Tag Archives: AR

MIT Technology Review’s Top 10 Breakthroughs of 2024 include ‘Twitter Killers’, Gene Editing Tools based on CRISPR and Mixed Reality Headsets

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Controversial robo taxis did not make the ‘first cut’

Three MIT Technology Review representatives held an event today to unveil their breakthrough list of technology for 2024. The items are timely now, more consumer-y than in years past, and according to the editors are “big meaty technologies poised to change the world.”

The surprising thing to me is that the first thing I saw when entering the LinkedIn live virtual event was a message in comment saying something like, check out our list of breakthroughs that did not make the list here. 

My message to industry folks reading this is, if your technology was not included, feel free to write to them and give your feedback. Hire or contact your PR pro to help you say it in an interesting way.

During the event, a communications engagement representative interviewed Amy Nordrum, executive editor of operations, and Mat Honan, the editor in chief who is based in San Francisco. I liked the Bear decoration on the wall behind him. I thought he might be a UC Berkeley grad but his LinkedIn says he went to University of Georgia and Emory.

How do they decide on the list? PR people, university researchers and company folks pitch them solutions throughout the year, and they are considered. Journalists need interesting pitches so that their editors okay their ideas so they don’t just toss out ideas to be nice to someone they may have met with. 

My experience is that they are open to in-person meetings. You need to be able to clearly articulate why your offering matters. A quality PR consultant can help figure out how to phrase something to get a response from MIT Tech Review. 

I’ve taken many technologists to meet their editors: Typically the true breakthrough news gets coverage in a feature. 

Relationship building is beneficial too. They might meet for a few minutes to shake your hand and make a new contact for future projects. If you are pitching a conference meeting, try to get in touch at least six weeks in advance and ditch the industry jargon when doing so.

MIT Technology Review editors mentioned weight loss drugs, AI for Everything, the Twitter Killers List, the first gene editing treatments based on CRISPR, Super-Efficient Solar Cells, Mixed Reality Headsets, and Solar Geo-Engineering technologies. Please visit the outlet’s website for the full list here. 

Examples of Twitter Killers mentioned were Mastodon, Threads and Blue Sky. Threads is up to 100 million users: I find engagement hard though due to lack of hashtag capabilities. Discord and Slack were smartly brought up. Slack is universally used by all people I do business with. Discord is popular with Gen Zs but I don’t like the way you can make your identity secret there. 

Apple’s Vision Pro Headset which will be out in February was mentioned. (See the photo that goes with this story. Photo credit goes to Wikipedia.)

The editors said to keep in mind that mixed reality headsets have not done well in the past with consumers. They added they were more impressed with the underlying technology because of how you can be present where you are and also be in or near something that’s virtual. Apparently, it’s wicked awesome, as they say in ‘Bahston.’ (I used to live in Salem, MA.)

They mentioned that Mexico has banned some solar geoengineered experiments. 

They deeply and passionately stressed what did not make the list. Honan said that he’s been testing robo taxis in San Francisco and because of Cruz running over and dragging a pedestrian, they took it off the list. They mentioned Waymo expanding its robo taxi program. As an aside, I never heard anyone say anything bad about Waymo so they must be the darling of the autonomous vehicles industry.

They added that some new Alzheimer’s drugs had major side effects and there was an experiment in Asia that showcased male to male reproduction. Wow!

They invited the audience and readers to vote on what the last item should be. The options are thermal batteries, lab grown meat and robo taxis. 

The purpose of this story is to help clients and prospective clients understand what makes journalists tick. If you understand media outlets, it’s easier to get their attention and coverage. Hire a PR consultant if you need help with media relations.

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Michelle McIntyre is a global tech PR consultant who lives in the Silicon Valley, IBM PR vet and VP of Marketing for PRSA Silicon Valley.

7 White Hot Tech Trends to Be Ready for in 2022

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The other day, technology business journalists from Forbes, Insider, SiliconAngle and WIRED participated in a panel discussion about what trends will be hot in 2022. The purpose of the event was to help public relations professionals like me stay on top of the latest trends in order to better advise their clients and employers in 2022.

Here are the top seven 2022 trends they predicted:

  1. Participation in Web 3.0 will balloon. This is the next iteration of the world wide web. Web 2.0 was the growth of social media networks and things like blogging. 3.0 includes the Metaverse, NFTs, cryptocurrencies and a host of other cool and nifty things that people seem to talk about and invest in daily. The downside is that some aspects of Web 3.0, like NFTs, are volatile and unregulated. An NFT is a digital asset. Here’s an example. If I were to sell my first tweet, I’d be in the NFT business. Some people have sold their first Tweets for more than $50,000.
  2. The Metaverse frenzy will continue. Metaverse, part of Web 3.0, was made famous by Facebook’s recent name change to Meta. It’s a whole new world including AR or augmented reality and VR or virtual reality, and so on. Imagine working, playing and meeting in an online environment. On Dec. 1, a research analyst named Andrew Prince published a blog story that saying, “Grand View Research posted expects the AR market to grow from $25 billion this year to $36 billion in 2022.” He said that this number was released before Facebook’s branding change, and he believed that the market will easily double by the end of 2022.
  3. XR will become more popular. XR, extended reality, is a term referring to all real-and-virtual combined environments and human-machine interactions generated by computer technology and wearables. According to Wikipedia, the ‘X’ represents a variable for any current or future spatial computing technologies, e.g., it includes representative forms such as augmented reality, mixed reality and virtual reality and the areas interpolated among them. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo was quoted this year (2021) in media stories saying that Apple’s first AR/VR headset could be introduced in 2022, but more advanced products like AR glasses are not expected before 2025.
  4. Digital transformation will continue to accelerate. Digital transformation, according to a HBR story (Nov. 30, 2021), is about achieving better business outcomes; it involves things like robotic process automation, machine learning, and cloud computing. It’s kind of a dated term compared to say “Metaverse”, but many businesses have digital transformation plans, and many PR campaigns still involve discussing some aspect of this.
  5. Fintech trends will continue to change the face of the financial industry. Contactless payments and cashless transitions were mentioned. One of the journalists commented that contactless payments are safer, timely due to the pandemic. Notice the large number of fintech startup investments and acquisitions this year.
  6. The pandemic will continue to dominate our lives. Every aspect of our lives including learning, working and playing seems to be affected by coronavirus and the various variants including Delta and now omicron. Any biotech solution that addresses it in a successful manner will likely be trending in 2022.
  7. Hybrid work models will become ubiquitous. Remote work means working from anywhere except the office. Coffee shops and home are two popular choices. Many people set up workstations in their bedrooms and kitchens this year. I’m pleased to have a large, dedicated home office with a connected bathroom, a sofa for my dog and a stationary bike. And then there is the hybrid model, which might entail working three days in the office and two days not in the office. Hybrid seems to be the big trend at the moment. It’s nice to have a company laptop and be able to work anywhere. Setting up a flexible work environment helps prevent The Great Resignation.

In summary, I think that the main trend that will be discussed in 2022 is completing tasks digitally and in other “realities.” This creates efficiencies and keeps people safe from problems like pandemics. It also causes problems, like investing in Web 3.0 NFTs and cryptocurrencies is still a risky business.

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Michelle McIntyre is a Silicon Valley public relations consultant and IBM vet who spends most of her time working for Aircover Communications. Follow her at @fromMichelle on Twitter. Author’s note: Thank you PRSA-SV for hosting the panel and networking event. The panelists were Eugene Kim, Diane Brady, Kristen Nicole, and Lauren Goode. It was co-chaired by Michelle’s Aircover Communications’ Colleague Caroline James.