Life and Tech #32: The First Thanksgiving with a $5 Computer

This is my email newsletter that ran two weeks ago. Subscribe at https://eepurl.com/bjalx5

This year has seen a lot of personal change for me and a lot of change for the tech industry. Whether it be the preparations of a ton of VR product announcements that will come at CES next year, to a bunch of real innovations in the real-time video space (Periscope and Facebook Live, being the most interesting of those). I wrote about some of my personal struggles on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153728773849655

I’m thankful for so much this year, but instead of taking this newsletter into a personal bent (that’s what Facebook is for) I thought it would be good to look back on some of the technology we’ve seen this year.

First, it’s important to note that this week we lost a great tech journalist, Steve Wildstrom: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153726831174655

He and I attended the big IFA together and if you look at his Facebook wall you’ll see so many wonderful things written about him. I started reading him when he wrote for Business Week. Sending love to his family and friends at this tough time. He set a high bar for those of us who report on the industry.

This weekend I visited a major art/design factory, Million Stone, in Xiamen, China: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/videos/10153725551874655/ You’ve probably walked by some of the art done by this great entrepreneurial couple in a famous hotel or retail chain. They are set up well to play a key role in the world of Magic Leap, and I explain why in that post. I’m so thankful that I got to know them and got a tour of one of China’s great cities.

On the way home, I met the VP of ride design at Disney’s new resort, which is opening next year in Shanghai. We talked ride technology:https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153724045474655

This is yet another reminder of why I’m so thankful to have the opportunity to travel to places that Rackspace doesn’t have a strong business interest in.

There is so much in just the past week to be thankful for.

Whether it’s a $5 computer: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153727837669655

Or a new version of Wordpress: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153724129764655 (more on that on Saturday when we put up an interesting Gillmor Gang we did with Automattic’s founder, Matt Mullenweg)

Or amazing entrepreneurs like Kash Shaikh, founder of #besomebody:https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153722439184655

Or new VR headsets: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153717242119655

We all have a lot to be thankful for. The truth is, after visiting China, I see that the rate of change is only going to speed up. Why? Because the markets have gotten so much bigger -- you really need to visit China or India to see how much bigger the world’s markets have gotten in just a few short years.

Our connectivity is so much better (I wrote several times in the past week of my experiences with WeChat and other apps in China). Our world is more competitive. Noisier. I met a product manager working on self driving cars at Alibaba. She says they are behind Google and others in Silicon Valley, but the streets in China are so much more chaotic than ours that I bet they pass by Silicon Valley-developed-and-tested automotive systems pretty quickly. Unless we too move to more chaotic places.

Anyway, who isn’t thankful for a world that now has drone racing?https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153727370959655

Thank you for subscribing to and sharing this newsletter with others and for all the kind notes you have sent me since starting it earlier this year. Hope you had a great day with your loved ones if you live in the United States, and if you don’t, hope the week was as good to you as it was to me.

A few other things:

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O’Reilly details its real-time tech running on Rackspace’s Carina (makes OpenStack simpler): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApJTUkLTr74

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Wired plants -- these plants are grown with circuitry inside:https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153718272189655

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Happy Birthday Microsoft Windows (now 30 years old): https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153717243124655 How the world has changed since the 1980s when Windows was pretty ugly.

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As a Rackspace futurist, I keep my finger on the pulse of Silicon Valley and global trends, to offer insights into what’s coming next in tech and why it’s important to you.

Since 2009, I’ve traveled near and far, meeting with startups, innovative companies and visionaries, as well as evangelizing the Rackspace managed cloud story.

I read all my email at [email protected] and anything done in response to this newsletter goes to the top of my inbox. I’m also at +1-425-205-1921 or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble.

Please share this newsletter on your social networks or via email. If you received this from a friend, you can subscribe (or unsubscribe) here: https://eepurl.com/bjalx5 And props to Hugh Macleod and team for creating art each week. Find more athttps://www.gapingvoid.com/