"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