by Elisabeth Uhlemann

The Grand Cooperative Driving Challenge (GCDC) may take cooperative automation of vehicles to the next level and help speed up implementation. The 2016 edition, which took place 28–29 May, was an innovative and competitive demo event on the A270 highway between Helmond and Eindhoven, in which 10–12 European teams competed with each other. The challenge was a combination of vehicle automation (making it selfdriving) and vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication. GCDC 2016 was organized to provide a basis for cooperative, automated driving in an international context.

GCDC 2016 was the second edition. The first GCDC was held in May 2011 in Helmond, The Netherlands. The challenge is open for anyone interested in cooperative driving. Apart from the communication technology itself, it is the application in the vehicles that is key to enabling good maneuverability through automated acceleration, braking, and steering. Three different automated lane-changing scenarios were considered:

• Vehicles that merge or join a line of vehicles, a platoon (before changing lanes, the vehicles automatically negotiate how to merge the new vehicle into the line)
• Automated crossing and exiting a junction (when entering a T-junction, the vehicles automatically negotiate which vehicle passes first, second, third, and so on)
• Automated space-making for emergency vehicles in a traffic jam (this scenario is a demo scenario that was not part of the competition).

Ten teams from Latvia, Spain, France, Germany, Holland, and Sweden took part in the contest. The winners were students from Halmstad University, Sweden, competing with a Volvo S60. Second place was awarded to Team AnnieWay from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany, competing with a passenger car from Mercedes. The third-place team was from KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, competing with a Scania truck. GCDC 2016 was organized within the FP7 project i-Game, with four partners: The Netherlands Organization (TNO) for Applied Scientific Research, Eindhoven University of Technology, IDIADA, and Viktoria Swedish ICT.

Full article: IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine, Volume 11, Number 3, September 2016

The puzzle of human resource management…

This original article is obtained from here.

Companies are evolving in a fast-changing environment. Organizations are forced to adapt and becoming more flexible. Resources, whether people, materials or finances are essential to project survival and success. But resources are limited. A recent KPMG study showed that a third of failed projects face resource availability problems. The challenge is that of finding a balance between demand and supply.

The quest for greater flexibility

In recent years, project management has changed dramatically. Projects are strategic in nature and companies manage numerous projects simultaneously. The expansion of the geographical framework and new ways of working further complicate human resource management for project delivery.

Human resources and the project

The project manager manages employee availability so that they are available at the right time. It’s akin to putting together a puzzle! In a multi-project context, resource management is even more complex.

This article is obtained from here.

Posted Oct 3, 2016 by Megan Rose Dickey

At a panel today at SXSL in Washington, D.C., Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield, Transmedia Capital Managing Partner Chris Redlitz, EpiBone CEO Nina Tandon, Coalition for Queens founder Jukay Hsu and Jenna Wortham of The New York Times Magazine discussed technology’s role in solving some of the country’s most critical problems.

To some, the U.S. is not the land of equal opportunity, and the so-called American Dream — that everyone can succeed with hard work and determination — is a myth. The existence of systemic racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism and anti-semitism makes it so that the American Dream will never come true for so many people. Those discriminatory barriers ensure that only white people have an unencumbered shot at it. So, it’s no wonder why we see that some of the wealthiest tech companies are led by white men.

“Silicon Valley is the engine for wealth creation,” Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield said at South by South Lawn today. “They’ve displaced energy, they’ve displaced financial services and if we don’t start including a broader array of people in that, the same group of people is going to rise to the top.

“I bet there’s a couple we could all agree on,” Butterfield said. “Criminal justice reform would be a big one. Equal opportunities would be another one. Climate change would be another one. Those are ones where technology is more or less applicable.”

SXSL was inspired by President Barack Obama’s visit to SXSW earlier this year. During Obama’s remarks at SXSW, he outlined three ways in which technology can improve our country: making the government work better through tech, tackling big problems in new ways, and using big data, analytics and tech to make it easier to vote.

In alignment with Obama’s previous remarks on tech being used for on-demand food delivery, Wortham noted how technology is producing frivolous products like hoverboards and on-demand laundry services. But while some uses of technology are more admirable than others, Butterfield said he wouldn’t want to live in a world where people weren’t able to spend time making seemingly frivolous or silly innovations.

“While that’s going on, though, I think there is really significant technological changes like we just saw a solar power under three cents per kilowatt hour for the first time and i didn’t think that would happen for another 15 years. And that’s going to have a pretty profound effect on the shape of our world’s countries,” Butterfield said. “So, it’s a tough one. Part of what gives us the good results that we want is that unfettered exploration of all the possibilities and people trying out different things.”

He went on to say that Twitter is a good example of that. At the beginning, people were tweeting about what they had for breakfast.

“On the negative side of humanity and culture, there’s a lot of harassment and hate, but on the other side, Black Lives Matter wouldn’t have happened without Twitter,” Butterfield said. “And the Arab Spring. There’s a lot of political movements its enabled [Twitter is] an amplifier for our best and worst tendencies, but gives us a lot more facility to impact the world.”

In order to really impact the world, the tech industry does need to work with regulators, which means that things might not change as fast as we want them to. So, in areas like education, health care and medicine, tech companies have to cooperate with pre-existing regulations.

“There you have a regulatory environment you have to deal with and there’s more at stake,” Butterfield said. “You’ll see over the next couple of decades much larger changes that are just operating on a different type of time cycle.”

But we’re not going to be able to solve all the problems that are out there if only a small segment of our population has the opportunity to do so. That’s just one of the reasons why Butterfield has made diversity and inclusion a priority at Slack.

“I think the thing that we can really double or triple or quadruple down on is ensuring we don’t fail them once they arrive at the company,” Butterfield said. “I’m not sure that exact formulation of tech is hostile to diversity. I think tech lives inside of a society that still has a lot of systemic racism and doesn’t stop at the boundaries of the tech industry. But neither is it especially exacerbated by being around technology. But it is maybe exacerbated by the irrational decision making of people who are trying to make money.”

Butterfield went on to say that the irrational decision making is what leads companies to keep hiring computer science dropouts from Stanford and engage in other types of pattern-matching, which “creates a system that in the absence of deliberate conscious intentional effort, is going to perpetuate itself.”

By Drew Hendricks

The original article can be found here.

It’s no secret that the price for design and development of websites are through the roof. If you fire a contractor or employee with a marketing or other related degree, you’re also paying a premium (albeit likely a worthwhile one if you must hire!). Website costs can range from putting a minor ding in the budget to becoming your CPA’s biggest nightmare. Did you know that there are many little details that not only can you do without, but your customers probably won’t even notice? A lot of businesses are paying for services that are completely unnecessary.

Whether you’ve had your site for a few days or a few years, there are always avenues to cut costs. Sure, no one likes to read the fine print (or showcase a lack of tech-savviness by asking your developer what “static” really means), but it’s important to know what you need, what you don’t, and where you can save. Let’s make things simple with an overview of what can be axed today.

Your .Com

Yes, it was tempting when securing that perfect domain name to add on that extra .org, .info, or even .us for just $5 more. Do you really need it? No. Unless you’re at the helm of a huge international company with hundreds of competitors at your heels, you only need one domain. Those few extra bucks can seriously add up over the years and can be better spent on that new coffee maker for the office. Employee morale goes a lot farther than a dusty domain collection.

However, different types of top-level domains, such as country-specific items like .in for India or .ca for Canada, are picking up steam. It’s a natural side effect thanks to a globalized market, and it might be worth your while to add these to the cart if you plan to target more than one specific country.

Custom Graphics

Do you feel the need for a custom graphic (or dozen) every time a new page or product is added? These JPEGs go for a pretty penny and are often overrated. Browse through the wide range of free stock photography available online. Long gone are the days of a small sampling of cartoon images for the budget-minded business owner. Chances are you’ll find exactly what you’re looking for at absolutely no cost. The one time you should invest in a customer graphic? Company logos, and it should be a onetime deal.

A Big Company to Update HTML

A lot of businesses view website companies kind of like an attorney – something you have to keep on retainer “just in case.” These monthly “maintenance” bills are often overkill. How much is your developer really maintaining after the site is up and running? If you’re depending on a professional (with professional fees) to add simple product images and HTML descriptions, you’re overpaying.

Believe it or not, even the most tech shy person can learn basic HTML. When designing, or redesigning, your website, ask the developer to create a user-friendly content system to update basic information. Still not feeling up to the challenge? It’s much more affordable to hire a part-time college student for simple ongoing update tasks. Compare about $10 per hour for a smart engineering undergrad to a $50+ per hour seasoned pro to do the exact same thing.