A personal highlight, and there were many, of the Broadband Forum’s Summer Meeting in Milan had little to do with the actual content of the meeting. It started with an idea sparked by the physical presence of Portuguese-speaking members, specifically Radisys‘ Francisco De Carvalho, who is also a Broadband Forum Board Director. If the task hadn’t been so daunting, the cute little Broadband Forum Arrow character would not have been created.
Thanks to the Broadband Forum, my employer, for supporting this newsletter. The content, views, and opinions expressed herein are not those of the Broadband Forum.
Italian Hall of Fame Car Designer Michael Robinson on the Ferrari Luce, Futurism & AI
Will the Luce be the beginning of the end for the iconic Ferrari brand? One is left wondering whether that might be the fate of this iconic Italian vehicle maker after listening to Michael Robinson in the above interview. As background, the British magazine, Magneto, listed Michael at number 31 among the top 50 all-time car designers in the world in 2021. For the past decade plus, Robinson has been a regular Viodi guest discussing the future. In this interview, he also talks about what it means to be a practicing futurist.
Some Chirps and Short Thoughts
- The first word (acronym) that comes to mind is TANSTAFL. Those boxes that offer “free programming” aren’t free. This is an informative episode of the Whitepaw Solutions podcast featuring hosts Emily Call and Jean Edhlund interviewing Ross Petrick, General Manager & CEO of Alliance Communications, about the so-called superboxes. The ironic thing is that otherwise law-abiding citizens are often the purchasers of these boxes.
- This is an interesting development from ASCILINE that seems to take a “semantic video summary” approach, which greatly reduces the bandwidth needed for video transmission.
- Shout out to Martin Casey for surfacing this video, which brings back a memory of connecting via dial-up in Curacao in 1995. Amazing how little progress there was in 9 years, and then the Internet took off.
- “Most agencies don’t get much money from fares. Their operating costs are 80 to 90% paid for by taxpayers, and, so they are more beholden to politicians than they are to transit riders [the customer],” says Randal O’Toole, the Antiplanner. Speaking at the June 20th, 2026 SHIFTseminar, he goes on to explain that politicians build glitzy projects (monuments to themselves, as a transportation engineer once told me), instead of taking inexpensive measures that might actually increase transit ridership.
The Korner – La Piastra: Italy’s Quiet Success in Healing a Highway Scar
One of the exciting things about travel is discovering something special that is not heralded as a tourist attraction. Most people would probably consider La Piastra exactly what its name says, The Slab. But to the freeway cap aficionado, La Piastra represents another proof point to the benefits that can accrue from covering a freeway.
The video filmed on La Piastra captures first impressions. The evening before, there had been a party-like atmosphere on this platform above the freeway. A couple of things to note about the 1/4-mile cap: 1) the freeway noise is non-existent when away from the two ends of the cap, and 2) the central plaza area that now connects a community that was once split by a freeway.
Thank you, Grok and Gemini, for helping with the research and write-up.
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