Here’s our fourth roundup filled up with tech innovation goodies. Every week we search the web to find and promote the most interesting initiatives of using technology to push forward change and embrace new ways of getting things done in manufacturing, worker safety, energy, telecom, communication, transport or simply citizen life. Dig in!

Speeding up driverless cars

Driverless cars ‘see’ their surroundings with Lidar (Light detection and radar). By sending pulses of laser light and measuring the reflections with a sensor, they draw an accurate 3D map of everything nearby. As autonomous driving is gathering speed, new players with promising innovations enter the market. With his startup Luminar, Austin Russel developed a different kind of Lidar technology that allows seeing darker objects over longer distances (250 meters off), allowing autonomous cars to reach higher speeds safely. Luminar has the potential to be the dominant technology and equip every autonomous car in the world by the end of this year. That is, if some pitfalls are avoided, writes Jamie Condliffe in MIT Technology Review. Read more

The human factor of AI at GE

The major impact AI at this moment has in industries, transportation, aviation, and power is predictive maintenance. In IndustryWeek, Karen Field refers to the chief digital officer at GE, Bill Ruh, who predicts the collection and analysis of data from industrial machines to be booming beyond imagination. But Ruh emphasizes that it’s not just about the technology—it’s also about the human element and the critical role of effective change management. And GE’s business model itself also has to be re-engineered focusing on ‘outcomes as a service’. Read more

A guide to cloud computing

No cloud, no future. No future for Industry 4.0, for IoT, or for digital transformation. Cloud computing has been around for more than a decade now and has not only gained broad public acceptance but has proven to be essential to innovations and disruptive services that would otherwise not exist. Nonetheless, i-scoop argues that many strategic, deployment, technological and business aspects stay too hidden. Time for an extensive overview of current and future evolutions. And how you could benefit from those. Read more

A matrix to measure technological threats and challenges

Companies are more than often left in the dark as to whether a new technology – and there seems to be one each and every day – is either a threat or an opportunity. To obtain a vital insight into which innovations deliver a competitive advantage, ‘The Manufacturer’ developed a comprehensive technology intelligence system. The resulting matrix supports decision-making and strategic planning. Read more

Getting ahead of 2020: testing 5G

The next generation in cellular networks, 5G, is expected to start conquering the world of communications technologies in 2020. Yoochul Kim from MIT Technology Review went to the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics – “the most tech-centric Olympics ever” –  and got a virtual tour of what 5G has to offer. Join him on his discovery

Preventing injuries using data

What started as a means to reduce injuries in athletes, is now bound to make its way to hospitals, gyms, and, eventually, your home. The force plate, on which participants have to jump for the device to measure how much force is pushed into the ground at different points, may look like low tech, but its true value lies in the collection and analysis of data. When Brian Heater of Techcrunch took to the test, Sparta Science – the startup sports health company – had collected more than 559.000 scans from over 16.000 people. Military special forces and the medical industry have already shown interest in the technology. Read more.