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Inside the Hyperloop: the pneumatic travel system faster than the speed of sound

“Mr Musk will not be patenting the design and it will be ‘open source’. His motivation for the project came from disillusionment with the Golden State’s high speed rail project, which has been dubbed the ‘bullet train to nowhere’ after a series of setbacks. He believes the Hyperloop could be built for a tenth of the cost and deliver passengers between the two cities in just 30 minutes, compared to three hours for the bullet train. The bullet train is currently estimated to be costing $68 billion and may not be completed until 2028. It would reach top speeds of only around 130mph. In a survey seven in 10 people said they would ‘never or hardly ever’ use it anyway.” Continue reading →

With the Central Subway Project, the Only Way Out is Through

“At times, it’s difficult to remember that voters approved the Central Subway. That’s because the project, a 1.7-mile extension of the T-line running from SoMa to Chinatown, as described in Proposition K of 2003, hardly resembles its current iteration. A $647 million budget has swelled to some $1.6 billion. An estimated daily ridership exceeding 100,000 is now pegged at 35,100. But if misery loves company, we’ve got both. A recent U.S. Department of Transportation study of 10 major rail projects revealed an average cost-per-passenger 500 percent higher than the initial figures used to sell the idea.” Continue reading →

Petition to name San Francisco’s Bay Bridge after Emperor Norton gains support

“Norton, a successful businessman, immigrated to San Francisco from South Africa during the 19th century. After losing his fortune, Norton took the unusual step of proclaiming himself Emperor of the United States in 1859. He later added ‘Protector of Mexico’ to his official title. Norton is still remembered today because the people of San Francisco embraced him. Newspapers printed his proclamations free of charge and businesses accepted his imperial currency. He strolled through the streets clad in a blue army uniform and a beaver hat, inspecting his royal domain and speaking with his loyal subjects.” Continue reading →

Google to challenge telecoms with fleet of solar-powered balloons

“In recent months, Google Inc has announced plans to bring free wireless Internet access to 7,000 Starbucks cafes across America, eventually displacing AT&T Inc; it has asked U.S. regulators for broader access to wireless airwaves; and it has launched 30 solar-powered balloons over the South Pacific ocean, designed to beam the Internet to remote regions. Then there is Google Fiber, the high-speed cable TV and Internet service that was introduced in Kansas City late last year and that will be expanded soon to Austin and Provo, Utah. Fiber delivers Internet speeds at 1 gigabit per second, as much as 100 times faster than the average U.S. network.” Continue reading →

How Gamers Could Save the (Real) World

“Three years ago, game designer and author Jane McGonigal argued that saving the human race is going to require a major time investment—in playing video games. ‘If we want to solve problems like hunger, poverty, climate change, global conflict, obesity, I believe that we need to aspire to play games online for at least 21 billion hours a week [up from 3 billion today], by the end of the next decade,’ she said in a TED talk. Her message was not ignored—and it has indirectly contributed to the formation of something called the Internet Response League (IRL). The small group has a big goal: to harness gamers’ time and use it to save lives after disasters, natural or otherwise.” Continue reading →

Startups destroy more jobs than they create – unless they’re tech companies

“While private sector business creation fell 9 percent between 1980 and 2011, the birth rate of new tech businesses was 69 percent higher in 2011 than it was in 1980, according to the report. Over the same period of time, the job-creation rate of those young tech firms – aged between 1 and 5 years old – was twice as robust as the average rate for firms in the rest of the private sector. That’s partly due to what the report cites as the ‘up-or-out’ dynamic: tech startups tend to either fail quickly or grow rapidly.” Continue reading →

It’s Up to You, Entrepreneurs: Brad Feld on the Rise of Global Startup Communities

“It’s a practically a social movement, and a movement needs a theorist. That’s Brad Feld. In his by-the-bootstraps guide, the 2012 book Startup Communities, Feld laid out a guru-ish, four-point plan for how to create a growing mass of startup companies. But his rules boil down to just one: entrepreneurs must be the ‘leaders.’ Everyone else—universities, governments, investors—are ‘feeders’ that, though important, can’t kick-start a startup community on their own. Feld says if even fewer than a dozen established entrepreneurs team up and get serious that nearly any city from Detroit to Cape Town can create a meaningful startup sector.” Continue reading →

Detroit’s Amazing Pop-Up Anarchy

“Detroit pop-ups are not your conventional, temporary businesses such as those unsightly suburban fireworks stores, or the usual Christmas or Halloween retailers. Instead, the city has attracted art galleries, food and beverage cafes, coffee shops, clothing boutiques, tea houses, vegan restaurants, yoga workshops, antique stores, bike stores, and mercantile-type retailers. Pop-ups are a temporary arrangement, often with a defined start and end time for business operations. Detroit is the perfect place for these temporary pop-up businesses.” Continue reading →