Mary Reid, Kohler’s VP Industrial Design gave a worthwhile presentation on “Design Thinking” this evening at Monona Terrace.

This image was taken with my iPhone 5s in relatively low light. Rather impressive.

Mary’s presentation included a brief discussion on technology & plumbing, including wifi and bluetooth equipped toilets along with a shower head that includes a bluetooth speaker.

Somewhat related: Consumer DSLRs “dead in 5 years” and my comments on the rapidly expanding world of iPhone photography.

Asymcar

Steve Crandall brings a new perspective as a guest. Steve’s analysis of complex systems has given him a huge pool of wisdom into which we dip our dainty spoons.

We survey the interlopers seeking to replace many jobs that cars have traditionally done, from horses to bicycles, planes, trains and buses.

We dive deeper into a few earlier Asymcar topics including energy, regulation, infrastructure, power train evolution, societal changes, distribution networks, urbanization and consider the promise of electric bicycles.

Several innovation timing lessons temper our expectations for immediate improvements.

Finally, we revisit the emerging transportation information layer and how such services may change public behavior and the auto-ecosystem.

Jonathan Blaustein:

It has now been five years since the global economic system nearly collapsed into ruin, and the ensuing half-decade has been difficult for most — apart from the infamous 1 percent — including professional photographers. The ease and accessibility of digital technology combined with the rise of the mostly free Internet have eliminated many of the ways photographers eked out a middle-class living. Even university jobs — once a stable and comfortable perch — have been replaced by cheap and benefits-free adjuncts.
 
 What’s a struggling photographer to do?
 
 The burgeoning model requires a Malcolm X “By Any Means Necessary” attitude. Photographers are encouraged to write, blog, teach workshops, engage in social media, secure sponsorships, develop exterior passions and basically do anything and everything to put food on the table. One blogger has called the phenomenon the “21st century hustle.” (O.K., that blogger is me.) But as much as this feels new and different, we can trace the Renaissance-man lineage back to the most famous American photographer in history: Ansel Adams.
 
 Mr. Adams, ever the optimist, once proclaimed: “The best picture is around the corner. Like prosperity.” That sums up his future-embracing outlook, because when Mr. Adams committed himself to his career, there were few examples of successful professional photographic artists whom he could emulate. Ansel Adams’s career provides a road map to potential success while also serving as a reminder that everything old will be new again.

Human interaction is one of the many gifts that travel bestows. Random, unplanned conversations are truly a blessing with wisdom as a dessert.

And so it was while changing planes recently, that I happened upon a 60+ year young shoeshine expert. This man had been through a difficult job change and recently returned to work shining shoes.

Beginning to work on my 24 year old Allen Edmonds wing tips (great value), he looked up and asked how I became “successful”? I could only reply that God has blessed me with abundance. I have been given a fabulous family, health and wonderful smart colleagues.

Continuing to work diligently on my shoes, he added “most people say that they are lucky.”

“But, I know, that God gives it all to us. We may not always understand why, but “every good and perfect thing comes from above“.”

He continued that after this unplanned job change, he went back to several former shoe shine customers who gladly gave him their business again.

I had a similar conversation with a shoeshine family several years ago. They were some of the most friendly and generous people I’ve encountered while on travel.

This brief conversation came streaming back into my mind after chatting with a friend who is fully recovered from heart difficulties. I replied to this good news with a “Thank God”. My friend thanked medicine. To me, it all originates with God’s grace.

What a blessing it is to travel.

Shawn Knight:

Driver error is the number one cause of automobile crashes so what would happen if you removed humans from the equation? According to independent research by the Eno Center for Transportation, vehicle-related injuries would drop by 90 percent and save the US economy roughly $450 billion each year.

The group discovered that 40 percent of fatal crashes in the US involved alcohol, drugs, fatigue or distraction – all metrics that wouldn’t affect an autonomous vehicle. Even in cases where a vehicle is primarily responsible for an accident, human elements like not paying attention and speeding often contributed to the occurrence of crashes and / or the severity of injuries.

The adoption rate of self-driving vehicles among consumers will of course play a big role in how many accidents can be avoided and how much money the economy could save. For example, if one in every 10 car was replaced with an autonomous vehicle, it would reduce crashes and subsequent injuries by roughly half and save around $25 billion each year.

Krishnadev Calamur:

We know that Europeans love their bicycles — think Amsterdam or Paris. Denmark even has highways specifically for cyclists.

Indeed, earlier this month, NPR’s Lauren Frayer reported that Spain, which has long had a love affair with cars, is embracing the bicycle: For the first time on record, Lauren noted, bicycles outsold cars in the country.

But it’s becoming a Continent-wide phenomenon. More bikes were sold in Italy than cars — for the first time since World War II.

This prompted us to look at the figures across the 27 member states of the European Union for both cars and bicycles. New-car registrations for Cyprus and Malta weren’t available, so we took them out of the comparison.

Simon Jenkins:

Every year I return from a visit to California dazed at cyberia’s next expansion in reach. After machines that can track and record our every move will come sensors that can identify our faces and gather, catalogue and distribute such data worldwide.
 After tools that can read messages come ones that can hear our talk and predict our needs, converse with us and deliver us products, services, cures, contentments. There is no escape from this. Everyone has a footprint, including those who think they do not.
 
 Updating Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four for the digital age, Dave Eggers, in his novel The Circle, satirises Silicon Valley’s “completion of the singularity”.
 
 Each person becomes a global avatar, bugged and followed 24 hours a day. All transactions, all experiences are public. A virtual realm mirrors the physical one.

Online ads have, perhaps, peaked.

Claire Cain Miller:

Google’s search engine was once characterized by its simplicity — both its search results and ads were blue links against a white background. No longer.

On Wednesday, Google confirmed that it was testing banner ads atop search results, a major departure from its earlier advertising and from its past promises to users.

The banner ads are part of an experiment involving several advertisers, including Southwest Airlines, that has been running on desktop computers in the United States for about a week, according to a person with knowledge of the ads. They come as Google battles a slowing desktop search business and falling ad prices.

Google: 2005 vs 2013.

MA Jie & Masatsugu Horie:

Self-driving cars being planned by Google Inc. and global automakers may help counter slumping demand from younger customers by tapping the fastest-growing demographic in the world’s largest vehicle markets: the elderly.

As baby boomers age in markets including the U.S. and Japan, rising numbers of older drivers being killed or injured in accidents may spur demand for autonomous vehicles. With as many as 90 percent of traffic accidents caused by human error, a key benefit of the technology is boosting safety, executives from automakers including General Motors Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. said at an industry conference in Tokyo last week.

“Seniors are often regarded as the victims of traffic accidents, Moritaka Yoshida, managing officer and chief safety technology officer at Toyota, said this month as the company announced plans for automated-driving systems. ‘‘However, recently an increasing number of accidents are caused by senior drivers.’’
Japan, the world’s fastest-aging major economy and the third-largest car market, is at the forefront of the accident trend: of the 4,411 people who died on the road in the country last year, more than half, or 2,264, were 65 or older, according to data from the National Police Agency.

FoxNews

Oregon is moving ahead with a controversial plan to tax motorists based on the number of miles they drive as opposed to the amount of fuel they consume, raising myriad concerns about cost and privacy.

The program, springing out of a recently signed bill, is expected to launch in 2015 on a volunteer basis. But it’s charting relatively new territory, and other states aching for additional tax revenue are sure to be watching closely to see whether to imitate the model.

The problem for lawmakers is that the existing per-gallon gas tax has hit a point of diminishing returns, as Americans drive less and vehicles become more fuel efficient. The federal Highway Trust Fund, which gives money to states for highway construction and repairs, for example, has needed a congressional bailout four times since 2009, in part the result of no federal gas tax increase in the past 20 years.

However, economists and civil libertarians are concerned about the Oregon pilot project in large part because some mileage meters can track and record residents’ every vehicular move.

Rick Geddes, a Cornell University professor, said the basic device is okay because it is simply attached to a vehicle’s computer, which cannot track locations.

“It’s just like using electricity,” he told FoxNews.com