Jinn of Quality and Risk

Real-world guide to the promise and perils of electronic collaboration. To answer the most basic questions about distributed (aka virtual) work, Fast Company spoke to a broad group of technology suppliers and leading-edge users, from doctors and developers to consultants and engineers. 

Cars have for a long time been the last bastions of traditional UI (User Interface) design; the interior layout of a modern car has not much changed since the first model A rolled out of the ford factory. The key components remain the same, a gearstick, steering wheel, accelerator, brake and clutch if manual. Admittedly modern cars have become loaded with buttons and screens as more and more features are installed but the basic layout has remained the same. Enter BMW with their new 7 series. They want to do nothing less than change the way we use our cars and interface with them. The key to this is a new system called iDrive, a system they claim will change the way cars works and the way we use them. [kuro5hin] 

Ken Iverson, pioneer of the mini-mill revolution in the U.S. steel industry, died in April. Under Iverson, Nucor became known worldwide as one of the most daring and innovative manufacturers in any industry. ... [when] nearly all steel was made in huge, capital-intensive blast-furnace factories, Iverson decided to have Nucor manufacture steel entirely from relatively small factories using recycled steel scrap. Thus, Nucor sparked the boom in "mini-mills," which now produce more than half of all steel made in the United States.

The story of Iverson's building of a revolutionary steel mill is told masterfully in American Steel: Hot Metal Men by Richard Preston — one of my favourite business books. Do read it! 

The Millennium footbridge re-opened in February 2002. The bridge had been closed since June 2000, because the opening day crowds caused it to "wobble". The oscillation was reported to be somewhere between 7 and 20 cm. The engineering firm, Arup, has a Millenium Bridge micro-site. See also a decent summary at the Guardian. A tourist's favourite, the bridge links the London City with the South Bank. Visit St Paul's Cathedral then stroll across the river to the fantastic Tate Modern... 

Eric Schmidt is both a lord of the geeks and one of our favorite all-around observers of the high-tech scene. Silicon Valley pedigrees don't get any bluer-chip: Bell Labs, Xerox's legendary PARC research center, Sun Microsystems, then chairman and (until earlier this year) CEO of networking software stalwart Novell. This summer he piled on two more titles: chairman and CEO of Google, the upstart (and current runaway leader) Internet search engine. And he still finds time to think high thoughts, about everything from the architecture of the Net to the lobbying game in Washington. We caught up with him in August [2001]. [Gilder] 

The figures for first quarter 2002 US Gross Domestic Product are in. And they are great. GDP, the widest measure of economic activity, surged ahead in the first quarter at an annualized pace of 5.8%. So, the US economy surged throughout 2000, and continued growing in the 1st, 2nd and 4th quarters of 2001. In the 3rd quarter of 2001, the economy retracted a tiny 0.3% — i.e., took a breather — and minus the volatile inventory sector, it grew at about a 2% annualized rate. Indeed, for all of 2001, the core rate of growth was around 2%. The underlying resilience, productivity, and innovation of the US economy remains sound. [excerpted from Positive Plenum, The Objective American]

Companies that have been failing since the end of 2000 should quit blaming a "tough economy." 

Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the ultimate center of culture and learning of the ancient world, has been rebuilt — in Egypt and online (10 billion Web pages and a movie archive). Wired has the scoop: "It contained too much knowledge that offended too many people."