Open up your mind and say, ahh...

The team that proved it’s possible to travel downwind faster than the wind has done it again, this time modifying their cart to go upwind at more than twice the speed of the circulating air.

Last time around, the Blackbird cart raced downwind at 2.86 times the speed of the wind. Earlier this month, Rick Cavallaro and the Blackbird team braved 104 degree heat at the New Jerusalem airport in Tracy, California, clocking in a top speed 2.01 times faster than the wind speed when headed upwind – which could end up being a new record.

It’s an impressive feat, but not as controversial as the downwind run. Where the prospect of traveling downwind faster than the wind once inspired thousands of internet arguments and heated debates in physics classrooms, an upwind sail just isn’t as provocative. In fact, there’s already a racing series in the Netherlands devoted to upwind land surfing.

“For some folks, the idea that it can advance directly into the wind at all has been counter-intuitive,” said Cavallaro, an aerodynamicist, kitesurfer and paraglider. While it may seem like a wind-powered vehicle heading directly into the wind could end up traveling faster and faster in an endless feedback loop, that isn’t the case. “There’s at least an element of truth to this, but as with the downwind cart, frictional losses still win out at a certain speed,” Cavallaro said.

The principle behind the upwind-configured Blackbird should be familiar to anyone with knowledge of sailing, except the Blackbird prefers runways and dry riverbeds. It uses two large “sails” – turbine blades – that spin around a common axis, moving forward as the cart sails into the wind and moving cross-wind as the blades turn around the axis.

“This combination of upwind and cross-wind motion is identical to that of a sail on a boat on an upwind tack,” Cavallaro said. “Where the sailboat has a keel to constrain the motion of the sail in the correct direction, we have a transmission and wheels that perform the same job.”

Cavallaro made most of the modifications to the Blackbird on his own, with the occasional help of some kitesurfing friends. First, he created blades with a different pitch. Configured for a downwind run, the Blackbird’s wheels were set up to turn the propeller, which in turn moved the vehicle forward. He had to reverse the setup for an upwind run, where turbine blades power the vehicle. We imagine that he listened to Christopher Cross’ “Sailing” and “Ride Like the Wind” on repeat while working.

Aside from the blade pitch, Cavallaro also had to take into account the Blackbird’s unique design: To keep the turbine’s torque from flipping the vehicle over, one of its axles is longer than the other, so the Blackbird’s chain drive had to be reconfigured in order to fit the asymmetrical axle setup.

Now that he has upwind and downwind runs under his belt, Cavallaro is looking forward to advances that other aerodynamic enthusiasts make. “I would like to see both our upwind and downwind records broken – regularly,” he said.

Photo: Rick Cavallaro

In a nondescript central Los Angeles neighborhood sits a renovated warehouse, home to the Southern California Institute of Architecture, or Sci-Arc for short. The small graduate school, which is noted for producing architects who go on to work in highly specialized fields like digital animation, is run by a core group of LA architects who place special emphasis on advanced fabrication. The school’s new Robot House, for example, is a dedicated laboratory for students interested in, well, learning how to program robots.

Robotic arms, to be more specific. The Robot House (it’s more like a room) has five of them, Staübli-brand machines with “hands” that can be programmed to do just about anything. Initiated in spring of last year, the lab has already produced some pretty cool stuff. The latest is a complex acrylic sculpture called Hot Networks, authored by Brandon Kruysman and Jonathan Proto, the two young designers Sci-Arc appointed to run and teach the Robot House lab.

In Hot Networks, Kruysman and Proto have given each robotic arm a different task: one positions the work surface, a another picks up and places a plastic cylinder, a third heats up the plastic as it’s set into place, melting and deforming against the others. Another arm airbrushes the cooled pieces, and the fifth arm films the whole thing for posterity. It’s a bit like earlier robotic building experiments (like this one, in which an arm builds a brick wall), but about five times more complex.

The highly choreographed network is made possible by a programming language the duo wrote specifically for the Robot House. Esperant.O, as it’s cleverly called, translates MAYA’s dynamic systems (like skeletons and moving parts) into a language that the mechanical arms can understand. “Esperant.O opens up an entirely new way to engage making through industrial robotics,” write the duo on their website. MAYA, an animation and rendering software that’s typically used to make stuff move on-screen, is being used to control real-time moving parts. For anyone unfamiliar with the software, a vastly over-simplified analogy would be a cartoonist who’s invented a way to control real-life people using his pencil and paper.

It’s funny that we never really get a good look at the morphing plastic sculpture. But the ambivalence the designers seem to feel about showing off the piece plays to the concept behind Robot House. The final product might look cool, sure, but it’s just a byproduct of the real work – the programming itself.

The SpaceX mission to berth with the International Space Station has successfully passed the first set of demonstrations with NASA. Dragon completed a series of maneuvers early this morning to adjust its orbit as it prepared for the first flyby of the ISS, passing just 2.4 kilometers (1.5 miles) beneath the station. In addition to the maneuvering, a series of tests was completed to confirm Dragon‘s onboard navigation and communication equipment was working properly before moving closer to the ISS on Friday.

Over the course of several hours all of the demonstrations went well, according to SpaceX’s lead mission director John Couluris, “all Dragon systems checked out, we look good” he said in a press conference following the flyby. “Dragon‘s go for berthing day tomorrow.”

Image: SpaceX

NASA’s ISS flight director Holly Ridings also said the first set of demonstrations was a success, comparing it to the numerous simulations completed by both SpaceX and NASA together. “Today went really very close to how we had trained it,” Ridings said. “There was no major deviation from our pre-flight plan.”

Today’s maneuvers were just the latest in several steps SpaceX has to make to to successfully demonstrate Dragon‘s capabilities as part of NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation System (COTS) before NASA will allow the company to deliver cargo to the space station.

Dragon as seen with its solar panels deployed from the ISS. Photo: NASA

Within hours of Tuesday morning’s launch, Dragon had successfully deployed its solar panels and opened the doors to its guidance, navigation and control sensors and began testing some of this equipment that will be used as the spacecraft approaches the space station.

On Wednesday, Dragon‘s GPS was shown to be working properly and the vehicle’s COTS UHF Communications Unit (CUCU, pronounced cuckoo) which will be used to communicate with the ISS was powered up and running.

In preparation for the maneuvers close to the ISS, some of Dragon‘s 18 Draco thrusters were demonstrated on Wednesday with both a series of short pulses, and a longer continuous burn simulating the vehicle’s ability to abort from its approach to the station.

A diagram of today’s flyby and the rest of the day’s flight as Dragon makes a loop around the ISS. Image: NASA

All of the activities during the first two days took place as Dragon was chasing the ISS in an effort to be in position for today’s flyby. Before the first maneuver, Dragon was in orbit about 60 kilometers (37 miles) behind and 9.5 kilometers (6 miles) beneath the ISS. At 12:58 a.m. PDT, the Dragon team at SpaceX’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California, announced a successful  “height adjustment burn” giving Dragon the vertical push closer to the space station (an orbit further away from the earth).

Forty-five minutes after the height adjustment burn at 1:43 a.m. PDT, Dragon performed a “co-elliptic burn” to effectively allow the capsule to level off at the desired distance beneath the station. Initially the altitude was to be 2.5 kilometers beneath the station, but this was changed to an actual distance of 2.4 kilometers. A few minutes later the crew on board the station sent a command to Dragon that turned on the capsule’s strobe light to confirm the CUCU communication link between the ISS and Dragon.

SpaceX’s John Couluris said Dragon‘s maneuvers around the ISS were successful, and it ended up using 36 kilograms (79 pounds) less propellant during the Draco burns than planned.

Couluris said the extra propellant offers a bit of a cushion if any part of the mission needs to be extended, “if we need to take more time and come back around a second time.”

While Dragon continued to close the distance horizontally to the ISS (remaining 2.4 kilometers beneath the station), SpaceX confirmed the capsule’s relative GPS was operational. The relative GPS is what will be used tomorrow as Dragon begins its approach to the station before laser and thermal imaging sensors guide it in the final meters.

View from inside the ISS’ Cupola where astronaut Don Pettit will grasp Dragon with the robotic arm and berth it with the station. Photo: NASA

As Dragon approached the station, the ISS crew announced it could see it with a traditional “tally ho” while cameras onboard both the ISS and Dragon were able to capture the other.

At 4:26 a.m. PDT, Dragon passed directly beneath the ISS at the prescribed 2.4-kilometer distance before continuing in front of the station as part of the large loop it will fly over the next day before beginning its final close approach early Friday morning.

All of the Dragon operations are being controlled by the SpaceX team at its headquarters in Hawthorne, California. The company’s mission control center is located on the factory floor in a glass enclosure allowing employees to watch the entire mission projected onto large screens.

SpaceX’s Couluris says he has been working with NASA on this mission for more than five years. “We’ve been simulating for almost three years,” he said.

During that time, both teams have rehearsed the mission numerous times. “We have conducted almost 20 joint simulations with NASA” Couluris said, “and over 40 simulations internally here at SpaceX over the four shifts of operators we have working.”

Simulations are a mainstay of the aerospace community with everybody from airline pilots to spacecraft operators developing, practicing and refining all aspects of a flight on computers before flying the real thing for the first time.

“We fly by the mantra of, ‘train like you fly and then fly like you train,’” Couluris said, describing the long hours spent rehearsing. A former naval aviator, Couluris added the mantra is working, “so far the mission has been proceeding just like a regular simulation.”

Both Couluris and NASA’s Ridings reiterated the flight-test nature of the mission, adding that many difficult tasks still lie ahead. And despite all of the rehearsals and simulations there is still plenty that can go wrong with the massively complex systems involved, something SpaceX discovered after a small valve forced an abort of the first launch attempt as the rocket engines ignited on the launch pad.

Coverage of the next series of maneuvers will begin broadcast on our Open Space page beginning at 11 p.m. PDT today.

The crew aboard the ISS watches the launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket Tuesday morning. Photo: NASA

Photo: General Motors

As automakers continue to load vehicles with the features and functionality people expect from their portable devices, the in-dash user interface has become a branding battleground – and the Achilles’ heel of the increasingly connected car. While giving a smartphone or tablet undivided attention is common – if not considered rude, depending on your circle of friends – calling up a Pandora station on your iPhone while driving has the potential to put your life, and others on the road, at risk.

Automakers have to strike a balance between providing drivers the smartphone-enabled applications they desire, while making them safe to access on the fly. But that poses its own issues, including liability concerns and a fear that the feds – fired up about distracted driving – could mandate or outright ban these newest technologies in the car. U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has personally called out automakers for putting tech prowess and profit before public safety, and has singled out Ford’s Sync system in particular.

But as automakers have pushed smartphone integration as a way to bring connectivity to the car – and attempted to emulate the slick touch screens of the devices – the most cutting-edge automotive UIs have largely been a series of failures. After soaring from the success of Sync, for example, the follow-up MyFord Touch system brought the Dearborn-based automaker down a few pegs. In a test of the Ford Edge last year, Consumer Reports called MyFord Touch “frustrating” and “a complicated distraction when driving.” A few months later, Ford dropped to 23rd from fifth place the previous year in J.D. Power & Associates’ 2011 Initial Quality Study, largely based on customer’s complaints with the largely capacitive touch-based system.

Ford declined to comment for this story, but claims an 80 percent “take rate” on MyFord Touch in the Edge and Explorer. The automaker also took the unprecedented step earlier this year of sending software upgrades to all owners of vehicles with the system. But one owner we spoke with doesn’t feel it saves the system.

Greg Gill of San Juan Capistrano, California, is a self-described “diehard Ford owner” who purchased his 2011 Edge about a year ago. “Before that, I owned two Expeditions and an Explorer,” said the VP of marketing for the National Auto Sport Association. Gill considers himself tech savvy and knew about the issues with MyFord Touch. “But I still bought it,” he said. “I thought, ‘That’s everybody else. I’m not going to have any problem with it.’ And what a nightmare it’s been.”

“The touchscreen is very clunky,” he told Wired. “I’m constantly tapping it multiple times and looking at it. There are so many things that have not been done well – even after the upgrade. And when I took it in for service, the dealer said, ‘Everybody’s coming in with these issues. Nobody’s happy with their MyFord Touch.’” Gill contends that he’s “still a satisfied Edge owner, but I could not recommend the vehicle overall because of MyFord Touch.”

Automakers are learning from the Blue Oval’s stumble

While Ford had a huge head start with the initial Sync system, other automakers are learning from the Blue Oval’s stumble with its latest high-tech release – and if not designing radically different systems, then at least pouring resources into consumer education. For the launch of Cadillac’s CUE system – which, from our early experiences with it, looks and functions similar to MyFord Touch – that will debut on the new XTS sedan, the GM luxury brand is taking a blitzkrieg approach to tech support, including giving everyone who purchases the XTS in its first year an iPad preloaded with an app that simulates the CUE user interface.

Cadillac is also dispatching 25 “connected consumer specialists” to dealerships to ensure that salespeople become familiar with CUE, and dealers are required to staff stores with two “certified technology experts” trained by the CUE specialists. Additionally, Cadillac is setting up a dedicated call center to handle questions on CUE, will have representatives scouring Internet forums and social media sites to spot concerns and is even prepared to send specialists to XTS owners’ homes who have still unresolved issues with the system.

“We’re trying to think of every way that a customer might ask for help,” said Scott Fosgard, a General Motors spokesperson. “If you’re a CUE owner and having problems, we’ll meet you at your place of work or home, whatever’s convenient.”

To coincide with the launch of the new 2013 GS, Lexus is creating two new tech positions at each of its dealerships: a vehicle delivery specialist to go over the features of a vehicle with new owners, and a vehicle technology specialist to serve as a contact for customers who have questions on how to use their vehicle’s electronics. “We need to provide a standardized method to get information to a wide variety of audiences, and owners’ manuals allow us to achieve that,” said Kevin Pratt, product education manager for Lexus. “However, we recognize that the best way for people to understand and get the full benefit of the features in their car is to be shown how to use them.”

Lexus is also employing an iPad app designed specifically for the GS to educate customers on the car’s features. Owners can even use the Facetime to contact a dealer and get remote personal tutorials on the tech in their vehicles.

But if the UI is properly designed in the first place, it should be intuitive enough that you don’t need a tech expert to make house calls or even an owner’s manual (see: Apple). “I think a lot of people have gotten used to Apple devices,” said Mark C. Boyadjis, an analyst who covers automotive electronics at IHS Global. “And when Apple owners have a question, there’s the Genius Bar.”

But Boyadjis points out that, unlike a smartphone, people typically own a car for years. And he notes that the recent rate of change in automotive infotainment may leave many new car buyers lagging in terms of tech. “I think people still to this day are familiar with the two-knob car radio,” he said. “That was the user interface for last 40 or 50 years. People who bought their last car in 2005 and upgrade to a 2012 model are going to see a completely different Human Machine Interface,” Boyadjis added. “They’re going to be introduced to touch screens. Many of them are going to be introduced to voice recognition for the first time. It’s not always something you can read in your user manual; you need to sit down and use it.”

As with any technology, pioneers are often punished for being first out the gate.

And while it’s economically feasible for a luxury brand to sink significant resources into owner education, consumers of lesser means could be left in the lurch as tech trickles down to more mass-market vehicles. “For the smaller automakers, there could be some issues,” Boyadjis tells Wired. “The GMs, Fords and Toyotas of the world have developed this because they’re the bigger players. But when it comes to Mazda or Mitsubishi or Subaru, they’re pushing to put some of this stuff in their cars. But even their newer systems are not super HMI focused, and they don’t have the R&D budget to spend.”

According to Cadillac CUE program manager Jeff Massimilla, while UI issues were addressed in the design phase, the lead up to the launch of the XTS is the first time GM has developed such as extensive tech support program. “The goal was to design a system that’s easy to use and that’s similar to Apple devices, Android devices or other device on the market that are intuitive.”

And then prepare for any potential tech-fail fallout by pumping money into training and support.

As with any technology, pioneers are often punished for being first out the gate. (We’re looking at you, Apple Newton.) Consider the clunky, pre-smartphone, first-generation BMW iDrive, which was pilloried by the automotive press when it debuted in 2001. Since its introduction, iDrive has become one of the more intuitive systems available as BMW refined and iterated on the original concept of a single knob and a handful of buttons to control a multitude of complex functions. Many luxury automakers later copied the concept, and it’s easy to envision similar evolutions with touch screens, capacitive buttons and haptic feedback. But the growing pains of new technology and unrefined UI paradigms are a tough sell for consumers holding onto vehicles for years or even decades, particularly when compared to the monthly and yearly upgrades of smartphones and tablets. It’s a brave new world for automakers, and it’s one that needs constant attention and an unwavering pursuit of usability before an iPhone-like revolution takes place inside the car.

Senator Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) in Google’s Autonomous Prius. Photo: Courtesy of Alex Padilla

California Senate Bill 1298 passed the State Senate today in a unanimous, bipartisan vote of 37-0, paving the way for safety and performance standards that cover autonomous vehicles operating on the state’s roads and highways.

The bill, authored by Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima), is on its way to the State Assembly for consideration, and it’s expected to pass within the next month.

“Thousands of Californians tragically die in auto accidents each year,” Padilla said after the bill’s passage. “The vast majority of these collisions are due to human error. Through the use of computers, sensors and other systems, an autonomous vehicle can analyze the driving environment more quickly and accurately and can operate the vehicle more safely.”

The legislation isn’t quite as broad as the law recently passed by Nevada to allow autonomous vehicles to test on the state’s roads, but would rather set up a series of safety guidelines and performance standards that the California Highway Patrol (CHP) would use to evaluate the operation of such vehicles in the state.

Further, autonomous vehicles testing in California would have to meet all applicable state and federal safety standards, and work in conjunction with the CHP and the Department of Motor Vehicles to recommend additional requirements. And naturally, a licensed driver would need to be in the vehicle at all times.

The passage of the legislation comes weeks after Arizona, Hawaii, Florida and Oklahoma have all announced plans to consider similar legislation in their respective states. And Google, along with the Automobile Club of Southern California, the California Foundation for Independent Living Centers, TechNet, and TechAmerica have all supported the California bill.

“Developing and deploying autonomous vehicles will not only save lives, it will create jobs,” Padilla added, going on to say that “California is uniquely positioned to be the global leader in this field.”

Gertrude Stein once famously said of Oakland, “There is no there there.” Nancy Pfund, of the VC firm DBL Investors, makes a case for how modern Oakland is proving Stein wrong.

UNITED STATES
OF INNOVATION

New Ideas, New Markets, New Insights

It used to be, if you were serious about starting a tech company, you went to Silicon Valley. But emerging entrepreneurial hubs around the country are giving startups new options. In this series, we talk to leading figures in those communities about what makes them tick.

CLICK HERE to see how innovation takes many forms

Most urban centers like to describe themselves as “a city of contrasts”–but few actually clinch that description like Oakland, California. A sleepy tidal town whose redwoods were logged to build nearby San Francisco, Oakland’s fortunes accelerated in the mid-1800s, first as a supply depot for the California Gold Rush and then as the western terminal of the Transcontinental Railroad. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the city’s port fed Oakland’s immigrant boom until brisk drug trafficking rendered Oakland a violent-crime center and, more recently, the nation’s unofficial headquarters of the Occupy movement.

Now for the “city of contrasts” part: despite persistent crime and its homely sister status to the more glittering cities on the Bay, Oakland boasts world-class sports teams, rich urban culture (music acts born here include Sly and the Family Stone and Tupac Shakur), all at a sweet discount to pricy San Franicsco.

Business prospects are surprisingly rosy in Oakland, too. Home to Kaiser Permanente, Wells Fargo, and Clorox, the city ranks consistently among America’s most sustainable cities and as a result lures green-energy startups galore. Startups thriving on the East Bay include streaming-music site Pandora (whose IPO was a roaring success, even in 2011), First Solar, Sungevity, and other green-energy, tech, and life-science plays. We talked with Nancy Pfund of DBL Investors, a local VC firm with five Oakland startups in its portfolio, including Pandora. Here, she shares five things you need to know about starting a business in Oakland.

Oakland is hella’ green.

Oakland offers unusually deep support for startups in green tech. DBL co-sponsors StartupOakland, an annual event hosted in a freshly renovated Art Deco landmark, the stunning Fox Theater. Stop Waste helps local environmentally friendly startups get funding and other support.

There’s obvious synergy to be found when your neighbors intuitively understand the green thing. Among Oakland’s companies is another DBL firm, BrightSource Energy, a solar thermal energy provider whose galloping growth recently hit a snag as it abruptly dropped its IPO plans. Other Oakland green-energy plays include Solar Millennium, biodiesel producer Sirona Fuels, and EarthSource Forest Products, a sustainable timber firm.

Pfund lists other Oakland players ready to support startups of any industry. Nonprofit Inner City Advisors offers small businesses guidance from business plan development to funding. One PacificCoast Bank is a community-development bank committed to funding Oakland-based ventures. And then, of course, you can always hop on B.A.R.T. and wow some San Francisco backers.

The City’s New Office of Economic Development is another theoretical resource, although remember: California has a famously catawampus state government, now underfunded to a record degree. Proceed with caution.

Oakland lets you rub shoulders with the world’s best engineering talent.

“UC Berkeley and CalTech are up the street from Oakland. It also isn’t very far from Stanford or UCSF in the city,” Pfund says. “Wtihin ten miles of Oakland you’ll find a lot of horsepower.”

Although a lot of recent grads flock to San Jose for tech or San Francisco for life sciences, many others stay put in the Oakland-Berkeley area. According to Pfund, Oakland is (slowly) materializing as a talent mecca.

It’s easier to get to places in San Francisco from Oakland than it is from San Francisco itself.

Oakland grew up as a transportation hub, with a bustling international airport and the nation’s fifth largest port. Its position east of San Francisco and proximity to Highway 880 are all advantages. But Oakland also kills with its frequent ferries and B.A.R.T. (cummuter train) hubs.

Pfund drops a much-cited point in Oakland’s favor: “It’s easier to get to most places in San Francisco from Oakland than it is from San Francisco itself,” she says. Not just attractive to reverse-commuters, Oakland makes sense for residents of Berkeley, Marin County, and the peninsula. Bedroom communities east of Oakland, like Piedmont and Danville, are booming with formerly fed-up commuters whose travel-times are eased by Oakland’s outstanding connectivity. “Look at Google and Facebook,” Pfund says. “They offer vans because people don’t want to live in the Valley, and they don’t want to drive and there’s no public transit. If your workers want a rich urban experience, Oakland is a great choice.”

One of DBL’s portfolio companies, Revolution Foods, makes healthy, affordable lunches for public schools. Oakland’s centrality helped them grow rapidly; today, they deliver 120,000 meals delivered daily. “Whole Foods’ distribution center is nearby, which is a great help,” Pfund adds. “It’s useful to be near a freeway to transport the meals to the schools.“ (Revolution Foods ranked among our 50 Most Innovative Companies in the World in Food in 2012.)

Now for the caveat: Oakland is a tougher sell to diehard Palo Altans and residents of San Jose. Those two original epicenters of the tech boom still attract workers who need to live and work right on top of the action. However, for more seasoned (and commute-weary) tech workers settled in areas near Oakland, locating your headquarters in Oakland may actually come as a relief to the talent.

“Affordable San Fran” isn’t an oxymoron.

The numbers don’t lie: residential real estate in San Francisco proper runs as high as $1,000 per square foot in premium spots. In Oakland prices top out at $500 to $700 per square foot. Office real estate prices follow suit–if anything, the comparison is even sweeter. Grubb & Ellis rates Oakland as the seventh best office market in the U.S. and No. 3 for industrial office space.

Buy a bike (but don’t get too attached to it).

Oakland’s manageably hilly landscape and warmer weather (it’s consistently 10 degrees hotter than San Francsico) make it “a biking mecca,” Pfund says. That said, this is a city known for sky-high crimes–No. 1 in violent crimes in California in 2011. Guard your property and person accordingly, particularly in the dicey West and East Oakland areas.

Still, if you keep your wits about you and invest in bulletproof locks, Oakland can indeed beguile. The city has some great restaurants that won’t break the bank like more famous establishments in San Francisco. “So many great restaurants in Oakland have spawned from chefs leaving Chez Panisse and others up in Berkeley,” Pfund say. Imagine savoring buttermilk fried chicken at Brown Sugar, the sun warming you up for a day of gentle biking, water views flashing from every hilltop: not too shabby a way to recharge.

Follow the conversation on Twitter using the tag #USInnovation.

Image: Flickr user Jeff Rosen

For many American consumers mobile payments are still something to run away from–and fast.

That’s what research from the University of California has turned up. A new study there implies that shoppers in the U.S. aren’t yet ready for the mobile payment movement.

A large percentage of the American citizens questioned in a nationwide phone study called “Mobile Payments: Consumer Benefits and New Privacy Concerns” were found to “overwhelmingly oppose the revelation of contact information (phone number, email address and home address) to merchants when making purchases with mobile payment systems” and “an even higher level of opposition exists to systems that track consumers’ movements through their mobile phones.” 

The numbers are stark. When asked if they thought their phones should “share information with stores when they visit and browse without making a purchase,” 96% objected to the tracking, 79% said they definitely would forbid it and 17% said they “probably” wouldn’t allow it–meaning just 4% were indifferent or positive about the idea. When the question was instead about information sharing (phone number, address and so on) at the actual point of sale, 81% objected to phone number sharing–a mere 15% said they’d probably allow it and 3% definitely so. Similar figures emerged when the information shared was home address.

In terms of email addresses, survey respondants were more inclined to share, with 33% definitely or probably happy to share the transaction information. Still 51% said they definitely wouldn’t share email addresses.

And overall, 74% of resondants said they are “not at all likely” or “not too likely” to adopt mobile payment systems, while just 24% say they are likely to do so.

This all sounds very, very bleak for the future of mobile pay tech in the U.S., which is being being pushed by companies such as NCR, Square, Verifone, and even behemoths like PayPal. This news also, um, squares with a recent alert for the Center for Democracy and Technology which worries that mobile payments can “expose” more personal information to multiple groups at the point of sale than traditional transactions, even via credit card, do…right down to third party app writers.

But the numerous different parties in the mobile pay game needn’t worry yet. There may have been a stuble flaw in the questionnaire asked by the University of California team. The problem arises from the study question that asks, “would you voluntarily give McDonalds your phone number and personal details when you walk in their store?” Who among us would respond any way other than: “Of course not!”? After all, that sort of question taps into the part of our personality that is apt to click on a “don’t share my personal details with third party advertisers” when we sign up for in-store loyalty cards. When it comes to privacy issues nd technology, our default setting is: suspicious. And for good reason.

And that’s the key to unravelling this problem right there: When you do use a current-tech store loyalty card you are effectively voluntarily giving the store your personal information, and “tracking” yourself. It’s why the cards exist of course–they’re partly there as a sales incentive, to get customers back in the door via money-off offers, but mainly so the store can collate information about customers and work out what kind of products to stock, what offers to run, and what future products to plan for. And if you have multiple loyalty cards, you’re giving this information away all over the place. A similar situation exists for Groupon coupons, and their ilk. Admittedly, this is on a store-by-store basis (assuming you tick the “don’t share my information” box), but millions of happy consumers do this anyway.

A new Pew Research survey shows that 80% of American adults use the Net, and 71% of those use it for shopping–meaning they’ve typed in all their personal details into store interfaces. And, if you think about it, Google already knows much of this stuff already. And Paypal certainly knows where you spend your online money, on what items and how frequently. Facebook is also trying to get into this game too, and it knows everything about you. All these firms aggregate Big Data independantly, and though this fact sometimes gets blown out of proportion by the media or lawmakers, it still goes on and we (sometimes even merrily) participate.

For these reasons and others education is one route to making consumers warm to the idea of mobile payment. That is, eventually it might make sense for mobile pay industry leaders to join together for a marketing campaign that points out to consumer that they already share much of this highly personal information with merchants and numerous third party companies (like consumer research firms).

And then there’s the novel fact that may surprise consumers: A mobile payments standard may actually allow them better control over this data, because instead of being shared across different loyalty schemes and different merchants and third parties, it’s all corraled in one place–in their phone (or whatever mobile pay app they’re using). It’s all but certain you’ll be able to configure this system to choose how much personal information you share on each transaction, or by store, or by date, or by whatever criteria you choose. The stores themselves may then opt to not offer you discounts, coupons or other incentives, but that’s your choice.

And the Californian research team behind the paper have another solution in mind: ”Adapting provisions of California’s Song-Beverly Credit Card Act, which prohibits merchants from requesting personal information at the register when a consumer pays with a credit card, to mobile payments systems.” This would work because as the survey says personal sharing is a worry, and consumers would actually welcome controls, and “Song-Beverly could be adopted to accommodate those who wish to share their transaction data.”

Essentially, whichever of the many vying firms gets a singificant early grip on the mobile payments market will have to take part in a large-scale, open, frank, “hearts and minds” PR campaign to explain the benefits of signing up to sharing at least some personal information. And they’ll likely have to back it up with some fleet-footed lobbying.

Image: Flickr user Luz Adriana Villa A.

Via Fast Company: http://www.fastcompany.com

As Top Gear‘s secret American prepares his own British invasion, he shares with us the 10 autos that do the colonies proud

By Dennis Tang/GQ.com

If you haven’t seen the BBC’s Top Gear, chances are you’ve heard of it. The show is estimated to have more than 350 million viewers every week in over 170 countries, yet most people in the U.S. are unfortunately unaware. And that’s a shame, because once you’ve seen the over-the-top, comically destructive “car” show, featuring reviews, challenges, and epic, globe-trekking road trips, it’s not hard to decipher its popularity.

It might have to do with how the British show infamously ridicules Americans and their cars – especially head honcho Jeremy Clarkson, who, between calling the Mustang V8 “rubbish” and claiming that “Americans have the aesthetic ability of giraffes” – isn’t doing Anglo-American relations any favors.

But of the program’s trio of presenters, it’s Richard Hammond – aka “Hamster,” or “the little one,” as he was once termed by London mayor Boris Johnson – who has a soft spot for us Yankees and our big daft cars. So soft, in fact, that he just filmed his first series for the U.S., Richard Hammond’s Crash Course, in which he takes an array of America’s (and thus the world’s) largest and most powerful vehicles for a whirl. We managed to snag him while he was still basking in the California sun, for a more optimistic outlook on American motoring.

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GQ: For those who don’t know, you have a serious “hardest-working man in show business” reputation going. Latest on your docket is this new show, Crash Course.

Richard Hammond: It’s a new thing for me entirely. It’s the first show I’ve done for the States, in the States, with an American crew, made for BBC America by BBC America. Which has been a real revelation, I’ve loved it.

GQ: And you’re currently in California, shooting yet another show for the BBC.

Hammond: Yeah, for the BBC in the U.K., but it’s brought me out here. Laughs A lot of work at the moment seems to be bringing me to the States, which doesn’t bother me, because Americans are great to make TV with. They just get it. One day we needed to use an optometrist’s place. So we just rang, there we are, and one welcomed us in, made us coffee. Sure, use it!

It was the same when I was making Crash Course. These were guys welcoming me into their workplace, doing their job every day, and here’s this stupid irritating little Brit, wandering in and saying, “Hi, my name is Richard, will you teach me how to drive this tank?” and they were just totally welcoming, talked to me about what they do, and let me loose on their terrifying machines. Which wouldn’t happen anywhere else in the world, really.

GQ: Americans do love being on TV.

Hammond: Yes, but I think Americans are also just natural-born communicators. They do it all the time. If you put Americans together, they just want to talk, and that doesn’t happen in many other places. And that’s great for someone like me, whose job is talking. So asking guys to talk me through their jobs – they were just so happy to do that, and as a result they’re so good at communicating, and it makes it easy to make TV with them.

GQ: So on Top Gear, you are known as the show’s “secret American”…

Hammond: Laughs I’m glad you picked up on that! It’s something Jeremy and James May came up with, it just makes me laugh!

GQ: The show spends a good deal of time making fun of Americans and their cars. What are your personal feelings on us?

Hammond: I think it’s fashionable in the U.K. to knock on America. It’s a sort of caricature inversion. But I think people get it wrong. America as a whole is huge, there’s an awful lot of it. But look at Americans, work and talk with them. But if you take away the size of the place, and think of it as just a country – we think they’re the kookiest, funniest, sometimes conservative with a small C, sometimes craziest, most communicative, chatty, talkative, creative, occasionally mad and stupid nation on earth! We absolutely love and treasure them. But because of the size of the place, we naturally become overawed, we’re made nervous by the size of that.

Now for a small guy, a small Brit, I’m used to that. I’m not easily bullied as a result. Big guys, particularly James and Jeremy, who are both well over six foot, they’re used to being the big guys in the playground, they get intimidated by it and they lash out. Everybody’s bigger than me, so I’m not scared.

Next: Richard Hammond’s 10 Best American Cars

This year marks the third anniversary of the Rotman Design Challenge. It started out as a commendable experiment by the school’s Business Design Club to expose MBAs at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management to the value of design methods in business problem solving. This year, the competition drew teams from a few other MBA schools and some of the best design schools in North America. As a final-round judge, I had a front-row seat to the five best solutions to the competition’s challenge: To help TD Bank foster lifelong customer relationships with students and recent graduates while encouraging healthy financial behaviors.

Designers fared significantly better than MBAs because they shared real user insights.

Both this year and last–the two years that Rotman invited other schools to participate–business school students were slaughtered by the design school students. Of the 12 Rotman teams this year, not one of them made the final round. And while only seven of the 23 competing teams were from design schools (including California College of Arts, Ontario College of Art and Design, and the University of Cincinnati), design teams scooped the top three places in the competition, doing significantly better than their MBA counterparts. So what does this tell us?

It might tell us that MBAs significantly underestimate the skill and expertise a designer brings to the table. After all, about 80 MBA students volunteered their evenings and weekends, believing they had a chance of winning a design competition with minimal, if any, design training. Would you go toe-to-toe with even a purple belt in jiu jitsu having never taken a lesson? While the typical design-school competitor has (at the least) studied the design process in depth for several semesters and practiced it in co-ops and internships, for many MBA students, this was their very first exposure to the discipline. So while we should applaud the organizers’ efforts to open MBA eyes to the importance and value of design in solving business problems, it seems that even its most forward-thinking students may not have fully digested that design is a serious pursuit that requires serious training.

The competition outcome might also tell us that designers have reason to be encouraged. With only 15 minutes to convince a skeptical panel of experienced professionals about a new idea that doesn’t exist in the world today, they fared significantly better than their MBA counterparts. Why? Because they shared real user insights to engage us emotionally, used narrative and stories to compel us, drew sketches and visualizations to inspire us, and simplified the complex to focus us. It’s proof positive that numbers and bullet points, while important, aren’t necessarily what drive executive decision making.

Design should not be tacked on to business education but infused throughout it.

Finally, it tells us that we still have a long way to go to develop business professionals who both appreciate and can engage the tools of design effectively. Rotman gets kudos for taking a step in the right direction. But a few workshops and an extracurricular competition won’t produce business leaders with real design-thinking skills. Business education must be completely redefined to include the best, most appropriate principles of design in every curriculum. Marketing classes should teach a deep reverence for the user in context and the power of observational research methods. Finance classes should teach the art of storytelling and information design. Strategy classes should teach systems thinking and synthesis. If the goal is to create great “hybrid thinkers” who will have real impact, design should not be tacked on to existing business education but infused throughout it.

I’m not letting design schools off the hook either. While design students fared much better than their MBA counterparts that Saturday afternoon, I should point out that only the winning team from the Institute of Design at IIT actually charged a fee for the service they developed (a fact that was not overlooked by my final-round co-judge Ray Chun, the senior vice president of retail banking at TD). Some competitors were able to offer a vague notion that their ideas would generally create economic value, but crisp articulations of a profit model and underlying assumptions were hard to come by.

Design education needs as much of an overhaul as business education.

And I was less than impressed with the business-thinking skills of designers the following Monday morning, when I interviewed 10 of them at the Institute of Design in Chicago for jobs at Doblin. To most candidates, I asked of the ideas they presented in their portfolios, “But how does it make money? Who will pay for that? How much would you need to sell to be profitable?” and was met with far too many blank expressions when I did so. Design schools have a long way to go to integrate good business thinking into their programs. In order to make their value known to the world, designers need to speak the language of business–that’s where great ideas get funded and developed. Design education needs as much of an overhaul as business education if we are to benefit from the talents of design thinkers in the business world.

I hope that we see meaningful reinvention of both design and business education so that the business world can realize the true value of design thinking. Until that happens, Rotman’s Business Design Club would be wise to require challenge teams to comprise both designers and MBAs. At least it would level the playing field, and it may improve the educational experience for both–assuming each can decipher what the other is saying.

Image: Morphart Creations Inc., sextoacto and ueapun via Shutterstock