by Manuel Stagars | Blog, Location Photos
In a 36-hour hackathon at Fudan University in Shanghai, students from all over China build anything they want with a focus on Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, FinTech or services in the cloud. 18 hours in, equally important like the software are snacks and...
by Manuel Stagars | Blog, Location Photos
Just 30 minutes away from the glitz of Pudong, some areas of Shanghai are slow to catch up with modern times. Save for the smartphones that are everywhere. Nur 30 Minuten vom Finanzzentrum entfernt, lebt man in vielen Stadtvierteln von Shanghai noch in der...
by Manuel Stagars | Blog, Location Photos
As an entrepreneur in the first Internet boom, I had the feeling that most business would take place online by the year 2000. That has happened to a certain extent almost twenty years later. Still, many things are refreshingly analog and traditional in digital...
by Manuel Stagars | Blog, Location Photos
A trip from Los Angeles to Paris costs one hour in traffic, three hours of airport time, and ten hours in the air. It’s experience versus convenience. With consumer technology, which are we emphasizing? Die Reise von Los Angeles nach Paris kostet eine Stunde im...
by Manuel Stagars | Blog, Location Photos
El Paso is the American border town with the infamous Juarez in Mexico. El Paso turns into a tense ghost town after 6 PM, the football stadium one of the few places left with activity. Two brothers hit their drum kit outside above an intersection a few blocks away....
by Manuel Stagars | Blog, Location Photos
Elisabet Nye was a celebrity sculptor in Austin who carved stone after European kings, American artists and politicians. She ran her studio like a factory, not unlike the many glass towers lining the highways today. In Fort Worth is one of two U.S. money printing...
by Manuel Stagars | Blog, Location Photos
Austin is an emerging alternative to Silicon Valley for young tech entrepreneurs. Instead of sitting in traffic in the San Francisco Bay area, they spend their weekend at the Austin river or attend music festivals. Not everything is bigger in Texas, after all. Austin...
by Manuel Stagars | Blog, Location Photos
Santa Fe in the desert of New Mexico is home to colonial churches, open air art exhibitions, breathtaking sunsets. In the outskirts of the city are also Los Alamos, where the first nuclear weapons came from, and the Santa Fe Institute, a research institute focusing on...
by Manuel Stagars | Blog, Location Photos
Every street corner of Los Angeles tells a story, but downtown has more stories to tell than the rest of the city. There is a jewelry district, a fashion district, and many creative startups. People come here because they work in a specific field or have no business...
by Manuel Stagars | Blog, Location Photos
Saturday afternoon is one of the busiest days at the Los Angeles Marina. At a nearby beach, I’m meeting Heather Desurvire for a conversation about user behavior in software, apps, and games. Well designed games prepare us for experiences in the real world. How...
by Manuel Stagars | Blog, Location Photos
Most people living in San Francisco work on the digital future in some form or another. Is this a reason that next to many other things, it is also the city of second-hand book stores? Die meisten Menschen, die in San Francisco wohnen, haben mit der digitalen Zukunft...
by Manuel Stagars | Blog, Location Photos
Silicon Valley designs much of the software and electronics for the entire world. On a trail above the valley, I meet engineers from Germany, India, Russia, and China, who work at some of the tech giants below. Engineers stay at Apple, Facebook, Google for an average...
by Manuel Stagars | Blog, Location Photos
A drive of forty miles can take three hours in the San Francisco Bay Area. No wonder the idea of autonomous vehicles resonates here. Who would mind automating away traffic? Further north 150 guests enjoy a three-course meal infused with high potency cannabis oil....
by Manuel Stagars | Blog, Location Photos
A race between high speed drones takes less than five seconds. You hear the rotors spinning, but the drone is so fast it’s invisible except when it stops. Pilots guide their drones with virtual reality goggles, as if they were flying in the machines themselves....
by Manuel Stagars | Blog, Location Photos
Inventor Dezso Molnar is building a flying car, the ultimate harbinger of the future. He takes me flying on his gyroplane in the Mojave Desert at dawn. There are no giant dashboards or touch screens, just good ideas that address problems with no frills. It seems some...
by Manuel Stagars | Blog, Location Photos
I’ve known the painter Marty Katon for over a decade as one of the most prolific artists in Venice. He often saves lost animals, is a medicine man, and teaches art class at a local college. Marty is telling me of plans to add drawings of drones and smartphones...
by Manuel Stagars | Blog, Location Photos
Research for the film takes me to Los Angeles, where I visit old friends, go to their filmshoots and screenings, and meet potential interviewees. There were always more screens here than people. Traffic is as slow as ever, and it’s no wonder people desire...