For the first time on the Mr. Beacon Podcast, we have put the rubber to the road and experimented with a solution internally before sitting down for the interview. This week, we are happy to welcome Nathan Dunn, CEO of BlueCats , back on the podcast to discuss the experience of deploying their contact tracing solution in our local Wiliot office. The BlueCats solution is both preventative and reactive in nature, by warning users to keep a safe distance while providing a tracing system to warn use...
Mar 09, 2021•50 min•Season 1Ep. 126
What does it mean to ‘modernize your supply chain’? To Digimarc, it involves moving beyond the conventional barcode to an imperceptible data carrier, the Digimarc barcode, that can be repeated many times on packaging without spoiling the appearance. Digimarc is helping businesses across many industries solve for brand protection, sustainability, and traceability. Their digital identity can be applied to material and media of all kinds, including packaging, labels, audio, fabric, and more. We wel...
Feb 18, 2021•48 min•Season 1Ep. 125
How is it ‘that virtually every person on the face of the earth has the ability to scan a barcode in their pocket’? Success in IoT depends on understanding how the ecosystem operates. Auto-ID is a building block at the heart of IoT and AIM is the industry group that defines auto-ID standards. It does the things that companies on their own, even giants, can’t achieve. This week we have a peek inside AIM. For ‘nearly half a century, it has provided unbiased information, education...
Feb 04, 2021•50 min•Season 1Ep. 124
The next time you buy a product, a purse or a pair of shoes, imagine the capabilities that could be unlocked if it were really a platform. The purse could digitally verify its own authenticity, your shoes could seamlessly share the story of their design and origins. ‘Product to Platform’ is the transformation Blue Bite have been enabling: A new way of engaging customers throughout the entire product lifecycle to protect the brand, tell its story, and enable new product commerce oppor...
Jan 19, 2021•45 min•Season 1Ep. 123
Why is it that decision makers should care about data science? The simplest answer could be that some of the biggest businesses are leaders in data science. Think of Netflix, Amazon, Google, Facebook. Their content is all curated by artificial intelligence. Tune in this week to hear a fascinating episode with Dr. Stylianos Kampakis about data science in our world today and to dive into his book “The Decision Makers Handbook to Data Science”. We double click on all the buzz words: artificial inte...
Dec 16, 2020•47 min•Season 1Ep. 122
You’ve heard about the Amazon Go Store and all the big box retailers implementing technology to transform the way we shop, but are we seeing the same advancements in the luxury sector? This week we talk to Inspify, a technology company that is ‘reinventing the art of retail in luxury boutiques’. Thorsten Walther, CEO of Inspify, sits down with us to talk about their product: a customer experience platform as a service. Currently, their focus is creating custom experiences for luxury...
Dec 01, 2020•45 min•Season 1Ep. 121
Why would you want Near Field Communication, or more commonly known as NFC, technology in soccer balls, hand bags, and COVID testing kits? After this conversation with Avery Dennison’s Head of NFC business, Amir Khoshniyati, you’ll be asking ‘Why not?’. To name a few uses that Amir mentions, the unique ID that NFC provides can enable authenticity, consumer engagement and loyalty, and supply chain visibility. Avery Dennison, who recently acquired Smartrac, are a company whose products are ...
Nov 10, 2020•46 min•Season 1Ep. 120
Even with the obvious benefits of illuminating your supply chain with IoT technology, assembling all the pieces of the solution puzzle can seem like an onerous task. Who best to shed some light on the topic of scaling IoT than Bob Proctor, CEO of Link Labs. Bob used to be a McKinsey consultant and his company works with the largest wireless carriers, hospitality providers and eCommerce providers. Link Labs is an end to end solution provider for asset tracking and monitoring – a true expert ...
Oct 27, 2020•49 min•Season 1Ep. 119
IoT insiders know that Bluetooth is not just the wireless technology that we know and use on a daily basis, but also the nick-name of the late Danish king and great communicator, Harald Bluetooth. Forkbeard, Bluetooth’s son, known for his navigational expertise is a perfect name for the company we are talking with today. Forkbeard combines the best of Bluetooth and ultra-sound technology enabling the centimeter-level accuracy needed for useful services and movement insights in indoor environment...
Oct 13, 2020•31 min•Season 1Ep. 118
What could possibly go wrong when huge businesses try to engage with startups? What should startups expect when they try to sell to much larger companies? How would a partnership between companies like Bissell, Steelcase, and Whirlpool help avoid the issues that occur when entrepreneurs penetrate large enterprises? Join us this week with Dana Lowell, Co-founder of Seamless, to find out the answers. Dana’s extensive experience also leads us to an exciting conversation ...
Oct 01, 2020•45 min•Season 1Ep. 117
Where are the dark spots in your supply chain? How could your business transform with digital twin of your supply chain? We are talking about continuous, real time location, condition, and contextual data, when you need it. In 2014, a team of Silicon Valley veterans built a cloud system that bridges the physical and digital worlds. Cloudleaf’s vision is to ‘take a radical new approach to unlock the massive value within supply chains, and transform them into more powerful, data-driven stra...
Sep 10, 2020•37 min•Season 1Ep. 116
Before COVID, ‘social distancing’ and contact tracing’ were not common household topics, but now we consider them daily. They have been serious guiding principles reshaping how we conduct our lives in order to decrease our risk from the virus. The ability to manage social distancing can be key to businesses being able to operate or not. Addressing this need has changed the shape of many technology companies’ offerings. This week we are thrilled to have Bruce Krulwich, of Grizzly Analyt...
Aug 25, 2020•38 min•Season 1Ep. 115
Imagine if there was a way to pay for the product, but not the packaging. A way to avoid paying 20%-30% more per unit imposed by purchasing in smaller formats and simultaneously help save the planet. Imagine if, thanks to IoT technology, the packaging can be used as a mechanism to pay for the product. Meet Algramo, a company trying to introduce a new way to buy. Algramo calls on us to ‘buy your last packaging’, a smart reusable container with a refill service that comes right to your door...
Aug 11, 2020•36 min•Season 1Ep. 114
Imagine arriving in San Francisco from Milan, with a business idea and only money to last you a week. Next thing you know you are crashing at a stranger’s house, notably one that went on to found Uber. Marco Palladino, now co-founder and CTO of Kong, did exactly that. Marco, with his co-founder, was able to build a network and even sign their first investment round at that kitchen table. In this episode, we learn about how their first company, Mashape, turned into the world’s most popular open s...
Jul 28, 2020•51 min•Season 1Ep. 113
When we thought of the year 2020, many of us may have thought we would be flying in our cars and getting our coffee served to us by robots. While we are still working on getting the wings working on our cars, Brain Corp is steadily driving us towards seeing more robots in our daily life. This week on Mr. Beacon, we sit down with Dave Ross, VP of Business Development at Brain Corp, to discuss how robots are changing the industry today, and plans to revolutionize many of the places we visit freque...
Jul 27, 2020•41 min•Season 1Ep. 112
By 2023, those subject to a national privacy law will increase from 10% to 65%. Is this frightening or reassuring? What does it mean to us as entrepreneurs and as individuals? This week, we have a fascinating conversation with Trevor Hughes, President and CEO, of the International Association of Privacy Professionals, or IAPP. The IAPP is seeing exponential growth, with 57,000 members amongst its ranks and adding up to 1,000 new members a month. These include the giants like Amazon, Walmart...
Jun 30, 2020•1 hr 10 min•Season 1Ep. 111
We are talking about tracking rats with a beacon backpack, tools in fighter jets, assets inside nuclear power plants and baseball stadiums with WISERSystems this week on the Mr. Beacon Podcast. WISERSystems has an approach to Ultra-Wide Band locating technology that minimizes the cost compared to traditional UWB tags and readers, while still delivering on industry leading location accuracy. To get very high accuracy their Ultra-Wide Band implementation takes time based measurements for location ...
Jun 16, 2020•48 min•Season 1Ep. 110
Have you ever seen an item like a shirt, whether it be in person or on TV, and wished there was a magic way to discover which brand it was or where to buy it? ID TAG could make this a new reality. ID TAG Technology ‘adds value to digital images and video by embedding real time data and subject location within each image frame’. In one context, this could mean holding up your smartphone’s camera where products would then be identified in frame by Bluetooth sensors, and product information would p...
May 19, 2020•24 min•Season 1Ep. 109
SAS’s vision of transforming ‘a world of data into a world of intelligence’ seems more relevant than ever with the incredible and seemingly endless amount of data we are producing with the Internet of Things. For those who aren’t familiar with SAS, they are one of the largest software companies today, providing a suite of analytics solutions, of which 92% if the Fortune 100 companies use to help access, manage, analyze and report on data to aid in decision-making. This week on the Mr. Beacon Pod...
May 07, 2020•50 min•Season 1Ep. 108
How are we going to deal with the pandemic at hand, and how do we return to ‘normal’? These are the questions at the forefront of our minds. Bluetooth may have an answer. Companies, like Estimote, from the first signs of trouble, have been taking measures to transform their existing technology to help in the era of COVID-19. Last time on the podcast, we talked with Jakub Kryzch, CEO of Estimote, about their new product, the LTE beacon. This time he is back to tell us about an innovativ...
Apr 21, 2020•38 min•Season 1Ep. 107
How do you feel about your failures? Do you fail enough? If we are all supposed to fail fast, what’s the best way of doing it? What do you think of Colgate Lasagna, New Coke or Google Glass? These are just 3 of 100+ failed products featured in The Museum of Failure, ‘a collection of failed products and services from around the world’ with the goal of providing visitors with a learning experience and insight into ‘the risky business of innovation’. This week, we sit down to talk to Dr. ...
Apr 07, 2020•48 min•Season 1Ep. 106
This week we shift our focus from the usual suspects, Bluetooth & beacons, to the application experiences they enable. While Bluetooth, proximity and Real Time Location System technologies can increase efficiency and create new user interactions, among other use cases, it is ‘all useless if it doesn’t result in applications that people can engage with’. Sean Van Tyne, Customer Experience Architect of Van Tyne Group, coaches us on some of the tools they use to help companies ensure the c...
Mar 24, 2020•56 min•Season 1Ep. 105
How do you make the IoT secure? What happens when you don’t? What are some of the most powerful IoT companies doing to address those questions? Full episode here: The ioXt Alliance believes in building a safer IoT world. They believe this world can be made possible through an alliance built on establishing security standards, shaping public policy, and compliance through testing and certification. This week we talk to Brad Ree, the CTO of The ioXt Alliance. This international standard for IoT se...
Mar 16, 2020•38 min•Season 1Ep. 104
Following Mister Beacon's appearance on Coffee with Mr. IoT ( Watch Here ), we switch roles to host Robert Schmid, Chief Futurist at Deloitte, aka Mr. IoT, on this week’s episode! Robert describes himself has as pragmatically audacious with a ‘deep passion and experience in all things digital – IoT wearables, social, mobile, and cloud computing’. This made him the perfect guest to discuss the current state of the Internet of Things ecosystem in all its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and t...
Feb 11, 2020•48 min•Season 1Ep. 103
This week on Mr. Beacon we talk with Cognosos, an asset tracking SAS platform using both Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) as well as Bluetooth. Jim Stratigos, Cognosos’s CTO, shares with us why LPWAN is the best choice for his automotive use case and what “drove” him to create a proprietary tech rather than using LoRa. Their solution enables dealers and auctions to have a cost-effective way of tracking vehicles in large outdoors lots by providing an essential piece of the equation, long range...
Jan 21, 2020•29 min•Season 1Ep. 102
Lighting is everywhere and, conveniently, it’s always powered. This gives it the potential to be a network of sensors for a fraction of the hardware, installation, and maintenance cost of the alternatives. This week on the Mr. Beacon Podcast we meet with Bastiaan de Groot, CEO of the smart lighting company, Ingy, to delve into the disruptive power of lighting, both in an environmental and business context. Ingy believes ‘it is time for a new approach to smart buildings’ so they have built s...
Dec 29, 2019•41 min•Season 1Ep. 101
Midmark is the 100+ year old company that “we all know, but don’t know”. The last time you were at the doctors or dentist, you were probably sitting on one of their chairs or tables, and most likely surrounded by many of the products they produce like cabinetry, lighting, and diagnostic equipment. HT describes Midmark as the market leader in providing “everything you need to outfit a medical environment”. HT Snowday, VP of Innovation and Technology Development at Midmark, joins us today to talk ...
Dec 10, 2019•39 min•Season 1Ep. 100
The Physical Web: What is it, what happened to it, and what is the Physical Web Association’s response? This week on Mr. Beacon we have two of the Co-Founders of the Physical Web Association , Agustin Musi and James Grant, joining us to give us the scoop on the Physical Web’s past struggles as well as it’s promising future. Listen in to learn how the Physical Web provides a better alternative to developing an app, typing in a URL, or scanning a QR code, and how it provides a level playing ...
Nov 12, 2019•47 min•Season 1Ep. 99
Ultra-Wideband (UWB) in the iPhone 11 – What is it and what are the implications? A few months ago a large group of engineers from Apple and Samsung entered the room where a small group of engineers were working on updating a previously obscure radio standard IEEE 802.15.4, mainly used for industrial applications such as luxury car production. Fast forward to a stage in Sunnyvale where Tim Cook unveils his new iPhone 11. The fate of Ultra-Wide Band or UWB was changed foreve...
Oct 09, 2019•43 min•Season 1Ep. 88
There’s been a lot of talk about the new Bluetooth Angle of Arrival (AoA) standard. This week we have a first-hand account of what it took to deploy AoA technology and how well it worked in a large scale manufacturing environment. At the Quuppa Partner Conference in Finland, we had a chance to sit down with Bob Grimm, an IT Enterprise Architect at NGK Automatics Ceramics USA, Inc. Bob had just been on stage talking about NGK’s recent deployment of Quuppa Angle of Arrival technology as part ...
Aug 13, 2019•34 min•Season 1Ep. 97
