Security comes at the cost of flexibility when it comes to computers. Within an enterprise, things are much easier to control than on the open Internet.
Just read a recent Wired article about Shai Agassi’s start-up devoted to eliminating oil consumption by automobiles across the world. It’s a bit long, but worth a read if you’re feeling as skeptical as I am about the baby-step attitude toward the future of efficient automobiles. Agassi’s new company, Better Place, is the result of thinking VERY big, having the charisma to sell his vision, and generating $200 million in start-up capital to get going, making it the fifth largest start-up ever.
The basic concept is to create an electric car recharging infrastructure that gets power from renewable sources. New electric cars will use special charging stations and battery exchange stations to make it convenient for consumers. Electricity will be priced more like cell phones, with options for unlimited miles, a maximum number of miles each month, or pay as you go. Better Place is making deals with governments and states (Israel, Denmark, and Australia for starters, Hawaii not far behind), automobile and battery manufacturers, dealers, venture capitalists — everyone needed to make this fundamental fueling shift possible.
Agassi’s goal is not to make a company, but rather end oil dependence globally. It’s a lofty goal, to be sure, but this is the most encouraging and empowering plan I’ve read about, and it seems so logical that it has everyone he talks to asking, “Why doesn’t this already exist?” Better Place is equated to being more like AT&T than Nokia, and they’ll make their profit on selling the power. All they need is the infrastructure, and I don’t think it will take the world long to grab hold of this. China is a possible early market, as is San Francisco. If all goes well, the company will change standards for car production and energy consumption worldwide.
His goals of changing the world in as few as 20 years are a bit far-flung, but why not shoot for the moon? In terms of lifestyle changes, I think people will wonder why they can’t just charge their cars in the garage overnight, and it’s a legitimate logistical question. I’m all for his network of green power, but having alternative sources for the energy would make it more acceptable in more places. All the world markets won’t be conquered with one solution, so I’m eager to see how his test runs go.
A good friend of mine is running for Village Trustee in Schaumburg, IL. His son’s friend recognized him from YouTube, which surprised him. We should all start getting used to this. Digital content is out there and it’s there to stay. Tagged and bagged, linked right to you from any Google window. For those worried about privacy, I think there is something to be said for hiding amongst the masses. There is such an overwhelming amount of data out there, I’m not really that afraid anyone would particularly care about mine. I’m careful enough not to post anything too sensitive, but you can count on anything you put online having the potential to go to anyone.
I’m trying to get Bill on Facebook to relate to his constituents. I’ll let you know how it goes. He’s hung up on the time it takes to create a profile, which I think it less important with Facebook than MySpace. I rarely visit people’s profiles. It’s less about the static page of interests (even horribly customized in MySpace) and more about what’s people are doing now.
This is in anticipation of the PBS broadcast premiere of our movie (Andy’s on the board). It’s very exciting, and you should check your local PBS listings to find out when you can watch it from the comfort of your own home.
It’s interesting to watch Facebook’s reach start to include people who would not consider themselves cool kids or geeks. This is a good thing, it means the tool has real influence. But we’ve also seen an evolution of a person’s digital status to represent or in some cases replace traditional social status.
On Facebook (or Twitter for that matter), a person’s status rarely merely indicates what is being done or about to be done, but more of a feeling or emotion, or something completely intangible and obscure like a joke or social commentary.
The degree of wit put forth in either venue stands to affect a person’s social status, if only temporarily. In this way, digital social status would seem to have less staying power than traditional status indicators (wealth, beauty, position, etc.).
It reminds me a bit of Evite, where a person’s party clout is influenced by how witty his or her response to the invitiation is. This is the first conversation of the party, and everyone I know likes taking part. I’ve been waiting for someone to replace Evite for awhile now, but they still seem to own the online invitation market. The problem is that you want to make sure that it’s a site people trust and are familiar with. For all Evite’s failings, they still reign supreme in these couple of areas. Anyvite does show great promise, though.
I rather enjoyed and completely agree with this article about Chicago coming of age. We’ve always known how great our city is, but now the rest of the world can get to know us as well. It took us longer to get here because we subscribe to the midwestern ideals of working and raising families. Chicago is, after all, still fundamentally a blue collar town. But it’s the winter grit that has made us strong. It’s this grit that made Obama who he is and what got him elected. Hats off, Chicago. I’ve never been more proud.
The company behind the infamous Blackberry, Research In Motion, was clearly caught off-guard with the iPhone considering it’s taken them nearly two years since the iPhone was announced to release a touchscreen competitor, the Blackberry Storm. It makes me giggle to remember all the Blackberry users holding onto their “real” keyboards as superior when now this touch screen is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I imagine it will take some time to work out all the kinks, but I welcome the competition to the iPhone and look forward to playing with one. No matter how good the phone is, nothing compares to the application platform Apple has created to support the iPhone, which has a revolutionary distribution framework allowing developers to sell their applications easily to all iPhone users.
Update: David Pogue’s review really tears the Storm apart, here’s an interesting take from Al Sacco. The things that really stick out to me are the lack of Wi-fi (are you kidding me?) and the lack of ingenuity in the touch screen keyboard. This is what people don’t get about the iPhone. Apple files more than 200 user interface patents to create a seamless user experience. Only that level of expertise and effort can produce something that seems so simple. It’s not just a virtual keyboard, it’s that someone (probably many people) have thought through nearly every aspect of every screen so there are no accidents and you never feel like anything’s missing. It just works.
While not the first retail DNA test to hit the market, 23andMe seeks to be the first practically-priced one at $399. The company was started by Anne Wojcicki, the wife of Google’s Sergey Brin. Almost half of the $8.9 million in funding was provided by Google.
Clearly genetic research and engineering are still controversial topics, but I don’t see a lot of harm in a test that tells us more about the possibility for disease and disorders so that we can be better prepared to live our lives and have children. And even if I did, there isn’t a whole lot anyone can do to stop it.
Good reads 
