The crazy potential of the Hyperloop

While most people are excited about travelling in the Hyperloop, it would be logistics and freight that pave the way for people travel that would come later (TechnologyReview):

[T]he upfront installation costs will be outrageously expensive, even compared with rail, and especially compared with Internet infrastructure, despite Hyperloop Tech’s favored analogy. “Laying optic fiber is not really pricey,” says Genevieve Giuliano, a transportation professor at the University of Southern California. “Laying Hyperloop tube is going to be pricey.” But she and the other economists and transportation experts I spoke to perked up when I explained Hyperloop Tech’s interest in freight. “The concept is right,” says Giuliano. Freight rail in the U.S. is already quite profitable and efficient (Warren Buffett invests heavily in it). But a high-speed freight backbone—broadband for goods—linking major population centers could make economic sense, she says.

Daimler introduces the world's first self driving semi-truck

Demand isn't slowing down for logistics, but the ability to recruit drivers is. Makes sense and it's already legal in Nevada (wired):

The truck in question is the Freightliner Inspiration, a teched-up version of the Daimler 18-wheeler sold around the world. And according to Daimler, which owns Mercedes-Benz, it will make long-haul road transportation safer, cheaper, and better for the planet.

The Freightliner Inspiration offers a rather limited version of autonomy: It will take control only on the highway, maintaining a safe distance from other vehicles and staying in its lane. It won’t pass slower vehicles on its own. If the truck encounters a situation it can’t confidently handle, like heavy snow that covers lane lines, it will alert the human that it’s time for him to take over, via beeps and icons in the dashboard. If the driver doesn’t respond within about five seconds, the truck will slow down gradually, then stop.

In hardware terms, the truck isn’t much different from the latest trucks and passenger cars Daimler is putting on the road. A stereoscopic camera reads lane lines. Short and long range radar scan the road up to 800 feet ahead for obstacles. No sensors face backward, because they’re not needed. There’s no vehicle-to-vehicle communication, no LIDaR. The software algorithms are adjusted versions of those developed for use in Mercedes-Benz’s autonomous vehicles.

American regulation drives innovation north...

You can't stop the signal... or the drones apparently (TechCrunch)

It’s happening here, and not 2,000 ft to the south, because the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority, has been dragging its heels on green lighting testing in Washington on existing Amazon company property. Last week, the FAA did finally relent and approve experimental testing for Amazon, but the company responded (with no small amount of evident pique) by noting that the actual drone approved from testing was a prototype that has since become obsolete thanks to more recent technical advances.

In Canada, by contrast, Amazon endured only a single three-week licensing undertaking, after which it has received what the Guardian says is essentially “carte blanche” permissions regarding its full fleet of drones for testing. Of course, one could argue that given Canada’s much, much lower population density and less charged political climate, comparing the FAA’s responsibilities with those of its equivalent body in Transport Canada from the neighbor to the north is essentially comparing apples to oranges.

Still, Canada’s openness to work with drone companies on early testing might usher in a small industry boom – already in 2014, Transport Canada has approved 1,672 companies for commercial drone use, compared to just 48 total for the FAA, the Guardian notes. Canada offers some big benefits to companies hoping to eventually serve the U.S., too, including general geographic and climatological similarity with its southern companion.

Drone companies, especially those focused on solving the hard problems surrounding machine learning and autonomy, are already springing up like weeds in Canadian innovation hubs like Waterloo and Toronto, so the FAA’s sluggishness may prove vitalizing to Canada’s emerging flying robot industry.

Will autonomous driving start with transport trucks?

It would make sense as a path to consumer adoption (Wired):

Autonomous driving is nothing new for trucks in agricultural and military applications, and should be available for passenger cars by 2020. But trucks that share our highways are tempting candidates for shedding their human component: Highway driving is easy for computers but dangerous for us, especially when big machines are involved. In 2012, according to NHTSA, 333,000 large trucks were in crashes in the US. Those accidents killed nearly 4,000 people, the vast majority of whom were riding in passenger vehicles. Regulators have trouble ensuring that drivers get adequate rest, and the trucking industry has fought back against regulation.

With the idea that humans who drive less cause less trouble, Mercedes equipped the Future Truck 2025 with the “Highway Pilot” automated system. “It never gets tired. It’s always 100 percent and sharp. It’s never angry; it’s never distracted,” says Dr. Wolfgang Bernhard, the Daimler board member for trucks and buses. “So this is a much safer system.”

Self driving cars and the future of logistics

It's difficult to see the downside, especially if the technology is showing that it's better than human drivers (MITTechReview) - even if driving through the downtown of any major metropolitan city, it doesn't seem like a high bar to reach. But it's fascinating to follow the iterations the Google team has been making in testing its prototypes:

The idea was that the human drives onto the freeway, engages the system, [and] it takes them on the bulk of the trip—the boring part—and then they reëngage,” said Nathaniel Fairfield, a technical lead on the project, speaking at the Embedded Vision Summit in Santa Clara, California, on Thursday.

That approach had to be scrapped after tests showed that human drivers weren’t trustworthy enough to be co-pilots to Google’s software. When people began riding in one of the vehicles, they paid close attention to what the car was doing and to activity on the road around them, which meant the hand-off between person and machine was smooth. But that interest faded to indifference over weeks and months as people became too trusting of the car’s abilities. “Humans are lazy,” says Fairfield. “People go from plausible suspicion to way overconfidence.”

And so Google’s new vehicle design takes a leaf out of NASA’s design book to cope with such eventualities. “It doesn’t have a fallback to human—it has redundant systems,” said Fairfield. “It has two steering motors, and we have various ways we can bring it to a stop.”

While Wired calls it sneaky, incremental technology improvements are already making their way into mass produced cars. The developing technology also seems to seeping into other industries where we may see more immediate gains with technologies that are allowing trucks to drive in platoons reducing wind drag and increasing fuel efficiency as much as 10% for the rear truck (MITTechReview). Exciting developments to watch...

More on that humble shipping container

An innovation that many of us overlook (theAtlantic). More here.

The secret world of cargo ships

The awesome impact containers had on logistics and the regulatory/security challenges ahead (theWeek):

But the rewards of containerization were too great for the dockers to defeat change. Before containers, transport costs ate up to 25 percent of the value of whatever was being shipped. With the extreme efficiencies that intermodality brought, costs were reduced to a pittance. A sweater can now travel 3,000 miles for 2.5 cents; it costs 1 cent to send a can of beer. Shipping a container can cost next to nothing, an invaluable advantage in hard economic times, when there is more supply than demand.

China isn't the biggest threat to American/Canadian Labour

It's (the lack of) productivity (NYT via Instapundit):

Now, companies that want to make things here often have trouble finding qualified workers for specialized jobs and American-made components for their products. And politicians’ promises that American manufacturing means an abundance of new jobs is complicated — yes, it means jobs, but on nowhere near the scale there was before, because machines have replaced humans at almost every point in the production process.

Take Parkdale: The mill here produces 2.5 million pounds of yarn a week with about 140 workers. In 1980, that production level would have required more than 2,000 people.

An Ode to the Genius of the Humble Shipping Container

From the Economist:

In a set of 22 industrialised countries containerisation explains a 320% rise in bilateral trade over the first five years after adoption and 790% over 20 years. By comparison, a bilateral free-trade agreement raises trade by 45% over 20 years and GATT membership adds 285%.

To tackle the sticky question of what is causing what, the authors check whether their variables can predict trade flows in years before container shipping is actually adopted. (If the fact that a country eventually adopts containers predicts growth in its trade in years before that adoption actually occurred, that would be evidence that the “container” jump in trade was actually down to some other pre-existing trend.) But they do not, the authors say, providing strong evidence that containerisation caused the estimated surge in trade.

Innovation in its many forms

I see a visit to Pizza Hut in my near future. (Wired via Instapundit):

It’s an industry that Americans pioneered and continue to dominate. Homegrown brands are expanding throughout the developing world. The uniform customer experiences they provide are triumphs of industrial engineering and efficiency systems management. And they are constantly spending money to create and introduce new products.”

Quote of the Day: On Working in China

I agree wholeheartedly. It's amazing what you learn to brush off as being normal/acceptable/uncontrollable before long. From Silk Road China:

"... almost as difficult as dealing with all the unknowns and changes in China is convincing Americans that have not been to China in his company that China really is that irrational and difficult to deal with."

Warehouses Surrender to Bots

In a follow up to a post made last year, robots made by Kiva Systems have taken over warehouses run by the Gap, Staples and Zappos (SingularityHub). Wired reports that the robots have been successful at fooling their humans into believing that they're the masters in their system:

... remain our underlings — fetching our underwear, delivering our jeans — not our overlords. At many sites, workers have begun to name their robots, complete with "Hello, My Name Is" name tags. From there, it’s only a short step to playing fetch with your robot.

"One of our customers calls those name tags tattoos, and the robots are adopted by employees," said Mitch Rosenberg, Kiva Systems’ VP of Marketing. "Your robot sends you a card on your birthday — this is a corporate sponsored thing, so I asked the management why they let them do it. They said, ‘We do it because the employees get a lot of joy, a lot of happiness out of anthropomorphizing the robots and turning them into pets.’"

More from a corporate propaganda video:

Trade Collapsing (at least for the Port of Long Beach)

Traffic is down a total of 40% yoy, 20% to ytd (Port of Long Beach via Paul Kedrosky). A few pretty dramatic numbers. I'm guessing most of those containers are moving to and from China. Though I think one factor Kedrosky may not be picking up on is the new $35 "clean trucks fee" being charged (as of Feb 18th) with shippers looking to other ports as a result - particularly in this economic environment (3PLWire).

Update: Hong Kong's air cargo traffic drops 19.7%, and air passenger traffic drops 13.7% (China Economic Review.

Web Resources for Startups

It's never been easier to start a business - with some of the services available over the web, you need less money to be more productive, appear more professional and established than ever before. Here's a small list of web services I've come across - let me know if there are any others you'd recommend.

My suggestion to you: grab a large cup of joe and browse through some of these services. I'm going to bet at least a few of these companies will blow your socks off. Sometimes knowing that they exist are enough to realize that you could grow or develop faster than you ever imagined possible.

Manage contacts & develop new ones.

Email. First, setting it up. Google Apps (*$), Yahoo SmallBusiness (*$), and Zimbra. Use it Productively. Xobni (*), Google Desktop (*). Track & Build Effective Email Campaigns (not to be confused with spam). MailChimp ($), CampaignMonitor ($), Industry Mailout ($), StreamSend ($), GoogleMail's Guidelines, YahooMail's Guidelines. Online CRM. ZohoCRM ($, but first 3 users are free), Highrise ($). Other. MyPunchBowl, Anyvite, Proof Email Designs.

Calls & voicemail. Asterisk, GotVmail ($), FonGenie ($), Twilio ($), Grand Central, Ringcentral ($), GotVoice (*$), Skype (*$), Jajah (*$). Call center services. Live Ops ($), Alpine Access ($), Convergys ($), Weavepartners ($). Other. Slydial.

Web. Balsamiq ($), Amazon Web Services (*$), FeedbackArmy ($), Wufoo ($), Kampyle, Animoto (*$), UserVoice, CrowdSound ($), Google Website Optimizer, CrossbrowserTesting, and Other Web Design Analytics Tools. PSD to HTML sites. HTMLmafia ($), P2H ($) and Codemyconcept ($)

Blog. PCWorld's '07 Comparison of Blogging Platforms.

Develop new leads. LeadVine ($), Sales Genie ($).

Tell the world

Print Layouts. Branddoozie ($), Inkd ($), Stocklayouts ($).

Microstockphotography. iStockphoto (*$), SnapVillage ($), SnapVillage ($), BigStockPhoto (*$), ShutterStock ($), Fotolia, Dreamstime ($), and StockXpert ($).

Website Templates. TemplateMonster (*$), ThemeForest ($)

Manage projects and files.

FolderShare (*), Unison File Synchronizer, Basecamp ($), Huddle ($), Project Pier, Callanos, Streamfocus, Redmine ($), Trac, Syncplicity, LiquidPlanner ($) and Groove (*$). Specifically for webapps: ProductPlanner.

Collaborate & share.

Delicious (*), Twiddla (*), Smugmug (for pics $*), Scribd (*), Nosco's IdeaExchange ($), Kluster, Issuu, Slide Rocket, Zapproved ($), Prezi ($), Review Basics, Conceptshare ($), Octopz ($), Cozimo ($), ProofHQ ($), Thinkature, DimDim ($), MindMeister ($) and a compilation from FreelanceSwitch

Figure out what you do well, Outsource the rest.

Elance (*$), Guru ($), oDesk ($), Redesignme ($), Ask Sunday ($), Get Friday ($), Mechanical Turk($), Spudaroo ($), 99 Designs ($), Crowdspring ($), vWorker ($), ScriptLance ($) and Freelancer ($). For product/process development: InnovationExchange ($) or OneBillionMinds ($). For content/knowledge: GenApple ($).

Manage accounting and finances.

Corduroy ($), Freshbooks ($), Quickbooks Online ($), Xpenser (*). Collecting payment. Google Checkout ($), Paypal (*$), Noca ($), and Credit Card Processing Reviews. Sell your receivables @ ReceivablesXchange.com (you need to be based in the US, at least 2 years old, have minimum 1.5M in revenues in last 12 months)

Track Time/Productivity/Reminders.

Jotlet, Clockspot, Flexlists, GetHarvest, TimeBridge, Jiffle, GTDInbox, Jott, RemembertheMilk, 30boxes, CulturedCode's Things for Mac, IDidWork, JoesGoals, Evernote and TSheets ($).

Travel.

ExpertFlyer, FlyerTalk (*), TripIt (*), ParkingSpots, Yapta, Farecast, 2itch.

Legal paperwork (Great for ideas but I'd still get a lawyer to review any important agreements! But it's generally far cheaper to have a lawyer review your draft than to start from scratch).

RocketLawyer (*), Startupcompanylawyer, FreeLegalForms, LegalRiver ($), MyCorporation ($), MyLLC ($), YCombinator's Legal Templates (*), Orick's Startup Forms Library, theFunded.com's Founder friendly Legal Docs.

Other.

Don't learn that you need to backup your stuff the hard way. Carbonite ($), JungleDisk ($), Mozy ($), Backblaze ($) and Dropbox ($).

Finding new digs. SuiteMatch, ZoomProspector, Regus.

People & HR. Spokeo ($), EHealthinsurance, Healthinsuranceinfo.

Shipping & fulfillment. TrackMyShipments, Amazon Fulfillment Services ($).

Starting a business can be a lonely experience. Consider networking online. Sta.rtup.biz, StartupNation, Biznik, Micromentor, IdeaCrossing, PartnerUp and GoBigNetwork.

Other. Google Translation Center (*), myGengo ($). Find a name: Wordoid. Finding the best ideas in your organization. Kindling ($). Charts. LovelyCharts. Research and innovate. US Patent and Trademark Office and Trademarkia.

($) denotes if you need to pay in order to get anything useful out of the service (*) services I've used and recommend.

Saving on Shipping by Using Predictive Modelling

OK so maybe it's a bit geeky of me to find this terribly interesting but it's about saving money (which I'm definitely into) and logistics (a sometimes tangential interest). Apparently Dell saves 60% on their shipping costs (which I imagine must be gargantuan) by using predictive modeling. Per Crunchgear:

If ever anyone tells you that math is all theory and no application, slap them in the face.

Logistics as Entertainment

Freakonomics author Steven Levitt makes an observation of how the internet is being used to achieve significant competitive advantage extracted from an experience with ordering Domino's pizza online (particularly relevant to those of us in industries that aren't generally early adopters of information technology):

Of all the things the internet rewards and encourages, great logistics must be near the top of the list. Companies like Amazon and Domino’s thrive because they are better at getting their products quickly to customers than their competitors.

Then, of course, there is the punishment that the internet delivers to those who are logistically challenged.

Update: More from the Club for Growth that points to a recent study of the emails of 180 million people concluding that "any two people on average are distanced by just 6.6 degrees of separation". As the Club for Growth notes:

As the Internet grows and social networks thicken as more people get connected, the ability to talk, trade, and associate with people around the world will be enormous. And that interconnectivity will either smash all the existing barriers that separate us or it will put enormous pressure on policy makers [ed. and managers] to tear them down. The Internet is nothing if it isn't freedom.

Miscellaneous Link Dumping

Haven't been feeling as inspired to post as much lately (combined with a crushing amount of work to get done) but here are a few things that I found interesting recently:

• [Productivity] 'Don't multitask', from an appropriately named article "The Myth of Multitasking" (The New Atlantis): "multitasking adversely affects how you learn. Even if you learn while multitasking, that learning is less flexible and more specialized, so you cannot retrieve the information as easily." It's something that I'm trying to get away from but I just have to figure out how to better control the interruptions.
  
• [Commodities] Optisolar, a rival to to Nanosolar raises $77.8 M with plans to build a 550 MW plant in San Luis Obispo County, California. Read more about it here and here. Like many things, it bugs me that some people think that the government should be spearheading some big plan - as if they have the expertise or competence to figure out which technologies are most viable.
  
• [Trivia] The reason that pub/bar music is loud is because people drink more - at least according to the Guardian.
• [Managing] Inside the LEGO Factory. Pretty cool, from Gizmodo.
• [Technology] An site/blog dedicated to Arab technology startups. Given their governments and stifling social conditions, I have my doubts that this will be vibrant site but I guess it's a start.
  
• [Politics, Economics] According to the Economist, you get what you pay for especially when it comes to survival rates from a few forms of cancer. Interestingly despite significantly greater amounts of spending in the US, the survival rates are only marginally better than Canada - though I'm sure that for that margin, it's worth it.
  

The Future of Warehousing?

When I was in highschool (now a fairly long time ago), one of the many geeky clubs I joined was Canada FIRST - a robotics competition where high school teams competed against each other to accomplish some sort of goal and making a robot from scratch. I wasn't even remotely technically inclined so I got stuffed with someone else doing something charitably called "PR" for the club.

So when I stumbled onto Kiva Systems, if I were at all technically inclined I think it'd be like a dream job. Kiva Systems may end up being the future of warehousing (IEEE Spectrum). Instead of having a large conveyor belt operation where people move to grab items off a shelf, the shelves come to the people courtesy of these orange robots. Apparently it's already also cost effective.


A few of the cool factoids about Kiva is that the idea was borne out of Mick Mountz trying to figure out how to make fulfillment more cost effective after the demise of Webvan. Further, another one of the key members of the management group is Raffaello D'Andrea, a professor who had led the Cornell team to 4 Robocup world championships.