What OrangeSprocket’s Bill McGrath is Loving Today
In this series, we ask members of New Brunswick’s business community to share the things they’re loving these days.
This week we asked Bill McGrath, co-founder of OrangeSprocket.
“Finding the right balance for the things you love in life like family, health, work and time to dream big can be challenging, but it’s something I’ve gotten better at in recent years.
I’ve always been somewhat of a techno geek and what better time to be alive than now? The world is changing so rapidly that we’re expecting significant advances in artificial intelligence (AI), intelligent machines, autonomous vehicles and nanotechnology in as little as five to ten years. All things that make me very excited for the future!
User experience, usability and the ‘design of everyday things’ can excite and frustrate me. We’re exposed to so many different methods of interacting with ‘things’ in the world around us, while some are designed exceptionally well like the Nest Thermostat, others leave us scratching our heads in confusion.
Whether it’s through the lens of a heads up display (HUD), AI applications like Siri and Google Now or technologies like the Hololens and VR, you have to admit our world is rapidly changing. I love trying to postulate what interfaces and interactions will look like between people and machines in years to come. How will autonomous vehicles change our lives? How will we interact with smartphones (communication devices) of the future? Will they be holograms or something totally yet undiscovered?
And finally what I positively love these days is almost anything Elon Musk lays his hands on. The man is incredibly brilliant. Every so often humanity is exposed to extraordinarily big thinkers, you know the ones that change the world for the better? He’s the real deal, the ultimate dreamer. He’s genuinely motivated to make the world a better place.
How can you not admire him for it?
Musk has singlehandedly reinvigorated the electric automobile industry with Tesla Motors and flipped space exploration upside down with SpaceX’s reusable rockets. There seems to be no stopping him, he’s also helping to reinvent solar energy with the recent unveiling of SolarCity’s innovative new solar roof tiles. At this point, you might wonder where he finds the time. And yet, he still has a trick or two up his sleeve with Hyperloop. Hyperloop’s high-speed transport tubes could be a game changer in transportation, with the capacity to transport people and goods at a top speed of 1200 km/h! Sign me up. I love it!”