Building light bulbs to last poses a vexing problem: no one seems to have a sound business model for such a product.
Source: The L.E.D. Quandary: Why There’s No Such Thing as “Built to Last” – The New Yorker
The Vertical Farm – The New Yorker
Growing crops in the city, without soil or natural light.
Point-of-use medical tests go extreme: sperm tests on a smartphone
Device costs less than $5 and can accurately measure the number and speed of swimmers. Source: With racy sperm pics on a smartphone, men can easily test fertility | Ars Technica If only Theranos could do as well!
This is just a research project. But it’s still impressive. Smartphones have elaborate sensors, computation, networking, and even databases. Adding a custom sensor modifier will bring lots of inexpensive tests, medical and otherwise.
Drone crashes: EEs always underestimate the difficulty of precision manufacturing!
In documents filed in federal court this week, the San Francisco company Lily Robotics blames its demise on excessive product demand and a funding drought. Source: Lily details failure, refund plans in bankruptcy filing
After getting burned by one Kickstarter project that died, I realized that very smart EEs think that if they can make 3 prototypes, everything else is just “details.” But high-volume, tight-tolerance manufacturing is its own field, and competition from excellent companies is stiff. So even if it eventually succeeds, by the time a Kickstarter hardware project has filled its initial orders, conventional companies will have equivalent products in the stores.
Track your car’s health and location without a monthly fee
This is how home IoT ought to work. But overall, this service is going to figure in a lot of divorce lawsuits! Excerpts from the article: Continue reading
Style by subscription: Why clothing-to-your door is so popular – Silicon Valley
I’m going to list some oddball potential case study opportunities for my students here. (I’m teaching 3 courses in April, all requiring papers!).
Having a computer and a person you’ve never met pick clothes out for you, based on a style questionnaire and your social media photos, seems an odd concept. But San Francisco’s Stitch Fix and Le To…
Source: Style by subscription: Why clothing-to-your door is so popular – Silicon Valley
Interview: A GPS-style background leading to Data Science career
This is relevant to GPS students who are considering where they will fit in the data analytics/big data world.
Interview of Emily Robinson, who transitioned from a social science background to a career in data science, recently becoming a data analyst at Etsy.
Source: Emily Robinson, from Social Scientist to Data Scientist – FORWARDS
Art and Science in Technology - Roger Bohn's Blog 