Continuing Near Futurist Guy Clapperton's discussion with Manoj Chawla, inventor of the Studiobox - in part 2 we look at the practicality and ease of use of the device which aims to repair eye contact and improve communications and human contact over video channels.

To watch us discuss this on video have a look here:

https://youtu.be/Zbu0aUNeDwk

Above is a pic of the Studiobox itself:

We're so used to video calls now that we hardly notice how naff they are. No eye contact, people looking around the room - whatever happened to human contact? A phone call is often better.

Technology industry veteran Manoj Chawla has been looking into what's gone wrong and has a potential solution in his device called the Studiobox. Near Futurist podcaster Guy Clapperton has been playing with it. so they have a chat.

And of course what would be the point if they didn't put it on video? You can watch rather than listen to this episode here:

https://youtu.be/v-yABH82zAE

Continuing the conversation between Near Futurist Guy Clapperton and TomTom's global business manager for traffic, Douglas Gilmour. We finish the conversation by discussing increasingly smart and collaborative map projects and how they're going to affect our daily lives.

We all take satellite navigation for granted but maybe we shouldn't - it's finding its way into smart cities, fleet management, delivery and huge amounts of other areas. In this interview Near Futurist Guy Clapperton speaks to Douglas Gilmour, global develpment manager for traffic at TomTom to about how increasingly smart maps are making a huge difference to us.

https://tomtom.com

In part two of this interview, Ten10 co-founder Ash Gawthorp continues his conversation with Guy Clapperton about the impact of sudden innovation in artificial intelligence on people and learning. They cover company culture and the ability to fail, learning patterns, how to avoid burnout - and the impact of sudden technological change on smaller organisations.

Find out more about Ten10 at https://ten10.com

Artificial Intelligence has been hitting the news even more than usual as Chinese company Deep Seek has turned the market upside down, hitting numerous businesses dependent on the complexity of building AI where it hurts - in the share price. But what about the people using and developing skills in AI?

In this episode, Near Futurist podcaster and speaker Guy Clapperton speaks to Ash Gawthorp, chief academy officer and co-founder of consultancy and education company Ten10, about what sort of learning culture needs to be in place for businesses to be ready for this and future sudden sea-changes.

In this second part of the interview with Dimitra Simeonidou of Joiner, the academic project to explore what's coming next in 6G and beyond, Guy Clapperton asks about when to upgrade our devices, what the role of academia is in all this - and gets advised not to try to trademark the term "7G".

Which is a shame.

More on the work of Prof. Simeonidou here.

You thought the conspiracy theories over 5G were bad but had stopped - well, we can only hope it won't all happen again because, wait for it, plans for 6G are afoot. Surely, asks Near Futurist podcaster Guy Clapperton. we don't need it, isn't 5G fast enough? That's until our guest, Prof. Dimitra Simeonidou, head of the UK 6G Testbed, called Joiner (website https://www.bristol.ac.uk/research/groups/smart/projects/joiner/), reminds him that 5G signals tend to fail immediately you get on a two hour train journey or something.

She also explores how the metaverse might actually happen but with a more "real" experience than you'd get from modern networks as well as the role of satellite technology.

Tune in here for part 1 of this absorbing interview - part 2 will be here next week.