Learn how to program a robotic car in 7 weeks
Two years ago in “Why We Don’t Have Flying Cars, Yet” I explained why automation is the next big innovation for vehicles, not alternative energy.
Standford is offering a 7 week undergraduate class teaching how to program a self-driving car. Automation improves the under-satisfied outcome of cars but it is also technologically easier to make than low-cost long range batteries for an electric car.
The Predictive Innovation report the video was based on was first offered to GM but they turned it down. European and Asian car companies used the information and are now selling cars with automated driving features.
Volvo’s XC60 has a City Safety feature that automatically brakes to prevent crashes. It’s a pure gasoline car with lots of room and power. It is priced about the same as the Chevy Volt, although doesn’t receive any of the government incentives.
| 2011 US Car Sales | |
| Car | Units Sold |
| Chevy Volt | 7,671 |
| Volvo XC60 | 12,932 |
The Volvo XC60 with City Safe automatic braking sold 68% more cars in the USA than Chevy Volt. So not only was it easier to build, and thus more profitable, it sold more units. The automated car is more desirable to customers. One of the key points of the report was to offer incremental improvements with meaningful value to customers. That made sure the new features were high quality and low cost.
In addition to satisfying safety, automated cars are better for the environment than an electric car. Electric cars just shift the source of pollution from burning gasoline in the car to burning coal at a power plant. Automated cars use less energy.
First, replacing or repairing a car damaged in an accident uses more energy than the car ever will from driving it. And how can you count the cost of injuries and deaths?
Secondly, by reducing traffic congestion automated cars can save energy for all the cars on the road while reducing drive times and frustration.
Automation in vehicles is still a big innovation opportunity.
Windmill from snow shovels
Simple to make windmill using stuff you can easily find. It might not be the best windmill but it’s better than no windmill.
This man looked at existing windmills, broke it down into functional pieces, then found components that could perform those functions.
A windmill is a device for converting energy from moving air into electricity, heat, or other motion. Most windmill electric generators convert wind motion into circular motion to spin a generator. What other ways could the linear motion of wind be converted into electricity? I’d personally like to see static electricity gathered similar to how lighting is formed.
Think about each part and consider the 15 Alternatives for each.
Twitter distributes software 75 times faster using BitTorrent
My business associate developed the BitTornado software Twitter is using to solve their server update problem. It’s the same type of problem Apple had when I worked there in 1992. The solution approach similar.
A single distribution server is a bottleneck both for efficiency and reliability. A single server slows down as more clients are accessing it. If the single server fails the entire process stops.
Predictive Innovation defines 15 Alternatives for any problem. The 15 Alternatives are arranged into two dimensions of 3 scales and 5 directions. The 3 scales are Single, Multiple and Continuous (see “Predicting the Next Disruptive Innovation” for more details).
When I was at Apple we solved the problem by moving from a Single mainframe to multiple servers and clients. This spread the bandwidth across more computers and provided more flexibility for doing ad-hoc reports.
BitTorrent is a Continuous solution. It doesn’t just spread the bandwidth over more computers, it spreads it over all the computers using the torrent. It produces the maximum bandwidth with the least vulnerability. It also flips the concept of speed on its head. Instead of getting slower as more computers download a file, it gets faster. Any computer connected to the torrent can share pieces with any other computer connected to the torrent. This is also how it reduces vulnerability. There are multiple sources for the pieces of the file, even if none of them have a complete copy of the file.
Predictive Innovation Training
Predictive Innovation: Core Skills Book
RoundSquareTriangle.com