The Google Home product may be the most exciting thing coming out of the Google I/O conference. said CNET’s Brian Tong in the preview of the Google I/O Developers conference that is happening this week on the former landfill known as Shoreline Amphitheater. And listening to Google’s announcement for this product due out later this year, his assessment is probably right. Using natural language as the input, this Google’s answer to Amazon’s Echo product family and goes even further by being a hub that controls devices inside the home and beyond; all hands-free and without a phone.
Smart Homes Means Smarter Cars
Google Home is sure to be a hot topic of conversation at the Parks Associates’ Connections Conference next week. Parks Associates’ Jennifer Kent gave us a bit of a preview of Connections last week, when she discussed the symbiotic relationship between the smart home and the connected car and how the lines between these two physically distinct spaces are blurring in some ways.
Jump Starting Mobility Efficiency
And within 15 years, the majority of cars we will drive in Silicon Valley will be electric, according to a recent poll of audience members at the Joint Venture Silicon Valley State of the Valley Conference. This may seem hard to believe, but it is a believable scenario given the current level of electric vehicles and what looks to be continued growth. John Boesel, president and CEO of CALSTART, discusses the challenges and opportunities of dealing with such a significant infrastructure change.
Faster Fiber Deployment
Regardless of industry, the changing of infrastructure from one technology to the next is always challenging. Dave Fridley of FARR Technologies knows this too well and that is one of the reasons he and his partners took a fresh look at the process of building and inspecting outside plant a few years ago. We recently caught up with Fridley and he explained how refined and new techniques are allowing his clients to see a twenty to thirty percent decrease in construction management costs without sacrificing quality.
Some Tweets and Shot Thoughts
- The news this week about Otto and its focus on reported $30,000 self-driving kits for long-haul trucks might start to answer the question about when will see autonomous vehicles in rural America. Speaking at last month’s IP Vision Conference and Expo, Driven Growth’s Chris Ruff predicted that long-haul trucking would have a direct impact on the rural environment, as it has relatively predictable routes and presents an opportunity to greatly improve safety and efficiency.
- Of course, some long-haul cargo might be sent someday via hyperloop technology, if things continue to progress as seen in this video.
- Seems like this could be science fiction, but it has become reality in Utah as whose story do you believe when a self-parking car crashes? The driver (who really isn’t driving)? Or, the computer logs? As importantly, what responsibility does the owner of the computer log (presumably the manufacturer) have for protecting the privacy of the driver?
- Reporting on last week’s IoT world, Alan Weissberger expresses concern that security and data privacy are still huge challenges. Read his excellent overview of the IoT World conference here.
- Why isn’t an American-owned media outlet hosting these debates? RT America To Host Third-Party Presidential Debates
The Korner – Virtual Content Creation and More
Can a computer be a better artist than a human? After seeing the deep learning demonstration by Facebook at Nvidia’s 2016 GPU Technology Conference, it isn’t a huge leap to think supercomputers already have 99% of us beat when it comes to artistic ability. Micah Blumberg, who is involved at the intersection of deep learning, virtual reality and neuroscience, provides his thoughts on the various developments seen at this year’s event.
Clearly, with developments like the Google Home and its associated deep learning back-end, Blumberg suggests we are moving to a point where the artificial and real neural nets connect; or what Ray Kurzweil calls singularity.
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