The Times Tech Podcast

Pullstring CEO Oren Jacob: “Alexa, order me 100 gallons of chocolate ice cream”

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Oren Jacob, former CTO of film studio Pixar and founder of computer conversation startup Pullstring to talk about the new age of voice technology and talking Barbie (2:30), how the Amazon Echo ended the family shopping trip (7:30), his years at Pixar (12:00), building Mrs Potatohead (13:30), how a stuffed bunny inspired his startup (14:45), cold-calling speech experts (18:30), doing market research in a tent (20:30), raising the first round of venture capital (23:30), the difficulty of doing speech recognition for children (25:30), the many tech revolutions making voice systems possible (28:45), turning algorthms into characters (36:00), whether bots kill jobs (40:00), expecting too much from machines (46:00), and the importance of a voice assistant elegantly saying “I don’t know” (47:45). Hosted on Acast. See <a href="https://acast.com/privacy" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color:grey;" target="_blank">acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.

As The Sunday Times’ West Coast Correspondent, Danny Fortson has witnessed the technological whirlwind coming from Silicon Valley first hand. The Times' Technology Business Editor Katie Prescott has reported on how digital technology is transforming businesses and society around the world. Now, 'Danny in the Valley' meets 'Katie in the City', with a podcast presented from San Francisco and London. Each week sees a fresh interview with pioneers in tech, from the brightest start-ups to the tech giants, as Katie and Danny chronicle the AI revolution. Hosted on Acast. See <a href="https://acast.com/privacy" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color:grey;" target="_blank">acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.