Self-driving cars vs. Flying cars

Self-driving cars are a hot menu item for big corporations like Google, Tesla, Apple,  and even unicorns like Uber. And even big auto makers are jumping on the bandwagon. You know what? Alibaba is joining the club of self-driving cars. Simply put, self-driving cars are operated by computers, whereas cars are made to be driven by a human being

So what are we going to get from self-driving cars in the end? You can commute without bothering to drive because your car will be driven by a computer and you will sit in a back seat or a passenger seat and enjoy your coffee, reading newspapers, playing your favorite game, exchanging text messages with your friends and trying to catch up with your postponed chores. You may even catch up with the sleep you missed. Car pool bans might be a good idea for commuters headed for the same destination.

And while you are in your self-driving car, you will enjoy a perfect freedom from driving and be able to focus on something else. Now you will say  a utopia of self-driving cars is on the way. Is that right?

Some skeptics tend to remind other people that all that glitter is not gold. The world of IoT sets in, the driverless cars and even human-driven cars may be subject to hacking. Another question is whether the self-driving can ultimately address the top issue of road transportation: traffic congestion.

There was one incident, in which Google's self-driving car was pulled over by a cop because it was running slow at the speed of 24 mph or so, while other cars were going at 40 mph.

Flying cars may be  a lot better solution to traffic congestion than self-driving cars. However, flying cars were allegedly under development 60 years ago from now, but still far away from hitting a critical mass. In that sense, self-driving cars may have a better chance of getting deployed on the roads.

It is still hard to tell whether self-driving cars will remain to be a hot topic in another  five years from now. Likewise, it is unpredictable to see whether flying cars will be commercially available in another five years from now.

Cheaper oil is a bonanza or a disaster?

Years ago consumers including me were worried about an oil spike, but now today consumers are concerned about the the opposite: a nosedive of oil prices and possibly continued long-term glut of oil worldwide. People may wonder if the glut of crude oil might lead up to a financial crisis or another decade of a bigger economic recession on the dark side, but an accelerated exit out of the Great Recession.

The cheaper oil trend will have a greater impact than the dot.com bubble of the late 1990s, the aftermath of 9/11 tragedy, or the subprime  meltdown  and the Great Recession started in 2008?
My personal opinion is that the cheaper oil might bring a much bigger impact on the global economy than the above-mentioned disastrous events combined together.

USA Today were reporting in an article that there are four losers and four winners as a result of this glut of crude oil and continued low prices set around $56 per barrel. Only four losers and winners, respectively? Maybe or maybe more on both sides.

Iran, Russia, Nigeria and Venezuela are the four losers, according to USA Today, while Japan, USA, China and Saudi Arabia turned out to be winners.

In 1973, there was the so-called oil shock, also dubbed oil crunch, or oil crisis, which was initiated by the then OPEC countries that showed they could begin to wield oil power the world over. Now is the beginning of the demise of the OPEC?

Cheaper oil could mean a lot actually. Industrially, politically and socioeconomically.  Electric car manufacturers like Tesla Motors are the first to be hit by the cheaper oil. Oil explorers and wildcatters might be hit as well. Oil exploration equipment and facilities might face a sluggish phase of manufacturing.

Shale oil explorers in USA might experience a growing financial burden, while consumers may find more room for their daily spending, perhaps more on grocery and foods.

On the other side of the coin, environmentalists may lose momentum in their endeavors to curb global carbon footprints. It is too premature to predict anything about the cheaper oil, but one thing for sure I can predict is the global economy and technological agendas might have to face an abrupt turn from the current path.

Smart watches and wearables can be the next big thing?

Being an inventor in telematics, I wonder from time to time if what technologistas  believe could be the NEXT BIG thing comes true all the time. Maybe or maybe not.

I can say personal computing has evolved from desktop, laptop, palmtop to dashtop in terms of form factors.  Palmtop in the form of cell phones and smartphones,  and dashtop in the form of navigation, or in-vehicle infotainment equipment.

Wearables have been a buzzword in personal computing  for a couple of years. And now some people do not hesitate to say smart watches are the next big thing.

Wearable devices may be worn  in or around different parts of a human body, like ears, eyes, fingertips, wrists and so on. Not just wearable but implanted or embedded is what has been there for some time. The thing is whether  commercialization has been made enough to reach consumers in general. Have wearables  hit the critical mass already or been losing steam destined to be a thing of here today gone tomorrow?