Rohit Bhargava's Blog, page 53

Discovering The Future Normal In Rio de Janeiro

Inside a quiet air conditioned room on the bottom floor of a repurposed building on the Northern end of Rio de Janiero, a small group of kids are playing video games. It’s a scene that would be completely ordinary if it were happening anywhere but here. This is Vigário Geral, one of the largest favelas in Rio and a notoriously tough place to grow up.

Everywhere you look inside this place, you can see signs of the delicate balance that is required to keep everything moving. Young men patro...

How We Are Launching The Future Normal Everywhere At SXSW

Years ago, I was part of a marketing team that was managing the presence for global tech brand Intel at the Consumer Electronics Trade Show. Like most other big brands, Intel had a huge expensive booth to showcase all of their newest innovations. They were also the tech powering innovation from countless other brands at the show too. As you walked the trade show floor, you saw Intel’s technology inside cars or making smart appliances smarter or built into laptops. Everywhere you turned, it seeme...

Welcome to the Era of Co-Writing … With Artificial Intelligence

Right now people are alternately blowing their own minds with the capabilities of ChatGPT and criticizing it’s current limitations. Whether you consider it dangerous or useful, the most likely use case for generative AI right now is as an automated tool to write faster (and perhaps better). 

Consider the fact that Microsoft is already experimenting with adding ChatGPT functionality to Word, Excel and Powerpoint. It is also inspiring artistic explorations, such as the vintage AI-enabled typewr...

CES 2023: The 25 Non-Obvious Inventions, Technologies and Ideas To Watch

Welcome to the future. Or rather, the future normal. That’s what I expect to unfold today from the Consumer Electronics Show here is Las Vegas. CES 2023 is back with full global participation and much of the usual innovation we have all come to expect from the show. Thinner screens (and foldable now too!), lighter laptops, more connected devices for the home, AI-enabled everything, VR headsets and lots of automation in automobiles. Reporting from the trade show floor all week, here are some of m...

The Most Popular Non-Obvious Stories of 2022 (Based On Reader Feedback)

Every week for the past year, I’ve curated the most fascinating stories every week in my weekly email Non-Obvious Insights Newsletter. This year the newsletter was honored in the prestigious Webby awards too. It’s always interesting for me which stories seem to resonate most with readers based on how many email responses I get, how frequently a story is shared on social media and how frequently the link to the full story is clicked. Based on this combination of quantitative and qualitative data,...

The 100 Best Non-Fiction Books of 2022 | The Non-Obvious Book Awards Longlist

It’s mid-November and this time of year means one thing for our team over here at Non-Obvious Company … it’s Book Awards time! This year we considered a record number of titles for our awards (more than 1000 books from publishers of all sizes) and narrowed the list to our selections for the top 100 non-fiction books of the year which made the Non-Obvious Book Awards Longlist. Our choices are a diverse set of titles that talk about everything from zoning cities to speaking with whales.

The hon...

California DMV Approves Usage of Pointless Digital License Plates

If you’ve been patiently waiting for your chance to buy a digital license plate for your car … you clearly have too much money. This week, California approved a digital license plate for use on all vehicles. So what does it do?

The features for this relatively pointless innovation include a combination of everything you can already do on your phone (renew your registration without going to the DMV!) and features that most electric cars already have (remind yourself where you parked!). The dig...

Why Are Stories That Glorify Murderers So Popular?

There was already a TV show called How To Get Away With Murder, but the new Netflix series Monster about mass murderer Jeffrey Dahmer’s life might be similarly instructive. As the new TV miniseries reaches record audiences, many are asking whether the sympathetic portrayal of one of the most notorious serial murderers in US history is doing more harm than entertaining. The show helps audiences empathize with the killer, while forcing victims and their families to relive tragic memories.

An ...

The Danger of Falling In Love With a “Petbot”

Loona is a small household robot with a personality designed to keep you company. There is more than a month left in her Kickstarter campaign, but the project has already raised close to $1.5M. The cleverest thing about the marketing for this so-called “petbot,” though, is how it can interact with your living pets. Loona isn’t meant to be a pet replacement.

Instead, it could become your pet’s best friend—while also offering a way for you to check in on your pet (via cameras) while you a...

The Inevitable Death of the “Golden Passport”

For years the European island nation of Malta has offered what many call the “Golden Passport” – an exclusive citizenship to Malta for wealthy donors who can afford the nearly $1M fee. Critics complain that it enables shady characters to get access to a European passport to move freely through Europe. And more philosophically they argue that citizenship shouldn’t be something that is bought and sold. Yet the freedom an EU passport affords is a major benefit depending on which country’s passport ...