Showing posts with label Applied Technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Applied Technology. Show all posts

December 11, 2012

Escaping From A Submerged Vehicle Gets Easier


Of all things, here's an innovation to the seat belt. 

In the movies, we've all seen cars plunging into the water and submerging with people trapped inside. 

Wired Magazine (11 December 2012) reported on a new escape belt that helps people get out of the vehicles and to safety. 

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administation, almost 400 people die a year from car accidents that result in accidental drowning. 

Now Dutch company, Fijen TMLS has developed a seat-belt that releases when water goes in the interior and dissolves a salt pill in the latch. 

The mechanism costs as little as $40 and according to the company's website can "be assembled on all seatbelt releasers in just a few simple steps."

From the pictures of the assembly instructions, I am not sure it is quite so easy. 

Also, it is unclear how long the device is good for, since on one hand, their website states that the "Escape Belt lasts 6 months" and on other hand that "the cartridge will need to replaced after 2 years."

In any case, I think the idea is a good one as long as the belt remains secure when not submerged and will not release accidentally with any simple spill or splash. ;-)

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January 20, 2012

Clean Water From A Bicycle

Love this product called The Aquaduct for helping people in developing countries get clean water.

Using the power of pedaling, water that is loaded into the back of the bike is "cycled" through a filter and run into the clean container in the front.

This can be done by actually riding the bike home with the water or refilling the clean container in stationary mode.

The Aquaduct reminds me of some similar products that I saw and blogged about in July at a Peace Corps exhibit that used bicycles for shelling corn and charging cell phones.

What's great about The Aquaduct is that is a simple, all-in-one solution that transports, filters, and stores water--it was the winning entry (out of 102) in the Google Innovate or Die competition.

For 1.1 billion people without clean water in the world, The Aquaduct solves the problem for transporting and sanitizing water.

In Judaism, we say "Mayim Chaim"--that water is life, and this innovative pedal-powered transit and filtration machine can help bring life-saving water to the masses.


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December 18, 2010

The Triple I Factors



Recently, I was watching the new ABC News broadcast called “Be The Change: Save A Life.” And in this one episode, a group of Stanford University students solved a critical life and death problem afflicting the world in which 4 million premature and malnourished babies die every year due to hypothermia and another 16 million that survive suffer life-long illness such as diabetes and heart disease because their internal organs do not form right.

The challenge in the developing world is access to incubators, which typically cost $20,000 and are not available in rural areas. In turn, some Stanford students formed a team and developed the Embrace infant warmer, a low-cost, local solution. It is a $25 waterproof baby sleeping bag with a pouch for a reheatable wax-like substance that is boiled in water and maintains its temperature for 4 to 6 hours at a time. It is hoped that this product will save 1 million babies within the first five years in India alone!

As I reflected on this amazing feat of technology, I marveled at how this group of young adults was able to overcome such a big world problem and solve it so simply. And while I understand that they focused on the end-users and the root cause of the problems, it is still a remarkable story.

After listening to the team members describe their project and approach, I believe there are three critical factors that show through and that can be the tipping point in not only their, but also our technology projects’ success. These three factors, which I call the Triple I Factors are as follows:

Idealism—the students had a shared idealism for a better world. Seeing people’s pain and suffering drove their vision. And in turn, they committed themselves to finding a cure for it. Embrace is now a non-profit organization seeking to save lives versus just making a profit.

Imagination—the product team was able to imagine an unconventional alternative to the status quo. They were able to project a vision for a low cost and mobile infant warmer into concrete solutions that were user-centric for the people in need.

Innovation—the ultimate product design was truly innovative. It marries a high technology phase-change wax substance for maintaining body temperature with a simple baby sleeping bag. Moreover, the innovation is not just in the materials of the product, but in the usability, so for example, this product requires no electricity, something that is not always available in rural India.

While, there are certainly many factors that go into successful technology product launches, including strong leadership, sound project management, and the technical competence of the team, I think that the Triple I factors—idealism, imagination, and innovation—albeit soft factors are ones that should not be underestimated in their ability to propel meaningful technology solutions.

As IT leaders, we need to create a healthy balance and diverse competencies in the organization between the hard factors and the soft factors, so that we can tackle everything from children dying from malnutrition and hypothermia to cures for cancer, and of course, ongoing IT breakthroughs in knowledge management, social engineering, and human productivity await.

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October 16, 2010

Five Lessons From The Chilean Rescue

This week, we as humankind were renewed by the rescue of the 33 miners in Chile.

“Viva Chile! They Left No Man Behind” writes Peggy Noonan in The Wall Street Journal (16-17, Oct. 2010).

The Chileans took what was a human tragedy and instead turned it upside down and inside out into a worldwide victory!

Yet, as the rescue unfolded first with the search for the miners, their discovery, their being sustained while rescue tunnels were dug, and then ultimately as each miner—one by one—was brought to the surface safely—clean-shaven and smiling, I couldn’t help thinking to myself how perfectly everything was going—each time again and again—and then starting to worry that something has got to go wrong here (almost by Murphy’s Law)—this is too perfect!

Yet, nothing went wrong, it was a watertight rescue of all the miners.

As flawed human beings with all our warts and all, I think we were at some level shocked with disbelief by the flawless events that unfolded.

No cost overruns, no schedule delays, no one was hurt, no glitches in equipment or otherwise. It was a run of complete success that almost never happens in real life and yet, we all saw it unfold one, two, three…thirty-three before our very eyes.

This doesn’t happen in real life—only in fairy tales, right? This certainly doesn’t happen in most information technology projects! ;-)

But even more stunning to us than the success of the rescue itself was the undercurrent of the prevailing of good over evil manifesting before us—almost like G-d was revealing himself to us again, as he did in Biblical times. As one of the miners poetically said: “I met G-d. I met the devil. G-d won.”

The shocker here was that a people, nation, and in effect the entire world was focused on saving these 33 simple miners. This in our day and age, when we have become more accustomed to those who dehumanize and devalue human life, rather than those who genuinely value and safeguard it as the Chileans did.

As Ms. Noonan puts it: “They used the human brain and spirit to save life. All we get every day is scandal.”

Recent events remind us of the huge contrast between those who value life and those who don’t, such as 9-11, almost daily suicide (read “homicide”) bombings for political aims, the blatant proliferation and threats of WMD (and now cyber warfare), the violation of human rights by dictatorships and thugs around the world, including political imprisonments, rigged elections, restrictions of free information flow, and more violent acts such as mass rapes, female genital mutilation, genocide, slave prison camps, and more.

Moreover, while we witness events going wrong everyday and governments, companies, and peoples seeming unable to set things right, in Chile, we saw a nation and a people that set their minds and might to bringing the miners home safely and they did, period.

There are some important lessons here for us for the future:

  1. Find the moral good. It starts with valuing and safeguarding human life. Our agenda should always be to prioritize helping others and saving lives. The Chileans did just that when they didn’t wring their hands and just walk away from the tragedy saying it was over. Instead, saving the lives was a national priority. Similarly, providing the speedy drill to the Chileans from the U.S. that tunneled in half the time to the miners was a gesture that we too value life and are partners with them in saving the miners.
  2. Contain the problem. The problems we face are “ginormous” (read: gigantic and enormous) and the only way we are gong to be able to overcome them is to break them down into pieces and attack them at their source. The Chileans took a big rescue operation and by decomposing it into plan A, B, and C, etc. and tackling each piece of the problem (locating the miners, sustaining them, rescuing them, etc.), they made the solution doable.
  3. Leverage technology. We are hampered in our abilities by our own human limitations. But we can extend our capabilities and expand those limits through technology. The rescue of the miners used many new technologies in drilling, communications, and materials to make the rescue not only possible, but also probable. We need to constantly innovate and use technology to make the impossible, possible.
  4. Stand united. No question, we are stronger together than apart. The Chilean nation and people united in their efforts to rescue and bring home the miners. It was a mission they believed in and which they stood together in accomplishing. Politics, infighting, and mudslinging can divide us when we need to be unified. We need to understand that when we take pot shots to score points, we undermine the mission and the successes we desperately need.
  5. Stay positive. Even in the face of what seems like assured calamity, we must keep our wits, stay strong, and focus on solutions. If we do this, we can say goodbye to Murphy’s Law, and helpless and hopelessness be gone. A renewed spirit of optimism and a can-do attitude can carry us forward to new heights that we can all be proud of.

As the article states: the Chileans “set to doing something hard, specific, physical, demanding of commitment, precision, and expertise. And they did it.” And we can again do it too.

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September 30, 2010

Apps for Mobile Health Care



Talking about apps for your phone…this one is amazing from MIT Media Labs.

Attach a $1-2 eyepiece (the "NETRA") to your phone and get your eye prescription in less than 2 minutes.

What's next?
I wonder if they will come out with more apps for health and wellbeing that check your vital signs such as temperature, pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate, and more.

I can envision the smartphone becoming our personal health assistant for monitoring and alerting us to dangerous medical conditions.

This will increase our ability to get timely medical care and save lives.
This is a long way from "I've fallen and I can't get up," and that's a great thing.

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August 23, 2010

Putting the Donkey Before the Cart - Or Is He Sleeping Inside?


I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I saw the "Bufalino" mini RV by designer Cornelius Comanns, profiled in DVICE.


3 wheeler. Seats 2. Fold down bed. Fridge. Stove. Sink (basin). Water tank. (Numbered) Storage. And laptop!

I'd give this an A- on creativity, but a C- for practicality (especially in terms of creature comfort) -- my butt hurts just looking at that seat. :-)

Nevertheless, I appreciate the need to do more with less, and to create eco-friendly vehicles for the 21st century.

I'd like to see Toyota and Chrysler convert their minivans into something with the functionality that this rickshaw was trying to get at.

Who knows if Comanns is on to something with this?

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August 21, 2010

Pedal to the Next Tech Level

I just discovered the Ciclotte stationary bicycle.

You may have to take a double take before the bulb goes on and you even recognize the bicycle features--then the seat, the pedals, the handle bars come together in this innovative design by Luca Schieppati.

According to Wired Magazine (Sept. 2010), the concept design for this bike sits in the Milan Design Museum.

The bike is made almost entirely from carbon fiber and the pedals spin the main wheel that "generates a magnetic field and plenty of thigh-burning resistance."

I''ll need to start saving up the $10,700 to own own of these beauties.

Technology speaking, I think the picture speaks a thousand words.

I love it!

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July 2, 2010

Why Take Out The Trash Anymore?

I am fascinated by unusual uses of technology. And in fact, that’s what I love about technology—is that it literally applies to every aspect of our lives.

In a sense, I think of technology as one of G-d’s precious gifts to mankind to better the world—when it's used for good—such as for improving communications, curing illness, and inventing new materials.

(Of course, there has been so much focus on technology being used to create “bigger and badder” weapons that can destroy the planet, but hopefully, we are spared from such morale and intellectual insanity and hatred.)

So now technology is striking again... but in an area that you wouldn’t necessarily expect.

Wired Magazine (July 2010) has an article called “Canada Sucks: Montreal’s vacuum system will make taking out the trash a breeze.”

“In 2012, Montreal will unveil an $8.2 million [4 mile] tube network to service a downtown arts district.” The trash system called Envac is already operational in other cities such as Barcelona, London, and Stockholm. It incorporates separate inlets/chutes for waste, recycling, and compost; sensors that relay load information to system operators; large industrial fans that can crank up from 45 mph to gale force to flush obstructions through a subterranean slipstream; and automated software that directs the trash to appropriate dumpsters in central collection facilities for transport to landfills, recycling centers, and composting plants; And the Canadian system will be controlled remotely from Envac headquarters in Stockholm 3600 miles away.

I was surprised and excited to see such an innovative use of technology for such a seemingly mundane task as garbage removal (i.e. I wouldn’t normally associate garbage and technology, but this article gave me a new reason to think more broadly on this topic).

Truly, technology is a game-changer. And we can think about everything we do, question it, reinvent it, and make for a better future.

The only condition is that we look beyond the surface of how we do things do things today and envision them anew for tomorrow.


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April 4, 2010

Advanced Biometrics for Law Enforcement

Homeland Security Today Magazine (March 2010) has an interesting article called “Biometrics on the Battlefield" about how the American military has had significant success in Afghanistan taking biometrics and in using it for “vetting, tracking, and identification.”

Here’s how it’s done:

The biometrics system uses HIIDE (Handheld Interagency Identity Detection System) devices, which is “similar in size to a large camera, [that] connects directly to the BATS [Biometrics Automated Tool Set] database and matches inputs against a biometrics watch list of 10,000 individuals.”

The database “BATS uses a combination of fingerprints, photographs and iris scans, in addition to an in-depth background examination” to “screen potential local employees, identify detainees, and differentiate friendly individuals from insurgents and terrorists.”

How successful has the use of biometrics been?

“The use of biometrics has clearly thwarted security breaches and helped prevent unwanted activities by the enemy. Additionally, in 2008 alone, hundreds of HVTs (high value targets) were identified through the use of this biometrics technology.”

The article suggests the application of this biometric system for domestic law enforcement use.

Currently, fingerprint cards or stationary scanners are common, but with the proposed military biometrics system, there is the technology potential to use mobile scanning devices quickly and easily in the field.

The article gives the example: “if an officer came into contact with an individual under suspect conditions, a simple scan of the iris would ascertain that person’s status as a convicted felon, convicted violent felon, convicted sex offender or someone on whom an alert has been placed.”

In this scenario, quicker and more accurate identification of suspects could not only aid in dealing with dangerous offenders and benefit the officers in terms of their personal safety, but also contribute to ensuring community safety and security through enhanced enforcement capabilities.

Of course, using such a system for law enforcement would have to pass legal muster including applicable privacy concerns, but as the author, Godfrey Garner, a retired special forces officer, states “hopefully, this valuable technology will be recognized and properly utilized to protect law enforcement officer in the United States. I know that I’ve seen it protect our sons and daughters on the battlefields of Afghanistan.”

We are living in an amazing time of technology advances, and the potential to save lives and increase public safety and security through lawful use of biometrics is a hopeful advancement for all.


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March 5, 2010

Next Generation IT Project Managers

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Check this out...

Maybe we should hire these guys to do our IT projects in the future?

These guys have it all from planning to implementation. :-)


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December 5, 2009

Tech is Threatening to Some and A Savior To Others

As technology advances and supplants the “old ways” of doing things, some people are threatened that they are being put “out to pasture” and others find opportunity in the emerging technology—they find in it something new to learn and grow with, perhaps an opportunity to shine and become the resident subject matter expert at work or at home.

As we get older, it’s natural that some people may not be as flexible in “starting over,” learning something new, or changing the way “we’ve always done things.” It’s reminiscent of the sort of unflattering old saying that “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”—a saying by the way that I don’t really believe (you should see my Dad on email, Internet, and so on—he’s great!). But at the same time, people, as do all things, have a life cycle, and our strengths and weaknesses go through peaks and valleys at various points on the cycle. For example, “with age comes wisdom.” Years ago, getting the chairman or CEO to use email was a corporate challenge. Now, young people are migrating to Social Media for communications, and email is the technology dinosaur. It’s a constant technology transformation.

In November 2009, the Wall Street Journal reviewed a new book by Sci-Fi author Cory Doctorow, called “Makers”. “This novel is set in a not-too distant future when the creative destruction of technological change has created an economy so efficient, with profit margins so thin, that traditional companies can hardly stay in business.” In this book, the inventor “uses three-dimensional printers to produce copies of machines and most anything else at close to no cost.” Now “good ideas are copied so quickly that they become commodities. Every industry that required a factory yesterday only needs a garage today.” Where this leaves us is in a time with “competition and invention getting easier and easier—it’s producing a kind of superabundance.” And the result is widespread unemployment and stress.

As we are presumably heading out of a major recession now with unemployment topping 10% (and some would say the real figures, including the underemployed and those that have stopped looking for work, at closer to 20%), we must but wonder whether the recession/unemployment is due to the financial crisis alone or is there some element that is due to our new high-tech economy, where everything in the manufacturing sector has either been tech-enabled or outsourced to Asia. And where we are left in a primary “services economy—pushing papers and flipping burgers? Is there a time coming when we become so technologically advanced, like in the Makers, that there is a very real threat of leaving hundreds of millions of people behind, while the few technology mavens “have it all”?

Interestingly enough, with the advancement of technology, the income disparity between rich and poor has grown where the top 1% of Americans own more than a third of the wealth, compared with a fifth of the wealth in the 1970s (according to Robert Reich).

I think it is critical that smarts and performance be rewarded (i.e. performance-based), but that we cannot let things get out of control and unjust. Billions cannot starve while the ultra-rich hop from rural mansion to Park Avenue condo and from private plane to recreational yacht. Technology must be used to level the playing field and not abuse it. Some like Bernie Madoff used systems developers and technology to create and issue phony financial statements to Ponzi-scheme clients showing trades that never occurred. Instead, we need to use technology to educate, communicate, share, and advance the opportunities for all and overcome the technology divide through amazing advancements here and yet to come. To do this, we must focus on continuous innovation and application of technology to the challenges we face—whether alternative energy, health care, world-hunger, global warming, and so much more. There is no shortage of issues for us to apply our minds and technology to—there is plenty for everyone to contribute to.


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October 23, 2009

Stairway to User-centric Heaven



This video was sent to me and I do not know the original source (except VW), but it's great.

It shows what happens when you take the most ordinary daily activity (in this case a simple flight of stairs) and make it user-centric.

Even more, people will walk "the extra mile" when something is appealing to them.

Notice how an unused staircase becomes the preferred method--down and even up--over the escalator when people have a user-centric reason to switch.

This is brilliant and the true essence of what it means to enterprise architect our organizations, products, services, policies, plans, and so forth in a way that people can really use.

Further, technology is not only bits and bytes, but any tool we use to get the job done.

Life truly can be healthy, meaningful, and fun when it's user-centric, visionary, and innovative.


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July 6, 2008

Biometrics and Enterprise Architecture

Biometrics is “the study of methods for uniquely recognizing humans based upon one or more intrinsic physical or behavioral traits.” (Wikipedia)

Biometrics is crucial for identifying and taking out of play enemy combatants, terrorists, and criminals or for providing access to trusted employees or partners in public or private sector organizations, like the intelligence community, defense, security, and various sensitive industries like financial, telecommunications, transportation, energy, and so forth.

National Defense Magazine, November 2007 has an article on the significant advances being made in biometric technologies and their applications to our organizations.

According to “’The National Biometrics Challenge,’ a report produced by the Office of the President’s National Science and Technology Council…’a tipping point in the maturation of the technology has been reached.’

Both the FBI’s Information Services Division and The Department of Defense Biometric Fusion Center are leading the way in this field.

Currently, identity is established based on the trinity: “something you know (such as a password), something you have (like an identity card), or something you are, which is where biometrics comes in.”

Biometrics includes technologies for recognizing fingerprints, facial features, irises, veins, voices, and ears, and even gait.

But these are technologies identification means are not fool-proof: remembering multiple complex passwords can be dizzying and identity cards can be lost, stolen, or forged. So biometrics becomes the cornerstone for identity management.

However, even biometrics can be spoofed. For example, fake rubber fingers have been used in lieu of a real fingerprint (although now there are ways with living flesh sensors to protect against this). So therefore, biometrics is evolving toward “multi-modial” collection and authentication. This could involve using 10 fingerprints versus one or combing fingerprint, iris scans, and digital mugshots (called the “13 biometrics template” and used to gain access in U.S. managed detention centers in Iraq) or some other combination thereof.

Biometrics has advanced so much so that an Iris scan system from Sarnoff Corp. of Princeton NJ “can scan and process 20 people per minute from distances of about 10 feet away, even those who are wearing glasses.”

The keys to further enterprise application of these technologies in our enterprises are the following:

  1. Lowering the cost (especially to make it available to local law enforcement agencies)
  2. Making it rugged enough for extreme environments for the military
  3. Making it portable so that it can be used for a variety of law enforcement and defense operations
  4. Reengineering business processes so that measurements are captured, stored, accessible, and readily available for making a match and generating a decision on someone’s identity in real-time
  5. Developing policies that “effectively govern the proper use of the data” and ensure adequate protection for civil liberties and privacy.

Overall, biometrics has moved from emerging technology to applied technology and needs to be planned into your identity management architectures.


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