This is not your grandmother's Ford. CEO Jim Hackett talks like a tech guy and is reconfiguring the company as much as its cars and trucks around a vision of autonomy, electricity and services that go way beyond vehicles. More
Cities Community Insights Transportation
Harnessing the Data Exhaust (from vehicles)
It may be another generation until driverless cars are the norm, but in the meantime we need data to train the software, as well as to assist in the development of new infrastructure and regulatory regimes. A vast amount of data is already accumulating from cars now on the road, and it dwarfs what's gathered in Google and Uber’s autonomous car projects. More
Community Insights Transportation
Railways on Track for Digital Transformation
The internet of things (IoT) is beginning to transform railroads, despite the industry's longstanding conservatism. The amount of data trains generate is measured in “brontobytes” (millions of times more than a petabyte). It's full steam ahead on all fronts for analytics and increased efficiency. It will all make a real–if hard to notice–difference in our economy. More
Happy Trails: An Inexpensive Way to Revive American Suburbs
As people move more and more to cities, suburban America is in need of a facelift. City living is attractive to young people because they are aware of their energy consumption, they like the action there, and the cost of car and home ownership is often out of reach. Suburban areas across the country are utilizing new trail systems to connect communities, making them more bikeable, pedestrian friendly and green. More
Community Insights Transportation
An Automotive Expert’s Excitement–and Worry–About Self-Driving Vehicles
Self-driving technology is going to make cars and mobility safer, more exciting, more accessible, and more eco-friendly. But for a huge number of people, driving is a job, often a good middle-class one. I worry that time is not on humanity’s side when it comes to helping those displaced from jobs by self-driving technologies. More
Space: The Next Fiscal Frontier?
NASA has increasingly taken a backseat in the world of manned space exploration. While that trend may not be great for America's role in space, it has opened the door for a revolution in private sector space projects. From Elon Musk's Space X project to the rise of nanosatellites, outer space has never been so open for investment and innovation. This piece was originally published in the 2014 edition of Techonomy magazine. More
Cities Government Transportation
Parking ticket? There’s a Bot for That
A legal chatbot called DoNotPay helps users appeal parking tickets through a series of simple questions: Was the signage confusing? Were signs clearly visible? Was the parking bay large enough? It has already helped overturn 160,000 parking tickets in New York and London and has saved users over $2 million, but for its young creator, parking tickets are just the beginning. More
Internet of Things Transportation
Your Next Car Will Drive Better Than You
Even tiny distractions while driving can be a matter of life or death. Now self-learning cars are beginning to employ machine learning to understand a driver’s behavior and preferences, to minimize distraction. Cars may become something like a human personal assistant, making driving safer. More
Trucking Could be the First Destination for the Self-driving Revolution
Self-driving cars tend to spur the selfish parts of our imagination. When we read the latest article about Google’s or Tesla’s self-driving experiments, we picture quiet naps on the commute home from work as the steering wheel turns in front of us: An idyllic moment in the future of personal transport. But despite our earnest […] More
Cities Internet of Things Transportation
Connected Vehicles Make Cities Smarter
With the vast majority of the human population soon in cities, we know we have to leverage information technology to enhance city services, increase safety and improve quality of life. It turns out that the cheapest solution to acquire massive amounts of actionable urban data as well as expand urban wireless coverage may be to rapidly connect as many vehicles moving around the city as possible. An effort to do that in Porto, Portugal is well underway. More
Internet of Things Mobile Transportation
The Next Industries to Be Transformed by Tech: Shipping and Mining
Mining and shipping are industries thus far almost wholly unreconstructed by mobile tech. But soon, remote-control earthmovers, sensor-connected containers, and network-linked augmented reality goggles will change both unalterably. The Internet of Things (IoT) is going underground and out to sea. More
Google Crashes Self-Driving Car—And Everyone Is OK with That
Google released its February Self-Driving Car Project report yesterday—which for the first time ever includes a crash it caused. Reported to the California DMV Feb. 14, the collision was minor: at Mountain View’s El Camino Real and Castro Street intersection, Google’s Lexus RX SUV, while in autonomous mode, “made contact with the side of a passing bus traveling at 15 mph,” according to Google’s monthly report. More
Analytics & Data Business Cities Global Tech Transportation
A Less Congested Future: Technology for Moving People, Businesses, and Cities
Accelerating urbanization is leading to clogged transportation networks, but the clever use of data can smooth our city systems. Powerful tech tools—from the Internet of Moving Things to the computational and sensing capabilities of smartphones—can help reduce congestion. Modeling and data-driven systems will define the future of urban transport. More
Cities Government Manufacturing Techonomy Events Transportation
Geared up for Techonomy Detroit Tuesday 9/15!
On September 15th our FOURTH Techonomy Detroit conference hosts fantastic thinkers and leaders for conversations about how tech is changing companies, work, cities and countries. Speakers include Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini, Autodesk CEO Carl Bass, and Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, plus leaders from Google, IBM, Microsoft, and numerous other companies. And 41% of our speakers are women! More
The Techonomic Pleasures of Renting a Bicycle in Austin
As the on-demand economy grows, people increasingly rent things just when they need them, with services like TaskRabbit, Uber, Airbnb, and RideShare. And urban bicycle rental services are burgeoning. In Austin, Texas recently, I discovered the one there is impressively well run. It integrates just the right cyber and physical elements to deliver a glass-smooth experience. More
Newsletter