Technology

Think Elon Musk holds the key to transportation’s future? Think again, recent articles in Intelligencer and Time suggest. Critic Alissa Walker, writing for Intelligencer, drills into the business practices of Musk’s The Boring Company. His pitch, in essence, is to convince beleaguered city officials that a tunnel network for cars will solve congestion woes. What they get, Walker suggests, is a host of unrealistic and ultimately broken promises. Michael Manville, associate professor of urban planning at the UCLA Luskin School… Read More »Musk vs. the Monorail (Or, Why Teslas, Tunnels, and Space Ships Won’t Save Us)

The urban IT movement known as “Smart Cities” offers a seemingly infinite toolset for making cities and their infrastructure more efficient. But tech isn’t the point, cautions Riad Meddeb and Calum Handforth of the United Nations Development Programme, in the pages of the MIT Technology Review. Truly smart cities recognize the ambiguity of lives and livelihoods, and they are driven by outcomes beyond the implementation of “solutions.” They are defined by their residents’ talents, relationships, and sense of ownership—not by… Read More »When Smart Cities Aren’t So Smart

After nearly a century in Illinois, construction and mining equipment manufacturer Caterpillar has announced its relocation to Irving, Texas, near Dallas. “We believe it’s in the best strategic interest of the company to make this move, which supports Caterpillar’s strategy for profitable growth as we help our customers build a better, more sustainable world,” chairman and CEO Jim Umpleby explained in a statement. According to The Wall Street Journal, Caterpillar is not receiving any incentives from the state to make the… Read More »Construction Equipment Giant Caterpillar Announces Move to Texas

Scientists at MIT have developed a lab-grown, plant-based substitute for wood that can be customized for stiffness, density, and form, the Woodworking Network reports. “The idea is that you can grow these plant materials in exactly the shape that you need, so you don’t need to do any subtractive manufacturing after the fact, which reduces the amount of energy and waste. There is a lot of potential to expand this and grow three-dimensional structures,” said lead author Ashley Beckwith, a… Read More »MIT Researchers Develop Lab-Grown Wood Substitute