Paul Wallbank is a speaker and writer charting how technology is changing society and business. Paul has four regular technology advice radio programs on ABC, a weekly column on the smartcompany.com.au website and has published seven books.
Does Uber hold the key to solving cities’ public transport woes?
“We’re building the cities of the future” claims David Plouffe, Uber’s Senior Vice President for Policy & Strategy.
Plouffe was speaking in Uber’s head office ahead of this year’s Dreamforce conference where the transportation disrupter was announcing the next phases of its Uber Business service.
While western societies still remain car dependent, there’s a shift underway as people prefer to live in the cities rather than the suburbs and the far flung exurbs, particularly for younger people. “For my generation it was a big deal to get a car,” says the 48 year old Plouffe. “Millennials today don’t have that same identification – they don’t want to own a car.”
That shift, which is not just confined to millennials, presents challenges for cities believes Plouffe. “Cities need to support people who are moving in at historic rates,” he says. “Our cities are facing huge challenges.”
“Every city is facing congestion challenges which will only get worse over the next ten to fifteen years as the number of people moving into the world cities at a historic pace.”
“Most cities do not have the will or the money to build new public transportation systems,” Plouffe says. “The only way they are going to deal with this is for people to buy less cars, families to only have one car and to reduce the number of cars on the road.”
Not surprisingly, Plouffe sees this as being where Uber can help in expanding accessible and affordable transport to parts of cities which are unlikely to get public transit and to increase the carrying capacity of existing infrastructure.
This is an interesting point of view and one that has some validity if we accept the view that ‘on-demand’ services like Uber and others are actually aimed at all groups and not just the affluent upper middle classes and the rich.
For cities struggling to meet the demands of growing populations and shrinking budgets, services like Uber and Lyft may be part of the answer. That though will take some reform and a change of attitude from many regulators.
A tour of San Francisco’s restored Nike Base is a good opportunity to remember the fear and paranoia of the Cold War
One of the longest running, and expensive, programs of the Cold War was the Nike missile program. Designed to protect US from Soviet bombers, the missiles were based at 280 sites and guarded cities and military installations.
Today the program is long since abandoned, a victim of changing technology and the 1972 SALT agreements between the then Soviet Union and US with the only base remaining in a working condition is SF-88 in what’s now the Golden Gate Park just North of San Francisco.
SF-88 itself was abandoned and over the last 15 years, volunteers have been rebuilding the site to roughly how it looked in the early 1960s at the peak of the Cold War.
The missiles themselves were only shortrange devices. The first version, the Ajax, only had a range of 25 miles and carried a conventional high explosive payload while the later model, the Hercules, could travel forty miles and could carry either conventional or nuclear warheads.
Each Nike base had three main components based at least a thousand yards apart; the actual launch site, the Integrated Fire Control room (IFC) that controlled the systems and administrative quarters. The reason for the thousand yard spacing was to minimise the damage from the launch of the rockets and to give the radar systems adequate range to track the weapons.
The missiles themselves were controlled by computer. Once fired they were controlled by the computers in the IFC, should the crew decide to abort the attack the only choices they had were to explode it prematurely or disarm it so it flew off into the ocean.
With the advent of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) and submarine launched weapons the Nike systems became redundant, an experimental anti-missile system – the Nike-X – was tested but as the scale of the Soviet arsenal became apparent it became clear the system would be hopelessly inadequate to combat the hailstorm of death a true nuclear war would unleash.
By 1974 most the system, including SF-88 was decommissioned although a small number of bases remained in operation for coastal defences for a few years afterwards. Today most are disappearing at the land is taken over for property development and other uses.
The volunteers who’ve restored SF-88 have done a wonderful job bringing a facility back to life – the missile hangers had six feet of water in them before the work started and on weekends between 12.30 and 3.30pm they’ll show you around the facility and bring one of the missiles to the surface firing position.
Fort Baker’s SF-88 Nike Base is an easy drive across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, on weekend the Muni runs the hourly 76-X service from the Transbay Terminal. Admission to the SF-88 base is free but donations are gratefully accepted.
If for nothing else, a visit to the Nike Missile Base is worthwhile just to remember how close the world was to destruction in the paranoid days of the Cold War.
A big competitor entering your market doesn’t mean your business is doomed
Techmeme has long been one of the most useful sites for technology news and this week it celebrates its tenth year.
For those, like me, who write every day on tech issues the site has been a godsend. Many a time with the end of the day approaching Techmeme has pointed me an article that has got the creative juices flowing.
Prominent among them was Google’s relaunch of its Blogsearch product which was billed as a ‘Techmeme killer’. Like so many of Google’s products, Blogsearch was quietly retired two years ago while Techmeme is still around.
Techmeme’s success in the face of an attempt by Google to take over their market isn’t surprising, marketing guru Seth Godin described how his startup, Knol, survived an onslaught from the giant company in 2013.
Despite Google’s cash and market strength, execution matters and often larger companies lack the committed evangelists that give the smaller businesses their energy.
Both Techmeme and Knol show that no company is guaranteed success, despite its resources or power.
An English translation of Li’s speech is online and what’s particularly notable about it is the continual mention of “mass entrepreneurship and innovation” with the Premier pointing out over 10,000 new businesses are being registered every day in China.
In parts of the speech, Li sounds like one of the small business evangelists proselytizing on why everyone should start their own venture and coupling entrepreneurship with social justice.
“Mass entrepreneurship and innovation is effective in promoting social justice. As long as they are willing and capable, all people could establish themselves and lead a promising life through innovation and entrepreneurship. They could all have an equal chance for development and for moving up the social ladder, and could all enjoy a life of purpose and dignity.”
Probably the biggest barrier for small businesses and startups in all countries is the access to capital, something that Li flags in his speech as being part of China’s opening up to foreign investment.
Should Li and the Chinese leadership unleash the nation’s entrepreneurial spirits, it will see the country’s economy changed radically and that rebalancing towards domestic consumption accelerate.
For the rest of the world worrying about China’s influence and economic might, they could be worrying about last year’s problems.
Getting out to the Golden Gate Bridge can be a little awkward for tourists but it’s a great way to see the city.
San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge is one of the must sees for a visitor. However the iconic attraction isn’t close to the centre or to the main public transport routes which, while time consuming is an opportunity to see more of the city.
Probably the simplest way for a visitor to get there is to take a tour bus, of which San Francisco has plenty. There’s also the options of a scenic hour’s walk from Fisherman’s Wharf or cycling on a hire bike, but it’s always been this site’s contention is the best way to get to know a place is to catch the local public transport.
In San Francisco, the public Muni network operates the bus, light rail and cablecar system with the Muni Passport offering unlimited rides at $17 for day or $35 for a week, which is a deal given the cable car services alone are $7 a trip.
The Muni Passport can be bought at most drugstores and at the various Muni ticket stalls dotted around San Francisco, most notably at the Ferry Building and at the Powell Street cable car terminus. While some outlets will sell you a Clipper Card with the passport pre-loaded, most outlets give you a paper copy that requires you to scratch the dates on it.
Getting the bus
San Francisco’s Muni bus network is comprehensive although there isn’t a direct bus to the Golden Gate Bridge except the weekend the hourly 76x bus to the tollgates that continues onto the Marin Headlands and Fort Cronkhite, a worthwhile trip in itself.
Another direct service is Golden Gate Transit’s number 10 and 70 services which don’t accept the Muni Passport but are faster and more direct than the Muni buses as they service the commuter town to the north of the city.
28 Muni bus at Golden Gate Bridge
For most times though the 28 – 19th Avenue service is the most frequent and cheapest service to the Golden Gate however it goes nowhere near the tourist precincts giving a visitor an opportunity to explore the city and get a taste of the ordinary person’s San Francisco.
Connecting to the 28
The quickest connection from downtown San Francisco is the 38 or 38R Geary services from Union Square, these frequent services head directly West from the city and drop you off at the corner of Geary and 19th Avenue which the 28 runs along.
If you’re feeling more active during peak commute times the 38R continues to Lands End, the walk from there to the Golden Gate Bridge takes around two hours along the route of one of the original steam car routes and gives great vistas of the Marin Headlands and the Bridge. The Cliff House and Sutro pool ruins at Lands End itself are worth exploring as well.
38R Muni Bus at Union Square
There are other buses that can connect with the 28 at 19th Avenue including the 1 California however they are a lot slower and less frequent than the 38 Geary.
Another way, which may be faster than the buses during peak times in to catch the N – Judah/Ocean Beach service which drops you at 19th Street a little further south of the 38’s stop. On the outward route the stops are a block apart while coming back from the Golden Gate, the stops are adjacent.
From Fisherman’s wharf and the cable cars
The cable cars aren’t particularly convenient to the 28 terminus in the Marina district and the best way to make the connection is the 30 bus that goes along North Point with a change at the corner of Chestnut and Laguna Streets.
All the above options are available in the reverse direction and again the Golden Gate Transit service is the fastest option back to the city although it doesn’t accept Muni passes. You can catch GGT buses from the toll plaza level of the bridge.
If you’ve walked the bridge and aren’t inclined to do the return trip, some GGT services stop on the Northern approaches and the 76X stops on the xx road just above the bridge’s approaches, otherwise you can walk another 45 minutes to Sausalito and catch a ferry – again Muni Passes aren’t accepted – to either the Ferry Building or Pier 43 near Fisherman’s Wharf.
Whichever way you go, the trip out to the Golden Gate Bridge is one of the must do things of a San Francisco visit and using the public buses is a great way to get a feel for the city.
The meeting between US and Chinese leaders later this month could mark the pivot of China’s economy
The most important economic relationship in today’s economy is that between China and the United States, despite bellicose chest thumping by both sides their wealth and well being of their industries is inextricably linked.
Against the backdrop of that chest thumping and a slowing Chinese economy, the Chinese and US Presidents are due to meet in two weeks time where trade and security relations between the two countries are at the top of the agenda.
China’s leaders though plan to emphasise their nation’s tech prowess and its importance to the US’s sector, something the New York Times reports has irritated the Obama administration.
What would almost further irritate the US leadership is that US tech giants including Apple, Facebook, IBM, Google and Uber have been invited to attend a Chinese tech summit hosted by Microsoft and the PRC President will be dining with Bill Gates before flying to Washington to meet Obama.
Redmond gets on board
Microsoft’s role in the China Forum is interesting, the company is extending the hand of friendship not just to nations but also to companies that were fierce rivals in the past, just last week the company announced a partnership with VMWare despite deep rivalry in recent years and CEO Satya Nadella is due to appear at next week’s Salesforce conference.
The choice of Seattle is interesting as well, while the city is a major tech centre with companies like Amazon and Microsoft based there, it’s far more integrated with the Pacific Rim economies than San Francisco and Silicon Valley. Again this is a loud message to the US tech community.
For China, the success of showing off their technological strengths is an important in sending a message to its East Asian neighbours and the US that the nation is diversifying and shouldn’t be underestimated, a process that Chinese Premier Li described as “a painful and treacherous process” at a World Economic Forum event in Dalian today.
The meeting between Xi Jinping and Barack Obama in two weeks time, and the associated events in Seattle, could well prove to be the marker of where China moved into the next phase of its economic development and its relationship with the United States.
Making matters worse for the sector, Apple will be announcing a refresh tomorrow morning which will almost certainly hurt the competition further.
For the marketplace, particularly as one as important as the smartphone market, having only one profitable supplier is not a good thing. The challenge though is for Apple’s competitors to find a way to make a profit.
Many of the new communications applications are enabling adhoc networks between smartphones and other devices. In times of civil emergencies and natural disasters, those networks may well turn out to be more reliable than the telecommunications networks.
With the various mesh technologies available, we’re seeing another way people can go ‘off the grid’ which will change many of the existing business models of many industries and possibly empower communities in unexpected ways.
The mapping of Nairobi’s Matatu minibus network and AirBnB’s Cuban ambitions show how apps could change the developing world
It’s not unfair to call many of the apps disrupting today’s industries as being the result of ‘first world problems’.
Uber was born out of founders Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick difficulty in hailing Parisian cabs while AirBnB came from Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky’s struggles with San Francisco rents.
Now as smartphones and mobile internet starts to become available to those in less wealthy parts of the world, we’re seeing how these concepts can be applied to problems more widespread.
With some modifications, the data can be fed into Google’s transit map format that allows the routes to found on Google Maps.
The next logical step for this is for entrepreneurs, possibly even Uber, to entice matatu operators to use Uber like apps to track the location of minibuses and give passengers better payment options. It’s quite possible we’re seeing the start of an evolution into a new type of transit network using independent, privately owned vehicles bound together by an app based platform offering city wide public transport.
In which case, today’s developing nations will see very different structures in their industries to those in the developed west that were built around 19th and 20th century technologies.
Image “A matatu” by Jociku – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Commons –
We’re in a world of bad ideas, but it’s never been easier to be an informed citizen
We live in a time where lessons of the past have been unlearned and being right about events does not necessarily mean you will be vindicated, said Nobel Laureate and New York Times writer Paul Krugman in a Festival of Dangerous Ideas event at the Sydney Opera House last night.
Krugman’s talk was on how bad ideas in economics have taken hold and are difficult to shake, the reason being in his view because, as the economist John Stuart Mill said to Parliament in 1866, “although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.”
A refusal to admit errors
One of the notable aspects of today’s age of bad ideas is how those who proven wrong refuse to admit their errors with Krugman citing the 2010 public letter signed by 23 prominent academics, economists and money managers to Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke warning Quantitative Easing would unleash inflation.
For Krugman, it seemed hard to hide his exasperation with these people as he explained, “If you took at all seriously what is taught in economic textbooks then where we are is not surprising” and pointed out anyone who had studied the Great Depression and Japan’s lost decades could see how events were going going to transpire.
Defeating half baked ideologies
What Krugman didn’t discuss during the session was how did we get to a state where many of our political, business and community leaders outright reject the lessons of history and established knowledge, preferring instead often half baked ideologies.
A half century ago, things were different. Ayn Rand’s first television interview with Mike Wallace in 1959 illustrates the prevailing mindset among America’s elites. Wallace is taken aback at Ayn Rand’s philosophy of the individual’s desires and needs above all.
For Wallace’s generation that had been through the Great Depression and World War II, the importance of collective effort in an industrial society were well understood. In just over a decade, the US would successfully put a man on the moon and the rise of Silicon Valley and today’s tech industry were results of that effort.
Today it’s hard to see that sort of communal effort in the face of self interest and wilful, if often profitable, ignorance. For Krugman, his advice for those wanting to push back against this prevailing attitude is not to be too polite and keep in mind that satire and sarcasm are necessities in today’s world.
Being an informed citizen
For those pushing back, facts and research are critical, and Krugman advised one of the audience questioners who was despairing about the quality of information available in the media that the ability to be an informed citizen is greater than ever before.
Krugman’s talk covered many of the Bad Ideas that have got our economy and institutions to where they are today, the challenge for today’s generations is to overcome the narrow, half baked ideologies that dominate today’s policymaking.
In a festival that, despite its name, is notable for a lack of truly dangerous ideas, perhaps suggesting those Good Ideas for the next generation would truly be the antidote for the last thirty year’s lazy and shallow thinking.
Paul attended the Festival of Dangerous Ideas as a guest of Intel Australia.
Air New Zealand’s economy skycouch service is good for couples and families
One unique option offered by Air New Zealand is the SkyCouch, an option where economy passengers can buy adjacent seats for extra space on long haul flights aimed at giving families and couples to stretch out.
By luck, I got the opportunity of doing an impromptu review of the Skycouch on the 12 hour NZ7 route between San Francisco and Auckland where I had an entire economy row to myself.
The service is the standard Air New Zealand economy service and, while it’s friendly, the cabin crew can be a bit slow with drinks, I suspect this because of the number of attendants in Premium Economy and it’s a problem when you like to keep hydrated on a long flight.
Given Air New Zealand don’t use the middle galley on there 777-300 services, it may be easier for crew and passengers if some soft drinks, water and snacks were left out during the flight.
The notable difference with the Skycouch services is the set of three extension belts, one cutely named the ‘cuddle belt’ given out before takeoff. The cuddle belt itself connects to a loop under the seat in front, this lets passengers lie flat across the three or four seats.
Once set up, families or couples can buckle up across a row and don’t need to return to the seated position if there’s turbulence. If you’re using a blanket a it’s best to have the straps over the top as the crew will wake you if they can’t see you’re stapped in.
While it’s great to be able to lie down and stretch out in economy, there are some downsides to be aware of before paying the extra for a Skycouch.
Unlike business class, the seats aren’t designed for lying on. As consequence the contours mean the lie flat is a bumpy experience while climbing in and out of the row is awkward. I managed to tangle myself up twice in my headset cord.
Another complication are the seat buckles, again these aren’t designed for people lying over them so they can get uncomfortable, organising them so they don’t dig int requires looping them over the armrest so they are out of the way.
Probably the biggest drawback is for someone of six foot, the three seats mean sleeping with legs folded. Having them hanging out into the aisle is a safety risk and will almost certainly result in a painful accident with a fellow passenger, cabin attendant or catering trolley. I found over time by back started to hurt.
Lying flat though did work, I got six hours solid sleep however I suspect that given the legroom on Air New Zealand economy is adequate I may have slept almost as well sitting.
For families, couples and even pairs of budget conscious business travellers the Skycouch is a good buy offering extra space to spread out and use. For those with the dubious blessing of travelling with small children the added utility could be a sanity saver.
For those wanting a lie flat bed at a price considerably less than a business class ticket, this probably won’t work. If that’s your intention it’s probably better to save the money and use the savings to travel a day early and book a nice hotel on arrival.
Samsung’s launch of a Smart Things home hub is a step forward for the company looking to pivot from the smartphone market
South Korean industrial giant Samsung is struggling, in the last year its smartphone division reported a 75% drop in revenues while their handsets, while still the world’s most popular, lost ten percentage points of market share.
The company’s smartphone division is stuck because mobile carriers in the western world are abandoning subsidies for handsets, with most developed markets now at saturation point for cellphone adoption there’s little point in chasing market growth for all but the most desperate telco.
For Samsung that’s been a problem as their premium model strategy has been based upon western consumers ordering a new phone every 18 to 24 months as their mobile contracts were renewed, now those deals are not so common a key sales channel for the Korean conglomerate has been lost.
This leaves Samsung looking for the next market and at this week’s IFA consumer technology event in Berlin, the company unveiled its Smart Things hub, a cylindrical device that connects with your TV, air conditioning, music system, and other home appliances.
Smart Things was an acquisition Samsung made last year to improve its IoT product line and the company has an open platform for connecting household devices with over 200 already certified.
For Samsung with its range of domestic equipment this may well mark the future for the business. The interesting thing though is the smartphone is still integral in today’s vision of the connected home, so we won’t see Samsung leaving the handset market soon.
