January 2016

There were 3 posts published in January 2016 (this is page 1 of 1).

Erik Spiekermann on the future of transportation

Om Malik has published a terrific interview with Erik Spiekermann, one of the most important crative thinkers in design. Erik was a pioneer on digital typography and spends a lot of time thinking about culture and design. Apparently, he also has a view on the future of transportation:

[…] For me, the great promise is that a lot of things that are not happening in this country and other countries — for example, transport. People get stuck in two hours of traffic jams and stuff; it’s horrible. One guy sitting in a car crossing the bridge is stupid. It could be four people in there, right? And the same goes for buildings. The same goes for anything that 90 percent of the time isn’t being used. That’s one thing I have great hopes for, that whatever equipment we use will be more accessible and therefore more cleverly used.

It also means that, of course, the industry will be selling less of those things. Not everybody needs a car anymore. What’s going to happen to the car industry? Which my country totally depends on. The younger people in Germany don’t buy anymore; they use Zipcars or Car2Go or bicycle, trams, taxis. They are pragmatic about transport. There’s going to be a big revolution in transportation in America.

I think we are going to see a lot of change in the next 10 years there. You have an app; you know when you can get on the bus or in a car or bicycle. You don’t have to chance it. So you can plan your day without having your own car. That’s a great promise.

The radical change that the future of transportation is going to bring to society is one of the most fascinating topics of the 21st century. We have just to work together to make it happen!

First languages and the memories that they evoke

Wonderful essay on the influence that our mother tongue has in the way we relate to the world and we remember our lifes.

I’ve become aware of the deep sense in which I belong to the Czech language, as well as the extent to which my formative memories are tinged by its “musical key.” For me, the English phrase “pork with cabbage and dumplings” refers to a concept, the national dish of the Czechs. But hearing the Czech phrase vepřo-knedlo-zelo evokes the fragrance of roasting meat, pillowy dumpling loaves being pulled steaming out of a tall pot and sliced with sewing thread, and the clink of the nice china as the table is dressed for Sunday dinner, the fulcrum of every week.

Fascinating behind the scenes at Google’s autonomous car testing center

It is truly impressive the access that Steven Levy has to everything Google.

I cannot help but wonder how many miles/kilometers of autonomous driving are needed in order to make the systems ready for “public consumption”.

The test-driving program evolved out of the company’s need to log a lot of time driving autonomously. “We had two objectives,” says Chris Urmson, director of the autonomous car program, which is in the process of leaving the Google X research division and becoming a separate Alphabet company. “One was to drive 1,000 miles of interesting roads, and the other was to drive 100,000 miles of roads. At the time, this was 10 times more than anyone had ever driven before with one of these things. We realized we couldn’t just have our developers in the cars all day — we had to get some people to come out and drive them.”