The Week of March 13th: 10 things eft's been reading
10Things – Internet shopping at work to be banned?
1. Quite simply a look at the proposal to fix America’s infrastructure. ‘America Gets a D Plus for Infrastructure, and a Big Bill to Fix it’ [Wired]
2. In case you missed it, Intel is gambling big on autonomous vehicles – and why not? Everyone else is looking for a piece. ‘Intel is acquiring self-driving tech supplier Mobileye for close to $15 billion’ [Recode]
3. We’ve been working a lot with Penguin Pickup which has developed a similar pick-up style service for their malls across Canada. Is this how to make ‘Click and Collect’ work in North America? ‘Amazon's next retail outlets are drive-up grocery stores’ [Engadget]
4. Outsourcing is taking a beating right now, but that aside, this was pretty interesting – countries building niches to serve as specialist outsourcing locations. ‘Amazon invests in Costa Rica as tiny nation carves out profitable niche in world economy’ [The Seattle Times]
5. Adidas has some pretty bold ambitions – including being more Zara-like in their supply chain. ‘New Adidas CEO Plans Fast-Fashion Focus to Catch Up to Nike’ [Bloomberg]
6. If there was ever a space ripe for disruption/innovation/ideation – choose your buzzword - this was it. ‘Internet shopping van deliveries could be banned from London offices to fight congestion’ [Evening Standard]
7.‘Neural networks’ or ‘Cognitive computing’ have always been a pretty big stretch from what’s really going on with AI. That being said, a very important milestone was achieved this week. ‘Google’s DeepMind makes AI program that can learn like a human’ [The Guardian]
8. As you read this, the European Logistics CIO Forum is in full swing with Bringg headlining the agenda. ‘Delivery management platform Bringg raises $10 million to help any business take on Amazon’ [TechCrunch]
9. Speaking of start-ups, frequent eft collaborator Steve Banker lays out his thoughts on one of the companies he thinks has the upper hand. ‘Can This Startup Transform The Truckload Freight Market?’ [Forbes]
10. The BBC did an eye-opening investigation into the living conditions of truckers moving goods into Western Europe. ‘Ikea drivers living in trucks for months.’ [BBC]