Apple Pie and Salsa Verde

Greetings. I’m just back from a week’s vacation in Mexico City, where I slurped tequila like it was beer and where I (largely) ignored the tech industry.

I DID manage to get a TelCel SIM card while I was at the Mexico City airport, and I have to say, I’m not sure how I would have managed my trip if I hadn’t had a smartphone with Internet connectivity.

From the dating apps like Bumble and Tinder which I used to meet all those nice women from Mexico, to Google and Apple Maps to find my way around, to Uber to get my way around, to Yelp to find good restaurants (HINT: I didn’t find any BAD restaurants in all of CDMX!)

I want to thank the good people of Mexico, and mi amigos who I was traveling with (you know who you are) for a great week of downtime. I don’t think we left many stones unturned, and we capped it all off by seeing the inaugural game of this season’s La Liga season with a match between America and Monterrey.

So now that I’m back to reality, what IS going on in the world of technology? I haven’t even tried to backtrack as to what I missed, but what I see going on at the moment caught my eye was that Apple is in advanced talks to buy Intel’s smartphone modem chip business (in a deal valued at worth $1B).

From the WSJ: “[The deal] would give Apple access to engineering work and talent behind Intel’s year’s long push to develop modem chips for the crucial next generation of wireless technology known as 5G, potentially saving years of development work.”

So there you go, it’s all about (and will increasingly be about) 5G.

Also on the Apple front, Apple app developers beware: Apple’s own mobile apps routinely appear first in search results ahead of competitors in its App Store. Like that’s a surprise.

On the Chinamerica front: Huawei has laid off more than 600 workers from its US-based Futurewei research arm, as a result of being put on a trade blacklist by the U.S. government. That’s more than 2/3s of the workforce.

They must be picking up the slack in Mexico City, because every other billboard I saw had “Huawei” on it.

A VC round to note: Autonomous Industrial robotics firm Fetch Robotics raised $46M in a Series C round led by Fort Ross Ventures. Fetch’s robots are powered by cloud-based software systems, which means their ‘bots are likely ready to scale.

The question I have is, is the world ready? Ready or not, here they come!

And speaking of robots, despite Tesla having a giant new machine that helps the company more quickly produce the Model Y, the company’s higher-end sales are being eroded by Model 3 gains.

What was it Clayton Christensen or someone said about chewing your own leg off?

Just so long as I can have some of that infamous CDMX salsa verde with it!

Planes, Trains, And Twitter

When I lived in NYC, I used to start most of my Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays at Laguardia, JFK, or Newark airports.

That was just part of the deal every holiday season if I wanted to get home and see my friends and family back here in Texas.

But this was long before there was a Twitter or a Facebook where I could vociferously complain to the public at large about the cheapstake airline giving me an ancient, small package of peanuts while seating me next to Chucky the whining infant.

Flash forward…as in, to the present day. Despite the looming snowstorms and crowded skies and congested roads and expensive airfares, IBM conducted a recent analysis of social media sentiment which suggests that Americans are increasingly optimistic about traveling.

I know, it’s difficult to believe, but there it is.

In particular, the “Desire Ratio” — the proportion of positive versus negative comments — indicates that people are “looking forward” to holiday travel by a factor of 26 to one (well, everyone except for those who are hitchhiking).  To which I can only comment most of these respondents must not have any in-laws.

This delta represents a spike in positive sentiment nearly 12 times greater in 2012 versus 2011.

According to the IBM Social Sentiment analysis, there was also an increase in the volume of positive conversations about flying, driving and spending time with family and friends, among others.

For example, the IBM “Desire Ratio” for flying indicated that comments are roughly 2.5 times more positive about travel in the 2012 holiday season. This increase could possibly be attributed to the Cyber Monday deals that airlines ran this year (“Sit In The Baggage Compartment And YOUR BAGS FLY FREE!”)

Positive sentiment associated with driving also increased 13 percent.  That one, I completely don’t understand.  I don’t like driving.  I’d rather sit next to Chucky the whining infant on an airplane than have to drive anywhere

Why, you ask?  Let me demonstrate via some basic math: 500 MPH versus 75 MPH.  Does that clear things up?

So by now, you’re probably wondering to yourself “why measure all this in the first place?”

Because, we have a bunch of really smart people inside IBM who need something productive to do as we get closer to the holidays.

But, we also recognize that measuring public sentiment can help travel industry chief marketing officers customize incentives and services to be more in tune with what customers are asking for, using what they learn from social data to tailor their offerings to address fast-moving trends and real time customer needs.

“Measuring social sentiment has the potential to enable the travel industry to literally design travel offers and services tailored to what travelers are telling us,” said Raul Arce, vice president, travel & transportation, IBM. “Big data has the power to transform the travel industry for the airlines, hotels and other travel providers that can translate customer desires into irresistible offers that they will welcome.”

About The IBM Social Sentiment Index 

The IBM Social Sentiment Index combines sophisticated analytics and natural language processing technologies to gauge consumer public opinions from Twitter, blogs, message boards and other social media.

In this instance, the Index was used to measure and understand consumer views around the holiday travel season in the United States from the period of December 1 – December 10 in 2012 and 2011.

The volume of conversation about flying as the holidays approach is up 10 percent in comparison to last year (38 percent in 2012 vs. 28 percent in 2011).

This enthusiasm is not limited to those who have confirmed travel plans. A possible window of opportunity exists for businesses to influence last-minute customer travel-related decisions. Anecdotally, around one quarter of online holiday travel conversations suggested that an itinerary had not been finalized.

The analysis also surfaced insight into trends and topics related to flying this holiday season. Top of mind for travelers are airline loyalty programs and best ways to convert miles, possible fuel surcharges likely related to the price of fuel, and what to do with pets while on vacation.

While it might seem like “noise” that there is a cluster of social conversation around potential travelers and their animals, it could signal an emerging trend — or niche demographic — that pet-friendly hotels or airlines could capitalize on through additional promotional activities or special offers directly tied to the holiday season for pet owners.

Additional insights from the IBM Social Sentiment Index for holiday travel include:

• Negative sentiment related to gas prices is on a downward trend, which will likely contribute to the number of people traveling. 
• While only a small sample size, sentiment around travel providers’ mobile experiences such as smartphone apps and websites is on an upward trend. The amount of those conversations increased 40 percent year over year.
• Conversations about the word “travel” during the studied time period increased 75 percent
• Measurement of sentiment suggested that fewer people are canceling their plans for the 2012 holidays with a decrease of 19 percent in negative sentiment this year.
• The Index recorded a decrease in conversation volume from 2011 to 2012, possibly attributable to the additional weekend between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. Early holiday social chatter in December also suggested people were more focused on holiday preparation than travel plans.  

The wealth of online content around travel — from traveler review sites to public conversations on Twitter and Facebook — has become very influential in how people determine their travel plans.

Understanding the positive, neutral and negative nuances of their conversations and who is influential can help airlines, hoteliers and other travel service providers market better products and services to their customers.

It might also someday earn you a bump up to first class…just don’t hold your breath.

Missing New York

I’m working out of our 11 Madison Avenue office in New York City today, and having been a former citizen of the great city of New York, I must say it’s a pleasure to be back.

I left the Big Apple almost a decade ago for the wide open pastures of my native Texas, and it’s been an entire year since my last visit.

But also having traveled to parts well beyond for business over the past year, I must say coming back to visit NYC is a whole lot like coming home.

I know the weather’s been abnormally hot in the NY area this summer, but this particular Friday it’s most pleasant out.  There was a cool breeze blowing through Madison Square Park this afternoon, and I think the temp was hovering around a cool 88 degrees Fahrenheit.

Of course, there are things about living in NYC I miss, and there are things I don’t: Like the endless cacophony of police, fire, and ambulance sirens.  That I definitely don’t miss.

But the things I miss about living in New York, in no particular order:

1) The people.  People who live and work in NY are some of the smartest, funniest people on the planet.  Tha doesn’t mean people elsewhere aren’t smart or funny.  It just means there’s a great concentration of smart and funny people in New York, and I miss hanging out with them.  Especially all my New York friends.  I definitely miss the people.

2)  The food.  The food in New York City is some of the best and most diverse in the world.  You can go to Paris and have great French food.  And you can go to Tokyo and have great Japanese food.  And you can go to Bangalore and have great South India food.  But when you come to New York, you can have great food from anywhere, and I never remember how much I miss it until I come back.  I definitely miss the food.

3) The architecture.  If you’ve lived in New York for any length of time, and then you leave, you’re absolutely relieved to be rid of being surrounded by all the tall buildings (again, especially if you’re from the wide open spaces of Texas).  But, when you come back, you forget how amazing those buildings are.  They surround you in a tall envelope of grace, majesty, and magnanimity, and it’s very easy to forget how grand they are.  I definitely miss the architecture.

4) The traffic. New York has the best traffic in the world.  It’s the kind of traffic you like hanging out in.  There’s all kinds of interesting things to see while you’re sitting in traffic (Harken back to #1, #2, and #3).  You can scope out the city for new restaurants, new fashions, and yes, even new buildings.  And, if you don’t like sitting in traffic, you can get a bike and zip through the traffic (I used to be a New York City bike messenger, many moons ago, and lived to tell about it).  I definitely miss the traffic.

5) The New Yorkness.  Probably more than anything, I miss what I can only call the “New Yorkness” that is New York.  If you have no clue what I’m talking about, then you’ve obviously never been here, and you need to hurry up and come visit and get some New Yorkness at least once in your life.  You might could compare New Yorkness to joie de vivre, only that’s more of a French-like feeling.  I guess you could co-opt that particular phrase and call it joie du New York. 

The French probably wouldn’t mind. 

And the New Yorker probably wouldn’t care if they did.

From Here To There

It’s been a big week for IBM and the field of travel and transportation.

A subject, of course, near and dear to my heart (BTW, I think I’m over my AP jet lag now).

On Monday, at our Impact event in Las Vegas, IBM announced the new Travel and Transportation framework, a combination of IBM software products and IBM industry assets that provide a platform for new transportation solutions.

Interconnected systems allow a single view into business operations, saving time and money by allowing a company to be aware of the location, status and availability of all their equipment and assets.

This new framework uses industry and open standards and identifies key capabilities required by almost every transportation company, including:

• Reservation System Modernization – Helps to facilitate the modernization of airline and passenger rail reservation and ticketing systems by using a new customer-centric model which supports the imperative to offer innovative and unbundled services to better compete.
• Asset Optimization – Allows clients to manage capital assets throughout their revenue-producing lifecycle.  The types of assets managed include aircraft, passenger rail rolling stock, locomotives, tracks, and equipment located along the right-of-way such as signals and facilities. 
• Safety, Security & Surveillance – Supports the use of sensors, RFID, digital video, biometric identification, and wireless devices. These are coupled with analytic tools to monitor operations, identify risks to safety or security such as unexpected events occurring in terminals and along railroad right-of-way. 
• Multi-Channel Sales and Service – Helps to provide a seamless customer experience across pre-travel sales channels and on-trip touch points by providing the client with a single view of the information known about the customer / traveler.
• Operations Control Systems – Helps improve operational effectiveness and reduce environmental impact through better planning of schedules, load plans, facilities, crews and equipment.  For railroads, this includes optimizing timetables, assignment of rolling stock and train and station crews.  For airlines, this includes optimizing flight schedules and flight crews.   

Click here to get more information on the IBM Travel and Transportation Framework or for details on how IBM is helping transportation clients and Business Partners to make smarter, faster travel and transport decisions.

Yesterday, IBM announced it would be working with the Finnish Transport Agency to build a single view of road and traffic information in Finland in order to help improve road management.

Using analytics from IBM, the agency is aggregating its view of road conditions, accidents and other road and traffic information, which helps build a safer and more adaptive road system for the citizens of Finland.

Also yesterday, back here in the great state of Texas, IBM and the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) (the largest university-based transportation research agency in the U.S.) have agreed to collaborate on research and development of intelligent transportation projects in Texas and beyond.

That agreement will bring together research scientists and engineers from IBM and TTI researchers, faculty and students, who will work with state and municipal agencies to explore technologies and innovations that will help solve transportation issues in Texas initially, and eventually worldwide.

IBM has engaged with the world’s leading airlines and railroads on projects for more than 50 years, and has already helped several cities around the world make their transportation systems smarter. 

For example, the city of Stockholm is using IBM’s streaming analytics technology to gather real-time information from GPS devices on nearly 1,500 taxi cabs to provide the city and its residents with real-time information on traffic flow, travel times and the best commuting options. 

The service will soon expand to gather data from delivery trucks, traffic sensors, transit systems, pollutions monitors and weather information sources.  IBM is also assisting the cities of Brisbane, London and Singapore to address traffic management and congestion challenges.

Visit the IBM Smarter Planet Website for more information on these and other IBM Smarter Transportation projects.

All Hail King Turbo!

Greetings, and I hope this blog post finds your holidays happier than ever, and your travels hassleless.

Well, as hassleless as they can be in light of recent circumstances surrounding air travel in these United States.

Today, I went in search of the new TSA rules to make sure I was hearing them directly from the source.  In the process, I found a loophole that I’m figuring out how I can try to apply to myself.

More on that at the end of the post.

Currently, TSA Security Directive SD 1544-09-06 is scheduled to be in effect only through December 30 of this year, but I suspect it’s a sign of things to come — once we put these measures into effect, they seem to become permanent.

(Mind you, I try to maintain a sense of humor about these measures, being a frequent flyer and all, but I also recognize the serious nature of the threats that lead to them, so please keep both in mind as you read the rest of the post!)

First, at the boarding gate, TSA employees are instructed to perform thorough pat-downs of all passengers, concentrating on “upper legs and torso.”  They’re also instructed to “physically inspect 100 percent of all passenger accessible property” prior to boarding.

Okay, but didn’t the Nigerian dude who tried to light his foot on fire board at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam??  Why didn’t somebody inspect him!??

In flight, the restrictions get even more serious.

First, passengers have to remain in their seats beginning 1 hour prior to arrival at their destination.  That means no trips to the bathroom, no trips to the galley to flirt with the flight attendants, no trips to the cockpit to chat with the pilots.

You also can’t access your baggage starting 1 hour prior to arrival at said destination.  That means no reaching for your book, your iPod, your Kindle, gummy bears…nada.

But we’re going to make it even more fun.  We’re also going to disable “aircraft-integrated passenger communications systems” so that you’re bored out of your frickin’ mind because you can no longer access the Interwebs.

Rock Paper Scissors?  Anybody?

How’s that?  Is that something special in the air?  You loving the way we fly?  Is flying these skies really that friendly??

But wait, there’s more!  “While over U.S. airspace, flight crew may not make any announcement to passengers concerning flight path or position over cities or landmarks.”

I can’t wait for this announcement:

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking.  I’d like for you to ignore that massive hole in the ground off to your left that looks something like the Grand Canyon, because acknowledging said hole might prematurely reveal our position in these friendly skies and give us away to the terriers.”

And finally — and with all due apologies to Linus from Peanuts — no blankies or pillows may be used starting 1 hour prior to arrival at said destination.

Does this mean flight attendants will come stomping through the cabin, the Blankie Policia, yanking away pillows and blankies from the kids mid-slumber?  I assume this includes for the sleeping kiddoes that, heretofore, were perfectly quiet in their slumber but will now turn promptly into screaming helions?

Wonderbar!

However, as with any good bureaucratic policy, there’s always an exception to the rule…and I found it!

Ladies and gentleman, from here on, I would like you to please address me as “His Substantially Absurd Majesty the Turbo, King of the Sovereign TurbotoddLand.”

You can find my country via the Internet at turbotodd.com.

You see, the new travel restrictions allow our government to exempt certain individuals — namely, passengers who are Heads of State or Heads of Government — from the new safety measures.

Now, could somebody please go find my court jester?!

It’s good to be the king!