The announcement and demonstrations by farm implement manufacturer, CNH Industrial, make it pretty clear that autonomous technologies will have a huge impact on rural areas just as they will make a huge difference to urban landscapes. This could be a boon to places that face shortages of people to drive tractors and combines, but, at the same time, has the potential to significantly reduce employment in certain fields and will be disproportionately felt across the country (CNBC reports that in states like Wyoming and Idaho, the percent of the employed civilians who earn a living through driving exceeds four percent – driving jobs that could eventually be extinct). It will be interesting to see where it goes, but one thing that is a given is that the rural telecom providers will be the thought leaders in making sure their areas adapt to the coming changes.
Automation Will Be a Continuum
“You will need all of them”, says Dr. Louay Eldada. Eldada, CEO of Quanergy was referring to the idea of fusing multiple types of sensors together to paint a complete picture of a vehicle’s environment. This picture Eldada describes is one that is more crisp and extensive (360 degree view) than what a human could see. As a supplier of a building block that will factor into a variety of automated machines, it is no wonder that Eldada’s company just received investments that places its valuation well over a billion dollars.
HOT Interconnects (HOTi) Summary- Part I. Building Large Scale Data Center Networks by Alan Weissberger
The annual IEEE Hot Interconnects conference was held August 24-25, 2016 in Santa Clara, CA. Alan Weissberger review selected presentations in two conference summary articles. In Part I, the focus is on design considerations for large-scale Data Centers (DCs) that are operated by Cloud Service Providers (CSPs). This is an excellent overview of the latest thoughts on state-of-the-art data center design.
The Smart Home for 80% of the Population
The smart home business model is too expensive for up to 80% of the population according to Kevin Meagher. Speaking at CONNECTIONS™ 16, Meahger, SVP Business Development of ROC-Connect, believes the way to get to the larger market is to create a no-cost, baseline service that opens up the market for add-ons. He indicates that this is a different model than that of a traditional home security provider. He believes that insurance companies will become a player in the smart home market, as the data that the smart home provides could be extremely valuable in terms of understanding risk.
Smarter Telecom Workers Through Augmented Reality
At least one telecom operator is using Augmented Reality as a tool to help its technicians be more productive. APX Director of Sales, Sean Wood, describes how the Dutch-based communications provider, KPN, is able to deliver information to smart glasses that allow a technician to see things like work-orders, product information and customers’ data with just a glance.
Gigabit to Businesses Big and Small
Melanie Murphy of AT&T talks about their relatively rapid rollout of a gigabit fiber network into Cupertino, the hometown of Apple. This Silicon Valley burg has a variety of businesses and Murphy talks about how the City of Cupertino realized the needs of the businesses and was instrumental in a relatively rapid rollout of gigabit fiber to its small businesses and industrial parks.
Some Tweets and Short Thoughts:
- How could this happen? Was it really an accident? From the 09/06/16 FCC Daily Digest, “On Friday a news article by Bruce Kushnick was accidentally sent to this e-mail list. This e-mail was simply sent in error to the Daily Digest address….”
- “Without volunteers you don’t have a town.” How one rural telecom helps its community. Congratulations to Spring Grove Communications’ Craig Otterness on the well-deserved recognition for his and his company’s help in making his community a better place.
- RT @Driverless Transportation How can ridesharing giants @Uber and @lyft afford to buy autonomous cars when they’re losing millions each month?
- This was a fun video to film and edit. Am looking forward to seeing what’s behind the blurred images.
- Of course, by sharing this, I am part of the problem “Why Hasn’t Your Income Been Going Up Faster? Blame Facebook“
- Honor to interview Mr. Roadshow– surprised that 75% of respondents of this particular audience believe that autonomous vehicles will be regular fixtures in Silicon Valley within 10 yrs.
The Korner -A Beacon to Improve Agricultural Efficiency #CES2016
Even before sensors and artificial intelligence turn farm implements into automated planting and harvesting machines, the so-called, Internet-of-Things promises to incrementally improve efficiency. In the above interview, Franz HÖpfinger of Fliegl Agrartechnik discusses the add-on sensor/transponders – Bluetooth beacons – they developed that turn “dumb” grain trailers into smart trailers, automating the weighing process, tracking the journey from farm to granary and ensuring that inventory isn’t lost between harvest and distribution.
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