One of the best things about touring small town America is seeing the unexpected. For instance, it was surprising to me that Quincy, Illinois, a city of approximately 41,000, is large enough to support public transit. Like their larger city brethren, it is time for planners in even smaller cities to consider the impact of autonomy on future plans; both on the built-environment, as well as the transportation network. Given the community leadership role of the local broadband operators, they are in a good position to help educate the planners and politicians on these mobile Internet of Things.
A Transition Step(s) to an Autonomous Transport Future
A relatively low-density city designed around the car. Public transportation service that meets its published schedule only 71% of the time, leading to customer satisfaction of only 65%, while the fare recovery is only 15% (passengers only pay 15% of the actual cost with government subsidies making up the difference). Although the above sounds like a description befitting most any U.S. post-World War II city, this is how the creator of a software simulation program and associated white paper describe Canberra, Australia’s current state of public transportation.
The results of Kent Fitch’s simulation shout out to planners and city leaders everywhere, that self-driving vehicles need to be a big part of the discussion of both the transport (public and private) and built-environment future.
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2015 Hot Interconnects Summary Part I – Oracle, Intel, and Facebook Talks by Alan Weissberger
Capability, cost, reliability, power consumption, footprint are the key considerations for all IT equipment, but especially for cloud Data Centers (DCs). Oracle, Intel, and Facebook, from three major IT infrastructure vendors. provided their views of these considerations and their impact on cloud DCs at the Hot Interconnects 2015 conference, held in Santa Clara, CA, August 26-28, 2015.
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2015 Hot Interconnects Summary Part II – Huawei, Brocade/Deep Machine Learning, SD-WAN
In this second of a two-part series on the Hot Interconnects 2015 conference, Alan Weissberger covers Huawei’s open source activities, Deep Machine Learning and its application to networking (from Brocade’s Research Dept), and Software Defined WANs (which is a much broader topic than SDN for WANs). Weissberger’s comprehensive coverage of this event is an important read to operators, as it points the way from the transition of the central office with purpose-built equipment to software defined data centers and networks.
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Smart Home Starts with a Wink
In the 60s era show Bewitched, Samantha, the young-looking witch, could do some amazing things with just a twitch of the nose. It is getting to the point where the magic powers she displayed, are almost reality. Now, with a Wink and maybe an Echo, a mere mortal can command their home to adjust to their needs by speaking simple commands or swiping a handheld screen.
Click here to read and view a brief review on the Wink Hub, a home automation and control device.
Energy Savings with a Smart Vent
What good is a smart thermostat if you can’t control the temperature in a given room? Ecovent Systems has developed a clever way to remotely set per room temperature with an app-controlled vents that open and close to set temperatures on a room-by-room basis. Unlike traditional approaches, these vents, coupled with their temperature sensors, are do-it-yourself installs with no wiring required. Although improving comfort is a major benefit of these type of devices, the energy savings could pay for these devices.
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You Have to Be a Rookie Again
“When we have it right, we are the greatest country in the world,” says Pac-12 Networks Football Studio Analyst, Ronnie Lott. Lott was referring to the importance of character and having a moral compass pointed in the right direction, both individually and collectively as a nation. In the above interview, filmed at the 2015 Independent Show, this four-time Super Bowl champion points out that sports is a great vehicle for learning right and wrong and building good character.
Click here to read and view the interview with one of the hard-hitters in NFL history with one of the biggest hearts.
The Korner – Quincy Doesn’t Forget #
At first glance, from a 100 feet away, it looked like something that should be at a junkyard, not front and center in front of the Quincy, Illinois city hall. Upon closer inspection and reading the placard, it was clear that millions of people had seen this mangled and burned piece of metal. That metal was a fragment of the recovered antenna tower from Building 1 of the World Trade Center.
Harris Corp. manufactured the antenna in Quincy, Illinois decades ago. It is a fitting way for the citizens of Quincy to never forget such a dark day. In a way, it is a microcosm of the very moving 911 Memorial Just as moving is One World Trade Center, as it demonstrates the resilience of the people of New York City and how they continue to move forward and not be defined by the past.
