When LeBron James starts advertising self-driving cars, I think it’s safe to assume that the technology is better than most people realize and that the future may arrive sooner than they think. Thoughts? Other posts by transportation futurist Jack Uldrich Pace of Trucking Industry About to Hit Warp Speed

As a futurist, people frequently ask me how driverless automobiles and trucks will affect the future of urban areas. It’s not a bad question, but there’s a better question to ask: How can autonomous vehicles help create a more human-centric city? The focus of the first question assumes autonomous/self-driven cars are inevitable and urban planners…

The Financial Times recently released an informative and well-balanced 12-minute video discussing the long road to self-driving cars. (The full video is posted below). Early in the video, the host declares “it is no longer a question of if but when” self-driven cars will become a reality. I agree wholeheartedly with the assessment but I…

Yesterday, I released my annual predictions for 2014, and a few weeks ago I shared with you 10 Game-Changing Technological Trends That Will Transform Tomorrow. In the sprit that more is better, and a different perspective is always welcome, I’d like to share with you IBM’s annual “5 in 5” series–5 predictions for the next…

Last month, I published my annual list of predictions for 2013 and although we are only three days into the new year my prediction that a leading retailer would begin to experiment with driverless vehicles appears close to happening. In this case, Navia, the creator of a driverless electric shuttle, has designed a vehicle capable…

#1. First Heart A-Hack Victim. In January, an Arizona socialite will be charged with murder after it was uncovered she hired a former disgruntled employee of a leading medical device firm to hack into her cheating husband’s pacemaker and deliver a lethal shock to his heart. Shares of the company’s stock will plummet on the…

Last December, I published my annual list of predictions for the coming year. Number 9 on the list was “Networked Traffic” and I wrote: The labor union representing Munich taxi drivers will seek an injunction against the social networks claiming they enable individual drivers to act as taxi companies and should therefore be subject to…

#1: In an attempt to appease consumer unease over the growing use of facial-recognition technology, a handful of retailers will admit prior to “Black Friday” that they have deployed the technology during the 2012 Holiday season but will claim they are using it only as a “safety tool” to monitor crowds and prevent unruly shopper…

“[We’re] operating with a scale of data that is way beyond what was possible even three years ago,” say Sam Madden, an MIT professor in this article discussing how continued advances in GPS and mobile technology are now able to deliver customized driving directions. The technology is so sophisticated that it will deliver different routes to the…

I'm in Eugene, Oregon today to give the keynote presentation at the conference celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Eugene Water and Electricity Board. The gist of my message is that as impressive as progress has been in the past century it will pale in comparison to what is coming in the next two decades….