Tag: Toyota

Baby You Can Drive My Car

swebmanLeave a comment

That is so Yesterday!  See what I did there 🙂

The modern version is that there actually is no one driving your car. Are you ready for this?

In the fall of 2010, Google announced that it developed “self-piloting” Toyota Prius Hybrids and they were loose on the streets of California. Mostly on Highway 1 between San Francisco and Los Angeles.  And they had driven 140,000 miles with no issues. The vehicles were powered by unproven artificial intelligence software.  Those Google people are pretty smart.

Fast forward to 2014 and now everyone is getting in the game to provide “driverless” cars. Audi, BMW, GM, Nissan, Toyota, and Volvo all have announced plans to “unveil” an autonomous car by 2020. Google says to watch for its public debut of its prototype in 2016. Still, a truly autonomous vehicle, one capable of dealing with any real-world situation, won’t hit showrooms coast-to-coast for years after that.

But we have the technology already. Plus there would be no accidents, less traffic, all sorts of awesome benefits.  What the heck is taking so long?

Simple answer.  People.  We are not close to relinquishing control of the steering wheel. Heck,I never let anyone else drive. You know why?  Because I like it and so do you 🙂  Great technology in search of a problem.  Wonder what generation will adopt? Wonder if we will be around to see it?

And now a classic by the Beatles for your listening pleasure.

Webman

Related articles

Enhanced by Zemanta

Focus is Critical!

swebman7 Comments

This blog has recently discussed the challenges with information overload.  One of the issues confronting us is that we let things like e-mail control our day.  This prevents us from focusing on the key areas of creating either personal or business value.  We end up being distracted by any number of things during the day.  Whether you work in an office or at home, there are many external distractions that can easily get us off track.

I came across a great article in Inc. magazine the other day.  Ilya Pozin, from Inc.,  interviewed TonyWong, a project management blackbelt whose client list includes Toyota, Honda, and Disney, to name a few. He’s an expert in keeping people on task.

Headlines are:

  1. Work backwards from goals to milestones to tasks.
  2. Stop multi-tasking.
  3. Be militant about eliminating distractions.
  4. Schedule your email.
  5. Use the phone.
  6. Work on your own agenda.
  7. Work in 60 to 90 minute intervals.

Check out the full article for the details and advice.  My favorite was the one on multi-tasking.  Switching from task to task quickly does not work. In fact, changing tasks more than 10 times in a day makes you dumber than being stoned. When you’re stoned, your IQ drops by five points. When you multitask, it drops by an average of 10 points, 15 for men, five for women (yes, men are three times as bad at multitasking than women).

Thanks to Ilya and Tony for the excellent advice.

Here is the link to the full article.  http://www.inc.com/ilya-pozin/7-things-highly-productive-peolple-do.html

Let me know what you think about this post by commenting below.

Have a great weekend!

Webman