Burg Eltz is a medieval castle nestled in the hills above the Moselle River between Koblenz and Trier, Germany. It is still owned by a branch of the same family that lived there in the 12th century, 33 generations ago. The castle is surrounded on three sides by the Elzbach River, a tributary on the north side of the Moselle. It is situated on a 70m rock spur.
GM & Segway’s P.U.M.A. (Personal Urban Mobility & Accessibility) prototype represents the shift that’s needed for the future of transportation!
Some people know that I’m so insane for Segways that I actually own one, and while I’m still hoping to improve my german to get a permit license to ride mine here in Düsseldorf (to where I moved last month), I couldn’t be more happy to see that apart from the rumors, Segway is still engaged in trying to solve our transportation needed thru technology.
The new prototype isn’t going to be on the streets anytime soon, but it’s design carefully tries to balance a set of important values again as Space, Energy, Enjoyment and Speed. To me it comes as no surprise that the guys from Engadget who tried it seem to have liked it!
If GM & Segway can make this into the production line, I honestly think that our cities would embrace them.
Share Economy is the theme for the upcoming NEXT conference in Hamburg this may, and two days ago, I’ve come to know what’s probably one of the best examples of this shared future that is shape as we speak. Next speakers list is more than impressive and they managed to round up people like Jyri Engeström (Jaiku Co-Founder, no Google), Steve Rubel, Anil Dash (Six Apart), Charlie Schick (Nokia Conversations), Ian Forrester (BBC Backstage), Lane Becker (Get Satisfaction), Henriette Weber (ToothlessTiger) and a whole lot more!
Co-working , ‘a cafe-like community/collaboration space for developers, writers and independents’ is probably one of the best example of shared economy, a group of people get together to create a communal space of work, where far from sharing only space and expenses they end up sharing a whole lot more, their time and knowledge, a valuable asset in todays economics.
Henriette Weber, who happens to be a speaker at NEXT and a long time friend as well a SHiFT organizer as well, crazy as she is, decided to take the Co-Working space to the next level, where in next level one can actually read new territories, in this case, the Sea, or at least any decent sized river!
Henriette and her Husband Thomas have engaged in the recovery of an old family boat, to create the first mobile co-working space, the idea is for the boat to wonder around Europe, providing a unique co-working space.
Henriette is now searching for people who might wanna contribute to this project, so contact her to get to know a bit more about it and how you may help!
I think the idea totally rocks, by I’m always jumping on crazy causes, so this can just be the latest one! Picking up where Henriette started I just suggested that we complemented this with a co-working BUS, all refurbished to allow for people to use it while traveling! Crazy isn’t it?
Well, if you’d like to know more about the PAN co-working space and review Henriette presentation “Why every company should be a rockband“, just set your calendars to visit NEXT this may!
I often joke about how some drivers seem to behave as if playing a computer game, they drive without much consideration on their (or others) safety. And it’s not just a Portuguese problem, although Portugal scores pretty high on the road accidents caused or related with excessive speed.
Today I came across this 2007 research project ‘Pay as you speed‘ by a team from the Aalborg University. The project seems to reverse the traditional rules for the drive playing game we see everyday: the MORE secure are your driving habits = the LESS points you earn, and obviously less points => less money you PAY! . And when money is part of the equation we’re all for the savings, which makes the idea pretty good!
A glimpse to the project description, one can see that the system depends on having an onboard unit (cell + GPS + screen) meaning that to some extent there’s a degree of losing some privacy, and having our paths/driving habits tracked somewhere. Considering the daily rate of deaths on the road, here’s a situation where I’ll for losing privacy, if it means as it seem, that we’re all going to be a bit safer!
Wow… I’ve just had probably the 2 most crazy weeks in my live and all because I was relocating from Portugal to Germany, so Where should I start…
I’ve moved to Düsseldorf this Saturday, together with P. and Isis (our samoyed dog), we had a very peaceful trip here, don’t know if because of the stress from the past two weeks and everything having come together to that day, or (and this actually helped a lot) for the fact that we flew in with Lufthansa, which provided an excellent service, true, still quite expensive when you compared to other companies (especially the low cost ones) but still much above average quality of its partner and my usual choice TAP (but more on this choice) later on!
Unfortunately we weren’t able to say goodbye to a lot of dear friends, urgent family matters on the very last week of our staying in Portugal, sort of broke our plans for unsuspected visits, but I hope they know who they are and know how much we care for them!
We’re living in the Talstraße in Friedrichstadt, extremely close to the city center and the old town where I’m working, a fact that allows me to walk to work every morning since yesterday! Something of unique value which I wasn’t really able to have ever back in Portugal.
Dusseldorf is at first look a very international city, there’s pretty much all major international stores (even MUJI has a store here), just choose what food you’ll like to eat and you’re most probably very near some place to get it!
I’ve started working for Vodafone yesterday, which means that I haven’t yet had much sightseeing or shopping. I had been here before in december and mid-februrary, but on neither of this trips I had the time to actually do sightseeing, I did like the few things I managed to see on each of those trips, almost enough to know that I would like to leave here. As soon as we registered as living citizen, me and P. received each a Düsseldorf Welcome Pack, completed with living informations and vouchers for such a variety of things from museums to transports, unique and priceless information!
Even with all the help from Vodafone in our relocation process, not everything is heaven when you consider moving to a rented apartment and another country, for instance our connectivity and mobile availability is still limited for these days, so if you can’t reach us, just leave us an email
Wow… I knew 2008 had been an outstanding year in terms of work and travel, but it was only looking to the report Dopplr compiled and sent me, was when I truly realized how special the year was! Even without all trips being covered on the following image, it already gives a pretty nice view of how busy I’ve been:
Dooplr added some interesting data to my personal report, just by curiosity I seem to have travelled 8% of the distance to moon, hehe?
P. won’t be as happy when she realizes that I’ve spent 55 days away from home, OK, not all of them were away from her, vacation days are included but 55 days!! Really?
With all the traveling I would expect my carbon print to be worst than it is:
Although I’ll certainly need to reduce it in 2009!
After some hard working months we’re happy with all the amazing Speakers that once again decided to come to Lisbon and help us decide on the role of technology in todays society.
SHiFT will take place during 3 days (15-17 Oct), this year theme is about transient technologies and how technology is shifting from it’s traditional boundaries, becoming progressively more transparent and ubiquitous, and being deeply integrated into almost all aspects of everyday lives.
We want SHiFT to be a happening not only in Portugal but thru Europe, and although we’re really close to the dates, we still have some last minute ‘helpers’ that might just persuade you to join us:
A 20% discount over the normal price (use code: shift08t2a79548a)
we’re still accepting sessions and demos, so take your chance and present something.
In case you’re flying over, we’ve gathered some discounts with the portuguese airliner and some nice hotels too.
Last, but not least we’re giving away a Golden Ticket, all you have to do is spread the word and enjoy an even bigger discount.
I'm Pedro Custódio, a User Experience Advocate with a strong software architecture background, sometimes I train and speak others in the arts of both. I'm currently main organizer of SHiFT and working on the Vodafone 360 project.
You can follow me on Twitter or contact me at mail (at) pedrocustodio.com
I’ve moved to 
I'm Pedro Custódio, a User Experience Advocate with a strong software architecture background, sometimes I train and speak others in the arts of both. I'm currently main organizer of 