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WHAT'S UP SILICON VALLEY? Johan Carlsson lives on the US west coast and works on Product Discovery at Ericsson. A veteran in the field of mobile solutions, Johan has also been Director of Innovation at Ericsson – a fascinating position if ever there was one! Mia Breitholtz phoned him for an update on the latest developments in Silicon Valley. Hi, Johan. How are you doing? Having just discovered how innovative New York is, I’m now wondering what things are like where you are on the West Coast? “Well, New York is New York, I suppose – but it’s here in California where things are really happening.” So what are the latest trends in Silicon Valley? “Just like everywhere else in the world there’s a lot of talk about the Internet of Things and autonomous vehicles, but what’s possibly most exciting of all is artificial intelligence (AI). AI paves the way for self-learning systems and the automation of tasks that otherwise require manual labour or are too complex for us humans to cope with.” Do you have a good example of how AI can make our everyday lives simpler? “Right now AI is being used to help us consume services and make use of technology in ways that more closely resemble how we humans interact. Take Amazon Echo, for example. This free-standing cylinder has a microphone, speaker and integral voice-controlled computer. You can tell Amazon Echo to turn on the radio, or to search the net and then read out the answer. Soon we’ll not only be able to speak to all our gadgets, but the gadgets themselves will become better at learning what we want them to do – without any need for us to tell them!” What are you most looking forward to in terms of tomorrow’s technology? “The day I no longer need to buy and own a car – and I’m not talking about travelling by taxi!”
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