Samsung ‘Smart Home’

Whether you choose to embrace or ignore it, an increasing amount of technology is making its way into our daily lives. Now things like remote control alarms and video monitoring systems, automatic lights and even door locks controlled by our cell phones are nothing new, the reality of living in “connected homes” was always an eventual inevitability in today’s smartphone era. What will they think of next? Surely they’re running out of ideas, right?

Wrong.

Samsung has now attached the ever-so-popular ‘Smart’ prefix to even more appliances; refrigerators, washing machines, and soon ovens and wait for it…light bulbs? This technology isn’t for everyone, and I’ll be the first to admit that I think it’s overkill in a world where if your cell phone is lost anyone who picks it up can access your bank account, email, personal planner, online shopping credentials, access to your car and home, etc. As if that wasn’t enough, now they can turn your fridge off and ruin your delicates by changing your spin cycle. These appliances do come with a hefty pricetag, though, and they’re appealing to a very particular market segment, so I don’t think we’ll all have them in our homes in the next 5, 10 or even 15 years. I’ve been wrong before, but when it comes down to it, I think most of us would rather spend our tax returns on a Mediterranean cruise than we would on a $1,500 smart toilet, but only time will tell. Something tells me I should probably buy stock while I can still afford it.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/samsung-launches-smart-home-that-connects-appliances-81501307732.html

The Little Car Company That Could

Just over a decade ago, billionaire Elon Musk started an electric car company in Palo Alto, California. With companies like PayPal and SpaceX already under his belt, Musk was no stranger to building innovative, cutting-edge companies that continually push the envelope of presumed realities. Tesla Motors would be no different. Tesla manufactures and sells performance inspired full-electric vehicles, to date they have produced two models and are releasing a third at the end of 2014, they also supply batteries and electric motor components to companies like Daimler and Toyota. With a 265 mile range, they lead the EV (electric vehicle) market, and the cars are jam-packed with impressive technology; a mobile app monitors range, battery capacity, location and climate settings, and on the dashboard you won’t find a single button, only a center-mounted 17″ touchscreen monitor. But the laundry list of gadgets inside these cars isn’t what’s making waves lately; it’s their revolutionary business practices that have the entire American automotive conglomerate in a tizzy.

For as long as cars have been around, there has only been one way to buy a new automobile and a set of rules that prohibits it from being done any other way; via car dealerships. Manufacturers sell to dealerships, dealerships sell to consumers, and everyone gets a cut. The laws that maintain this balance are determined by each state and its legislators, and until recently no one has really had a problem with the accepted way this kind of business is carried out.

Cue Tesla Motors.

Unconventional companies like to break all of the rules, don’t they? Tesla does not have any dealerships, anywhere. You can’t just drop by for a test drive or kick the tires on the lot. They sell direct, eliminating the middle-man. Cars are custom ordered online or in one of Tesla’s galleries; small storefronts typically found in shopping malls throughout the country. A few months later, a truck and trailer park in front of your house and you see your brand spanking new car for the first time, ever. While I hope to someday have the luxury of spending $70k+ on something sight unseen, legislators and dealership salesmen nationwide are singing a much different tune. The old world way of doing things makes a lot of money for a lot of people, and they don’t like to see their livelihood threatened. Depending on where you live, the sales tax generated by auto dealerships can account for nearly 20% of state sales tax overall, therefore what the dealers want, the dealers get. Lawmakers cater policy to benefit and protect them from other potential competitors, especially those who won’t give them their fair share *coughfreemarket*.

Unfortunately, it appears as if many states are successfully blocking Tesla sales, with Ohio next on the docket. What do you make of all this controversy? Should companies like Tesla Motors be allowed to compete with larger, more powerful automakers, or should creative innovation continue to be stifled by government protectionism and corporate lobbyists?

http://time.com/31828/the-government-is-a-hitman-uber-tesla-and-airbnb-are-in-its-crosshairs/

Over-The-Rhine

Over-The-Rhine

Here is a link to the website I created for class.

Internet that could actually save your life.

Cars of the future and internet connectivity are two things that are on a crash course with one another. It’s inevitable, with online capabilities becoming an unavoidable part of our everyday lives, we all knew it was just a matter of time before you could binge watch Scandal and check Barstool Blackout tour dates from your nav screen as you careen down the highway in a four thousand pound metal box. Sure, it makes life easier, but it also makes it that much more dangerous. Well, not for long.

As much as I hate to admit it, someday we’ll probably be riding around in cars that drive themselves, where the idea of actually driving by hand seems ludicrous (I, Robot anyone?). This isn’t something that will happen overnight, though, and human error is the cause of 94.3% of all vehicle accidents today. Yet, in a crazy world where nearly 63% of all statistics are made up on the spot and an accident can change your life in the blink of an eye, there is hope.

Research is already being conducted on two major wireless innovations that will eventually make their way into our future automobiles; vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication. Cars will transmit signals back and forth simultaneously, without the involvement of the driver, warning each other of their presence or of any danger. Think lane-changing and your blind spots, or the jabroni that blew the red light in his Hummer and is about to broadside you in the middle of the intersection. Rather than warn you and wait for your reaction, like most systems nowadays do, your car would sense any imminent danger and take evasive action on its own, whether that involves applying the brakes or steering out of the accident’s projected path. In theory, V2I technology would have prevented someone from running a red light or stop sign in the first place, but let’s not get too ahead of ourselves.

This is the real deal, and not far from reality for many of us. MIT and Ford have already begun playing around with the idea, Google has Toyota Prii driving themselves around Palo Alto and within 5 years it’s estimated that 1 in 4 new cars will roll off the assembly line already posting their own Instagram pics. Preliminary reports by the Green Car Congress project that 81% of target vehicle crashes could be reduced or prevented with both systems in place. The numbers sound good, and this would probably save more than a few lives, but one must wonder…have they accounted for the scores of people who will likely abuse this new “safety net” by Facetiming their morning rear-view mirror makeup session? Fingers crossed.

Big Brother Riding Shotgun

Pretend you’re on your way home from work or school on an evening not long from now. You maneuver your way out of the parking garage, past the city buses and benches splattered with irrelevant advertisements you’ve learned to tune out over time. The highway is gridlocked and your favorite radio station just started a fifteen minute commercial break, McDonald’s and Chase alternate the retina-burning digital billboard directly in front of you. Just when you think it can’t get any worse, the radio cuts out and suddenly your dashboard begins to resemble your television at home, playing a thirty second commercial for the Meijer at the next exit. What just happened? 

In today’s world, marketers are challenged with finding new and intuitive ways to appeal to consumers using smartphones and other technology that has become a part of our daily lives. It isn’t hard to imagine what the future could bring when you factor in “smart” cars that offer internet connectivity and on-board apps, after all, apps have already penetrated virtually every facet of our data driven lives thus far. It’s only a matter of time before the apps we begin to rely upon in our future automobiles start selling the ad space that we as users have made so valuable, but where do we draw the line? It’s one thing for a free social media website to generate revenue this way, the money has to come from somewhere, but tracking our spending habits by means of our driving patterns and on-board internet usage is a monumental breach of privacy. For many Americans the hour or so we spend in our cars each and every weekday is the only personal time we get, let’s not let it be filled with more of what we’re forced to look at every other waking moment of the day.

 

George, Patrick. (2013, October 4). In-Car Advertisements Must Die Before They Are Allowed To Live. Jalopnik. http://jalopnik.com/in-car-advertisements-must-die-before-they-are-allowed-1441186895