Image from http://inhabitat.com/

Now there are exceptions to this of course, but when I tell people that in five years they will no longer need a new car, I get a look like I’m nuts.  But once I explain that you are getting a new(ish) car and its a ‘need’ not want, then they are a little less skeptical.  However, once I give the full explanation, as I’m about to here, gentle readers, you will agree with me and start telling your friends the same thing just to get that ‘your crazy’ look from them.

First, the caveats.  There are people who buy vehicles for work or hobby.  Truck, Van, taxicab or RV for example.  Then there are those that WANT to buy a new car because its a part of their identity, or love high performance, or have that classic that they love to drive.  Then there are those who live near the edge or off the grid with poor or dirt roads.

OK, now that we have the exceptions out of the way, lets talk about your typical citizen living in a urban environment. In five years, that will be the last time you need to buy a new or newish car. How does that figure?  3 things are going to start happening in 5 years and be complete in 15.

In 5 years we will have our first autonomous vehicles on the road. FULLY autonomous meaning we have the legal issues sorted out that these little Google panda cars driving around my neighborhood will no longer need a driver.  This will be huge. The idea that I can use my phone to have a car pick me up and take me where I need to go will be just as convenient as taking my own car. To make this work, there needs to be a lot of these little buggers running around such that I can have a car at my door in 3 min or less.  Assuming Uber has not been sued out of existence, they will be first in line to try and make that happen.  Watch for them to partner with google and some car maker.

In 5 years the price of these little bugs will be 1/10 the cost of a normal car.  They will be fully electric with no frills.  There will be competitors (Apple, Tesla and later other car makers) that will focus on higher end self driving cars, but those will be seen more as luxury than a necessity. The simple ‘autono-cabs’ will be simple, and thus inexpensive such that there will be many of them. So many that in 15 years many of the next generation will question why they need to ever buy a car or even get a drivers license. (By the way, when that happens we will need a new form of ID.)

Parking space, who needs a parking space?  If you live in San Francisco you know parking is a pain. Worse when you are coming home tired and the last thing you want to is run circles around the blocks trying to find a place to park.  That goes away.  Worried about finding parking when you go somewhere?  Don’t worry about it anymore.  The autono-cab will pick you up at your door and drop you off at your location. Suddenly, parking anywhere will be easier and cheaper because of the reduction of demand.  Going to the game? Or big event?  Not only will you not worry about parking, there will be special lanes for electric autono-cabs so you will get there faster then driving?  Why will this happen?  People who run events and the cities authorities where the event takes place does not want traffic anymore then you do.  They want people in and out quickly, without accidents and drunk drivers making a mess of things.  Win.

Range?  Got that covered. I looked into buying a leaf and decided not to.  If I wanted to take a day trip from mountain view to say Napa, or halfmoon bay, or Oakland (hey its kick’en over there) or even SF I could not be sure I would get back unless I was positive I could find a charging station and have the car there long enough to get a charge.  Our little cabs?  Well, being smaller, lighter and battery tech about to double the range of current car battery packs, we only need to go one way.  Odds are these little guys will have a 60-75 mile range, more then enough for a one way trip anywhere in the bay area.

Now, back to the 5 years thing.  So its 2015 (at least at the time of this writing). I just bought a 2013 PIP Prius although once the new Tesla comes out I will sell the Prius and get that.  But lets say I keep it for 5 years and buy a 2018 Tesla. (I almost never buy new). That takes us to 2020.  Many people believe, as I do, that we should start seeing autonomous cars on the road in 2020. I live in Mountain View, which is not ‘Big city’ but dense enough that the first wave of autonomous cars will reach me.  Odds are, like bike sharing, there will be a monthly or yearly fee you can pay for near unlimited rides.  So that means my Tesla stays in the garage unless I need to go somewhere outside of my local area or I want to go for a fun drive. So now that 2018 is taking on less miles and holding onto more value.  So instead of getting a new car in 2025 I can wait until 2030 or longer depending on how often I drive it.

So now we are at 2025. Battery tech will have doubled again (conservatively) making autono-cabs to more specialized public cars cheaper to make.  The autono-cab is mostly a giant tablet now with multiple screens.  Averts help reduce the costs even more. Choice increases as well as we see Apple cars, luxury Lexus and turbo Tesla’s available via an app. My 2018 Tesla is sitting in the garage most of the time and my wife got a new’ish’ car in 2015, so we have two cars that we really do not drive.  It does not make any sense to have 2 cars now, so we will sell one of them.  Now we just need to stretch the remaining car to 2030, which will be easy because again, we do not drive it much.

From www.fastcodesign.com

By 2030 the autonomous car is ubiquitous. There will still be manual cars out there but even they will have ‘safety’ overrides. The number of car accidents plummets, car insurance goes up for some, and no longer exists for others. There are gas stations, but they are also charging station for the autono-cabs.  Owning a car repair shops goes they way of the local newspaper. Traffic actually goes down instead of up even as population increases. There are more people on the road, but traffic is more efficient, almost no accidents to cause backups, no rubber necking and very few breakdowns since the cars know when they need attention and can drive themselves for service. Places like LA see a marked reduction in pollution.  And one of the biggest win IMHO, drop in drunk driving. Buying a car in 2030 does not make much sense.

Now there will be losers in this grand future I’m painting.  Vehicle drivers; cab, truck, bus will be losing their jobs. Mechanics, we will not need as many.  Oil?  Do not need as much of that either. Car insurance, car dealerships, towing services; not a growth industry.  Municipalities will need new revenue (most likely they will tax the cabs per mile). Traffic tickets?  Kiss those dollars goodbye. Toll takers?  That is already disappearing.

So lets recap.  I said that in 5 years, that will be the last time you ‘need’ to buy a new car.  Math review time!  Buy car latest in 2020.  Good for 5+ years.  We should see the first deployments of self driving public cars in 2020.  By 2022, they should cover most urban and sub-urban areas. Since you are driving your car less, you can hang on to it for another 8 years easy which brings us to 2030.  Not so crazy sounding anymore right?  1) So start telling your friends.  2) Make money bets before you explain.  3) Profit!

P.S.  I started telling people this back in May, and started writing this post in June.  So no, I’m not following the crowd, just talking WAY to long to write my posts now-a-days.

However, this is not a post about the helmet, its more about the validation of wearables and how certain product vertices get defined in this new age of crowdfunding.  The goal of the fund raising was to get $250,000.  Well just over 8 minuets after setting the site live at 6AM pst, they blew through the $250,000 mark and kept climbing.  If I was still riding I would have been one of those throwing my money at them as well.  This is something as a biker I have wanted for a long time.

However, I see this more than just validation that every biker out there wants a cyber helmet. I also ride bicycles, I drive a car, I jog, and one day… one day, will grab a plane and fly.  In all these cases having hands free HUD with full situational awareness would be great for safety and convenience.   ‘But wait!’; you might say.  “Didn’t you say you did not like Google Glass’?  That’s right, I do not … in public that is.  I also said that in specific use cases, it make sense.  Again, I want to repeat this is NOT Google Glass.  This is custom hardware/software targeted to the motorcycle rider.  This is key.  Just putting a HUD display is not good enough.  You have to understand what a rider would want and this is where Skully hits the mark and why they are about to clear $1M. I always felt the Glass was a product solution looking for a problem, and there is nothing wrong with that. Trying things is how you figure out what works and what does not.  However the Skully system took a particular, and I can attest, dedicated vertical and build to them. This is exactly what we saw with the Pebble kick-starter campaign.  After raising venture capital for the product under their former name inPulse, the company failed to attract traditional investors under their new brand name, so the company requested crowd funding in April 2012.  They raised over $10 million.  This product validation redefined and restarted the whole smart watch product category and validated the crowdfunding paradigm.  Two years later, many will argue, and I would be one of them, that the Pebble is one of the best smartwatches on the market based on price, functionality and design. This is because they build ONLY what is needed to provide value to the customer, although the recent Google ware watches comes close. It will be the same with the Skully helmet.  Its one thing to have a great prototype product, its something else to get that product to a consumer level, and manufacturer to that level on a massive scale.   And you know that after this market definition and validation, there are going to be tonnes of copycats snapping at their heals.  But that does not matter now… Skully is first to this newly defined market.

The next few years should be interesting……  I think I may start riding motorcycles again. 

One day I take my wife and her parents on a trip and rented a new Prius.  I was really impressed with how it drove and the fact I got ~64 mpg driving up and down the hills of Yellow Stone with 4 people.  Then I get a new job. This job forced me to drive a bit further in San Francisco and fight more traffic to get there.  So I sell the BMW (for a song) to my nephew and bought a used 06 Prius. It does not drive as nice as the one I rented, but I can deal with it.  Something that I really like about the Prius I rented was playing with the accelerator and brake to get the maximum gas mileage out of it.  It was almost like playing a video game, trying to score the maximum regenerated power when I break, punching the car up to speed then drifting it back down again trying to not engage the gas motor and glide on electric only power. Although I would like more information from the dash monitor, there is still enough real time data to give you feed back on when you get the car in the punch and glide zone. In the beginning I was getting 45 miles per gallon, then 48 mpg, then 50, then on one occasion I got 51…  and then I hit the wall.  No matter what I try, I could not pass that magical 51 mpg per tankful.  But there was another price to be paid for this number. I became of ‘THOSE’ Prius drivers.  You know the type, load as a motor bike, but cant bust a grape in a fruit fight…. Sorry, dont know how Jay Z got in there.  Anyway, I was the type of Prius driver that drives other drivers crazy.  Slow acceleration, driving between 55 and 65 regardless of traffic flow., never keeping a steady speed because of punch and glide, breaking SUPER early to squeeze out every amp of power through regenerative breaking.

Although I noticed how my driving habits changed, and know why they changed, I was still pretty surprised how the gamification of driving changed me so quickly.  I would toggle between the overall trending performance bars and real-time power consumption bars pretty often.  I would obsess on collecting as many 50w green regen badges as I could. Whenever possible I would try to get the battery into the green level then glide the car on electric power only as long as I could.  My wife would laugh as we pull into the last long street before our house and I purposely accelerate as slowly as possible and never go above 29 just to keep it in electric only mode all the way to the house.

Finally, the Old BMW and Motorcycle driver/rider finally broke threw the car gamification haze I was in and ask; “will you DRIVE for &*$(&( sake!?”  A part of me started to get annoyed at myself when I see people passing me because I was not driving he flow of traffic.  Or puzzled looks as I break too soon, or accelerate too slow.  Once I knew I could not really beat 51 under normal circumstances, I purposely turned the displays off, and returned to normal driving. The interesting thing is; I did not drop that far in gas mileage.  Right now I’m doing between 47 and 49 MPG per tank. What I realized is I’m still doing some of the things I used to when I was trying to maximize the gas mileage in the Prius, but only when there are not other cars around.  So if I’m alone on the road or highway, I may punch and glide, pull off a little more slowly then normal and I STILL drag out every amp I can when breaking, but only when there is no one around me.  However, once I’m in traffic, I find myself crusing at the same speeds I used to, accelerating exactly on flow.  I do tend to drag my braking out a little bit, but not enough to through people off.

So a message to all you fellow Prius drivers out there.  You may not realize it, but your annoying.  DRIVE THE FLOW OF TRAFFIC!!

So the same with Google Glass.  Now that Jay Freeman (saurik) has published his jailbreak hack, the sky is the limit on what this new technology can do.  I would expect expanded voice control, Augmented Reality, card counting, quick reference when gaming, facial recognition with CRM display cards, etc..  Great right?  Well, not so fast.  One of the biggest complaint with GGlass is the lack of privacy.  I live in Mountain View so I have seen my fair share of GGlasses walking around. Every time I see someone waring one, I want to get out of the camera’s line of site.  I do not like the idea that I can be filmed at anytime. It feels like a violation of social convention.  With a hacked device, someone could be filming me as we chat or just standing nearby as I chat with others.  I’m not as private a person as some people, but I do have an aversion to being approached when I’m trying to relax and socialize with people I do not get time to see.  So knowing that someone walking around with a device that gives them an unfair advantage to know who I am, what I do and record every element of our interaction simply turns me off.  I can see being at an event and if someone comes up to me waring GGlass the first thing I will tell them is to please take them off.

I’m not the first to say this.  There are plenty of places the GGlass is already unwelcome for many of the reasons I listed.  Want to gamble?  Nope, take those things off.  I expect the list of places where the GGlass and similar devices are restricted will grow. Have a look at this video of Scoble via TNW on privacy. (see vid at the end of this post) One thing he said that I was already thinking was MAD.  Mutually Assured Destruction.  For those too young to remember the Cold War, this implies that if you use GGlass inappropriately, someone else waring GG or similar device will record you being a prat.  This argument makes no sense because that only matters if the person performing the infraction cares if you film them much less if you have the reach to make your reporting effective.  However, being called out in public just might.

Now that being said, I think GGlass used in the correct setting can be great! Just listen to Robert Scoble and you will get the cheerleader of cheerleaders. And I share his excitement to a certain extent.  As a musician, this will be one of the best things for the memory challenged since wireless mics.  I dream of playing a show and having not only my playlist, but lyrics accessible by just looking up to the right.  BTW, if someone at Google reads this and want to send me a test unit, I write the code for this.   I can see everyday use as well, I can have step by step as I’m working on my car, or cooking something new, I can be sitting outside and get a important messages (using really strong filters), reminders from my calendar or see who is calling me.  One of the reason I got the Pebble … Still waiting for it BTW.  Although I do not ride nearly as much as I used to, I can see this being an almost required item for bikers and motorcyclist, although like most things, it can be a distraction as well, so use with caution.

And this brings us full circle back to jailbreaking.  GGlass is intended to be a closed system. I can see a restriction that it will not work when driving, but a jailbreak hack can take care of that.  And full disclose, I would totally do that if I start riding again and would ware it driving as well. Since GGlass is in the upper right, it’s not in your full view and also its not always on, so I think its fully safe, but I KNOW people will not be responsible using GG and thus cause accidents.

Whatever controls or limits that Google will put into the GGlass, like indicators someone is recording you, or the 10 sec limit, a jailbreak will get around it.  And as Robert pointed out, this is not something that can be stopped.  The genie is out of the bottle and we will have to live with this new reality of people being able to record in secret.  But as with people tweeting everything they do, or checking cell phones while in social situations, society will monitor itself and enforce rules of engagement, but believe me, this is only the beginning, there is no turning back.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcRZeRyUq1k

1. Improve existing HTML5 javascript and CSS libraries. I think famo.us is on to something when they did a full rewrite to achieved super fast 3D rendering without using a plugin.  I would like to see a concerted effort to optimise all core HTML5 libraries.
2. Improved voice control.  Sure the release of Siri and Robin and other copy cats, we were really looking forward to AI like voice control.  Did not happen.  Shame.  But it just might this coming year.  Odds are pretty good Apple will release an iWatch and advanced voice control will be needed.
3. A SMALLER iphone 5 socket adapter.  That is all.
4. Reduced fragmentation of Android.  Ok, I may be reaching with this New Years wish.
5. Better batteries.  There is SOO much cool tech, and I do not mean just personal tech, like way smaller phones and laptops, but bikes, cars, heck even airplanes that would be massive games changes if we can just crack this problem.  Imagine we can do a 10x improvement in batteries.  Think of an electric car with a 500 mile range.  Costing LESS then a typical car. However, an electric ultralight plane.  Mmmmm
6. Return of the convertible Tablet. I give both Apple and Microsoft credit for trying to add a keyboard to the tablet, but what I want is a full power PC that can convert to a tablet. Com’on guys.  Take the TC1100, shrink it, might it lighter and stronger and release it. Right now the only thing close is the Lenovo Yogo 11 but it is too underpowered.
7. Improved wifi across the nation.  We should ALL have 4G.
8. Digital Medical Records.  I cant believe we are heading into 2013 and the majority of health care system are not all Digital.  Really!  I think the savings would be massive.  And yet, here we are.
9. Better social media filtering.  I guess this is a bit on me because I wrote a Twitter filtering system, TwittFilter,  a number of years back and have not really pushed to take it beyond a person project.  And I guess I could do it for Facebook as well, but as we all know, its hard to find time for things.  So I guess MY wish is to somehow find the time (or money) to build a unfiltered Twitter, Facebook, Google+ social media filter.  If you got $350k to spend on a new company, give me a call.
10. Expanded 3D printing.  I love the speed 3D printing has been spreading, but missing is scanning.  We need a way to make it easy to scan an object so that we can reproduce or modify an object just as easy as 3D printing is becoming.
11. A breakthrough in HMD’s.  We MIGHT already have that with the Oculus, but time will tell.
12. Car to phone interface standard.  There should be an industry wide standard for all phones to interact with all cars using a standardized bluetooth protocol. Please include engine data and diagnostics while you are at it.

So that is my wish list for New Years 2013.  Anything I should add?  Let me know.

With this new ad, there is a distinctive departure from our existing campaign as Carly’s magenta summer dresses are replaced by motorcycle leathers and a 1000 cc Ducati superbike, which symbolizes the speed and capabilities of our 4G network. Entitled “Alter Ego,” the ad is a metaphor for what T-Mobile is all about – challenging the status quo and taking bold steps in the marketplace as a challenger brand.

Whatever.  What I care about is how are you going to deal with the bleeding of customers, money and recently employees? Well in the past week they have done a few things.  The Federal Communications Commission cleared the way for T-Mobile USA to receive about $1 billion of 3 Billion in cash  it is owed as part of the breakup fee for AT&T Inc.’s  failed $39 billion takeover bid. They also approved the transfer of AWS spectrum licenses from AT&T to T-Mobile USA, agreed to as part of the breakup of the proposed merger.   Also a few days back T-Mobile will give you $100 if you trade in your old smart phone when starting a T-Mobile account.  And finally, they are being more aggressive in trying to get every hot device on their service including the Samsung’s Galaxy Note although this is still under rumor control.  Finally they are starting a new advert campaign asking your to compare the other 4G services to the speed of the T-Mobile service.

So lets see, bandwidth, 3 billion in the bank and knowledge that its now or never to service as a company till they can get the iPhone.  They have to pull out all the stops to try to stop the bleeding and get people excited about T-Mobile as a major player in the cell carrier war.  Yes, I would be hell bent for leather too.  Should be interesting to watch.   Course, they could always just get the iPhone.

There are not that many projects on the site, but still enough to give the budding bio science researcher plenty of options on where to place there money.  Best of luck Petridish…

Now… who knows of a kickstarter for electric bikes?

{ update:  I just bought it! }

There have been other smartwatches, remember the rumors that Apple is working on an iOS watch?  Well this is different because the watch it not trying to run an OS By using the phone do the processing, the watch is basically a semi dumb display that using your phone to get and process data. However, I say ‘semi’ because you can load simple apps that can execute basic programs; like displaying time of course, but you can use it as a bike computer, vibrate on alarms, control music on your phone and just recently announced, you can use iftt (if this then that) tools to make your own rules for when the phone sends messages to your watch.

Apps bring Pebble to life. We’re building some amazing apps for Pebble. Cyclists can use Pebble as a bike computer, accessing the GPS on your smartphone to display speed, distance and pace data. Runners get a similar set of data displayed on their wrist. Use the music control app to play, pause or skip tracks on your phone with the touch of a button. If you’re a golfer, feel free to bring Pebble onto the course. We’re working with Freecaddie to create a great golf rangefinder app for Pebble that works on over 25,000 courses world-wide. Instead of using your phone, view your current distance to the green right on your wrist. These apps will be the first, with more in the works!

Sweet eh?  This is listed on kickstarter and you can order one for $115.  Want to code an app yourself?  We for now you need to write in C, so this not for your amateur coder, but who knows?  Perhaps someone will write a Python or PHP layer on top.  Interestingly, Sony announced today that they are releasing a similar sony smartwatch that connects to Android only.  Based on the press release it takes the same approach the pebble is taking, however at $150, for Android only, and not quite as attractive, I’m still leaning towards the Pebble.
Now here is the Vid.

Movingworld is glad to announce the release of “Maps 3D 2.5” an 3D outdoor App for the iPhone. Thanks to Maps 3D (formerly GeoGuide 3D) you will never get lost on the slopes again. The outdoor tracking app retrieves the required off-line maps for the category “Ski, Bike & Hike” before the start of a trip, marks waypoints and keeps an eye on the destination. As a special Christmas present the new version 2.5 offers 340 ski areas in 3D. This way the next ski lift is easily located, even in heavy snowfall. Till December 20th the app is being offered at only $1.99 instead of $2.99.

In a nutshell:
* GeoGuide 3D is now called Maps 3D
* New version 2.5 of the 3D outdoor app for the iPhone has been released
* Worldwide 2D and 3D off-line maps
* Assists with GPS orientation and track recording
* Indicates POI, such as locations, mountain tops, lakes and forests …
* Importing and setting up of waypoints
* New: 340 ski areas worldwide in 3D
* New: sharper and faster map display
* New: waypoints can be linked with photos
* New: a line connects the current position with the destination
* Special Offer: from now till December 20th only $1.99 (instead of $2.99)

Venture of the road and the best navigation system is of no use. It’s now time for the outdoor apps. GeoGuide 3D is an established name in this area. However, in order to gain greater international attention, it changed it’s name. In it’s new version 2.5 it will now be the iPhone app Maps 3D.

What does Maps 3D offer:
The outdoor app incorporates data from OpenStreetMap and OpenCycleMap. Anyone that would like to go hiking, climbing, cycling or be in involved in geocaches, simply downloads the required maps in three possible resolutions from the internet. This can be done before the trip and the data may be retrieved off-line at any time on the iPhone. Locally it can be viewed either in 2D or 3D (realistic relief with elevation lines) in order to avoid getting lost.

The app finds the current location via GPS and marks it on the map. Maps 3D is familiar with plenty of natural reference points such as mountains, lakes, rivers, trails and many other landmarks. Waypoints may be imported or newly added during the preparation process. Destinations can be defined and easily located through precise instructions, including the assistance of a compass. The automatic tracking feature records the already traveled distance. After completing the route it may be sent out via e-mail.

Maps 3D 2.5 now offers 340 ski areas in 3D:
Maps 3D 2.5 is not only getting ready for the winter season, but also for winter sports. The new version 2.5 now features additional 3D maps of 340 popular ski areas around the world. The number of ski areas is constantly increasing which means that the fundus will gradually become more extensive

Moritz Gaupp of the Wurzburg movingworld: “The 340 ski areas in 3D are our Christmas present to loyal customers. The maps are not only the perfect tool to avoid getting lost on and off the slopes, they also assist in finding the nearest ski lift. Skiers can record their downhill run and compare it with those of friends.”

The new version provides sharper maps and shorter downloading times. Waypoints may be linked directly from the app with a photo. Important for cross-country navigation: for the first time the new version of Maps 3D 2.5 will display the linear distance from the actual position to the destination. This is a great tool to get oriented and to precisely target the destination point.

Device Requirements:
* iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad
* Requires iOS 3.1.3 or later
* 9.2 MB

Pricing and Availability:
For one week only, Maps 3D 2.5 is $1.99 USD (Reg $2.99) or equivalent amount in other currencies and available worldwide exclusively through the App Store in the Navigation category. The lite version may be tried out for free. The update offers more than 60 improvements and is of course free of charge for previous users of GeoGuide 3D. Journalists that would like to test the program may request a promotional code from Press Agency Typemania. This way the app can be obtained and tested free of charge.

Maps 3D 2.5: http://www.movingworld.de
Purchase and Download: http://itunes.apple.com/app/geoguide-3d-worldwide-maps/id391304000

Here is a clip from the Video we are going to release on the Venturebeat site when the app goes live, so consider this a sneak preview.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_mxSHG5ESk