Carmakers take the Valley

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In February, Franco-Japanese car behemoth Renault-Nissan opened a new, 26,000-square-foot research center in, of all places, Sunnyvale, Calif. It turns out that it is joining a long list of auto companies that have recently opened or expanded R&D shops in Silicon Valley. The Bay Area’s pool of technical talent has long attracted outside industries. But recent advances in Internet-enabled cars, electric vehicles, and driverless automobiles—not to mention local firms Google and Tesla — are fueling automotive innovation here.

In the latest issue of Fortune magazine.

The robot garage

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A New Jersey startup called Boomerang has built robotic valets, which shuffle and shift cars in parking garages. The saved square footage means extra revenue for real estate developers, who can now rent or sell the freed-up space.

BMW Gets Plugged In

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The company is making huge bets on green, wired cars for city dwellers alongside its high-performance luxury vehicles. The BMW i3is designed for utility and fuel economy, and when it goes on sale this fall, it will be expensive—about $40,000—and probably appeal to a small number of people.
In the latest issue of Fortune Magazine.

The Disappearing Desktop

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LinkedIn recently asked more than 7,000 members of its professional network in 18 countries about which office supplies they see going the way of the dodo in the next five years. Topping the list was the tape recorder. Here are seven other habits and tools destined for extinction. In the latest issue of Fortune.

Too many people, too little water

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An expanding world population, extreme weather patterns, and industrial pollution are making water a scarce commodity. Opportunities exist for businesses that can figure out how to keep the pipes flowing.

Manhattan still the center of the financial world

Here are the major businesses in the World Trade Center towers during the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Almost a decade later Fortune tracked where the companies or divisions relocated-and how many employees now work at those offices.

End of fire season

This year was not the worst when it comes to fires in California. Typically, January marks the end of the fire season in the south. A good time to have a look back at the 2007 season, where fires were burning strong.  This graphic has been made in Adobe Illustrator, ArcGIS, and Cinema 4D. 

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Dark areas show places burnt earlier in the year, red active fires. If you click the image, you can see another version of this graphic where I used Census data to show population density. Translated in spanish by Tina Garcia.

Inauguration day

Here are some highlights of the AP multimedia production on Inauguration day.

Click to see a panorama of the event

Bernadette Tuazon acted as a technical advisor on this panorama and many others, working with photographer Susan Walsh to take and stitching pictures together. I used a modified version of an open source panorama player, PanoSalado to publish it.

Here is a 3-D rendering of the inauguration parade route, realized by Merrill Sherman with Jaime Holguin help.

A title card for AP video live on the web, featuring 3-D work of Peter Hamlin and editing from Jaime. AP staffers use Cinema 4D for 3-D rendering.

And finally, our inauguration widget, thanks to Matt Ford’s hard work.