For most of human history, we’ve accepted that keeping a home clean and filled with essentials is a burden that we must bear. But are we on the cusp of witnessing a technological revolution where our homes will take care of themselves and manag

Episode 15: Amazon, Walmart, & The Home That Shops for Itself

Feb 1st, 2018 41m 34s

If you’re incredibly proficient at using your Amazon Echo, you might already being giving it directions to order more toilet paper or laundry detergent. But how long will it be before the home is communicating directly with Amazon or Walmart an

Episode 14: Your Home’s Operating System & The Artificial Intelligence That Will Power It

Jan 25th, 2018 34m 29s

Over the past few years, the public has mostly come to associate the voice activation capabilities of Amazon’s Echo and Google Home with smart speakers. But in fact these devices and others like them can be viewed as Trojan Horses being used by

Episode 13: Designing A Smart Lighting Plan: Voice Control, Presence Detection, & Light Switches

Jan 18th, 2018 34m 53s

The most influential companies in lighting are reimagining one of the most fundamental features of our homes: the light switch. Will the smart home of the future understand our lighting needs without us needing to flip a switch? In the fourth e

Episode 12: Honeywell vs. Nest: The Battle for the Smart Thermostat

Jan 11th, 2018 28m 59s

While Nest wasn’t the first company to offer a smart thermostat, its first product quickly developed rock star status. Nest helped turn the thermostat -- a relatively forgettable device -- into a sexy offering that made consumers excited about

Episode 11: Searching Kickstarter for the Next Killer Smart Home Product

Jan 3rd, 2018 37m 31s

The David and Goliath story of startups entering an entrenched industry and disrupting its leading players isn’t a new one. Yet within the smart home space, an unlikely development has birthed a particularly startup-friendly environment. Crowdf

Episode 10: Smart Homes & IoT: A Century in the Making

Dec 18th, 2017 25m 40s

The idea of a home that can take care of its inhabitants has been around for over 100 years. But only in the last few decades have we seen technological breakthroughs that can make smart homes a reality. In the first episode of a 7-part series

Episode 9: Disinterested Voters & 500,000 Elected Officials

Jun 19th, 2017 34m 35s

In the United States, there are over 500,000 elected officials. In the overwhelming majority of elections, less than half of eligible voters participate, resulting in one of the lowest levels of voter engagement of any Western democracy. In thi

Episode 8: Hacking Elections, DDoS Attacks, & Online Voting Around the World

Jun 12th, 2017 38m 56s

In a 2016 testimony addressing the House Committee on Space, Science & Technology, Dan Wallach warned that the country’s voting infrastructure was vulnerable to hacking by foreign governments. Computer scientists have long spoken of the dangers

Episode 7: Can Online Voting Defeat the Broken Electoral College?

Jun 1st, 2017 29m 42s

In the 2016 U.S. presidential election, a little over a half of the voting age population cast their votes and the candidate who won the presidency lost the popular vote. Is the problem with low U.S. voter turnout due to culture or lack of acce

Episode 6: The Tesla of Homebuilding

Apr 12th, 2017 29m 32s

Have we hit a tipping point for residential construction where the cost and quality of a factory-built home always compares favorably to the cost and quality of a conventionally-built home? Are Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and venture capitalis

Episode 5: Cars, Mars, & 3D Printing

Apr 5th, 2017 26m 56s

In 2012, six single-family homes were made by a 3D printer in China. The inventor of that technology is now working on a 3D printer designed to construct buildings on Mars. Does this technology have a future on Earth? Or does the future of home

Episode 4: NYC Goes Modular

Mar 29th, 2017 30m 15s

In the summer of 2016, the world’s tallest modular building at 32 stories high was completed at 461 Dean Street in Brooklyn, NY. Once the building’s apartment modules were completed at a factory located in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, they were tran

Episode 3: Google, China, & Overnight Cities

Mar 15th, 2017 25m 20s

If a trillion dollar market opportunity exists, you can bet the people at Google are thinking about it. Within X, Google’s most secretive lab, they’ve been working on solving the problem of how to make building construction more efficient in or

Episode 2: Half-priced Hamptons

Mar 8th, 2017 22m 40s

Modern homebuilders have taken the art of prefabrication to new heights where they can construct entire rooms complete with insulation, plumbing, and electric wiring all within a factory. These rooms, called “modules,” are then transported from

Episode 1: Home-in-a-box

Feb 27th, 2017 34m 44s

Between 1908 and 1942, Sears sold 100,000 homes that were delivered in kits consisting of 12,000 pieces. While Sears is no longer in the business of making prefabricated homes, a number of technology-driven startups have picked up the mantle an

Introducing Predicting Our Future

Feb 22nd, 2017 1m 51s

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if you could predict where the world was headed? What kind of company would you build or invest in if you could see what disruptions were coming next?This is a sneak preview of the new podcast, Pre

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