too could find smaller, more focused shows that might be better for their members and their customers. Perhaps, less casual consumers just coming to browse at many of these shows, and only true people in the trade may attend.

Sitting here in April, it is probably too early to know if CES can go on as planned or as perhaps a smaller, more targeted event in January of 2021. I can imagine the folks at CES are in daily discussions on how to deal with this Pandemic, knowing that keeping their members and customers safe will be their highest priority.

I do think that the vendors who would be showing at CES need to start thinking of an alternative to getting their marketing messages out at the first of the year, given the possibility that a traditional CES may not take place. They could start planning smaller customer events for mid to late January to showcase their wares if travel restrictions are looser. Or start working now on creating a virtual trade show and exhibit that they could role out to customers at the beginning of 2021.

Part of me wants CES to go on as planned as it is a show that, unlike some of my colleagues, I do like and enjoy. However, without assurances that it would be safe, if CES does take place as planned in January, this may be one I will miss in the last 40 years.

From the first day, I walked into Creative Strategies in 1981, I was privileged to have my own office. And in the other jobs, I held before going to CS, I also had my own office, which afforded me privacy and the ability to work in solitude if I wanted to do so.

However, my working life was very white-collar and private offices were the norm for many people until, in the late 1980s, we began to see newer open space models emerge when it came to office building designs.

That is when the cubicle office designs emerged but even then, these cubicles were spaced in ways that each cubicle had good space and privacy to work.

However, the most recent trend in office design has shifted to complete open spaces where people literally sit two to three feet of each other with no space dividers at all. I recently visited one of my clients who decided to adopt this ultra open space design where thousands of their workers sit side by side to do their daily jobs.

These truly open space office designs are controversial. Besides having no privacy if you sit shoulder to shoulder with work colleagues, all calls can be heard by anyone in earshot and the actual noise factor goes up in this kind of working environment. And many surveys show that workers are very unhappy with these new open space office designs.

For years, when I went to a client’s office to work, I almost always was given a spare office or, at the very least, a spare cubicle to work. But in my recent trip to this client who has this open workspace, I had to work next to a programmer who had a headset on and was just focused on coding. On the other side of me was a person handling customer complaints. I found it very difficult to work in this environment. Perhaps I am just an old fogey and too conditioned to have more private workspaces in order to be productive.

If open office space workers had wished they could go back to private offices or at the very least, separated cubicles, their wish may be about to come to pass.

I am hearing from people involved with getting people back to work and one thing that seems to be mandatory will be that social distancing will become a necessity if companies are to bring workers back into their companies. In fact, office space dividers and cubicle walls, which were mostly junked when open office spaces emerged, are now in great demand as companies anticipate the potential of new rules on social distancing needed to be implemented before workers can be allowed back into the office.

What is interesting about this is that it could force companies to allocate a certain amount of workers to home permanently or allow them to work in the office on a rotating basis. If they have to space workers who are now in open space environments shoulder-to-shoulder at least six feet apart, the amount of desk space per person changes dramatically.

This is just one thing about how the COVID-19 isolation orders could impact our offices of the future. WFH could become more mainstream and office designs for workers will change for good. There will be others rules that will come out that will force change in the office, but this is perhaps the biggest one a company will have to deal with as they slowly bring workers back to their campuses in the near future.

Given the mandate for people to work from home, it seems logical to assume that most, if not all, who are doing this are using a desktop, laptop, or possibly a tablet to do their work.

For most of the history of the PC market, PC vendors have always had more than enough stock in place to meet demand during regular times, but these are not normal times.

In parts of the country, big outlets are reporting shortages of laptops, and demand for desktops are on the rise for the first time in years. And with people not being able to socialize in person, they are deferring to various digital means, and laptops and desktops are the preferred medium for things like video conferencing and games.

One key factor for the short supply of these products is the fact that almost all of the factories in China were locked down for at least a month from mid-January to Mid February. The average time for Chinese factories to be offline is about ten days during their New Year, which starts in mid-January. That pushed out the manufacturing of PCs and laptops at least another 2-3 weeks from normal.

The other reason is that Q1 is the slowest time for most PC and laptop sales during the year, and PC makers order smaller numbers in this quarter and then ramp up output in larger quantities by the end of Q2. That means that in Q1, at best, they only had about 6-8 weeks of inventory in place before the factories in China shut down.

The work from home mandate means that many companies had to move quickly to help their people connect from their homes. In about 38% of the cases, businesses sent people home with company based machines. In a recent NordVPN report, they found that about 62% of people working from home are using their personal PCs, laptops, and tablets for work purposes.

Our research is showing a couple of significant trends that are very favorable for the tech industry, and it starts with what we see in IT purchases. PC Vendors are telling us that demand for commercial laptops is very high, and this is forcing them to expand their manufacturing pipeline fast.

One vendor we know has increased their orders for Q2 by 60% to meet the demand of their business customers.
We hear similar numbers from those making consumer PC’s and laptops, as they too are seeing an upswing in demand and have increased their PC and laptop orders by an average of 25%-30% for Q2.

Families who have children that have been using Chromebooks are now in the market for laptops with better cameras and better audio. This is driving demand for consumer laptops into higher price ranges as parents see the need for better and more powerful laptops to meet the increased requirements the kids are getting from their teachers and online courses.

One question we are getting is whether this bump in demand for laptops and PC’s are a short term event or one with longer legs and bigger ramifications for the tech industry.

It is too early to have any stats to see if this is a long term trend, but some things are coming out of this WFH experiment that bodes well for tech and could harm at least one or two major industries.

IT buyers are signaling to PC makers that they will begin to speed up their PC and laptop upgrade cycles. Their tendency to keep laptops in circulation for 4 to 5 years is biting them as these laptops are being used at home and have inferior cameras, slow processors, and poor audio.

This could cause a huge wave of new laptops going into corporate for at least two years as they prepare for any other significant pandemics or economic disasters that could force most of their workers home again in the future.

Gartner recently surveyed IT directors, and they said that they are also rethinking their work at home policies. For many white-collar workers, they have found that their productivity has not gone down and instead improved. Less mindless meetings with people arguing and talking over each other, and instead, their virtual meetings are more focused, and they get more accomplished.

With this in mind, IT directors told Gartner that they could see allocating up to 20% of the workforce to their homes, and those people would only need to be in the office for major events or highly secure meetings.

The impact of this on business real estate and office building construction in the future could be a difficult one. While the tendency in a good economy may be to expand a companies
in-building workforce and augment real estate holdings, if WFH works for more companies, there could be a tidal wave shift in less demand for business real estate and offices.

One other thing that is becoming clear is that companies who have resisted moving to a full digital transformation will start moving in this direction faster than planned.

Smaller businesses are seeing the need to have as much of their operations include various elements of digital transformation in their business operations. This will need to happen if they want to grow and be prepared for any other types of interruptions that could impact our global economy and way of life in the future.

What is also coming out of this forced isolation is the fact that tech is now “essential” for people’s existence and sanity. PCs and laptops are people’s windows into work and entertainment. While tablets and smartphones can be used for these purposes too, when it comes to working at home and productivity, laptops and PC’s have risen in importance as the workhorses for any WFH initiatives.

Although the economy will indeed face a severe recession, with PC’s and laptops emerging as essential tools for business and families, this part of our tech industry should be able to weather this downturn without too many serious bumps.

The world is facing a crisis due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, a virus that is in the SARs family and has mutated and spread around the world at lightning speed.

Medical researchers are working around the clock to find a cure, as well as a vaccine to deal with this virus and its dire health consequences.

In the world of technology, one technology that will be desperately needed to help find a cure and a potent vaccine will be Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning.

Intel, IBM, and others with AI technology already have experience with applying AI to disparate cancer databases to try and curate data from cancer research centers around the world.
In this case, AI is targeted at a broad disease and using AI to find commonalities and using deep learning in a way to help researchers and doctors deal with this deadly disease.

In talking with medical researchers working in the field of virology, epidemics and disease transmissions, they are desperate to find a way to delve deeper into multiple data sources to not only find a cure for this current Cover-19 pandemic but to be able to identify any new viruses faster and keep them from spreading. They agree that AI and deep learning will be a critical tool in helping them with this quest.

Given our industry’s strong work in AI and its experience in using it for cancer research, I believe these companies need to perhaps create another moonshot like a project, not necessarily just focused on COVID-19, and look at applying AI and Deep learning to the work of identifying viruses as they develop in their early stages and keep them from spreading at all.

AI and deep learning has the potential of being one of the greatest technologies have created that can apply to this particular problem at a broad level, such as identifying and nipping viruses before they can spread, as well as finding cures and vaccines for ones that are already released on mankind.

Bill Gates has been warning us for years about the threat of deadly viruses and it has taken COVID-19 to get people to understand his comments and concerns. And as he has suggested, the medical world needs to work hard to identify these viruses early on and keep them from ever spreading.

I have been reading a lot of medical research papers on viruses, and most state that once a virus is identified, they need to aggressively go after its source. But to do so they need a wealth of data from past viruses and dig deeper at their roots and similarities in order to identify them and then crush them before they can spread.

At the moment, the research data is spread all over the world in databases and research material created by universities, Pharma labs, medical researchers and virologists, etc. But, in most cases, these databases are not connected to each other. Even worse is that some of these databases contain up to a couple of terabytes of material that need to be combed through and cross-referenced as part of any significant research to identify any new viruses at their roots as well as find a way to keep them from ever seeing the light of day.

If ever there was a time for tech to step up it is now. We have supercomputers and high-performance computing systems that, if aimed at these virus databases and applying AI and deep learning to the research process, the chance of identifying new viruses before they even start, could be possible.

I know that given our current situation with COVID-19, we need AI and Deep learning applied to find a cure and a vaccine in the short term. But those like Bill Gates and others who have studied viruses and their potential impa.ct, say that the current conditions such as climate change, extreme poverty, poor sanitation, etc could breed other viruses and we need to be able to ID them fast and eliminate them at their roots. If not, what we are going through now, could happen multiple times in our lifetime.

Last week I wrote about the potential of VR video conferences becoming a possibility in the future. My view of VR specifically is that it is a technology that is optimal for vertical markets like manufacturing, utilities, military, airlines, etc. Even VR video conferencing falls into my definition of vertical markets. I know that VR games have driven sales of VR headsets, and while that is a large market, it still falls under my view of vertical markets because it does not bring VR to the masses.

Based on years of research on AR and VR, I have felt that AR and VR were really different approaches to mixed reality and that it would be AR that would eventually bring mixed reality to the masses. I still hold that view and believe that Apple will eventually be the company that, with whatever AR headset with apps and service model they create, will be the one that actually gets mixed reality to the broader public.

However, now that I am at home and can finally spend more time using a VR specific headset like the Oculus Quest, I find myself using one particular VR application a lot. This app is related to travel, and more specifically, travelogues and travel-related documentaries and travel educational VR programs.

Now I admit that part of why this fascinates me is that I have traveled for 39 years as part of my job and visited over 50 countries in my work. This has created a travel bug in me that is pretty active. While I do enjoy not traveling at the moment, I found that I still would like the travel experience but without getting on planes or trains.

I had used VR travel apps in other VR headsets, but the Oculus Quest is a step above the lower cost VR headsets I have used in the past. It is no wonder that Oculus Quest headsets are on backorder now, as it appears that a lot of people have bought them during their stay-at-home experience.

Although I have used this VR headset for other apps, including some games, it is the travel apps that I think make VR quite attractive for a broader audience than just verticals.

One travel app that came up in the initial tutorial when I fired up the Oculus Quest was a virtual tour of the fire-ravaged Notre Dame Cathedral. I had seen pictures of the damage on the outside, but this tour took me inside the church and walked me through the damage, floor by floor. I have spent a lot of time in Paris and know well the history and layout of Notre Dame.

I actually spent a large part of a day once exploring every space I could go that had public access and became very familiar with its iconic relics, crips, and statues. With this virtual 360 demo, I was able to walk down the center aisle, which I have done over a dozen times and see the damage in the main church. The tour then took us up to the roof where the Spire had been and could look down o the damage from this viewpoint.

When my son Ben was 15, I decided we needed to do something that created a tighter bond. For most of his life, I was on the road, and one summer, I took extra time off, and the two of us got certified as scuba divers. We were privileged to be able to do dives in the Florida Keys and many dives in Hawaii. I even did a shark dive in the Bahamas, which was quite an experience in its own right since this dive was not in a cage.

One particular diving experience in Hawaii was when we would find a group of turtles and literally swim with them about 10 feet away, gliding through the clear blue waters as these turtles swam looking for food.

It turns out that swimming with turtles in VR delivers a very similar experience. The only difference is that I don’t have to put on scuba gear and can do this from an easy chair in my study. Because this is a 360 VR experience, it feels exactly as if I am in the waters with the turtles and swimming beside them. The first time I used this app, it brought back great memories but was, in a sense, a bit spooky too.

One other travel app that I really like is related to food. One of my favorite food cities in the world is Singapore. There are multiple VR ravel apps that bring me to what they call the “Hawker Centers,” which are city created areas with food stalls that serve incredible food at very low prices. There are dozens of these hawker stalls and special food markets, and these VR apps can take you right to these areas and make you feel like you are there in person.

I have spent many hours in the hawker centers and markets in Singapore, and being able to walk through these stalls and markets is a great experience minus the ability to go and eat at the various food stalls in person. In fact, the VR travel apps can take you to food markets all over the world, and even if you have never been to them in person, it is an educational experience in its own right where you can learn about a countries foodways and culture.

I have looked at most of the various predictions on VR and don’t believe that VR by itself is the virtual approach that will drive mixed reality to a broad consumer market. I still believe that AR and some form of AR and VR will eventually have the killer apps that make virtual reality a mainstream technology.

But my experience with the Oculus Quest has given me a new perspective, and with the right apps, such as games, travel, and entertainment, VR dedicated headsets will draw interest from most likely an early adopter community that in itself is millions of people. However, an AR focused mixed reality solution to me is still that one virtual reality technology that has the greatest chance of bringing a mass consumer audience to the mixed reality virtual experience.

I just don’t think VR alone will do this. While it may take another few years to get the right mix of AR glasses or goggles and apps that make AR very consumer-focused, I know that Apple, Google, and Samsung see AR as the next big thing in virtual reality and are working hard on making the right products and apps that could eventually bring mixed reality to a mass consumer market.

Now that many people have to work from home, they are using tools like Web-Ex, Google Hangouts, and other collaboration tools to work with colleagues from disparate locations more frequently.

I have used these forms of collaboration tools for years, and while they work, I am not a big fan of their poor ease of use and UI. That is not to say they are not useful tools, but these apps often have issues when it comes to logging into a conference as well as how well they work in presentation mode.

Another tool that makes it possible for us to work at home and in remote offices around the world effectively is video conferencing. Zoom, Skype video, and others are taking off now and enabling us to connect in new and more personal ways.

However, while these tools also work, especially in face to face video meetings, I find that video conferencing with a lot of people, especially if the video is on participants, is very distracting. I have done a few of these types of video conferences lately, and I turn my camera off intentionally to not be a distraction to others during the meeting.

One thing that strikes me about using these tools at home to have meetings, make presentations and conduct effective interaction is that the face-to-face discussions are still the best way to get the most out of a meeting. I realize that my view is controversial, especially to a younger generation who can even conduct meetings via texting, however when I am in a meeting with my customers and face-to-face, we do get a lot done.

When Facebook bought Oculus, one of the key reasons was for them to create a virtual room where people could sit around a table, or sofa’s in living rooms and communicate in real-time. The early version had what I would call crude avatars represent a person in these rooms.

Eventually, Facebook created Spaces and Oculus rooms, which were exciting but never took off. At Facebook’s developer conference last summer, they replaced these rooms with Facebook Horizon.

Engadget wrote about Horizons and shared the following:

“In Horizon, you’ll be able to create an avatar that, bizarrely, won’t have any legs. You can then use portals (or “telepods”) to make your way to public spaces such as a town square. Horizon will offer exploration and games, along with ways to build communities through groups and events.

“Everyone will have the power to build new worlds and activities, from tropical hangout spots to interactive action arenas, all from scratch — no previous coding experience needed,” Oculus stated in a blog post. “Whether people choose to build, play, or simply hang out, Horizon will ensure a welcoming environment through new safety tools and human guides — Horizon Locals — to answer questions and provide assistance, if needed.”

I realize Horizon is focused on consumers, but it represents an example of using a virtual world for people to get together. And it would not be a stretch of the imagination for Facebook to eventually evolve this platform to include virtual conference rooms that include real live video meetings that have a background that could replicate any company’s conference rooms or even auditoriums.

Another company is creating an AR-mixed reality app that, according to their site, can teleport your presence anywhere. It will let people “Meet with anyone, anywhere in the world as if you were in the same room. Your meetings will jump to life with spatial audio and 3d telepresence that feels like being face to face.”

The company is called Spatial and I encourage you to check out their demo on their home page. It is awe-inspiring and could become a killer app for AR and VR with companies who would prefer meeting as if they are still in the room but piped in virtually from all over the world.

Since I have had more time at home due to the work at home and shelter in place edicts, I have been spending more time on my Oculus Quest VR headset. I Used the original Oculus Go for a year, but the Quest is so superior to the first model that it has changed my view of VR. I had felt that it was a technology that would have greater acceptance in vertical markets and gaming.

I have been using it for streaming videos and many VR travelogues, especially the ones that put me in the location being shown, such as an African Safari and scuba diving with turtles.

One of the most exciting travel videos is the restoration of Notre Dame in Paris. I have been to Notre Dame well over a dozen times and combed it from top to bottom. To walk through the main sanctuary and see up through its roof where the spire once stood was fascinating. The videographer made the tour so realistic in VR mode that one feels like you are there while watching it thousands of miles away.

While the Oculus Quest is still more of a consumer product since it excels in VR gaming, you can see that VR headsets are moving in the right direction. I can see them delivering broader-based applications like VR-AR video conferencing, which could become a killer app that makes VR-AR headsets indispensable to businesses sometime in the future.

There is no question that the Covid-19 virus is causing a lot of disruption in our world today. Business is asking people to work from home; Schools are closing campuses and moving to virtual classes. Sporting events are being canceled or going on without audiences and only telecasted instead.

And amid this health crisis, technology is taking a central role in helping people cope with this disruption. It makes it possible for them to work, learn, and even watch sporting events, even if they are not allowed to go to the arena where the games are played.

I am glad that at this time in history, the tech world has the technical tools in place to allow people the option to use these advanced technologies to meet these new needs, especially in times of a health crisis.

However, the idea of working, learning, and even playing in isolation is problematic in that people, by nature, are social creatures. More importantly, adapting and getting used to working from home, learning while not in a classroom, and even enjoying sporting events virtually, may not be a smooth transition for many.

I realize that people have been working from home for centuries. Yet, over the last 25 years, especially, we have seen an expansion in demand for office spaces and places where people can go to work and collaborate face-to-face. The inter-communication dynamics of working together is valuable enough that companies are spending billions on new office complexes. Companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, as well as other major companies in growing industries, continue to build new complexes to house their employees.

Major trade shows have also expanded. At the end of the last decade, CES drew about 100,000 attendees. This year they had 175,000 make the trek to Vegas for this year’s show. Three years ago, after attending CES and returning home ill and exhausted, I wrote a piece suggesting that CES should go virtual. I got some interesting comments from CES officials who said this would never happen as people like to touch, feel, and discover tech in person and that the social and networking aspect would keep them coming.

Virtual learning experiences are also challenging for many. Thanks to many online specialty learning programs, we are seeing a lot of people use these online courses to expand their knowledge base. But on-campus classes are still so valuable that college enrollment has continued to be in demand and continuing education courses that require in-class attendance is on the rise.

This winter and spring semester, I have had the privilege of going back to Stanford and taking some classes of real interest to me. While some of them gave me the option of taking them online, I purposely decided to do the on-campus courses, as I find that I learn more by sitting in the class and the interaction I have with the professors and other students. (Due to the Covid-19 virus and Stanford closing al campus classes through March, my AI class is virtual at the moment, though.) The social aspect of the learning process, at least for me, is valuable, and I suspect it is for many of any age group.

The idea of virtual play is interesting too. Gamers for years have been into multi-user games and have mastered virtual gameplay. However, the idea of holding a sporting contest with no people in attendance is a stretch. We will soon see how this works as Santa Clara County, has banned any public event that has over 100 people for the next two weeks, which means that San Jose Sharks will be forced to play their next two home games in San Jose in an empty arena.

Can you imagine an NFL game played in an empty stadium? No tailgates, no cheerleaders, and no yelling and screaming for the local team? Sports is perhaps the ultimate social experience, and technology cannot replace this experience by just moving it to a virtual event.

I do believe that we could see an upswing in people working from home and using video conferencing more aggressively for virtual meetings. But in the future, I sense that once this Covid-19 virus is conquered, we will see people go back to their offices and only use working from home on an as-needed basis. I also suspect that trade shows and developer’s conferences will be back in the future, and going strong once the threat of this virus passes.

The same goes for college and other schools that have been temporarily closed down. And sporting events will go back to normal with thousands going to arenas and stadiums.

I know that there are a lot of people who believe that this virus will cause transformational changes in the way we work, learn, and play. I do think we will learn a lot from the experience, but in the end, I think it will reinforce the fact that people are social and as disruptive as Covid-19 is at the moment, once it is in our hindsight, the social pull will bring people back to the offices, schools and sporting events and things will be back to normal again.

I spent the early part of my week talking to ODM’s, and PC makers to gauge how they see their market demands changing over this year. As you can imagine, all say that because of the closing or slowdown of manufacturing facilities due to the COVID-19 Virus during the first half of this year, it will have a ripple effect during Q1 and Q2 on sales and earnings. Both groups are pretty much writing off the first two quarters as ODM’s can’t make enough products to meet current PC demand.

All PC makers have millions of dollars of PC orders they can’t fill, and many of the new smartphones that would come out in the first half of 2019 will be supply constrained through the summer. The PC makers also have a double whammy in that Intel, starting last fall, was unable to meet their demands for specific processors. Even though many turned to AMD to help fill some demand, PC orders in Q 4 of 2019 could not be filled in many cases.

While ODMs have struggled to get their manufacturing lines fully staffed now, the two ODMs I spoke with are optimistic that they can have all lines fully operational by late May or early June. They admit that they have stacks of orders to fill but, if needed, could run their factories 24×7 for some time to try and catch up and fill the pipeline to have as many products ready to ship by the end of Q3 and ready for the holiday season.

As for the PC makers, Intel has assured them that they will be able to meet most processor orders by Q3 and also make it possible for their PC customers to fill most, but not all of the demand for PCs this fall.

Of course, the caveat is that if the Covid-19 Virus is contained by no later than late May, and most workers in Asia can get back to work, then ODM’s can run factories at full-staff by then. Although health officials are not sure when the Virus can be contained, the tech companies I talked to are using the scenario that all manufacturing lines will be fully staffed by June, and we could see the pipelines filled by the middle of Q3. At least that is what they are counting on as we sit here today.

This development is causing them to believe that we could end up with so much pent up demand that the 4th quarter could be a monstrous one with many unit sales and earnings records broken for a single quarter. Whether this would make up for the losses recorded in Q1 and Q2 is hard to tell, but the consensus I hear from these companies seems to point in this direction.

I, too, am optimistic but admit that we in tech are in unknown territory. The SARS epidemic did impact the supply chain, but we did not have the same type of broader quarantines we see with the Covid-9 Virus. One ODM told me that if even one person got symptoms of this Virus, the whole factory would have to shut down under the new Chinese government rules.

There is no question that this is a challenging year for us in tech. Although things could get worse when it comes to this Virus spreading, tech leaders believe they can weather this storm and are now thinking about longer-term planning issues should this type of thing happen again. The changes include less reliance on most manufacturing done in a single country such as China and diversifying their supply chain. The shift to production in other countries started during the jump in tariffs. However, it is accelerating because of the potential of future pandemics.

It also includes rethinking how people work. There is a reason Zoom’s stock moved higher in the past few weeks. More and more are turning to video conferencing to handle essential business meetings and using it to help customers. Video meetings may be one of the longer-lasting impacts of this Virus.

I do believe that our tech industry is going to learn a lot about itself in the next few months, but is up to the task of making the kind of adjustments needed to survive and thrive again. However, I believe we will remember 2020 as one of our most challenging years in tech, and let’s hope the lessons we learn helps us make positive changes for the best.

For those of us in the tech industry, we know that the biggest telecom industry event was canceled recently due to the COVID-19 outbreak. MWC wisely canceled the show, given the concerns of this virus and our lack of understanding of how it spreads.

I had the privilege of helping run the largest CRM show in the US from 1993 to 2003 and understand the ramifications of having to cancel a show. It is costly for both the show management and many of the trade show vendors and disruptive for the thousands of people had scheduled to be at these shows.

I was also on the Comdex board of advisors for 17 years and the CES advisory board for 10 years and understand their importance and why they exist. One-to-one meetings and the ability to view products and get demos in one place, play a big role in why some shows like CES, MWC, IFA, etc are still going strong, even today.

Other tech shows since then have been canceled and one of the next big tech shows, Computex in Taiwan in June, could move to Sept as they did during the SARS outbreak. That is not firm yet but a possibility if the Corona Virus is not contained soon.

Other shows for this spring are also in question and show organizers are monitoring the spread of this virus closely. While I have no doubt that big trade shows and conferences will continue to be important in the future, the rapid spread of the Corona Virus and our lack of understanding of how it can spread, maybe a watershed moment for trade shows as well as how we work in the future.

Given that I have connections to major trade shows and conference organizers, I reached out to three of them to get their take on the future of trade shows and conferences. Since these people are still producers and promoters of big shows and conferences, they still believe that these types of events are important and will continue. However, they are watching what is happening with the COVID-19 carefully and monitoring one particular aspect of how vendors are dealing with a show cancellation and finding different ways to launch products and show of their products in light of not having a trade show or conference to use for this purpose.

For really big companies, many have already moved to do product launches in dedicated company-sponsored venues already. For the last 10 years, Apple has mostly done its own events to launch products and Samsung has followed suit by launching their UnPacked events to introduce their new smartphones and other new mobile-related products. While Apple does not do trade shows anymore, Samsung still attends CES, MWC and sometimes has big booths at IFA.

For very big companies with a lot of marketing dollars, doing their own events makes sense. But for others, they are finding alternative ways to get their message out without having to attend trade shows or conferences. For example, this week Qualcomm held a media event in San Diego to deliver what would have been their keynote address at MWC. They hastily brought media to their San Diego HQ and then posted the event live all over the world. While they did not have the booth experience for customers who could have visited them at MWC, their launch this way was just as effective.

All of the three trade show execs I talked to said that the role of technology to provide virtual media events is one of the things that really concerns them. Samsung, Huawei, Apple, and others are perfecting this means of using real-time video events to launch products and get there message out to millions of people, instead of just sharing with smaller audiences at trade shows.

They know that there will still be people who need to go to trade shows and conferences for networking, hands-on experiences, etc. However, all three believe that the COVID-19 issue could push more and more companies, especially the big ones that are the lifeblood of most of these shows, to test out the role technology can play to do more of their launches virtually, which could in turn, have them reduce their presence at any given trade show or conference.

In yesterday’s Think.tank piece, Ben talked about the Corona Virus’s impact on remote working. Here is one key point he stated that is relevant to this conversation-

“As companies are limiting travel to key countries, and China, in particular, teams are working together in those countries are not going to stop working together. Rather they will adopt new means to collaborate still and function as a team, and video meetings are what everyone is now rapidly adopting whether they were ready or not.”

His piece focused on another aspect of this virus’s impact which is on remote working. But this underscores that by forcing people to not travel during this virus outbreak, they are finding new ways to communicate and collaborate with colleagues and using things like Zoom to serve as the communication medium to accomplish these work goals.

The execs I talked to from the trade shows say that this is another area they are monitoring closely. As network speeds increase and video conferencing becomes so easy, meeting with company reps via video instead of having to go and meet them at trade shows and conferences, could become more preferable.

Their fear is that companies who find “workarounds” to getting their marketing messages out without a trade show, along with individuals using video conferencing to meet with company reps without going to a trade show or conference for a meeting, could have a big impact on the future of trade shows and conferences.

While they don’t see trade shows and conferences going away completely, they admit that we could see the big shows scaled back if large vendors find other ways to get their marketing and sales messages out virtually and scale back any trade show presence in the future. We already saw some of this at CES this year when Microsoft, Intel, and Qualcomm, who for decades had large booths, pulled out of the CES show floor and only had private suites instead.

It is way to early to suggest the demise of trade shows and conferences. But the Corona Virus has brought to the forefront for many companies a need to find other ways to launch products and for those who attend these events to find new ways to interact with companies they deal with virtually instead of traveling to dedicated events.

What I do think is that over the next few years, the role of technology to deliver more virtual trade shows and conferences spurred on not only by the current Corona Virus issue but others that could follow, and see many trade shows downsized. They could also become more vertically focused and see individuals become more comfortable with virtual meetings as an option to going to big events in the future.

Let it be known, the challenges initially stated by many companies and industry experts, that creating a durable cover glass for foldable phones that is on par with modern smartphones today, is as difficult as initially stated. We have yet to see a folding screen device release to the public that has not come with some issues. It is important to note, this is new ground, so we should assume some bumps in the road, but these are problems worth solving. The question is who will get it right and how? We have no idea, but we know many are working hard to solve the problems of durability that are, for the moment, inherent with folding devices.

The Verge has been aggressive in their testing of the Galaxy Flip Z’s durability, as well as pressing Samsung to reveal who their supplier was. Samsung rather provided this description of the screen solution.

Galaxy Z Flip features an Infinity Flex Display with Samsung’s Ultra Thin Glass (UTG) to deliver a sleek, premium look and offer an immersive viewing experience,” a spokesperson said by email. “Samsung’s first-of-its-kind UTG technology is different from other Galaxy flagship devices. While the display does bend, it should be handled with care. Also, Galaxy Z Flip has a protective layer on top of the UTG similar to Galaxy Fold.

Interestingly, last night a company named Schott, who Ben Bajarin wrote about when he shared insights from Display Week last year, came forward as the supplier of the cover glass solution for the Galaxy Z Flip. Schott released this statement to confirm this yesterday:

“SCHOTT has been producing ultra-thin glass for more than 25 years – based on this strong heritage, we are extremely happy to help shaping the future of foldable phones with this breathtaking material. We can confirm that we deliver SCHOTT ultra-thin glass to Samsung. Kindly note that we cannot comment on any processing details of the raw glass material or the display technology itself. In case you want to learn more about Samsung’s foldable glass display technology, please reach out to them
directly.

Although Schott will not comment on the scratching issue, and they and Samsung are working to deal with this, this particular problem underscores how difficult it is to create even folding glass covers that are totally scratch-free and today it is not a perfect science.

Some of the media thought this glass cover was from Corning, but Corning put out their own release to clarify that they are working on a folding glass cover but it will not be ready for 12-18 months:

“Corning is currently working on several glass-based products that we see as the ultimate solution set for foldable device designs. To meet the everyday activities and demands of consumers, we believe that future designs will need to address durability, scratch resistance, and optical clarity – all attributes of a glass cover solution. Corning’s work in this area is focused on developing an ultra-thin, durable, and optically advantaged glass solution for the inside cover of a continuous display that can bend at a tight radius hundreds of thousands of times without significant damage at the fold. We’re actively developing these solutions and sampling them with our customers and expect the timing of commercialization to be within the next 12-18 months.” In addition, imagery of our ultra-thin, bendable glass in development can be found here.

I have had the opportunity of seeing Corning’s work on folding glass when I visited their headquarters last June. The video in the link above shows how it can fold and, more importantly, the material they are folding is actually glass and not some type of coating. From a materials science standpoint, this is not only impressive but seems to defy the laws of physics.

Corning shared with me how this particular glass was developed, and while I can’t divulge what they shared about the process or materials used, due to an NDA, I have no doubt that, as Corning says, they will have a Gorilla Glass quality covers for foldable smartphones in the near future.

To date, Samsung and many others doing folding phones or design concepts, have had issues with everything from broken hinges, glass that breaks or scratches and actual breakage after as little as 10,000 folds. I have heard many reviewers who have tested the few folding smartphones already in release, telling their audience that these products are not ready for the mass market.

Their recommendations are to wait and let the various vendors of folding smartphones work the bugs out of these first-generation models before buying them. At the moment, only the early adopters have bought these phones anyway and these buyers go into these purchases knowing that they are early models and in many ways, untested in the market.

As one who has tracked product launches for decades, all of these folding phones remind me of many early products that came to market with flaws, but in version 3 or 4, the vendors got the bugs out and finally created a model that worked. I sense that folding phones are in this same category. Early models blazed new territory but are not ready for the mass market. Besides being too expensive at first, and even though the companies have put them through rugged tests, many still can’t stand up to the rigorous daily usage they get since they have moving parts that are not perfected yet.

History suggests that in even 2nd generation models, these products could still be vulnerable and can have flaws. But historically speaking, the third generation models finally have the right components, gone through enough testing to get the bugs out and finally become ready for broader market acceptance. Once these folding smartphones are perceived as viable alternatives to mainstream smartphones, we will see if the public actually bites and they take off.

There is one other shoe that could drop that could make folding smartphones go mainstream and that is if and when Apple jumps into this market. We know they have multiple patents on folding smartphones, but as in the past, Apple seems to be sitting back and letting those who are bringing folding smartphones to the market now, take the slings and arrows from the reviewers and learn about market interest and demand vicariously.

Once they are sure there is a market, then they jump in with models that have Apple’s design language, ease of use, and tight-software integration. But even Apple is susceptible to the three times the charm metaphor. Many may not remember that the original iPhone was not a big seller and sold less than 1 million in its first year. Version 2 of the iPhone was more stable and a better version but it too was not a big hit. But the year after Apple released the 2nd version of the iPhone, they began to work aggressively with softer developers and help spur the creation of over a thousand apps by the time iPhone 3 came to market. It was the third generation iPhone that skyrocketed due to strong demand and access to new apps, and Apple continues to set iPhone sales records with their iPhone franchise.

As I have written before, we are in the very early days of foldable smartphones and I believe it is too early to forecast strong demand based on what we have seen so far. And if history repeats itself, it may take the third generation of folding smartphones to hit the market before we can see if demand is sustainable.

I spent most of yesterday morning at the Unpacked 2020 event in SF at the beautiful Palace of Fine Arts. While Samsung had masks and Purel everywhere, being in a theater environment with well over 500 people sitting should-to-shoulder was a bit disconcerting given the Corona Virus issues the world is dealing with these days.

I can only imagine how frightening it might be in Barcelona next week at MWC, where thousands of people will rub shoulders at that event, should it still take place. Samsung officials told me that they still plan to be there. Yet, as of today, over 60 companies, including Sony, Amazon, Intel, and Cisco, have pulled out of the show, and I expect at least another 30-40 to announce they will not attend by the end of this weekend.

But at Unpacked, the mood was upbeat, and if anybody was concerned about catching this virus, it was not that evident. Some did wear masks, but for the rest, it was a typical day at a Samsung event.

The first observation from this event was the fact that Samsung built up the Galaxy Z Flip phone and seemed to infer that while their first foldable was a “winner,” the Galaxy Z Flip is the one foldable they are banking on to be their flagship folding product. I got to play with one for quite some time after the event, and it is sleek, thin, and exceptionally well designed. I could not see a crease in the fold at all, although they clearly state a crease is something that would be normal over time.

Samsung says it can be folded over 200,000 times without any breakage or problems, and I am sure the testers will check out that claim as soon as they get their hands on it.

But I picked up something else from Samsung officials and many who were at the event that confirms my feeling about foldable. Samsung’s first foldable gave users a double-wide screen that needs two hands to work with when folded out. While it delivers more significant screen real estate, it is not that easy to work with opened.

On the other hand, the flip form factor opens to a 6.7-inch screen, yet it is so small it fits easily into any pocket. The compactness, yet full-size screen, is what I think consumers will want in a foldable instead of the larger model that should come under the moniker of a phablet.

I have also played with the Motorola Razor that just came out, and it too is a flip phone that is well designed and will be a very competitive product to the Galaxy Z Flip announced Tuesday.

While I think the flip phone design will dominate the foldable market eventually, one has to use any foldable for a time to understand what a game-changer a foldable phone is. In the case of the Flip phones, they are small when folded but big when opened. In the case of one’s that fold outward, they increase screen size dramatically, so the viewing space is excellent, especially for videos.

The second observation is that Samsung is now fully invested in 5G smartphones. Last fall, it was thought they might introduce at least one 4G smartphone this year that could be sold into areas where 5G will not be ready in 2020. Instead, they announced the S20 5G, the S 20 5G+, and the S20 Ultra5g smartphones. Last year’s 4G models that are now discounted will be pushed to markets where 5 G will not be available in 2020-2021.

Samsung, making this year’s Galaxy line all 5G, will put a lot of pressure on Apple. The speculation on Apple’s 5G iPhone is that it will be a high-end model with a 5G designation in its name. All of the other iPhones that would be under this model’s new name will reportedly still be 4G.

5G will not be widely available in 2020, but people buying smartphones in 2020 will keep them for a minimum of two years, and in this time frame, the 5G build-out will be massive in the US and most of the developed world.

If Apple only has a high-end model with 5G, it could lose a broad audience who could buy iPhones at the end of this year. Many will have their eyes on 5G Phones, knowing full well that over the years they own any smartphone purchased in 2020, 5G will become an important feature.

Samsung, making their entire Galaxy 2020 line 5G, could pay off big for them should Apple not make most of their 2020 iPhones 5G ready.

The third observation is that Samsung has become the 900-pound Gorilla in the Android space. Yes, other Android smartphones are doing well, but when Samsung speaks, all the world listens. I have been to Unpacked events in the past, but this year’s event in SF made it clear to me that Samsung has emerged as the real power in Android smartphones. Using their partnerships with Google, Spotify, and others, they have solidified their leadership in the Android market as the premier Android smartphone maker.

Even with the Corona Virus scare, people from Asia, Europe, and South America came to this event to be at the launch of something new from Samsung. Even After Samsung showed the Flip Z at the Oscars on Sunday, the excitement level at Unpacked was as high as ever.

Apple is still the most powerful force in smartphones, and their leadership in innovation and design is hard to beat, especially in the way they have created a robust ecosystem of hardware, software, and services. Samsung is the only other company that I view as being equal to Apple in hardware, and with Google’s support, it is close to matching them in software.

Apple may not admit it, but Samsung has emerged as a most worthy competitor to Apple. Their innovations in foldable smartphones are bound to force Apple to innovate faster in foldable themselves. And their rise to this level of competition will keep all of the smartphone industry moving forward positively.

About 18 months ago, I was told by Hollywood insiders I know that Jeffrey Katzenberg was working on a concept where he would develop high-quality stories in short bites. What was described to me was short novella’s that focused on delivering them on smartphones.

AT CES this year, Katzenberg and his partner in this venture, former HP CEO Meg Whitman, talked about their Quibi Venture. In their keynote, they told this CES audience the following:

“What’s the next big opportunity in entertainment?” asked Jeffrey Katzenberg, founder of Quibi. “We’re living through another revolution in entertainment. Mobile phones are the most widely distributed, democratized entertainment platform the world has ever seen.” Collaborating with A-list celebrities and directors the likes of Steven Spielberg and Reese Witherspoon, as well as major news and sports studios, Quibi promises fresh and original content that is different from what the streaming and entertainment industry already has. “We fill a niche [other platforms] don’t. We provide content for people on the go,” said Meg Whitman, CEO of Quibi, who was also previously CEO of Hewlett-Packard and eBay.

When I first heard of this venture, my first thought that Quibi was for the short attention span generation. Some people indeed have short attention spans, but this is not the target audience Quibi is going after. The Quibi concept is not new. If you have traveled in China, Hong Kong, or many other Asian countries over the last 15 years, you would have seen people during their commute watching videos on their smartphones. For over two decades, Chinese content makers have been creating soap operas or novellas that are in short chapter form.

An average commute in Asia is one hour to one and a half hours, and this means they have a lot of downtimes. And for many, they stand up the whole time as these forms of public transportation always pack people in like sardines. I suspect that one of the audiences Quibi is targeting are commuters around the world who have similar experiences and downtime.

The CE article about the Quibi keynote explains the platform they created for the short videos:

“The Quibi team built the platform to suit user experiences, decreasing the amount of time spent scrolling through options and optimizing those in-between moments that are perfect for short quick bite videos. The Quibi feed — the main screen on the platform — is where users can find content that is curated for them through meta-data. All content is also downloadable for all plans, and there is even technology to make sure the stream plays under intermittent networking. From left-handed scrolling to portrait-orientation-specific gestures, the Quibi technology takes into account the smallest of user details. “We are obsessing over mobile video like no one else,” said Rob Post, Quibi Chief Technology Officer. Katzenberg said that Quibi aims to have in its first year 175 original shows and 8,500 quick bites of content, ranging from comedies and dramas to dating shows and news”.

Another audience that Quibi will be attractive too is people who stand in lines for long periods. (Think DMV) Instead of twiddling their thumbs or trying to read a book, they could watch short videos or play games on their smartphones.

There are two things I find extremely interesting about Quibi.

• The first is the focus on the most ubiquitous video delivery platform that exists today. There are 3.5 billion smartphones in use now. In many countries, just about everyone has a smartphone and most sport Apple’s IOS or Google’s Android mobile operating systems. In the industry, we use the term TAM to describe Total Available Market, and in Quibi’s case, smartphones represent that largest audience ever for short-form videos.

• The second thing is their commitment to creating high-quality stories in concise time frames. They will tell stories, make documentaries, and other forms of video that can be broken into chapters or can tell an entire story in about 12 minutes.

Telling real stories and delivering satisfying viewing content in short times is a challenge, but Quibi is up to the task. They have brought in top talents, like Steven Speilberg and others, and I have no doubt that they will deliver engaging, high-quality stories and docuseries once they come to market on April 20, 2020.

I admit that I have been skeptical about the idea of creating and delivering meaningful content in short bursts or chapters. But I was reminded that an average TV show offers its programs in the same way. A 30 minute TV shows have only about 22-23 minutes of actual program content cut into 3-5 minutes segments, and the rest of the time is taken up by commercials. Bing Bang Theory and Friends are great examples of this. Each section focused on a specific character and their personal lives and their impact on the group ensemble. Each segment told a story in its own right and then the last scene tied the show together under an underlying story thread.

If you look closely, at Facebook’s Watch feature, they deliver meaningful content in short segments, too, with a 3-10 second video ad in the middle. I am personally hooked on UK based talk show host Graham Norton’s interview segments. He is brilliant and gets his list of Hollywood and British stars to open up and tell great personal stories about their lives and work. I also like the best of America’s Got Talent performances as they show ordinary people doing exceptional performances. Both shows last about five to seven minutes.

Another app from Google convinced me that the idea of creating short content that is very meaningful is more than possible. Called Tanji, this program delivers DIY and other material and tutorials that teaches and informs in under one minute. Its tag line is “Learn Something New Every Day.” At the moment, it only runs on IOS and gives lessons on Art, Cooking, DIY, Fashion, and Beauty and Lifestyle. I spent some time with this app, and besides learning new things, it has real entertainment value too.

I don’t think that short videos from Quibi, Facebook, or Tanji will replace longer form streaming video. Still, I do believe they have a place in a market where people are mobile and end up having dead time in which viewing shorter form content would be attractive. They may also be used as a pure entertainment medium over smartphones and watched on demand.

The revenue model of YouTube and Facebook’s short videos are concise ads in the middle of these video bites. On the other hand, Quibi will be subscription-based, like most dedicated streaming services.

While there are skeptics of Quibi, I am more positive about its role in the market and its potential. Whether it reaches the heights of Netflix and Amazon’s Prime is a bigger question. I believe it will find its audience among smartphone users, especially and can be profitable in its own right over time. The same goes for the short videos we see on YouTube and Facebook.

People have hectic lives these days, and many do not have the time to sit down and view long-form videos. It is for these folks Quibi my strike a chord and become a go-to site to consume video in shorter form and be quite successful with this audience.

I have been going to China for four decades and learned early on how important Chinese New Year is to them. The custom is for just about everybody to go home for a week during Chinese New Year and spend time with families and do things that honor their ancestors.

Millions of people head home for this week, and it is called the most massive migration of any nation for any holiday.
In some way’s it is like the west’s Christmas celebration in that they buy gifts for the family, and during Chinese New Year, which is three days, the family hosts a huge meal, and on another day, they all go out to a restaurant to celebrate the beginning of their New Year. And there are a lot of firecrackers used everywhere during these celebrations.

I was in Beijing in early November meeting with Chinese engineers, and many were talking about their New Year Plans. For them, it is the happiest week in their year. China closes down during the New Years’ week, and most companies are ghost towns.

I was privileged to be in a famous Chinese restaurant during a New Year celebration one year and is decorated with red lanterns, red streamers. And each place setting had red envelopes with red paper money, all designed to wish people a Happy and Prosperous New Year. Even more fascinating is that during the meal itself, a large paper dragon carried on the shoulder of about seven men, went through the restaurant to drive out evil spirits so everyone there could have a safe and Happy New Year.

But for millions of Chinese people this year, heading home for New Year is not an option. Millions have been quarantined in their cities to stop the spread of the CoronaVirus. The Chinese Government is working night and day to contain it from spreading, and keeping people from moving around is one significant way they are doing this.

Other cases of the CoronaVirus have been detected in other countries, and early this week and stock markets around the world took a negative dive over concerns of its spread and the potential financial damage it could have on economies and growth.

One company that benefits greatly from the Chinese New Year is Apple. Since the Chinese buy gifts for the New Year, the period just before the holiday are optimal shopping days. In past years, Apple’s iPhone has sold exceptionally well during this period. It is one of the reasons Apple’s first calendar quarter of each new year is strong even though the January-March period is slower for many other tech products sold at this time.

When I heard that people in whole cities were being quarantined, and for many Chinese New Year is being canceled, at least in terms of their going home, I wondered how this might impact Apple’s fortunes in China this quarter.

To get a read on this, I emailed a long-time friend in Hong Kong and asked him how much this might impact Apple’s Chinese holiday purchases. He told me that the actual buying cycle for making New Years’ gift purchases starts two months before New Year. Sound familiar? He said that some wait for the last minute to buy their gifts for family, but almost all buy their gifts before they get on a plane, train, or bus to go home for the New Year week itself.

He told me that for that reason, Apple iPhones or Apple products that would be for New Years’ gifts were mostly already purchased, and it should have no impact on Apple’s sales for the Chinese Years’ holiday.

He reminded me that Apple’s iPhone sales were down a year ago as the iPhone 10 series demand was a bit weaker. But he tracks sales of iPhones in Hong Kong and southern China and said that the iPhone 11 series is in much higher demand this year, and Apple is gaining back some market share in China that they lost last year.

Perhaps the bigger question for Apple today will be how this virus might impact their supply chain and manufacturers. I spoke to a colleague in the ODM market, and he told me that as of now, only two small facilities that support Apple’s supply chain are in quarantined zones. Still, because the situation is fluid, it is impossible to know how Apple’s or any other companies supply chains in China will be impacted.

That is part of the reason the stock market took such a hit as closures and partial closures eventually impacting China’s manufacturing output has traders on edge. They are beginning to factor in some worse case scenarios and adding that thinking to their investment strategies.

I was in China at the end of the Bird Flu and SARS epidemics and knew that the Chinese Government could contain these epidemics. However, each new virus presents different challenges, and it will be necessary for China and the rest of the world to contain this as fast as possible. If this does extend for months, there is no doubt that it could impact China’s manufacturing output, and that domino effect will be felt everywhere.

Over the last year, I have been immersing myself in a lot of AI research, including reading multiple books on AI and taking a class from Stanford on the fundamentals of Artificial Intelligence.

This class was taught by an Adjunct Professor at Stanford, Andrew Ng, a co-founder of Coursera.org, and he has a new related class on Coursera entitled “Deep Learning with Andrew Ng.”

All of this study and research has given me a much better understanding of AI, what it can and can’t do, and its potential impact on our world. Although I am not an engineer and come from the marketing research side of the tech market, after nearly 40 years dealing with technology at all levels, my grasp of technology and its impact on our world has always been present in my work and research. AI has been around for decades but is even more prevalent in our tech world today. That is why I wanted and needed to delve deeper into AI at the design level to be more informed on how AI can and will impact our world.

One book, in particular, has been essential to my own understanding of AI from a global and political perspective, and it comes from Kai-Fu Lee. Titled, AI Super Powers; China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order.

One other country that comes into the AI global picture is Russia, whose leader, Vladimir Putin, has said on record that “the nation that leads in AI, will rule the world.”

During the Stanford Class, Professor Ng touched on one topic of great interest to me, and that is ethics in AI. The more I have studied AI and ML, and it has become apparent to me that AI can be used for good as well as evil. I believe that developing guidelines or principles for AI and ML use by companies will become one of the most important things companies of all nature have to put in place soon and live by in this next decade.

In an editorial this week for the Financial Times, CEO of Alphabet and Google, Sundar Pichai said that he believes “AI must be regulated to prevent the potential consequences of tools including deep fakes and facial recognition.”

His suggestions include “international alignment between the UK and the EU, agreement on “core values,” using open-source tools (such as those already being developed by Google) to test for adherence to written principles and using existing regulation, including Europe’s GDPR, to build out broader regulatory frameworks.”

While Pichai is pushing for government regulation, he is not waiting around for any government to drive what Google and Alphabet believe should be their position on AI Ethics.

As he states in the Financial Times editorial, “We need to be clear-eyed about what could go wrong.”

Echoing Pinchai’s view, Microsoft President, Brad Smith, Speaking at Davos yesterday said that “the time to regulate AI is Now.” I agree that AI is going to need some governmental regulations, and Pinchai has suggested a starting point for the US is to go down the path of regulating AI and ML.

I find Sundar’s and Brad Smiths’s remarks critical. CEO’s of any company need to begin thinking about putting in place their own company’s AI Code of Ethics they plan to follow in their use of AI and ML Technology.

Google has put in place its own AI principles and guidelines and state objectives in its quest to create AI-based on the protection of human rights.

Similarly, Microsoft has written commentary on their AI principles and objectives and even included guidelines for responsible bots. And Salesforce has created a very concise AI Ethics objectives document, including committing to all they do in AI to be Responsible, Accountable, transparent, empowering, and inclusive. https://einstein.ai/ethics

And the IEEE recently posted in Forbes their projected guideline recommendations for their members about AI compliance that include commentary and principles to follow in AI and IoT, AI and Work, AI and Healthcare, AI and ethics, and a broader view on AI strategies.

I recently asked some of the major companies in tech and telecom if they have published their own AI Principles and Guidelines and have been surprised that very few of them are even in the process of doing this. They admit that it is vital to have their own AI guidelines in place and are doing some work on it but revealed that they are nowhere close to having a comprehensive AI Ethics strategy read to publish.

Companies having an AI Ethics Code of Conduct in place soon should become a priority. AI is becoming something that will quickly be an intricate part of their business. In the not-too-distant future, their customers are going to demand to know how the company they deal with handles AI-based personal data and what their AI Ethics code will be. If companies are smart, they will craft their AI Ethics position soon and be ready for the demands the market and their customers will expect from them in the age of AI.

Over the last 20 years, I have had some severe health challenges. Not long after I turned 50, I found out I was a type 2 diabetic. My diabetes was minor at first, but as I aged, it kept getting worse. The oral drugs I used became less effective, and while I did much to lose weight and eat better, My Dr said that since my mother and father had diabetes, some of my diabetes problems were hereditary.

Then in 2012, I had a triple bypass and became a serious heart patient. This contributed to my diabetes getting worse, and in 2016, I had to go on insulin to keep my diabetes more in control. At the moment, with better eating habits and a controlled insulin program woven into my daily lifestyle, I have had no complications from this disease, and my Dr says I have this disease under control.

For the first 17 years of my diabetes problem, the key tool I used to monitor my blood sugars was a glucose testing kit that included pricking my finger 4-5 times a day. I also needed a special test strip inserted into a reader to find out what my blood sugar was at any given time. Over the last few years, this number has become even more important to me as I use it now to determine how much insulin I take at each meal.

Then in 2017, I got approved to use what is known as a Continuous Glucose Monitor or CGM. The Dexcom G5 model had just come out, and since my insurance covered half the cost, I began using this non-invasive way to get blood sugar readings all day.

The Dexcom CGM uses a sensor with tiny hair-like needles that are inserted through my skin and come in touch with the interstitial fluid level between skin and muscle. Those prongs read my blood sugar levels from this fluid and, using a Bluetooth transmitter, connected to this sensor. It sends continuous blood sugar reading to either a dedicated handheld device or an iPhone or Android phone. In my case, I have an Apple Watch, and there is a Dexcom app on this watch that lets me read my blood sugars on the at a glance. While the Dexcom 6, which is the new model I wear now, is still considered non-invasive, the little prongs used to read the blood sugars could classify this a semi-non invasive.

Abbott makes a similar product called the FreeStyle Libre, and other prominent medical companies are working on CGMs too.

There is still one holy grail in blood sugar self-monitoring that alludes to the scientific community so far, and that is finding a way to determine blood glucose levels that are entirely non-invasive delivered via some wearable.

The other way that medical researchers are trying to get glucose readings delivered in a wearable is through some form of ultraviolet light or pulsing light waves implemented in a wrist wearable. My sources tell me that Apple is very interested in this type of approach for reading blood glucose levels, using some form of light waves delivered through the back of an Apple Watch.

One product I saw at CES, called the Glutrac, was from Add Care LTD, based in Hong Kong, who claims that they use sensors to read blood glucose levels. The person I talked to said it uses some light waves, but I could never confirm how these sensors work. The reading I saw of a blood sugar test was in a format that is acceptable in China but would need to be translated into actual blood glucose reading to get approved for use in the US.

That said, the demo I got, which was completely non-invasive, was very impressive. If it is true that they have come up with a way to use lightwave sensors to read blood sugars, this would be considered a breakthrough in non-invasive means to get blood sugar readings.

They have not yet submitted it for FDA approval, so if it does work, it may still be well into the future before it is available in the US. While I have known of this light wave research for some time, I was not aware that there was any real breakthrough in being able to use lightwaves to read blood sugars.

Earlier this week, I had a chance to meet with Kevin Sayer, the CEO of Dexcom, while he was speaking at a conference in San Francisco. I asked his view on the potential of light waves or ultra blue light to get blood sugar readings. He told me that he has not heard of any breakthroughs, and they have done research on this technology themselves. He does not discount that we could someday find a way to use light waves for this purpose but does not see anything now that suggests we could use lightwaves for this type of CGM any time soon.

One piece of news from my meeting with Dexcom’s CEO is that they are hard a work on their next model, to be called the G7. The G6 sensors are worn ten days, and the transmitter is good for 90 days. He said that the G7 would have a sensor and transmitter that is disposable after each use. And they are working on the way to make them last 14-15 days, instead of the ten days, people get from the G6 today. It could be on the market by the end of 2021.

The fact that Mr. Sayer of Dexcom believes there is no breakthrough in lightwave glucose readings that he knows about makes the Glutrac wearable, with its light pulsating waves that the company says is reading blood sugars, very interesting. I am planning to have an in-depth conversation with them in the next week or two to try and understand how their product uses lightwaves to get blood sugar readings. I remain skeptical but am willing to hear them out.

That said, there are 30 million diabetics in the US, and hundreds of thousands a year become pre-diabetic or Type 2 diabetics. Diabetes is a very serious disease that has to be monitored, treated, and managed. The consequences of not treating diabetes aggressively could mean loss of limbs, kidney and pancreas problems and, even death.,

CGM technology is making it much easier for people to monitor their blood sugars, and these non-invasive ways of doing it will only become more popular in the future. While being a diabetic is a big problem and a complicated issue for people, tech products like non-invasive CGM’s make managing this disease more practical, and an essential tool in diabetic healthcare.