All in Cool Tech
Those of you who know me know I like a good turn around story and I have a great one for you today. When the pandemic struck, it hit the events industry particularly hard. Our partner for the eMERGE 2020 Chicago event, Echelon Design felt the impact immediately, seeing a drastic reduction in engagements with no clear end in sight.
I want to tell you about the best webcam you probably already have that you didn’t know was a webcam.
Hey everybody, welcome back to another FUTRtech video. I have been talking about how to improve your video for video conferences, and people are always asking me, how can I make it better without spending much money. I’ve got a solution for you folks. Here it is, your iPhone. We all have enjoyed the great videos we are able to get from this phone, but with ElGato’s EpocCam, you can make it your wireless webcam.
You may have heard of ElGato from their very popular CamLink 4K HDMI converter that lets you use your Mirrorless or DSLR camera as a webcam. EpocCam is a great addition to your setup, and it is incredibly easy to use. All you need is an iPhone and a Windows or MacOS system.
TikTok is a global phenomenon. It isn't just millennials busting out their latest dance moves. There is a wide range of content on there and some really great Science and technology info as well. In this video I showcase my 5 favorites for 202 and throw in a bonus one too.
Sports has been an unfortunate victim of this global pandemic. Sports junkies all over the country are really hurting. We always say that in chaos there is opportunity, and one company standing ready to step in and help bring the fun back to sports is HotMic. HotMic gives you the opportunity to choose your watch party with your favorite sports personality, celebrity or just host your own watching parties with your friends. It is like a tailgate party in your own home. Today we have HotMic Founder, CEO and startup veteran Sean Longworth with us to talk about what it is like to build a startup in the midst of a pandemic, and how to remain agile to adjust and pivot in a market turned upside down.
So I have talked in the past about the rise of disaggregation and compassable infrastructure, and a lot of that was on display at VMWorld. I first ran into Liqid at the Open Compute Platform summit a few years back. They drew a lot of attention for showing how you could provision hardware assets as easily as you could provision VMs. Because it is all REST based, you could add physical hardware provisioning into your DevOps process. Basically, all of the components are joined together over a PCIe fabric to allow the dynamic provisioning of components.
VMWare acquired Avi Networks this year. This is a quick video interview overview of what the company is about. This next generation load balancer is cloud native and can work with on-prem, hybrid cloud, cloud and intercloud workloads, so if any of those things are on your agenda, you might want to give them a look.
“With Project Pacific, we are brining the largest infrastructure community the largest set of operators, the largest set of customers directly to the Kubernetes. We will be the leading enabler of Kubernetes.” -Pat Gelsinger
The big announcement of the show was the acquisition of Pivotal Software and Carbon Black.
I mentioned in my previous video that I thought the show was well attended. Part of this could be because they moved the show to the Moscone Center in San Francisco, which isn’t as large and sprawling as their Vegas shows had been. I also heard comments that there were a lot of VMWare employees in attendance to help boost the numbers. While that may be true, the booths were all pretty packed and there was a lot of good conversations happening. I don’t think the vendors who had booths were disappointed.
My last stop in SanFrancisco was for VMWorld 2019, and let me tell you it was quite a show. Last year my perspective was that it was a show in decline, and that VMWare was trying to stay relevant in a world that is increasingly being dominated by Cloud.
Clearly VMWare’s CEO Pat Gelsinger was on top of it, because they made some impressive and bold moves over the last year or so.
My good friends over at 12 for 12 have finally posted their SXSW episode. If you look closely, you might notice someone familiar being interviewed. Even though they labeled me a Solutions Architect, I still love them. I wish I could architect a solution, but solutions to all the worlds problems. Seems like SXSW would be the place to start. They have some good interviews with Brad Spies who is the Director of Special Projects for SXSW and one of the main folks making it happen.
Can’t wait for next year!
Several times a year, we take CIOs, CTOs, and other key decision makers of large enterprise companies to Silicon Valley to meet with Venture capital firms and Leadership of emerging tech companies, to get a good look at what is happening in the emerging technology space. These trip provide tremendous insight into what is happening in the market and provides a good overview of the trends that are driving investments.
This video is part 3 in the SXSW 2019 series. I focus on the Trade show and some of the interesting companies that were there.
Here is, finally, Part 2 of the SXSW video series. In this episode I focus on some of the reasons I feel this is the most important tech show of the year, Hyper Sciences, Sessions, and XR (VR, AR, MR). No video of SXSW is really complete without a bit of music, so I added in a little bit of Snaps For Sinners for your listening/viewing pleasure.
I am trying to catch up on all of the video I have from SXSW. Here is part 1 which focuses on the SXSW scene and “Activations.” For those unfamiliar with the term, “Activation” this is what they call branded experiences that companies put together. They take over businesses, empty buildings, parking lots, and parks. They transform these spaces into all manner of intriguing experiences.
SXSW is the most important technology conference of the year. There, I’ve said it. The problem is, very few people in IT are aware of it, and that is a shame. This is the one show of the year that not only highlights emerging technology but wraps it in context. This conference is also very international with different countries showcasing their unique companies, technologies and talents. We can get so lost in our own small world that we miss new market opportunities and technologies from around the globe.
