via www.economist.com

Either way, car companies are becoming lifestyle providers, in a way. And selling stuff becomes... selling a service.

Audi's Future: Self-Driving Cars, Dual HUDs, LTE | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

Within that time period, or within the next decade, Audi also hopes to be able to launch so-called ITS-G5 or automotive WLAN technology into something it calls “street preview”. Using a 5.9-GHz wireless radio, cars would talk to themselves in clusters, reporting their own traffic information. The technology also could improve safety, warning other vehicles automatically as cars approach an intersection. Audi executives also said that they’re showing off a dual “contact-analog” heads-up display at CES, which provides an augmented-realit view of the environment - for example, painting a directional arrow directly over the intersection, and adjusting its size and positioning as the car gets closer. Pedestrians would be shown using night vision mode, and the distance to the car ahead would also be shown.

The passenger, meanwhile, will have their own heads-up display, a more conventional model. Audi said its prototype allows the passenger to “swipe” the driver’s display over to the passenger, allowing that person to see what the driver sees. Not surprisingly, Audi’s vision also includes a self-driving car, of sorts. “Our vision is piloted driving,” Hudi said. “Whenever I don’t [want] to drive, I allow myself to be driven.” “We don’t want to crate an impersonal body moving machine,” Hudi added. “When I want to have fun, I drive for myself.”

Kickstarter - Funding to Turn Passions into Businesses - Forbes

"I’m a huge fan of the Kickstarter service and have backed several projects because I believe in what they are doing. The reason I’m a huge fan is they make it possible for a new company to get off the ground without angel or venture capital investment. More so, you can test a concept with little risk (on all sides) and tweak before you start manufacturing. This is enormously important in this economy, perhaps in any economy, because it is the enabler of an idea that myself and many others have hoped for. Kevin Kelly, of Wired fame and many other accomplishments, wrote a post a few years back called 1,000 True Fans and it he explains how an artist, inventor, creator, maker could build a viable following and thus a business by finding 1,000 True Fans. This is not far off given the trajectory of Kickstarter..."

"We are once again facing one of those rare turning points in history when dangerous challenges and limitless opportunities cry out for clear, long-term thinking,” Blood and Gore argue in their Wall Street Journal article. “The disruptive threats now facing the planet are extraordinary: climate change, water scarcity, poverty, disease, growing income inequality, urbanisation, massive economic volatility and more. Businesses cannot be asked to do the job of governments, but companies and investors will ultimately mobilise most of the capital needed to overcome the unprecedented challenges we now face.”

My personal keywords: clear and longterm thinking. Full stop.

"The opportunity to have customized offers and loyalty rewards based on our proximity to the shelf will be transformative for both marketers and shoppers..."  Give this concept some thought...!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/opinion/sunday/the-rise-of-the-new-groupthink.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Some key snippets (quoted):

• Commercial and industrial efficiency is something that companies are taking more seriously. But the fact is, we waste around 85% of the energy produced in the U.S. And we’re not getting much better.
• Vehicle emissions are growing slightly. Last year, the Obama Administration brokered aggressive fuel standards for trucks and cars that will increase the average efficiency of the nation’s vehicle fleet to 54.5 mpg by 2025. But even with more consumers thinking about fuel efficient transportation, automobile emissions rose in 2011.
• U.S. renewable electricity is increasing steadily. Renewables like wind, solar, geothermal and biomass still make up only a small part of our electrical mix. But they’ve been growing at steady rate. Assuming consistent tax incentives are in place, that growth looks like it will continue.

Gerd Leonhard

www.twitter.com/gleonhard

i.mediafuturist.com for mobile updates

Why Kodak’s bankruptcy should scare Nokia — Tech News and Analysis

"As my friend Pip Coburn says, turnarounds never turn. Kodak has been in restructuring mode for 15 years – cutting headcount, closing factories, tightening belts and squeezing rocks for blood. In other words — the company isn’t fat in a traditional sense. But why none of its strategies worked was because the company took too long and sat on its duff watching digital photography come and eat it for a mid-day snack even though Kodak R&D helped with the digital photo revolution when it launched the first digital camera in 1975. And yet they failed to do what one of their major competitors – FujiFilm did — embrace digital with both arms and is now thriving. And when Kodak finally did embrace digital in 1993 it did with hesitance that comes when companies are afraid to cannibalize their existing businesses for the sake of the future...."

Related video:

Why The Movie Industry Can’t Innovate and the Result is SOPA « Steve Blank

"The Movie Industry and Technology Progress. The music and movie business has been consistently wrong in its claims that new platforms and channels would be the end of its businesses. In each case, the new technology produced a new market far larger than the impact it had on the existing market.

1920’s – the record business complained about radio. The argument was because radio is free, you can’t compete with free. No one was ever going to buy music again.
1940’s – movie studios had to divest their distribution channel – they owned over 50% of the movie theaters in the U.S. “It’s all over,” complained the studios. In fact, the number of screens went from 17,000 in 1948 to 38,000 today.
1950’s – broadcast television was free; the threat was cable television. Studios argued that their free TV content couldn’t compete with paid.
1970’s – Video Cassette Recorders (VCR’s) were going to be the end of the movie business. The movie businesses and its lobbying arm MPAA fought it with “end of the world” hyperbole. The reality? After the VCR was introduced, studio revenues took off like a rocket. With a new channel of distribution, home movie rentals surpassed movie theater tickets.
1998 – the MPAA got congress to pass the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), making it illegal for you to make a digital copy of a DVD that you actually purchased.
2000 – Digital Video Recorders (DVR) like TiVo allowing consumer to skip commercials was going to be the end of the TV business. DVR’s reignite interest in TV.
2006 - broadcasters sued Cablevision (and lost) to prevent the launch of a cloud-based DVR to its customers..."