Category Archives: Transport

Finding a new mountain to climb

“When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer.”

My Niece very bravely played hostess to the family over New Year at her place in Crystal Palace – a hilltop suburb of London that gives excellent views of the city skyline.

The NTL/Arqiva transmitter near Croydon - one of a number of amazing structures and facilities I was privileged to visit and, on a few occasions climb, when I worked for the company in the 1990s

I know the area quite well from my time in the broadcast industry in the early 1990s as it is home to two significant structures that have played key roles in broadcasting history – not just in the UK, but worldwide too. On the site of the original Crystal Palace stands the Crystal Palace transmitting station and a few miles down the road stands the Croydon transmitting station. I visited these stations quite a bit during my early days with NTL as they were often a focal point for the demonstration and launch of new digital broadcasting and telecommunication services . It was always fascinating to get an inside view of these amazing structures and the operations centres that sat beneath them and also to talk with the engineers who maintained the analogue services and were key to developing and implementing the new digital ones.

As mentioned elsewhere on this blog, my experiences working for Lucent’s mobile/3G operations at the beginning of the century echoed those in the broadcast industry as it was during those pioneering days when there were many possibilities with what the technology could achieve but some very big mountains to climb to get there .

So, sitting in my Niece’s front room after the New Year’s celebrations were done and dusted, thoughts turned to what all those activities had led to 20 years on in broadcasting and 10 years on in the mobile web. Continue reading →

2020 Visions – Automotive innovations

I feel very fortunate and grateful to have followed a career path that has enabled me to work on a wide variety of projects across many different organisation types and markets. In the past, I’ve described myself as a bit of a ‘corporate gypsy’ which has taken on more significance recently after some research into part of my family does in fact show I share some Romany heritage with the actor Bob Hoskins – so maybe my desire to roam around in different places, soaking up new experiences and ideas is in the blood. Anyway, in the last few years I’ve roamed from software to cookware and from household appliances to automotive electronics. At any point I have been equally fascinated by the application of agile versus waterfall product development techniques, the material sciences that go into making a superior frying pan to how the design of a kitchen machine blade can make all the difference in mixing a smoothie. Right now, I am immersed in how smartphone technologies can be integrated safely into vehicle control and audio systems – a current growing concern in road safety. This last year working in the automotive industry has confirmed my earlier beliefs that it is ripe for some very fundamental invention and innovation. Our transport infrastructure continues to creak and groan under relentlessly growing demands and our over-reliance on fossil fuels looks more and more precarious as these resources become harder and harder to find, extract and process. In a flight of fancy that took off around this time last year I started to explore 3 potential routes of innovation that could help to address growing issues…

  • Making single person journeys less wasteful and more efficient
  • Modular and integrated transport solutions
  • Harvesting and trading energy through the transport infrastructure

A year on, I’ve spent some time looking at the concepts and innovations that are being explored in these areas and it’s clear that a great deal of thinking and experimentation is happenning, which hopefully will lead to some significant breakthroughs and fundamental changes. (note:– here is an interesting video from January 2011 illustrating some of the ideas of future transportation being explored) The established automotive giants keep playing with ideas…

Audi’s Snook Concept
General Motors City Car concept
Suzuki Mobility Concept

Most of the major car manufacturers have conceptual programmes underway for ‘city car’ designs.  With the US car manufacturers trying to regain some kudos for innovative, energy conscious thinking, GM has been pushing it’s experimental partnership with Segway with its development of the PUMA a semi-autonomous low footprint city vehicle. This side of the pond, another GM (F1 designer Gordon Murray) opened a few eyes earlier in the year with the T25/27 city car designs which rather unbelievably are said to be able to carry up to 3 people in a space that is 1/3rd the size of conventional cars. It was good to see Gordon Murray’s ideas win the 2010 SMMT innovation award and awards at the very successful Future Car Challenge. Although these unconventional ideas and experiments are often knocked by commentators I think it is encouraging that they are gaining coverage and recognition. Town planners dream of less congestion…

Integrated transport in Melbourne GM/Segway’s City Car Vision The GM stackable car concept

A couple of city engineering concepts I have seen recently have been pursuing the idea of integrating smaller transport units into other infrastructure. Some illustrations of an Australian concept show a tram type system that incorporates single wheeled/single person units that can join and leave the main vehicle at various points. Discovery Channel’s Mega Engineering, which looks at the potential massive build projects of the future, has examined personal pod projects underway at Heathrow Airport and an ambitious conceptual idea for Washington DC – described here in this Death of the Automobile clip. Mega Engineering shows an excellent example of potential transport robotics with amazing clips of Kiva Robots in action. Saving valuable space on roads and in parking areas…

The Mo Du Lo concept The EU ‘HOST’ Concept of modular vehicle systems

Projections of population growth, vehicle ownership and land restraints illustrate that the way we currently travel by personal transport is increasingly unsustainable. If we think traffic congestion is bad in the UK, particularly in the south – it’s nothing compared to the massive traffic jams that have been experienced in China this year.  So… it is understandable that concepts designed to automate traffic flows and reduce the physical footprint of vehicles on the road and in parking environments are gathering pace. Exploiting renewable energy resources in the transport infrastructure

An MX5 Solar Conversion Project Solar Collection Concept

The many millions of acres of car parking space and many hours that cars are parked in them seems like a criminally wasted opportunity to harness renewable energy. And because these vehicles then move from location to location there must be many an opportunity to trade the energy they collect in an ecosystem that rewards the generation of low carbon power. The Open Source Concept The most inspiring idea I have come across in the last year is Riversimple’s ‘Open Source’ Hydrogen Powered car project. The statement they have made on their FAQ’s about the importance of taking an ‘Open Source’ approach to their ideas I believe is fundamental to how we will address the challenges currently presented by the triple whammy of climate change, energy demands and population growth. It is encapsulated very well in this quote…

A window of opportunity has opened now that the flaws in our current model are self-evident and the need for a step change in our transport technology is widely recognised. We must seize this opportunity to establish new vehicle technology standards that are designed to optimise energy efficiency, because if zero emission but energy intensive vehicles establish themselves, it will be much harder ever again to question the basic architecture of cars.

I've been conned – and I don't like it

Usually my bullshit detector works pretty well. Many years in marketing has honed it into sniffing out the majority of dodgy deals. So, I’m feeling pretty hacked off that I’ve fallen for such a cheap trick – that with the benefit of hindsight wasn’t that cheap for me.

In my defence, I was pretty exhausted and off guard when it happened but none the less I am irritated. It happened recently in the dying hours of an exhibition at the NEC where I had spent 4 long, long days running a stand for the company I’m currently working for.

I was taking a break from stand duty and wandering around the other exhibits when I stopped to watch a demonstration of something called ‘The Pink Stick’. I had glanced down the aisleways at other times during the show and seen the crowds gathering around this company’s stands and I did think it quite strange that they had two separate stand locations in the same area of the exhibition hall.

The stands had mature ‘trustworthy’ looking men and women demonstrating this ‘revolutionary’ anti-fogging solution. Behind each of them was a mirror, suspended above a tray of boiling water that was giving off steam continually. The bottom half of the mirror was completely fogged with condensation and the upper half absolutely crystal clear – and I mean gleaming clear – not a single bit of misting, drop or dribble of water.

The demonstrators were all American and expounding the amazing properties of ‘The Pink Stick’ while doing hands-on demos including other mirrors, bits of plastic and pairs of glasses by holding them over more steaming trays at the front of the stands. Each time, the results looked impressive – untreated section fully steamed – treated section gleaming clear.

As I stood there watching this, my brain took the following journey…

hmm – I leave for work early in the morning; the winter is setting in now; my windows are always very steamed up; my aircon is a bit crap and takes a while to clear the windows or I have to keep wiping them when I first start my journey; this could save a lot of time and effort; £6 for one ‘miracle solution’ seems reasonable – £10 for two seems like a bargain!

Perhaps I should have been a little more questioning when I was given three ‘Pink Sticks’ for £10 rather than the advertised two – but I assumed that as it was the last afternoon of the show and the aisles were getting quieter they just wanted to offload stock rather than have to repack it. Off I went feeling pleased that I’d got more for my money and thinking how many more condensation free mornings and evenings I was likely to enjoy.

So… a few days later, I was parked up in my car at lunchtime and decided to use a bit of downtime to give my windows their first ‘Pink Stick’ treatment. I undid the container and the Pink Stick stunk. It’s a sort of waxy chemical type smell but I took that as a good sign – probably the secret ingredient that delivers the miracle I thought. I applied it to a cloth and set about coating my windscreen, side windows and mirrors with the stuff. First impressions were not great as it was like scrawling on your windows with a soft wax crayon and then trying to rub it off. The waxy sheen took quite a bit of effort to clear but my windows did look pretty clear after all the effort.

Anyway, I returned to the office, finished the day’s work and then returned to my car for the commute home. It was a cold evening and typically my windows would be steaming up a few minutes after starting the car but today was different. Miracle of miracles, the windows stayed clear and condensation free – the car was still full of horrible Pink Stick fumes but at least I could see out and begin my journey home immediately – feeling pretty chuffed with the investment I’d made.

The following morning was equally cold and wintery but after the previous evening’s experience I was relishing the thought that I could just start the car up and drive off without any condensation hassles. Then came the horrible realisation that I’d been conned.

This stuff is literally a ‘one hit wonder’. I’ve now experimented a few times with it and it absolutely only works for one application meaning you need to reapply it every time you want a morning or evening of clear windows. Then I twigged why the exhibition demos are so impressive – they are reapplying the stuff continually, day in, day out. However, for anyone using it in everyday life, it is no more useful than just using a plain cloth – in fact it’s harder work as it’s a bugger to wipe completely clean particularly on an area the size of a windscreen.

After the disappointment of the product not working as implied,I then looked at it a bit closer. It’s a lump of pink waxy substance that I wouldn’t be surprised is the waste residue from some horrible  industrial process which has had a fetching shade of pink dye added to it.  It is presented in what looks like (and I’m sure probably is) the type of container you typically provide a urine sample in and it has a very badly photocopied A5 size piece of paper tucked into the container that provides virtually no useful or informative details of the product itself or its usage. I’m guessing the unit cost is no more than about 10 pence. So… £6 for a single stick is going to be a pretty hefty profit.

Obviously, this type of sale requires the impulse buying decision triggered by the impressive demo and air of ‘exclusivity’, which explains why they had more than one stand operating in the same exhibition area and why they had targeted the high flow aisles. They need a good supply of suckers over a four day period to cover the space costs and turn a good profit before high-tailing it back to their nondescript and possibly non-existent offices in Hawaii.

Anyway – my learning from this experience is new confirmation that ‘if it looks too good to be true – it usually is’ and also that ‘The Pink Stick’ stinks – literally and metaphorically.

You have been warned…

From King Bluetooth I to SmartEars V1.0…

I’ve muddled through for quite a number of years now, but my level of hearing loss is now such that I can’t get through a working day effectively without wearing a hearing aid or two.  I’ve well and truly crossed the line where the awkwardness and issues created by bluffing/pretending to hear  a lot of the time far outweighs the irritation and discomfort of having lumps of plastic in and around my ears – day in, day out. You could say that I am now almost totally reliant on technology to function properly in work and family life – which, as I’ve mentioned before, is one of the key reasons I’ve always been interested in digital communications technologies.

The runic inscription of Harald Bluetooth

I wrote a post about a year or so ago now about my process of acceptance of hearing loss and love/hate relationship with hearing aids and, looking at my blog stats, my hearing related posts seem to gain more interest than the work related stuff I’ve written – so I hope it is proving useful to someone,  somewhere.  Please ‘speak up’ if you empathise/agree or disagree with my comments and observations.

The good thing about wearing the aids daily is that I won’t get moaned at so badly on my next visit to the audiologist. The aids have a data-logging capability that monitors exactly how long they have been worn between visits.

The effectiveness of the aids is also determined by use – as they are smart enough to learn about the environments/volumes you are exposed to regularly and make adjustments based on your hearing loss pattern. So I am pleased to report that they do indeed work better and better the more you wear them and it is well worth persisting beyond the irritation factors.

My latest hearing aids also incorporate wireless technology to communicate with each other – therefore changing the settings on one aid automatically updates the other one.

This technology is Bluetooth based and although my current aids don’t have the ability to connect with other Bluetooth enabled devices, the latest generation of aids do. Although, given the size and power requirements of the Bluetooth chip, this happens via a separate unit. The dream, of course, is the time when full Bluetooth connectivity can be incorporated into a hearing device as small as those now used widely – and at reasonable cost. The cost is an important factor when you look at the astronomical prices of top of the range hearing aids today.

Having vaguely tracked Bluetooth related developments over the last decade since my time working for a mobile network technology provider this term has taken on greater significance for me in recent months – not just relating to hearing issues.

From a software perspective, I am a big supporter of Scandinavian originated developments, as other posts on this blog particularly relating to content technologies illustrate. So it has been interesting to remind myself of Bluetooth’s mainly Scandinavian driven history, from the name itself – an ancient Nordic King who united many tribes into a single kingdom – to its underlying principles of low power, interference-free, limited range transmission.

From a work perspective, I am currently immersed in launching a new range of innovative Bluetooth products built on a first generation of developments that are illustrated here… http://www.my-io.com/

Our clever technical team have been building on this music streaming and hands-free learning to develop the Bluetooth experience ‘on the go’. My job is to spread that message faster and further than before…A few clues as to why and how we are doing this can be found here…

It’s these type of developments that help to stretch the Bluetooth experience in new directions and hopefully by 2020 we will see the arrival of ‘SmartEars V1.0’ – truly clever hearing aids that enable full onboard integration with other Bluetooth capable devices. Who knows, maybe hearing aids will become so smart, they’ll even be ‘cool’ one day 😉

Gone 'rideabout' down under…

The Western Australian city of Perth has changed a fair bit over the last 15 years since my first visit out there. When you revisit places over a long time period, the change is very noticeable. The city skyline is still a familiar shape with it’s distinctive modern skyscrapers set on the banks of the Swan River but the northern suburbs, where my brother-in-law has lived for 20 years, have expanded dramatically since my last visit in 2000.  The shopping malls and retail areas have doubled and tripled in size and the once relatively peaceful freeways (by UK standards) are now bursting with traffic. The traffic ‘squeeze’, as it is referred to over there, is becoming a severe problem and various schemes are underway to relieve the pressures on the road system.

Cars were also in the press for another reason on our arrival as we landed in Perth in the aftermath of a dramatic and violent storm.  The newspapers, TV and web were full of images of cars that had suffered the effect of being hit by hailstones the size of golf balls and bigger – when metal panels and glass meet fast falling lumps of ice – the ice wins – big time!

My brother-in-law’s solution to commuting misery has been to buy a motorbike – which makes the journey in and out of the city relatively painless as he just rides between the lines of stationary or crawling cars. As soon as we arrived at his place I was drooling over the Triumph Street Triple he rides and was both somewhat surprised and delighted that my suggestion about hiring a bike met with approval from my wife – who has never been the biggest of bike fans.

A quick search on the web and I discovered Sunset Motorcycle Hire who had an interesting range of larger Suzukis available. I rang Colin, who runs the company, and arranged to pick up a DL 650 V-Strom during the following week.

It turned out to be a good choice for someone of my height and size as the riding position is very comfortable but it still offers the kind of capable performance I’ve experienced on larger Sports Tourers in the past such as GSXs, VFRs and my beloved modified GPZ750R.

I’ve plotted out the road trip we did on this Google Map but basically it can be summarised as…

  • Connolly to Mundaring Weir (where the Mundaring Weir Hotel is recommended for a break/drink)
  • Mundaring Weir to Serpertine Falls (great/quiet roads through the hills and good for a refreshing dip – wild kangaroos seem guaranteed)
  • Serpentine Falls into the City (ride in the shadows of the skyscrapers then out through Northbridge, the old quarter)
  • City to Connolly via the Sunset Coast road (time this for the evening for the full effect of the sun setting over the ocean)

click for larger view...

So, if you’re heading for Perth and want to enjoy the sights without getting stuck in traffic then I recommend contacting Sunset Motorcycle Hire for their good range of bikes and excellent service. Then get out into the Perth Hills, along the quiet outback roads, tour the City then head along the sunset coast for a memorable day’s biking.