A smattering of automakers are slowly admitting that some smart screens are dumb. Last month, Volkswagen design chief Andreas Mindt said that next-gen models from the German automaker would get physical buttons for volume, seat heating, fan controls, and hazard lights. This shift will apply “in every car that we make from now on,” Mindt told British car magazine Autocar.

I think the race to move all controls in a car to a smart screen squarely falls in the "just because you can doesn't mean you should" department of innovation. We have two Teslas and the lack of physcial controls is one of our biggest complaints about the cars. Having to go to the correct page on the screen and then hunt to find the icon for opening the glovebox has to be the height of absurdity for the smart screen trend.

Moving back to buttons and other physical controls could be a difference maker for the traditional automakers, too. They have decades and decades of experience with human-car interface and have produced some amazing innovations in that space. Tesla literally has...a few (the scroll controls on the steering wheel are nice). Combining that history of innovation with advances in electric powertrains could be a difference maker as the GM's and Ford's of the world compete with Tesla and other electric-only manufacturers.

Frustration with the lack of physical controls in modern cars has been growing for some time. John Siracusa has been fighting this battle on Accidential Tech Podcast since before it was ATP (or at least since the day ATP launched its first epiosode).

tags: tech innovation cars

posted by matt in Monday, May 5, 2025

This argument rings a bit hollow when it comes from a behemoth that has crushed innovation for years.

“That would hold back American innovation at a critical juncture. We’re in a fiercely competitive global race with China for the next generation of technology leadership, and Google is at the forefront of American companies making scientific and technological breakthroughs.”

tags: innovation china google

posted by matt in Tuesday, April 22, 2025

"Autonomy is the key to unlocking scale across all AAM applications, from passenger to cargo and beyond. That's why straight-to-autonomy is a core first principle."

tags: aviation innovation startup

posted by matt in Saturday, January 29, 2022

As well as a stunning technical achievement, the project and world record runs provided important data for our future electric power and propulsion systems for all-electric urban air mobility and hybrid-electric commuter aircraft. The characteristics that ‘air-taxis’ require from batteries, for instance, are very similar to what was developed for the ‘Spirit of Innovation’. 

Development of electric planes seems to be moving along quite a bit faster than I though. And it seems like the technology will grow the field, enabling urban air-taxis.

tags: tech flying aviation innovation

posted by matt in Monday, November 22, 2021

I had some quick thoughts while clearing 11" of snow from the driveway that relate directly to Daystream.

In certain areas of technology, it seems ripe to ask the question:

Overall, is the field leveraging user/customer focused advances in technology to benefit users/customers or is it succumbing to a leveraging of other advances by a few, powerful corporations at the expense of users/customers?

I think those two points lie on a continuum and are in some level of tension as a field of technology advances. I also think fields get out of whack from time to time and need to correct, pulling back to the other side. Social media seems to be way out of whack right now, skewing heavily toward the "powerful corporations" side of the equation. I don't see those corporations doing anything to correct this. Indeed, they just seem to keep doubling down on the issue, extracting more personal information from their users and using it in new ways to maximize profit.

Daystream has always been about avoiding that. It is, in fact, a founding principle of our technology. I still remember the early conversations with Jonathan all those years ago. He was the first to point out to me that "the algorithm" is awful. Why should it decide what the users see? Shouldn't it be easy for a user to see the content they want to see and know that, in fact, that's what they are seeing? Boom - enter our elimination of the firehose and replacement with date-based accessors. What did Sally post on her last birthday? Well, let's go look. That has always formed the kernel of Daystream and we continue to extend that founding principle as we grow our features.

We'll always skew heavily to the "benefit people" side of the equation.

The trick is figuring out how to make a go at it while doing that. If we can't, we can't. We won't go to the other side just to keep it going, I know that much.

tags: technology innovation daystream

postposted by matt in Tuesday, February 16, 2021