Rohit Bhargava's Blog, page 3

The Room Where You Can Hear Your Own Nervous System

Imagine a room so quiet you can actually feel your own heart beating. It exists already and it’s ​known as an anechoic chamber​. Over the past months, there have been several videos of people doing everything from popping a balloon to screaming just to see how it sounds. Having this sort of silence, apparently, is its own form of sensory deprivation, with many people sharing that the experience just feels unnatural in many ways.

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This sort of experiential room, though, opens many possibili...

Welcome To the Next Generation of Empathetic Tech – Haptic AI Companions

What will make AI more real? When my dog sees me coming, there’s an anticipation of play. His tail wags. I see him getting excited. Our interaction is physical and that’s what makes it real … and impossible for AI to duplicate. Perhaps not anymore. The ​Trutru Haptic is a device built by a Hong Kong University that can simulate real sensations​:

“An amorphous, jelly-like creature with a diffused glow, TruTru is designed to be held close, clipped on, and kept nearby. Its advanced haptic system...

The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: A Kids Book About Diwali by Chhavi Arya Bhargava

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It’s Diwali season and the holiday is getting continued attention from many groups outside the South Asian community, so I wanted to come back and share this as my featured read of the week. The fact that the amazing author happens to be my wife is also a pretty big motivator! In the past year, the book has won seven awards, been featured in dozens of events, had a BIG second printing with slightly adjusted branding thanks to the acquisition of A Kids Book About Co. by Penguin Random House +...

Everyone Hates Friend AI and That Is Actually the Point

Out-of-home advertising can be a mixed bag. Brands can stand out for an exceedingly clever breakthrough billboard or end up alienating potential customers by turning their execution into an inescapable hellscape surrounding harried travelers (yes, I’m thinking of the tortuous PenFed jingle from the main corridor at Dulles airport). The point is, when you do out-of-home advertising to commuters, for better or worse you do have a captive audience.

For AI startup Friend AI, the strategy was to l...

What I Learned About Events from IMEX America

I’ve spent the early part of this week at the ​IMEX America Trade Show​ here in Vegas, which is the largest trade show for the business events industry. Nearly every destination, hotel and venue are all pitching themselves to event planners in the hopes of attracting more live events in the coming year and beyond. As I spoke with attendees and attended sessions, I got a new appreciation for what event planners go through when organizing events often more than a year before speakers like me ever ...

Beyond Self Driving, Future Cars May Be Emotionally Attuned Too

For all the attention on self-driving capabilities of cars coming in the future, there is a wave of research happening now into vehicle-driver interactions that is yielding some interesting results. For example, when researchers tested various types of feedback in different situations, they found some patterns of human preferences:

Vibrotactile feedback (such as a vibrating steering wheel to signal a lane shift), was preferred during negative and neutral states, while auditory signals were pr...

What You Can Learn About Marketing from Flavored Vodkas

I accidentally tried Smirnoff’s Spicy Tamarind Vodka. It was a gift from a friend, and I didn’t have high hopes. It was more of a dare to give it a shot (pun!) and though vodka isn’t usually my spirit of choice, I agreed. It was surprisingly good just in a glass with some ice, which led me down a bit of a journey to see what else I could find. It turns out many brands of vodka are quite ambitious in their introductions of flavored variants and have been doing them for decades. Absolut has standa...

The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: Soundbite by Sara Harberson

As you might expect, when I started digging into what makes a great college application essay, I started by skimming or reading dozens of books. Soundbite was the best one. Written by “America’s Favorite College Counselor” Sara Harberson, this takes a practical and marketing-driven approach to helping kids craft a great essay. Here’s an example of a tip Harberson shares:

“Hammering or repeating one theme in every section of the application doesn’t work; layering does. It’s not about overwhelm...

The Cormackian Challenge and What AI Could Really Do

There were two major stories this week that seem on the surface to have little to do with one another. The first is one you may have come across: Open AI launched Sora 2, their next generation video creation tool that promises to revolutionize the lifelike nature of how moving pictures can be created instantly. The second story is one you may have missed. It’s all about the famously reclusive novelist Cormac McCarthy and his vast collection of over 20,000 annotated books.

For as long as AI ha...

SXSW 2026 Announcement!

SXSW is reinventing itself in 2026! The latest session announcement just came out and I’m excited to share that I’ll be back as a Featured Speaker with a brand new talk: 5 Non-Obvious Secrets of Human Connection (For Love & Profit).

With the Austin Convention Center under renovation, next year’s festival will return to its roots with events spread across clubhouses and venues all over the city. We’re already exploring plans for a Non-Obvious Clubhouse to host our own gatherings and our signat...