by Maury Fredricks | Oct 19, 2017 | Company Insights
Two different viewpoints…
Recently, I’ve attempted to wean myself from daily media sources and the talking heads. It’s a hard habit to kick. My primary sources of news lean towards liberal publications and daily news programs. It does not matter which side of the political divide you’re on, the world is in rough shape and nothing is getting done in the capitals of the world. It’s a pretty depressing picture.
There was an article (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/16/dining/kimbal-musk-food.html) published in the NY Times last Monday that prompted a welcome diversion in my thinking and a refreshed viewpoint on a few key issues.
Kimbal Musk is a tech entrepreneur who made his early fortune working with his brother Elon. He has the resources to do great things and his ideas about the food ecosystem in this country are worth reflection. His heart is in the right place and I was beginning to embrace his thinking until mid-way through the article. The goal of scale for the food business runs contrary to the immediate need in many communities for healthy sources of food and clean water. The need is now and urgent. Scaling industries takes time, capital and environmental resources. “The problem is that the people who made their money in tech understand disruption and scaling and all of these terms, but they don’t know how to get their hands dirty and engage the neighbors and the farmers and the cooks who make a food community”, said Michel Nischan, the founder and chief executive officer of Wholesome Wave.
Real change happens at the community level and we all have the power to affect positive change.
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by Maury Fredricks | Feb 2, 2017 | Fredricks Design Review
source for images: Adient.com
Autoshow 2017 insights | Adient AI17 Demonstrator
Our first stop at the NAIAS Detroit Autoshow this year was at the Adient showroom. We were invited to tour the showroom by the Adient Studio Team based in Plymouth, Michigan. We were absolutely blown away with the demonstrator produced by Adient and their key suppliers.
In interest of full disclosure, we were the design and studio engineering resource on the 20% armrest housed in the second-row seating. Although we had seen the rest of the demonstrator in development at the build house, this was our first glimpse into the design thinking on display at Cobo Hall. Wow!
The AI17 demonstrator is a benchmark example of the advanced development of concepts by cross-discipline teams working on different continents. Adient is the leading supplier of seating to the automotive market with development centers and manufacturing facilities around the world. At a time when the cost pressures continue to increase from the OEMs, Adient remains committed to the advancement of seating with a laser focus on the end users, drivers and passengers. A little more about the AI17…
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by Benjamin Fredricks | Apr 22, 2016 | Fredricks Design Review
In our previous Fredricks Design Reviews, we’ve talked about virtual reality and augmented reality. Now, let’s get into an even fuzzier area of technology and philosophy: artificial intelligence. The term “artificial intelligence” was coined by a computer scientist named John McCarthy in 1955 to describe “the science and engineering of making intelligent machines”.1 Simply stated, artificial intelligence can be thought of as people trying to make computers that “think” like humans: receive some sensory input, make a decision, and react accordingly. We’ll call it “AI” from here on out.
I am by no means an expert in this field, but the implications of AI have led me down a rabbit hole of learning and questioning as new technology often does. Certainly, there are more questions than answers when it comes to the impacts of this rapidly growing field. I keep circling back to a fundamental issue that I’d like to discuss today. Will artificial intelligence be good or bad for humanity? (more…)
by Benjamin Fredricks | Mar 15, 2016 | Fredricks Design Review
In our last Fredricks Design Review, we took a look at Google Cardboard, an inexpensive gateway to virtual reality. Today, we’re going to dig a little deeper into another reality bender called “augmented reality”. “But whoa, bro. Isn’t all reality augmented”? you might say. That’s a rabbit hole that neither of us have time for today so we’re going to focus on an area of technology called “augmented reality”.
Augmented reality is, very simply stated, a live direct or indirect view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented (or supplemented) by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data1. Got it? Think of it as a clear (more…)
by Benjamin Fredricks | Feb 25, 2016 | Fredricks Design Review
I had a vivid flashback this morning. During the assembly of a Google Cardboard at my desk, I time-traveled to 1986 and relived the unboxing of my first Nintendo console. The simplicity of the setup and the anticipation of hours of novel entertainment through technology found some very common ground in my mind, triggering that great memory. I’ll never forget the first time the red Nintendo logo popped up on the tube with a satisfying *buh-ding*. The Nintendo was much more difficult to setup than the Cardboard but I was only three years old and the instructions didn’t explicitly say to have the TV on channel 3 (ok, maybe they did but I was way too excited to smash bricks and blast some ducks).
The Cardboard viewer that we ordered for four bones came in a non-descript package without any instructions. A quick search gave me a couple of pointers about the lens orientation (curved side away from your face) and I was up and running in a few minutes having preinstalled the Cardboard app on my Droid Turbo II. (more…)
