David Pogue talks disruptive technologies and favorite apps
While we bid adieu to ABA Techshow for another year, we won’t soon forget the dynamic keynote presentation given by David Pogue, columnist for the New York Times and Scientific American, as well as an Emmy-winning tech correspondent for CBS Sunday Morning and the current host of NOVA ScienceNow. Pogue sat down with us before his keynote to talk about disruptive technologies and his favorite apps.
“I am going to talk a lot about two broad technologies today,” said Pogue. “I am going to talk about what the smartphone has become, which is so much more than a communication device, and about web 2.0, which is this new universe where the audience provides the material for platforms like Facebook and Twitter. How these two technologies merge is affecting society and culture and what happens when the incoming generation arrives.”
Pogue also talked about how technologies are changing to make instant gratification easier. “The perpetual internet connection affects everyone,” he said. “No one needs to memorize anything anymore. There’s no memorizing of presidents or periodic tables or anything like that. These kinds of things are shifting everything, really.”
He went on to talk about how manufacturers are now building devices and tools that use the smartphone as the brain, essentially. “It started out with regular remote controls, and now people are using their tablets or phones for home entertainment systems,” said Pogue. “I just saw this chapstick-sized home security camera, and you can tune into it from wherever you are in the world. You just look at the screen on your phone and see what your security camera is seeing. That is so cool.”
When asked about this favorite apps, Pogue cited FlightTrack Pro and Jotnot Pro. “I travel an insane amount, so I love FlightTrack Pro,” he said. “It taps right into the FAA databases, so it knows about every flight’s departure times, gates, baggage claims, and terminals, before the airlines do. There have been a couple of times when a flight I was taking was boarding but FlightTrack told me it was going to be delayed by 45 minutes. So I didn’t get on the flight. But then I hear ‘Pogue, Pogue, last passenger to board…’ and I say, ‘This flight is not taking off, I am going to believe my app.’ And sure enough, you hear ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we have an equipment problem, we will be de-boarding the plane to bring in a new aircraft.’ It is always right.”
“Another great one is an app called Jotnot Pro and it’s a scanner,” Pogue continued. “You can scan documents with incredibly high resolution just by snapping a picture. The beauty is that it converts it into a PDF instantly and you can email it, print it, store it in your photo roll. The quality is incredible and I use it all the time for receipts and documents.”
Check out the video clips of Pogue’s keynote speech at ABA Techshow:
In this clip, Pogue talks about his family of attorneys, how he had different aspirations growing up, and how proud his father would be now that he is giving the keynote for the ABA.
Here, Pogue talks about the “Take Back the Beep” campaign that he started a few years ago.
Pogue talks about instant gratification with the new generation and how everything needs to be on demand in this clip.