The Tech Naughty & Nice List
“He’s making a list, checking it twice…” The North Pole’s Department of Christmas Affairs officially released their Naughty and Nice List for 2021. My name even didn’t make it on that list. If I were to go only by my initial, I’d be on the naughty list. In that spirit, as Christmas approaches, let’s see who made the tech nice and naughty list this year. What organization provided us with tech that made a positive difference? What company is working on a better future?
Given the speed of innovation out there, I’m sure Santa would agree: 2021 has been a scary, challenging year, but there’ve been a lot of good boys and girls this year. Some may deserve a present under the tree. A few should probably get a lump of coal in their stocking. And maybe… some deserve both?
Without further ado, here’s my Naughty & Nice list:
Nice: General Fusion
“Clean Energy. Everywhere. Forever.” That’s quite the tag-line for a world that’s looking for just such a magic bullet to power up our increasingly technology-dependent society. As I explained in Daily Hive, this fusion power startup (which, by coincidence, is practically in my backyard) is a great example of made-in-BC cleantech innovation: “Fusion produces zero greenhouse gas emissions. As well, just 1 kg of fusion fuel can power 10,000 homes for one year and replace 55,000 barrels of oil, 6 million kgs of natural gas, or 10 million kgs of coal.” If their Fusion Demonstration Plant actually works, it could be a big stepping stone to practical, almost limitless energy. Let’s get the power to the people!
I’ll also give a shout-out here to cleantech companies in my home province of British Columbia, which are striving to create a cleaner, better future. There are hundreds of cleantech companies in BC - that’s more than one-quarter of all cleantech companies across Canada.
One other local organization in this space I’ve been watching that deserves a mention:
Nice: HTEC
On the forefront of the hydrogen power space. This sector could create “30 million jobs, and generate $2.5 trillion in sales while helping to remove more than six gigatons of CO2 annually. That’s a huge global impact.”
Nice: D-Wave Systems
As regular readers will know, I’ve been thinking a lot about how companies can use quantum computing right now (not just 10 years from now). D-Wave (also pretty much in my backyard - I live in an interesting neighborhood) has been on the forefront of innovation in quantum computing. They’re already hinting at the next generation: “In 2025 and beyond, D-Wave hopes to refine its technology so that it will handle broader materials science applications, 5G and wireless use cases, and training of machine learning models.” Very nice, indeed.
Nice: Apple
This company just keeps on making products that people love. How do they show that love? Well, put it this way: do you buy snug protective leather sleeves for any other gadget you own? And we all do it without complaint, because we like how iPhones and tablets look and feel - and most importantly, how they work. When you buy an Apple product, you’re not just buying one product: you’re buying access to an entire ecosystem of convenience. (As of this year, Apple is making and designing its own chips that support machine learning, to enable its products to do even more. It’s even building its own search engine.)
They’re not just making products that a lot of people love. They seem to have a renewed focus on products that actually help keep you alive longer. You can use the Apple Watch to monitor vital signs. Their health app on the iPhone or iPod Touch helps you track your steps, swimming strokes, running distance, etc. These are pretty nice features.
Naughty: Meta (formerly Facebook)
Facebook got a lot of bad press in 2021, justifiably so. It seems like the bigger their user base, now at 3 billion, the less they care about each individual. They’ve gotten caught too many times this year with their hand in the cookie jar. You know it’s bad when you feel you have to change your name to get away from the shame of it all. From privacy issues, to taking over our lives (and privacy) in the metaverse to being a platform for hate and even suicide there’s a lot of bad stuff in there. Naughty, naughty.
This could be why they’re making the switch to Meta. But is it too stupid, too late? Who knows. But I can say this: No presents for you, Zuckerberg!
Nice: Medium
Medium was launched in 2012, six years after its older brother Twitter. Although they share a founder - Evan Williams - their model could not be more different. Twitter gives you 280 characters, Medium gives you the world.
While some companies focus on quantity - leading people to go so far as to buy followers, Medium focuses on quality. I’m glad that Medium didn’t stray from its roots. They proved that people are willing to pay for quality content.
So thank you, Medium, for allowing me to share my ideas and learn from others at the same time. Expect a present under your tree!
Nice: Zoom
Where would we be without Zoom? Pretty much where we are… but without the instant connections that it has enabled from wherever we live and work. Early on in the pandemic, Zoom sped past other, established tech companies that offered something similar: a way to connect with others when society’s rules kept clamping down on that exact thing.Zoom was one among many (like WebEx or GoToMeeting). With that kind of competition, how did they do it? The CEO of Basecamp explains: "You open a room, you get a URL, you send the URL around to people. That's it.” It was the simplicity of the thing. And today, there are more than 300 million people using Zoom. The communication links it creates will be even more important over the coming holiday.
Nice: Netflix
How much do people love Netflix? Let me put it this way: would you ever cancel your Netflix subscription? You never know what terrific show will get uploaded this week. Disney+ and Amazon Prime might be trying to out-compete Netflix, but the truth is that the subscriptions are cheap enough that everyone can win. Great content, streamed wherever you can watch it. And now, they’re adding videos and games, without ads or in-game purchases. (If you’re one of the many parents worried about your kids spending money they don’t have on in-app purchases, at least that’s not a thing on Netflix). Not least, Netflix is providing a platform for visual artists and animators to show what they can do while giving the rest of us access to an ocean of new content.
Nice: Amazon
Amazon doesn’t like to stay in its lane. And that’s great. It’s always coming up with new ways to provide faster, more convenient service like Amazon Sidewalk. As I noted, Amazon Sidewalk will encourage new capabilities in communities, from the ground (or sidewalk) up… It is a shared network which connects any Amazon device like Echo and Ring to the Internet. On top of that, the AS Bridge allocates a small amount of bandwidth over a half a mile radius to any device which can connect to AS.
Amazon is also testing out new and useful products in living laboratories: for instance, palm scanning tech in Whole Foods stores in Seattle, to speed up your shopping experience, or a hair salon in London where it can style up a better kind of AR/VR technology.
For technology companies and CTOs like myself, AWS (Amazon Web Services) has been an absolute game-changer. With fast testing and instant scalability via the cloud, even the constraints of the COVID era haven’t been able to keep savvy companies down. If you imagine it, you can do it. As the majority of small businesses seem to believe moving to the cloud is essential to their long-term success, Amazon is helping make that transition as pain-free as possible. That’s nice.
You might like this list, or perhaps you think there should be different companies there, on either the Nice or Naughty list.
Yes, when you think of technology, make sure that you choose the one which positively contributes to your well being, helps you with your daily life and gives you more time to spend on what you like to do. Make it your own recurrent pattern,
Merry Christmas to all my dear readers.