Hear the word drone and you’ll likely think of military predator drones: forces of death and destruction. But what about drones as a force for restoration: emergency relief, education or even saving the planet?
I explored the future of drones at the San Francisco Bay Area Maker Faire, on assignment for the BBC World Service; and spoke with drone experts from GoogleX, OpenROV and even….R2D2. The latter was one of my toughest interviews ever. Next time, I’ll bring a droid translator.
R2D2 sets the scene (translations welcome via Twitter)
van Diggelen: I’m here at the SF Bay Area Maker Faire, a “show and tell” gathering of tech enthusiasts, hobbyists, artists and engineers. You could say I’m here to meet my maker… to explore drones designed not for destruction but to make the world a safer, more egalitarian, greener place. Here’s Adem Rudin, who works at GoogleX.
Rudin: This is Project Wing. We’re doing drones for delivery and our end goal is to deliver anything to anyone, anywhere and do it quickly.
We’re trying to build a platform that people can use in whatever way they can dream up…In 2014, we went to the Outback, near Brisbane and met up with a couple of farmers out there, operated for about a week, delivering bottled water, food, two-way radios…
van Diggelen: Does it have some kind of attachment you can put things in?
Rudin: The package is on the underside and when we want to deliver, we bring the aircraft into a hover and actually winch the package down to the customer waiting on the ground.
van Diggelen: It looks a bit like a stingray…
Rudin: We tried to make it look friendly…unobtrusive and it also is fairly quiet up in the air…
van Diggelen: When you see what’s going on in Nepal…do you see that being a future potential application for this drone?
Rudin: Yes … It would be a very quick, very low cost way to get out, take aerial photographs of disaster areas and deliver emergency supplies directly to people.
van Diggelen: Since this is one of the secretive GoogleX projects, Rudin was unable to give me a timeline for when we might see these Google drones filling our skies.
Audio: sound of bubbles, submarine drone reaching surface, diving down again
van Diggelen: The beauty of Maker Faire is discovering what’s just round the corner. I found Zack Johnson standing by a huge paddling pool operating a submarine drone – about the size of a shoebox.
Johnson: It goes down to about 75 meters and films live video that goes back to the shore and you control it either with an Xbox controller or a USB joystick or with a laptop.
There’s basically two things stopping people becoming Jacques Cousteau. One is price… The other one is know-how.
van Diggelen: Johnson’s DIY kit sells for $900 to a global market. The company supports an international community of users who share their expeditions online.
Johnson: We call it Open Explorer: it’s a web platform for sharing expeditions. There are people who’re using ROVs to look for sunken tombs, buried treasure, marine archaeology, water sampling, coral reef monitoring…
There are some academic applications. Especially regarding coral reefs. That is a big focal point for the environmental movement right now because it’s a great litmus for the health of the ocean.
van Diggelen: So drones will be used in the fight against climate change, to help save endangered species, to deliver emergency supplies and even bring the Internet to remote places in the world. The future of drones is as vast as the open sky. Its only limit? Our imagination.
Want to explore more BBC reports and commentary? Click here for archives on everything from sexism in Silicon Valley to tech solutions to the California drought.
Diane von Furstenberg says that the greatest gift she’s ever been given was the lesson that fear is not an option.
With 2015 off to a fearful start in Paris and its impact reverberating globally, especially within Jewish communities, it’s a lesson worth exploring.
I sat down with von Furstenberg, Queen of the Wrap Dress and the DVF brand, and found a down-to-earth woman with a powerful story that resonates far beyond the world of fashion.
As a small child, von Furstenberg learned her lesson in a rather brutal way from her mother, a Holocaust survivor.
“She’d lock me in a closet and wait til I stopped being afraid,” says von Furstenberg.
Her mother experienced atrocities at Auschwitz and her challenging life shaped von Furstenberg’s to this day.
“Fear is not an option is everything: fear of flying, living, confronting the truth…fear of anything,” says von Furstenberg, who has made some courageous choices in her personal and business life, as chronicled in her new book “The Woman I Wanted To Be.”
She recounts the many periods of self doubt and challenges she faced as her career soared then flopped, rose again from the ashes, battled to stay relevant and then triumphed in China and globally, ensuring DVF a place in the design history books. She’s done it all: married (and divorced) a prince, been painted by Andy Warhol, made front page of Newsweek, survived cancer, faced bankruptcy and become a doting grandmother.
In a conversation with Maria Shriver the day before our interview, she urged women to be hard on themselves. I asked her what she meant by that. Although some journalists claim she’s impossible to interview, DVF answered my question directly.
“The most important relationship is the one you have with yourself,” says von Furstenberg. “See yourself for what you really are…for the good and the bad, whatever. Once you have accepted that, then you can also begin to like yourself.”
Along with Tina Brown and Sally Field, von Furstenberg is part of Vital Voices, a network that supports female community and business leaders around the world, both politically and financially.
PBS NewsHour has recently updated its format with the first all female anchor team, refreshed its website and added a weekend program. How will it change in the next twelve months? Longtime PBS correspondent and San Francisco media personality Spencer Michels shares the long view and asks a key question:
“What can we put on the air that will get people to watch?”
Michels describes how the media landscape has changed dramatically since he became a journalist fifty years ago. As well as anchoring the KQED show “Express” and working on “Evening Edition” with Belva Davis, Michels has been a PBS correspondent and now also contributes to KQED’s latest news show, KQED Newsroom with Thuy Vu and Scott Shafer.
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Before our video interview, Michels shared a poignant memory from his childhood; an experience that helped plant the seeds for his journey in journalism. He recalls being a child in San Francisco during the Second World War.
“I was without my father for the first three grades in school…it was tough,” says Michels. “I still remember the day that my father returned from the war. It was very dramatic. He drove up in a car. I was at school on the second or third floor and there he was. I was eight years old and hadn’t seen him in three years.”
I asked Michels to describe the scene.
“I did run down and I did embrace him on the street. It was an emotional experience…I’m sure there were tears,” says Michels. “After that, everything changed.”
Those three years were formative for Michels, who went on to explore the world during a remarkable career in journalism. After working for PBS NewsHour as a national correspondent for 30 years, he was laid off last year during a major cost cutting exercise. As weekend anchor, Hari Sreenivasan recently explained to Jon Stewart on the Daily Show, “facts are expensive.” That is, doing intelligent, original journalism doesn’t come cheap, especially in the Bay Area.
It’s a tongue in cheek, behind the scenes look at the work of a PBS NewsHour correspondent. The low budget, goofy juxtaposition between Goldbloom and his demanding PBS NewsHour producer, Jordan Smith, is downright hilarious at times. On air Introductions by news heavyweights like Judy Woodruff, Gwen Ifill and Hari Sreenivasan lend gravitas to the whole endeavor. PBS NewsHour hopes it will help to capture the exodus of its audience from television to online streaming and grab more younger viewers in the process. It looks like a winning formula.
At Fresh Dialogues, I’m used to getting Fresh Answers, but as you’ll see in this interview, I also got some unsolicited media tips from a pro.
Michels was too kind to comment on my excessive head nodding, but I will definitely be working on that.
Google’s Director of Energy and Sustainability, Rick Needham describes the company’s fleet of electric vehicles and how it has enabled millions of miles of electric driving (almost 2M and counting). As well as the “usual suspects” like Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf, and Ford Focus Electric, Google’s electric “Gfleet” includes several Tesla Model S, a favorite due to its range of up to 265 miles. But is that the whole story?
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Google continues to grow its electric fleet. In 2011, it had 30 electric plug-ins, today it has over 50.
“We view that as a very interesting place to spend some time and effort and come up with a technology solution that can really help. It’s not just the car that’s underutilized; it’s the infrastructure, the roads. If you could enable that to be utilized more effectively… whether that be cars that can travel closer together (in a platoon), cars that travel and you can be doing productive things while they’re moving… There are a lot of opportunities on the environmental side, on the human safety side, on utilization of infrastructure side.” Google’s Rick Needham
This strategy makes a lot of sense, given Google’s ability to integrate Google Maps and traffic conditions to make driving both more efficient and safer.
2. Why it invested in car sharing companies Uber, Sidecar and Relay Rides
“It’s an enormous opportunity. Today the car sharing market is just over $3 Billion (in the US)…That’s just starting out…there quite a roadway, a runway there, to have a much bigger impact…” Google’s Rick Needham
Read more about how the Uber investment offers synergistic opportunities for Google and may help change the future of transportation.
Why it all might be related
Some commentators like Green Car Report’s John Voelcker have speculated that all this might be part of Google’s grand plan to purchase Tesla and use it to launch a driverless car-sharing taxi service sometime early in the 2020s. Tesla’s Elon Musk is good friends with Larry Page and has discussed the potential of driverless cars.
Google’s Clean Energy Struggle
Today, only 34% of the energy Google uses comes from renewable sources like wind and solar power. This is not something to boast about, especially given Apple’s claim to use 100% renewable power, but as Needham explains, he’s chasing a moving target. As the number of Google searches soars and more Google services are adopted, Google’s energy use is growing so fast that it battles to keep up with clean energy sources, despite investing over $1Billion in wind and solar power.
Find out more about Google’s strategy to green its energy supply, green its buildings, and reduce its carbon footprint.
Welcome to Fresh Dialogues where we focus on green business issues, entrepreneurs and inspiring women. Check out lively interviews with tech visionaries, business leaders, and cultural icons.
Soak up the energy of those who are finding sustainable solutions; and changing the way we impact our planet. Alison van Diggelen asks Fresh Questions and gets Fresh Answers.
Working with National Public Radio’s KQED Forum team and its host Michael Krasny inspired Alison to focus on her passion – interviewing people – especially those working on the green revolution. She founded Fresh Dialogues in September 2008 as a venue for her interviews and commentary.
California State Senator Elaine Alquist nominated Alison for a Woman of Achievement Award in communication for the Women’s Fund of Silicon Valley. She was also honored by U.S. Congressman, Mike Honda. Fresh Dialogues has been featured in the San Jose Mercury News, the Gentry Magazine and OTHER MEDIA
EUROPE
She hails from Bonnie Scotland and worked for investment consultants in London and Paris before moving to Silicon Valley in 1994. She has a BSc. from the University of Paisley and a Master’s in Land Economy from the University of Cambridge. (Wolfson College)
Reviews
“Alison van Diggelen has worked closely with me on Forum. She is intelligent, articulate and has a knack for asking insightful questions. I know you will enjoy meeting her and hearing her interviews.” Michael Krasny, KQED Forum Host
“Alison’s interview style combines genuine curiosity, intelligence and humor.” Elon Musk, CEO Tesla Motors, SpaceX
van Diggelen: Does it have some kind of attachment you can put things in?
Johnson: It goes down to about 75 meters and films live video that goes back to the shore and you control it either with an Xbox controller or a USB joystick or with a laptop.
