New Florence. New Renaissance.

Weaning off a laptop

I have several productivity goals on my bucket list. I would love to dictate an entire book on my iPhone even with the ambient noise while I rack up my average of 8 to 10,000 FitBit steps a day. I want to get rid of my computer bag so my feet can have a bit more space to compensate for the airlines increasingly depriving them of some. I want to move away from a laptop, and its bulky cord and mobile mouse when I travel.

I may be able to accomplish some of those goals with a 9.7 inch iPad Pro and some accessories

It’s wrapped around by a Logitech Create case that is supposed to protect against bumps, scratches and spills. On the inside, a lightweight polycarbonate frame and a keyboard module provide structural integrity without weighing down the iPad. So, I can just put it in my carry-on bag with the Lightning charger. Goodbye laptop bag.

I am hoping the Apple Pencil with the Nebo handwriting recognition app will allow me to leave the Moleskine notebook at home. The Create case has special drawing angle which makes it easier to use the Pencil. With the case and the Pencil, the total package is still under 2 lbs. Lighter than my laptop and cord at 5 lbs.

I am similarly hoping the Shure MV88 mic for the Lightning port with its Motiv app will allow me to leave the much heavier Zoom digital recorder at home. Another half a pound in lowered weight. 

I expect to still use the laptop at home. For writing book manuscripts and lots of blog posts it is much more productive, but for travel, want to see if the iPad combo can do fine.

Photo Credit above

Photo Credit below

Bustling Fort Worth, TX

Homer Erekson, Dean at the Neeley School of Business at TCU, my alma mater, invited me to present as part of the Tandy Executive Speaker Series. I have not spent much time in Ft. Worth since I graduated and started my career at the PwC office there. I have spent much more time in nearby Dallas which of course has been growing nicely. So, it was good to go visit the much expanded campus (a third of the university's students go through the business school), spend some time in the much different downtown and the still vibrant stockyards.

What really stood out for me was when Dean Erekson told me about the school’s supply chain credentials, which in turn reflect the bustling AllianceTexas commercial and residential park that Ft. Worth has grown.  

Alliance is an impressive multi-modal logistics hub with

• BNSF Railway’s Intermodal Facility
• Two Class I rail lines (BNSF and Union Pacific)
• Alliance Airport - the world’s first 100% industrial airport
• Interstate Highway 35W from Mexico to Canada, Texas Highways 114 and 170, and the
• FedEx Southwest Regional Sort Hub 

The video below summarizes nicely the massive scope.

With the Panama Canal expansion, Texas ports should see increased traffic and that should allow Alliance and Ft Worth to grow even more rapidly

 

Mass transit + Ride Sharing

• Altamonte Springs, Fla. The city covers up to 25% of your Uber fare to or from the city's commuter train station, or 20% of the fare for using Uber on all trips that begin and end within Altamonte Springs. The program recently expanded to Lake Mary, Longwood, Maitland and Sanford.

• Dallas. Dallas Area Rapid Transit and Lyft have partnered to offer a "first-last" mile program for mass transit users. Riders can use the Lyft mobile app to connect with a driver, then connect to a bus or light rail. DART has a separate agreement with ZipCar.

• Summit, N.J. To alleviate parking congestion, the city subsidizes ridesharing for a group of residents on a limited basis. It aims to save the taxpayers $5 million over the next two years, or about the cost of building a parking lot.

USA Today

Photo Credit

Alibaba + Olympics

In a further sign of China attempting to burnish its globalist credentials, e-commerce giant Alibaba said Thursday it signed on as one of the lead sponsors of the Olympics through 2028.

The announcement at the World Economic Forumwas made during a news conference with International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, Alibaba founder Jack Ma and company CEO Daniel Zhang.

USA Today

 

Infotainment in the air

On our recent trip around the world, between us we flew 9 airlines. The no-frills Tiger flight from Singapore to Hong Kong was a reminder of how aviation used to be just a short while ago – no entertainment, no navigation, no web access. The other flights, in contrast, showed the remarkable range of consumer technology in the air these days.

The Delta Navigation UX

The Air France interactive Navigation UX

Singapore Air Navigation UX

Cameras on Emirates which show views from cockpit and the belly of the plane

Wide range of entertainment on Emirates, including the entire Star Wars movie set

We flew on wide bodies on most segments and most had power outlets and USB ports. Here is one on a Singapore 777

 

Internet availability is still spotty and expensive, but with GoGo, Delta has coverage over much of the world's water. 

 

 

“Boeing Blue” spacesuit

The new "Boeing Blue" spacesuits for the Starliner capsule weigh about 20 lbs. (9 kilograms) each with all of their accessories, compared to 30 lbs. (13.6 kg) for the old space shuttle suits, NASA officials said.

Other advances include touch-screen-sensitive gloves, more-flexible material and soft helmets that are incorporated into the suit (rather than the hard, detachable helmets of the shuttle era).

space.com

 

 

The future of healthcare?

A greeter checks in "members" on an iPad before directing them to a purpose-built full-body scanner that measures myriad parameters that are then fed into Forward's AI algorithms, which can help doctors detect symptoms. New members are put through a "baseline" workup that includes blood and genetic tests, along with the body scan, to build a comprehensive picture of their health.

By the time members make it to exam rooms in the back of the practice, their data is ready to be viewed and manipulated by patient and doctor together on a giant touchscreen that helps to guide a doctor's diagnostic and decision-making capabilities and treatment plans. Before they leave, members are given one of the Forward-approved wearable devices, which are designed to beam the member's vitals to Forward caregivers in real time, and perhaps some supplements too.

Forbes

Photo credit

Tesla’s Gigafactory

More than two years after Tesla broke ground on the facility, the $5 billion Gigafactory has begun producing lithium-ion battery cells. The first such cells under the partnership between Tesla and Panasonic have rolled of the Gigafactory for use in Tesla’s Powerwall 2 home energy products. By the second quarter of this year, Tesla expects to the Gigafactory to be cranking out batteries for its Model 3 electric vehicles.

Tesla said the factory has opened with a footprint of 1.9 million square feet and 4.9 million square feet of operational space over its various floors. And all of that building space is small compared to what Tesla has planned: The company said the Gigafactory is actually less than 30 percent complete, and that it will be the biggest building in the world when finished.

Mercury News

 

 

Pacific Northwest: Innovation Powerhouse

Seattle is synonymous with serious innovation and incubation. It supports an eclectic mix of established companies and startups, as well as small businesses and those owned by people of color. The University of Washington offers a world-class computer science program. Industry clusters in popular fields such as gaming—Nintendo of America, Microsoft Xbox, Big Fish, PopCap and RealNetworks GameHouse—thrive here. Now Bay Area tech companies—Facebook, Google, Salesforce, Dropbox and Adobe—are pushing the digital envelope from Seattle.

Seattle already leads in cloud computing, thanks to Microsoft, Amazon and more than 2,000 Seattle-based Google employees. Coming soon are scores of good-paying gigs in computing trends such as intelligent applications, artificial intelligence/machine learning and augmented reality/virtual reality.

Delta Sky magazine

Photo Credit of Amazon biospheres

Coworking as Future of Work

Brllnt’s symbiotic relationship with WeWork hints at a much larger shift in how we organize work, and where. The startup’s choice of a host was not coincidental. With more than 80,000 members spread across 112 locations in 32 cities worldwide, WeWork represents something new in the annals of the office: a talent pool with the scope and scale of a multinational corporation whose collective brain is there for the picking. Whether it justifies its $16 billion valuation, it’s already one of the biggest beneficiaries of two trends driving the unbundling — and rebundling — of creative work.

Backchannel