Elon Musk's Profile

Fascinating to think that the future of supply chains can be disintermediated due to additive manufacturing. My main question for these newly printed BMW tools would be whether their use time/longevity is the same as the more traditionally made tools. Certainly they bring advantage on ease of testing new tools, but can they be put under the same duress for the same amount of time?

I hadn’t thought before of Waze as an application that encourages bad driving behavior such as speeding. I’m still in the camp that Waze helps to increase transparency around driving especially as it identifies road changes in real-time. However, I agree that Waze should try to protect the safety of its users by implementing the voice-assisted method of reporting police or accident sightings. This success will hinge upon Waze’s ability to create a voice translation format that easily identifies, logs, and publicizes the issue.

Really interesting article! With the rise of e-commerce, I don’t think it’s a huge deal that LEGO is experiencing a loss in brick-and-mortar sales. I believe that e-commerce almost more easily facilitates crowdsourced ideas, because it acts as a repository to test and produce the best ideas rather than rolling out everything into stores. Crowdsourced ideas are also one way to validate the commercial viability of the products before they are even manufactured, which would help to bring overall inventory costs down and forecast demand.

I appreciated your view on how NYC has embraced machine learning in order to move toward a “smart city” model. In terms of your two questions, I believe that with the convergence of public and private players, both parties, as well as the public, are to hold each other accountable to provide equitable access to city resources. Private players can help public agencies identify gaps in terms of where urban inhabitants do not have access to resources, while public agencies can hold private players responsible for the judicious application, anonymization, and aggregation of personal data. The increasing scrutiny of the public eye will also help these players coordinate effectively to serve its population.

Chrissy- love that you covered Sidewalk Labs’ work in Toronto. Your question on how technology is changing the culture of a city is one that applies not only to Quayside, but also to many other cities that are experiencing the convergence of multiple technologies and how they translate onto the physical landscape. For instance, when/if autonomous vehicles are rolled out in large cities like Toronto and New York, traffic patterns and consequently human travel patterns may change. While this could act as a positive feed into SWL’s machine learning around travel patterns, is it possible that feeding multiple inputs of technological change could cloud the machine learning process?
On potential negative consequences- as humans become increasingly reliant on technology, it will be interesting to see how lazy we become as a population and what we will do when said technology temporarily fails.

While I do think 3D printing bears benefits on prototyping, I think Nike might face challenges if choosing to 3D print apparel and other equipment such as tennis rackets. The quality of those products is a critical component of the athlete experience, and to receive proper feedback on the product, I believe the prototypes should be close to the end quality of the product. Unless 3D printing can expand its raw material input, I think this approach could prove challenging.