New Florence. New Renaissance.

2019 in review - Where were you last year? last decade?

These days, there’s more than one way to reminisce. Thanks to the modern surveillance state that is Google, and the marvels of modern data visualization, you can actually map the last few years of your life. The Location History Visualizer heatmap is a totally free and private tool that can import your location data stored by Google, then chart that onto a global map that shows where you spent the most time.

FastCompany

 

 

2019 in review - The Year in Search

Out of all the tech year-in-review recaps, Google’s annual “Year in Search” video is probably the most anticipated and well known. Unlike YouTube’s Rewind video, Google’s Year in Search videos are generally well received due to their inspirational tone, good song choices, and really hitting that “year that was” nostalgia-factor head-on.

Google’s Year in Search 2019 continues the tradition, with this year’s video focusing on whom people turn to in times of uncertainty: heroes. And as Google points out in the video’s description, searches for heroes soared this year

FastCompany

 

 

2019 in review: Scientific American Top Emerging Technologies

One day soon an emerging technology highlighted in this report will allow you to virtually teleport to a distant site and actually feel the handshakes and hugs of fellow cyber travelers. Also close to becoming commonplace: humanoid (and animaloid) robots designed to socialize with people; a system for pinpointing the source of a food-poisoning outbreak in just seconds; minuscule lenses that will pave the way for diminutive cameras and other devices; strong, biodegradable plastics that can be fashioned from otherwise useless plant wastes; DNA-based data-storage systems that will reliably stow ginormous amounts of information; and more.

Scientific American

Here's more on DNA-based storage

 

Google as Interpreter

Interpreter mode, the feature that allows Google Assistant to translate your conversations in real time, is coming to phones. Google says it will work with 44 languages and can be invoked by saying commands like “Hey Google, help me speak Thai” or “Hey Google, be my German translator.”

Once you’re in interpreter mode, the Assistant will translate your speech and read it out loud. On phone screens, the Assistant is able to offer up Smart Replies that can speed up the conversation by letting you respond without having to speak.

The Verge

 

 

 

Everything you ever wanted to know about airplane deicing

Admit it...deicing is a mysterious process to most travelers. 

Toronto Pearson airport runs "the largest and most technologically advanced centralized deicing facility in the world" and can process up to 500 planes in a day. 

They describe here why the need to deice, how they do it, the glycol and anti-icing fluid they use, and how they carefully recycle the significant volume of runoff. Thanks to Sandy Kemsley for the pointer.

The video below provides more detail of the operation.

The US Space Force

Military systems in space provide crucial information to the troops. For example, GPS satellites help the military hit targets precisely. Satellites gather intelligence, detecting things like missile launches. They're also used for communication and collect data on the weather.

It's worth pointing out a few things the Space Force will not do.

"It's not about putting military service members in space, it has nothing to do with NASA, it's not about protecting Earth from asteroids or aliens," said Harrison.

Joan Johnson-Freese, a space security expert at the U.S. Naval War College, said the kind of information gathered by U.S. space systems is crucial in warfare today. "Whoever has the best information and can get it the fastest wins – and space provides a lot of that information."

NPR

Here are some of the space related careers the US Air Force lists on its site

 

Florida as hotbed for AVs

The AV-friendly environment has sparked plenty of activity in the Sunshine State, which recently launched the second phase of construction on SunTrax, a 475-acre AV testing facility near Orlando.

• In Miami, Ford and its AV partner, Argo AI, are testing AVs ahead of expected commercial deployment in 2021.
• Another AV developer, Voyage, is testing driverless shuttles in The Villages, a huge retirement community.
• In June, Starsky Robotics ran the first unmanned, high-speed test of a heavy-duty commercial truck on a stretch of the Florida Turnpike, with the "driver" 140 miles away, operating the rig remotely.
• Waymo brought AVs to Florida this fall to see how its sensors performed during the rainy hurricane season.

Other cutting-edge transportation technology is also being deployed in Florida.

Tampa, for example, was selected by the federal government as one of the first cities to pilot connected vehicle technology on real streets, enabling cars, buses and streetcars to communicate with each other to reduce traffic and improve safety.

Axios

 

2019 in review - the gift of mobility

At the end of every year, I like to flip through our photo albums. What really stood out this year was the wide range of transportation we used during our travels. Some were humble, others luxurious, still others scary - I could use a whole range of adjectives to describe them. It hit me that while we are excited about the future of EVs, AVs, flying cars, last mile bikes and scooters, it is amazing how much choice people have - today - to get from point A to B.

Here is a gallery from a few of my trips

Chao Phraya Express Boat

If you don't mind the occasional bumps and the crowds, this river ferry is one cheap and quick way to get around Bangkok's crowded streets.

The Emirates A380

You can spend hours at the bar at the back of the double decker, 4-engine jumbo jet or you can take advantage of the free wifi, streams from 3 cameras on the plane, hundreds of channels of entertainment. Here is the view from one of the cameras. Read more about my experience here

Navigating Indian Ghats during the Monsoons

My journey from Mumbai to Pune showed as only 80 miles but it was estimated at 3 hours to get there, 4 hours to get back given the clogged streets.  The flight or train options were even less convenient so I got a ride in a Toyota Innova Crysta minivan.  The expressway that cuts through the Western Ghats (The Sahyadri Mountain Range) has historically been a dangerous road. And this was the peak of the monsoon season so it was hairy at times. The driver, thankfully, was excellent

Segway HT

This was scarier than the ride through the Ghats. The user manual says “Whenever you ride the Segway HT, you risk death or serious injury from loss of control, collisions, and falls.” The training took a couple of hours (the trainer was concerned we would not know how to stop and then hurt someone), but after that we enjoyed our ride through the streets of Vail, CO

The Shinkansen

Japan's pride bullet train reaches 175 mph - but even more fascinating are the logistics of running and maintaining that high-speed network in a country prone to earthquakes. See more in my post here

Slowest ride in world?

From one of the fastest to one of the slowest trains in the world...I had tried the Las Vegas Monorail and the Aria Express Tram - both are sleek and efficient and I presumed the tram between the Excalibur and Luxor would be similar. However, going south on that line you have to make a stop and then backtrack. It is a cable car made by the Austrian company DCC Doppelmayr and is rated to go as high as 22 mph, but with the stops it works out to roughly 2 mph. Next time I will walk.

London Underground

For nostalgia I tried the London Underground on a Sunday - it used to be my daily commute when I worked there in the late 80s. The old faithful continues to chug along at average speeds of 20 mph, and carry over 5 million passengers a day

San Francisco Cable Car

For more nostalgia, I took the still-manually operated cable car. I had first tried it couple of decades ago. I particularly wanted to observe the turntable at Powell and Market where the car reverses direction.

The Airbus EC130

The view from a helicopter over Hoover Dam and into the Grand Canyon is stunning. I was just as fascinated with the conversation with the pilot of the EC130.

The Provincetown III

This catamaran makes its winter home in our hometown. Stable even at its speed of 30 knots, it made for a very pleasant ride across Tampa Bay

Kyoto taxi

The ride itself was not unusual but I was impressed how many electronic devices surround a taxi driver in Japan - GPS, walkie talkie, credit card processor, receipt printer, cameras and more

Airport buses

I had the opportunity to take several airport buses this year - from Seattle Airport to Vancouver, from Osaka Itami airport to downtown, and from London Heathrow to Nottingham. I am impressed how efficient bus travel has become (even the immigration and customs across the US/Canada border was a dream) and many of the buses now have wifi and a toilet.

Tokyo Yurikamome line

Tokyo has nearly 5,000 miles of rail, much of it underground. I really enjoyed a ride on the (relatively new) Yurikamome line. It is autonomous, over ground and spotless. Two 8 year old girls old without any adult supervision boarded the train with their school bags. Struck me how safe that transit is.

I could go on and on...but let me stop and just wish you as the Irish do "May the road rise to meet you..." Safe travels. 

 

Nighttime Firefighting

On a recent evening, pilot Toni Lindschinger boarded a reconnaissance helicopter that accompanies the helitanker. He donned military-grade night-vision goggles that give him and his team the ability to fly after dark and hover safely over large bodies of water during a refill.

The night-vision goggles turned the blackened landscape shades of green, allowing a view of individual trees and bushes on the hillsides, as well as waves on a lake as the helitanker dipped close to the shoreline and used an orange snorkel pump to fill its tank in less than a minute.

Being able to hover over any body of water means the team doesn’t have to land and wait for a refill, giving it extra time at night, when winds typically die down and temperatures ease—an ideal time to try to get a handle on a blaze.

WSJ

 

 

 

Chernobyl as tourist destination

The Exclusion Zone is a misnomer. People could always venture in, and lately, as the Ukrainian government has made it far easier to visit, several tour companies have reported an uptick in demand. Bookings of Intrepid Travel’s tours, for instance, have spiked 131%, since the HBO show debuted this past May. Exclusion Zone tours of various kinds can be booked through the company Chernobyl Tour. I hired a private guide via a Ukrainian government agency that oversees the area. How safe is the zone to visit? Tatiana Zotina, a senior researcher at the Laboratory of Radioecology at the Institute of Biophysics of Russian Academy of Sciences in Krasnoyarsk, said it is “probably not dangerous” to take an excursion or an official sightseeing tour since the guides avoid the areas with high radiation levels. Other experts agree that there’s little risk to tourists in terms of radiation exposure.

WSJ