Cable alternatives coming soon
Many people complain about sporadic Internet and Wi-Fi service at home, and many people have only one or two broadband provider options. Wireless carriers, including Verizon, AT&T, Sprint/T-Mobile will soon be viable options for home broadband, providing a wireless 5G modem to replace your cable box or home router. 5G provides wireless data service at speeds of 1 to 1.8Gbps through a small modem attached to the side of your home or apartment. CNet
dis-rup-shun: 5G will be a game-changer in that it will increase the number of carriers competing for your home broadband service. Current equipment fees are high, but the service does not rely on wiring from the street to your home, so in theory, infrastructure is less expensive. Streaming Netflix and listening to Pandora on multiple devices should be easy and fast, as capacity exceeds most current broadband modems. Expect to see the traditional carriers offer some great deals to keep you from switching when 5G rollout starts on a broad scale.
Toyota using Olympics to showcase future of transportation
Toyota will use the 2020 Tokyo summer Olympics to showcase new vehicle concepts, from scooters, to people movers, to electric cars. 3700 vehicles will be provided for the event, 850 will be electric. Toyota’s early lead in electric cars has been obscured by luxury models from Tesla, GM and others, but will release six new electric models in the next five years. The Verge
dis-rup-shun: As Gen Zers are not buying cars at the rate of their predecessors, auto makers are getting aggressive about redefining their business. The rise of electric, autonomous, green, ride sharing, and the high cost of ownership are hammering traditional car buying habits, and Toyota and others are in the process of redefining their roles as providers of conveyance, not just automakers.
LinkedIn training non-technical workers to become coders
There are nearly 500,000 unfilled computer programmer jobs in the U.S. The U.S. immigration policies have increased the talent deficit since 2017. LinkedIn, owned by Microsoft, has initiated training programs and is recruiting workers from the food service industry, veterans and mothers, to help solve the labor shortage. CNBC
dis-rup-shun: AI is changing the economy, eliminating many jobs but increasing the demand for technical skills. The impact of AI, named by some, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, requires new methods of training, educating and managing work forces. Companies such as LinkedIn that are proactive in re-training work forces, will have a competitive advantage as knowledge worker scarcity increases. Expect companies that re-train new employees to have higher retention, reversing the trend of shorter employee engagements and frequent job hopping.
Ford adds sensors to create the safer scooter
Ford’s Spin electric scooter company is adding sensors to scooters for a year long experiment at Virginia Tech. The year long project is designed to collect data on how people use scooters and how they get hurt. The outcome will determine what changes need to be made to scooters, sidewalks and laws to make the two-wheeling a mainstream mode of transportation. Wired
dis-rup-shun: People are turning to many substitutes for owning cars, and automakers such as Ford are determined to reinvent their products accordingly. Ford performed enough research on the Purdue campus in 2018 to justify a $100 million acquisition of Spin. Expect the product lines of the big three automakers to be highly diversified by 2023.