Category Archives: digital

Good News For Deaf Theater Goers

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Photo: Getty Images

My big confession. I miss many words being said on stage during a Broadway, or off-Broadway, theatrical production. Either the words sound muffled, or I can’t hear them at all. I also have trouble with accents. I can miss an entire conversation. I hate it.

I was thrilled to learn that a Tel Aviv-based tech company, called GalaPro, has created an app that will display a live closed-captioning system on my smartphone. Now, I can easily follow the script. No more second guessing what is being said.

All I have to do is download the free app and log onto the specific theater’s wi-fi network. GalaPro will do the rest. The app will automatically sync with the show, and then display the lines and the lyrics.The words will appear in red on a black background so that the glow on my smartphone screen will not bother neighbors.

GalaPro has signed many theaters in New York City and around the United States. This is going to change everything. I hope all theaters take advantage of this technology. Many people with hearing problems will definitely come back to live productions. That’s a good thing.

Read more in NY Post.

Facebook Can Be A War Zone

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Mark Zuckerberg, the 33-year old tech billionaire, who created Facebook 13 years ago, never could have predicted that a New York real estate developer and TV personality, would have such a dramatic impact on his business. I am a frequent user on Facebook. I can attest that the social media platform can be a war zone when people start discussing Donald Trump, the 45th President of the United States.

It gets so rough at times that people leave Facebook for weeks or months. They just don’t want to see folks, who they considered good friends for many years, make certain remarks with which they vehemently disagree. Facebook can be a totally exasperating experience. You log in to wish someone a happy birthday, and you end up in a heated debate with another person over a Trump remark or policy.

Meanwhile Wall Street is blaming the fact that users are spending less time on Facebook because they are “consuming information rather than interacting with their friends and family members online.” Zuckerberg now promises that Facebook users will see more posts from family and friends and fewer from businesses and publishers. “Facebook is prioritizing news articles that it determines are trustworthy, informative and local, with the help of users.”

Trying to defend the amount of time users spend on Facebook, Zuckerberg also said, “So let me be clear: Helping people connect is more important than maximizing time they spend on Facebook.” It was reported that the company reduced time spent on its social media platform by roughly 50 million hours every day, or 5 percent, in the final quarter of 2017.

Facebook has 2.13 billion monthly active users worldwide, an increase of 14 percent compared to the same period of the previous year. However, the tech firm saw its daily active users in the United States and Canada drop from 185 million to 184 million from the third to fourth quarter.

I researched a lot of stories to see if Zuckerberg ever admitted that the current administration could be having a negative impact on his creation. The closest I got was this Zuckerberg statement: “2017 was also a hard year. The world feels anxious and divided and that’s played out on Facebook.”

I guess that’s a start.

The Airbnb Of The Seas

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It was about 30 years ago that I met a couple in their early 80’s who lived on a cruise ship, Crystal Cruises, to be exact. They had one cabin for themselves, and one for their luggage. At the time, I thought it was so glamorous. No one from my neighborhood growing up could afford that.

It was one of the first cruises I was ever on. Eliot and Whitney were with me. Coincidentally, the couple were the parents of my client Norman Olson of AudioSource. His father was a pioneer in the retail tech business. His company was Olson Electronics, headquartered in Akron, Ohio.

I couldn’t get my eyes off of Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Olson all week. I watched them enjoy the best meals, the best entertainment, the best accommodations, the best spas, and the best gym facilities available. What caught my eyes the most, was the way the staff treated the Olson’s. They knew them by their first names, their needs, and their wants. They were well attended to, better than in most other shelters.

The Olson’s never got off the ship at ports. They have seen it all over the years. All they wanted to do was sail and lead a healthy and comfortable existence. It was beautiful to watch.

That kind of life was only available to the wealthy. Today it’s much more affordable. There are a number of startups that are aiming to help baby boomers retire in the same fashion as the Olson’s. I don’t know all of the companies trying to do this, but Storylines was the one that has been in the news lately. From what I read, Storylines has just started selling 302 cabins on a 584-foot luxury cruise ship. Price, $255,000.The fees cover food, alcohol, housekeeping, etc. However, monthly fees are quite high.

The tech industry is calling this new concept the Airbnb of the seas. Storylines will allow owners to rent out their apartments to cover the monthly expenses.

Happy sailing.

Comments From My Audience

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This guy will be giving me a colonoscopy next week. I certainly hope he washes his hands. Say hello to my doctor, Bruce Yaffe, who is in Thailand this week.

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Thank you Howard Margolis for scoring the Grammy tickets for my client Owen Kwon of Astell&Kern. A&K hi res music players are the rock star in the audio industry.

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Bedside Visits

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(I’m sorry for this lousy formatting. I wrote this piece on my email and it didn’t transfer well. I tried retyping it here but the copy came out the same way. Let it be).

A young friend of mine is going

through a major health crisis. She

lives on the other side of the country

so I can only be in communications

with her when she is available, or well

enough to talk to me. I know her

family and friends but I can’t be calling

them all the time for status updates.

Plus, I am not sure how much of the

details of her illness she really tells

them.

This gal used to work at our PR

agency for a number of years so I feel

very close to her. She is a gorgeous

woman who could have capitalized on

her looks. She turned out to be one of

the most serious workers in the history

of our business.

I tried communicating with my friend

on Facebook but she got tired keeping

up with all of the inquiries she was

getting. I was worried that I would lose

touch with her. Then all of a sudden

I was notified that my friend was using

a digital platform called Caring Bridge

so she could talk to many of us at one

time.

It has really been a great way to send

frequent good wishes to my friend and

get her almost daily updates. We all

want her to know that we are in this

together.

a

Just Walk Out

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It’s going to take me a while to get use to shopping in a store where I don’t have to check out. You better get used to it too, because Amazon is going to change the way retail is conducted today.

All the media is talking about the new convenience store Amazon opened today in Seattle. Called Amazon Go, there are no checkout lines and no cashiers. It’s all explained in the quick video I posted above.

It’s so ironic that the online company that helped put so many book stores out of business, and is now doing the same thing to other kinds of retail outlets, is now luring customers back to bricks-and-mortar.

Amazon Go is a cashier-less and, checkout-line-free store so people can shop in record-breaking time. All customers have to do is scan the Amazon Go app when they walk in, and then take what they want, and leave. Amazon does the rest. Every move you make is recorded. Eventually Amazon is going to know more about you than anyone else.

Watch the video to see how Amazon has perfected the entire automated process. You can take something off the shelf and then change your mind. Amazon is adding and subtracting from your bill every second of the way. It’s miraculous.

Recode, the tech site, did a marvelous job covering this story. Photos from Recode.

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Photos by Jason Del Rey

The Fountainhead Experience Art Walk

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Eliot and I belong to the Fountainhead Residency and Studios in Miami because the non-profit has a multitude of programs for emerging artists and collectors. We are contemporary art enthusiasts. We do not pretend to be knowledgeable or serious art collectors. We have spent a lot of money on art because we fell in love with the passion and determination of certain artists and what they created. Many of our purchases were made at the Williams McCall Gallery, the only fine arts gallery South Of Fifth, South Beach.

It’s amazing. We have no regrets. We love every piece we have bought over the years, even the ones we have on loan to many of our friends because we just do not have enough space in our apartment.

We are always on the hunt, even though we promised each other many times that we spent enough in our lifetime. Yesterday was proof that art is for love and investing. Fountainhead co-founder (2008) Kathryn Mikesell took a group of us on an art walk of three galleries on South Beach.

We were introduced to several pieces of art that sold for $500 a few years ago and now go for $20,000 plus. That certainly caught the attention of everyone in the group. A number of the art works we saw yesterday featured computer disks, paint swatches, photo negatives and pennies. Eliot went head over for heels for the pen and ink on woven paper by Ben Sack. The detail and the imagination used in his drawing just has to be seen in person. Visit the Robert Fontaine Gallery.

We heard a wild story about Ben Sack. He spends most of the year cruising around the world taking in the sights and learning the history of each city he visits. That helps him achieve the details in each drawing. I also remember something about Ben being blind in one eye. That seems impossible, doesn’t it?

We also had the pleasure of visiting David Castillo and Conde Contemporary galleries. The penny piece below is from Conde Contemporary. The gallery owner, Stacy Conde, is pictured below with Kathryn.

Fountainhead is a Miami treasure. Kathryn and Dan Mikesell have been bringing artists from around the world to live and work in Miami for up to two months each. That means 30 to 40 artists a year, and a total so far of over 300 artists from 36 counties. They also host open houses several times a year, and are presently establishing other art experiences.

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Rent A Lux Room By The Minute

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Image: landlopers

This is going to sound crazy to you, but there is a new trend in the hospitality industry that all seniors should know about. A growing number of luxury hotels around the world are renting guest rooms by the minute. All you need is an app and a credit card.

Of course, you are thinking what I did when I first heard about this new concept. Fancy hotels must be officially opening their doors for romantic reasons. That may be the case, but the fancy participating hotels say otherwise. They get plenty of legitimate requests from clients who need rooms for a few hours. Some have three to five hour travel layovers, others need rooms to rest between shopping sprees, business appointments, and sightseeing trips.

This must be serious business. Some of the hotels involved are the Surrey and the Pierre in New York City and the Taj Campton Palace in San Francisco. Rising operating costs are also another reason hotels are anxious to rent out empty rooms.

The major companies with apps in this business are: hotelsbyday.com, dayuse.com, and recharge.com. Prices vary all over the place. The New York Times did a big story on this topic that is worth reading. I was very interested in this story because two years ago I was desperate for a room at CES in Las Vegas. I checked out of my room early on the third day of the show. My flight home was a red eye later that night. By noon, I was feeling ill. I needed to lay down. There was no place to go. I ended up getting a massage in a fancy spa. I slept through it, but I felt much better after.

I would have paid a pro-rated amount for a good nap in the hotel I had checked out of, but those options weren’t available then. I think I like the new short-term arrangement.

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The Most Downloaded App Last Saturday

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Buzz, buzz, buzz. The social media world is buzzing about the Google Arts & Culture App. It’s available on both iOS and Android.

The Google Arts & Culture App has a new feature that attracted a record-breaking number of folks last Saturday. It actually does something exceptional that has never been done before, according to Appannie, a metrics site.

The arts app actually compares a user’s selfie with a doppelganger from the company’s catalog of historical artworks.

It is pretty amazing.

The Google Arts & Culture App uses “a computer-vision tech to examine what is similar about your face to the thousands of pieces of art that are shared with Google by museums and other institutions.”

You are going to have a lot of fun finding your double. See my comparisons above.

Google thinks Felicia Day and Pete Wentz look like:

You May Never Fold Laundry Again

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Life is full of surprises. Whoever thought that one day there would be a machine that folds your laundry?

It’s not available now, but it will be in in the latter part of 2019. There are a number of companies working on it. The one that got some serious attention at CES is FoldiMate. The company claims that a load of laundry can be folded in four minutes.

I never realized that so many people hated folding laundry. FoldiMate reported that they received 8,000 pre-orders for a $850 machine.

If you are one of those who pre-ordered a unit, you should be forewarned that FoldiMate can’t fold all items. Forget baby clothes, socks and undergarments. Maybe that will change a year from now.

For more in-depth coverage, read the story The Verge did on FoldiMate. They also have some cool videos.