I’ve got a golden ticket! It certainly feels that way if you’re able to get on a new platform before anyone else, doesn’t it? Google has just allowed each of their “Inbox by Gmail” users to invite three of their friends and of course everyone is wondering what’s new with the technology giant.

Since the day I got the Samsung Gear Live, I was in love with the thing. Like anything for the first generation or two of a Google product, you are basically paying them to be a beta tester. And I am totally fine with this.

Everything is getting “smart” these days. Basically every device you can think of out there can be connected to the web, stream music and play back videos, serve as a means of communication, etc… To that end, we’re now in a time when those same devices are being developed to become, well, smarter and take on tasks that were once only perceived to be the things of science fiction novels and movies. Case in point: The ability to use voice authentication technology in our homes.

Most designers, at least the ones I know, hate to network and rarely do it. The key to networking in the tech world is you do not need to be the best in the world, you just need to be passionate, willing to learn and in a lot of cases be the best designer or developer that people know.

To cap off our 6th year at SXSW and follow up on last year’s amazingly successful Trend Lounge, we knew this year had to be bigger, better, more engaging, and of course, even more fun. As we know, long gone are the days of experiencing SXSW Interactive with just 9,000 other tech entrepreneurs and business brights – with 30,000 registrants in 2013 and the final numbers for 2014 still in the works.

I am an incredibly lucky founder. My startup, Pristine, is piggy backing off of the success of Google, and even Apple, in many profound ways. Pre-iPhone, people could only conceive computers as Windows-like desktops. A computer was not a microprocessor running an operating system, but rather a keyboard, mouse, monitor, and Windows. Why?

The Annual TechZulu Startup Forecast is one of our most anticipated events. It’s about as close as you can get to a macro-level crystal ball for the tech industry, expressed through a rapidfire string of insights from the minds of some of tech’s biggest investors, founders, and gamechangers.

Last week, they announced the acquisition of IBM’s x86 server business for approximately $2.3 billion. And now they’ve just shocked the world by announcing their plans to purchase Motorola Mobility from Google for about $2.91 billion.

Why would we want to remove items from the “ok glass” menu? We want users to ‘live’ exclusively in our applications to avoid unwarranted actions such as taking a picture, recording a video, or placing an accidental call. For our company, Pristine, Glass is an enterprise appliance, not a personal device. Glass needs to be completely locked down and Google-free to protect the privacy of patients and respect the policies of the hospitals we serve.

Google has acquired smart home appliance company, Nest Labs for $3.2 billion in cash. It’s a move that will see the giant search engine retain amazing talent and potentially achieve its target of reinventing the “home of the future” using the Internet.