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BBC 00243.txt

Down the centre of each of these parks run wide bus boulevards, protected cycling lanes and excellent walking paths.

The transformation transcends the physical environment. A cultural shift has occurred and residents in general choose to live near where they work.

Education has improved as well, with children walking or biking to quality schools close to where they live.

Most people don't own cars, and those who do usually only drive them as a hobby,

#LA's seemingly brilliant plan half-a-century ago to re-engineer its urban environment for cars has become a global affliction.

There are now 60 million new cars being added to the planet every year, and with those vehicles come more smog,

toxic emissions and dependency on rapidly depleting resources.##As we embrace the car, our cultures become more sedentary and rates of obesity and heart disease increase.

Cars not only make our cities unhealthy, they also make our cities dangerous:##270,000 pedestrians are killed by cars every year.

To undo these decades of suburban propaganda is to essentially unravel the American dream; one which has travelled

since around the world. But there is a new dream. Walkable City#author Jeff Speck said it best in#his recent TEDCITY2. 0 talk:#

#Sustainability#which includes both health and wealth#may not be a function of our ecological footprint, but the two are interrelated deeply.

If we pollute so much because we are throwing away our time, money, and lives on the highway, then both problems would seem to share a single solution,

and that solution is to make our cities more walkable. Virtual beginningswalking is the simplest,

most cost-efficient way to improve a city's economic and environmental viability, and it creates healthier, happier residents.

Choosing walking can help designers build more inviting streets, and allow cities to prioritise their people over cars.

The campaign to make our cities more walkable begins in the virtual world. There are apps such as#Walk Score

a#tool which measures the distance to amenities such as restaurants, stores, and public transport, and tells you how"walkable#your location is.

The site recently started featuring apartment rentals with Walk Scores prominently displayed#a different way to place value on

Car-free neighbourhoods are already a reality in places like Vauban, Germany, where the cars are banned

and a tram to nearby Freiburg runs through the town. The Great City planned for Chengdu,

China, is intended even more ambitious to house 80,000 people in a completely car-free centre with regional mass transit connections.

Architects Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill estimate that residents will be able to walk anywhere in the city within 15 minutes.

#Google maps'addition of walking, biking and transport options to its directions has been the greatest game-changer for increasing walking.

what was planned as a journey in a car becomes a possibility#on foot. Reroute. it allows you to compare your journey for several modes of transportation at once across many different factors:

and the amount of CO2 EMISSIONS your trip will generate. Suddenly a walk becomes more appealing

you'll spend no money and could burn up to 500 calories. Even more fascinating is named another app Re:

With Google glass and other augmented reality devices, the route information we receive on our smartphones will be displayed in the urban environment, in real time.

which would calculate how much walking we could add to our commute to achieve our daily step goal#maybe nudging us to get off the bus a stop early.

But even with Google glass at the ready to tell us our favourite bar is a 400-calorie walk away,

#The signs, in a sense, convert the invisible app data into a kind of value proposition for the walker.

#You might physically be able to walk to a grocery store, but buckled pavements or poor street lighting might make the walk less than pleasant#meaning you may be less likely to do it again.

A site called#Walkonomics#takes into consideration eight additional factors ranging from safety to beauty when ranking walkability.

Instead of scoring an address, streets are ranked green, yellow and red based on how good they are for walking.

But only a human can stand on a street and get a feeling for how it feels to walk there and

what could be improved, a process that planners call walkability audits. According to#Walkability Asia's 2011 study, improving pedestrian infrastructure is the lowest priority for transportation in Asian cities;

67%of people surveyed in those cities said walking was so bad they would rather drive

or ride motorbikes. The group developed an app so anyone can gather#information ranging from sidewalk quality to the speed of cars in 23 Asian cities.

The work of this organisation is especially valuable because it's helping these cities to develop more locally relevant pedestrian features

#which serve the needs of Asian cultures#accounting for street markets and vendors, auto rickshaws and motorcycles#rather than one-size-fits-all Western street design.

Perhaps the biggest deterrent for walkers is the perception that it's unsafe which can mean anything from the poor street lighting to badly marked crosswalks to high crime.

But walking is the only option for a large percentage of the world's population that cannot afford a car,

which#puts the planet's most vulnerable citizens at risk#even by 2020, it's estimated that 78%of the households in China will still not have a car.

In emerging megacities Mumbai in India, narrow roads and paths designed for walking have now become overrun by vehicles.

Some 40%of people walk to work, and an astounding 57%of all people killed in traffic accidents are pedestrians.#

#In Chennai, a local newspaper launched a movement called Right to Walk which encouraged residents to photograph poor walking conditions in an effort to hold government leaders more responsible.

It would appear that this advocacy is working: one of Chennai's densest neighbourhoods is planning a pedestrian zone.

the proliferation of self-driving cars like General motors'EN-V could help prevent collisions with pedestrians (and other automobiles),

and reduce the amount of urban space devoted to cars. These smart cars would act more like a fleet of shared, self-driving taxis.

But another safety concern is our quickly aging population, which#can't navigate the city as efficiently on foot.

Transport planners are now#redesigning cities for elderly walkers#using a special suit developed by researchers at MIT called#AGNES#(Age Gain Now Empathy System)

ramps instead of stairs, larger type on signage, benches on more corners. In Thailand, the Chaing Mai province is investing in retirement communities,

including making improvements to its urban space that will help make its cities more welcoming to pedestrians.

There has been perhaps no better advertisement for walking than the open-street festivals modelled after the ciclovías, common in Colombian cities.

On Sundays, Bogota and Medellin#close up to 80 miles (130km) of streets to cars. Cities have seen the value of turning tarmac over to walkers and bikers,

Removing people from their cars creates a sense of social connectedness and allows citizens to interact with people from different backgrounds.

and has grown to become the largest open-street event in the US with over 100,000 people in the streets per event.

Walkers have gained now literally ground in the city#as they have around the world#with the addition of plazas and other car-free zones.

Now, one of the city's main thoroughfares, Broadway, is being converted into a pedestrian-friendly street.#

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BBC 00247.txt

#Electric cars: Big data helps designs shift gears You wouldn't think that anybody would care about your drive to the supermarket to buy milk.

But in the burgeoning world of building and selling electric cars, knowing about people's driving habits is invaluable to manufacturers.

Electric car makers have begun poring over a wealth of data on how their vehicles are used. The information promises to provide insights about how people drive that were impossible to gain on such a large scale before#from charging habits to the ways people adapt to life with an electric car.

Unlike older vehicles electric cars are equipped with computers, sensors, and wireless connections that allow drivers to voluntarily share information on their driving

and charging habits. Usually a new owner will be prompted to opt-in to sharing location data,

in a similar way to a new smartphone owner might be. Trip information is collected by the vehicle's computer,

including start and end times of journeys, connect and disconnect times of chargers, and the battery level.

Cars with GPS navigation systems can also collect detailed information about routes. And advanced systems can record details like how much the air conditioning is used

or how hard a driver accelerates. The Volt, for example, is fitted with Chevrolet's Onstar communication system that can broadcast driver data via its cellular connection.

Many Volt drivers are choosing to share their habits online with other electric car drivers, in a kind of electric economy challenge.

Manufacturers promote these data collection services as a bonus to consumers, helping them save fuel and money,

or allowing them to see stats on their car via a mobile phone app, but the information is also a goldmine for car makers.

One of the best examples of just how much data is available came earlier this year

thanks to a fight between electric car maker Tesla, and a reviewer from the New york times. On a test drive, the reviewer claimed he ran out of battery power,

and had to have towed the car. However, Tesla hit back by releasing a large amount of raw data from the vehicle that suggested it was driven at greater speeds,

and with the heater on higher, than claimed. The company was even able to show that cruise control was engaged not,

that charging stations were driven past, and that the car was unplugged before it reached full charge.

Now that electric cars are more abundant the wealth of information and inferences that can be drawn are more meaningful than in the past."

"We actually have data now, #says Mike Tinskey at Ford motor company.""We know our customer better than we've ever known them before because of these telematics.#

#He and others discussed their initial findings at the recent Plug in 2013 conference in California,

a networking event for all the big players in the electric car industry. Ford's data shows that electric vehicles,

including hybrids, are being driven about 203,000 miles every day in the United states, or more than 8500 miles every hour."

"We know, for instance, the average trip for our customers is about 13 miles, and they do about four of those trips per day.

Three of them are in all electric mode, #says Tinskey. Data from the Nissan leaf, meanwhile, has thrown up a few surprises.

It has a range of about 75 miles (120 km) between charges, but the company says owners drive far less before topping up."

"A lot of our cars are equipped with a data sharing system, #says Eric Gottfried of Nissan North america.""We find that most people drive about 30 to 35 miles a day.#

#So far, and it's worth stressing these are early days, manufacturers say they are learning that people are accepting

or adapting to the limits of electric vehicles, and their charging habits hint they are less likely to get so-called"range anxiety#than expected.

Or more specifically, they are keeping their battery topped up before range anxiety sets in.

Certainly, manufacturers have been trying to allay the fears of nervous drivers with blinking battery lights by investing in faster charging stations at more convenient locations.#

#These chargers are installed at shopping centers, work places, or even by the side of the roads. They can usually charge a car twice as rapidly as a standard wall socket at home-often much faster#and in the case of Tesla,

they are free for owners of the premium-priced cars. The fast chargers are like"drinking through a very thick straw#for batteries,

says Gottfried."You can go from zero to full in less than a half an hour,

and that's a game changer.##According to manufacturers, there are hints that faster charging is encouraging people to charge little and often,

rather than waiting until they run low.""Sometimes you can stop for just 3 or 4 minutes and get the confidence that you have the range to get where you're going,

#says Gottfried, who cites anecdotal evidence from Leaf drivers.""Owners seem to adapt to the car to an extent,

#claims Gottfried."They start to say #if I need to sit for 15 minutes to top off my battery at a quick charge station, that's cool,

I'll just grab a sandwich and I'll have my lunch in the car'.

'They're adapting as they go to this technology, and we're seeing new paradigms being set.#

#Collecting driving habit data on this scale promises to reveal much more in the coming years-and not only about electric vehicles.

As more and more computer-equipped, connected cars fill the roads, we will learn a great deal about how we actually drive,

because such detailed information has never really been collected on this scale before. As well as informing the future of vehicle design,

it's possible that your next car might even reveal your hidden habits and tell you that you're not the driver you thought you were.

Perhaps that trip to the store to buy milk will say more about you than expected.

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BBC 00261.txt

#New york: Lessons from Tumblr and Foursquare's mistakes For a long time, Tumblr founder David Karp was New york's one-man answer to Silicon valley.

He looked just like a typical Valley entrepreneur. Young, floppy-haired, and often sporting a hoodie,

Karp was obsessive about his product. Revenue and business development seemed lower down on the agenda.

Just like Silicon valley start-ups, Karp was willing to take on tens of millions of dollars in venture capital to execute his vision.

As conventional Valley wisdom goes, he built an audience (a massive one, 300 million-strong),

and assumed that advertisers would be eager to buy ads.##When they didn't, Tumblr sold.

Yahoo acquired the company for $1. 1bn in May. The company had just $16m left in the bank,

out of the $125m it had raised from venture capitalists. It's no coincidence that, around the same time, New york's other poster child for Silicon valley-like success,

Foursquare, experienced the same thing. After five years of venture capital-supported growth and little revenue, the social networking app was running low on funds.

The company had to scramble to convince new investors that it could make money through paid recommendations of local restaurants and bars.

Foursquare eventually raised debt to avoid taking a down round which would have valued the company lower than in past rounds of funding.

CEO Dennis Crowley, New york tech's other visionary, was suddenly on the defensive.##New york tech is growing up.

But with the growth comes some pain. Back when Tumblr and Foursquare were getting started (2007 and 2009, respectively),

New york's tech scene was more of a small community than a thriving ecosystem. You had high profile media start-ups like The Huffington Post intermixed with a handful of successful advertising

and financial tech companies serving the city's traditional industries. And that was about it.#

#Political supportbut the financial meltdown of 2008 had some of the smarter graduates reconsidering their banking ambitions,

creating a new population for the New york tech industry. A lot of talented people coming out of school decided not to tuck their shirts in after they graduated,

says Ed Zimmerman, chair of the tech group at law firm Lowenstein Sandler. Meanwhile, mayor Michael Bloomberg#himself an entrepreneur#became New york tech's loudest cheerleader.

too, launching initiatives like the We Are made in NY portal, Bigapps, a contest for building apps on the city's application programming interface (API),

and Wirednyc,#a rating platform that for Internet speed in office buildings.##Prior to this new Bloomberg-endorsed era, New york start-ups had a reputation for focusing too much on monetisation.

That's not always encouraged in Silicon valley, where irrational risk-taking and wild ambition#the kind of guts

You don't build a Facebook, or Google, or Twitter by optimizing for revenue on day one,

the thinking goes. This new era was all about building a Silicon valley-style company. The crowd at a New york Tech Meetup,

which boasts 33,000 members, famously boos anyone who asks about business models. New york is now home to more than 1,

Tech is the city's second-largest contributor to private sector wages after finance, according to a new study commissioned by the mayor's private foundation.

Google's Chelsea offices employ more than 3 000 people; a number of top-tier venture firms including Accel Partners,

Even with 300 million monthly unique users or a hit app, it's still a brutal fight to survive.

which made hundreds of millions of dollars when they sold.##These deals represent a huge success. They bring attention to New york tech,

while turning their employees into angel investors. But they're also a big problem New york's tech scene, according to Fred Wilson,

an investor at Union square Ventures who is called often the godfather of New york tech. It's a mystery to

It would be great to have our own Google, Facebook, Twitter, ebay, Amazon or Yahoo.

Tech companies in New york exist among Wall street banks Madison avenue agencies, fashion houses, and media conglomerates. You can't get that same diversity of industry

and background in San francisco, says Kathryn Minshew, cofounder and CEO of The Muse. She moved her company back to New york after completing Y Combinator's accelerator program in Palo alto. Some of the best product feedback

he wrote in a recent blog post. With Foursquare's experiences a downturn, and with Tumblr tucked away inside Yahoo,

a new set of companies is poised to lead New york's start-up scene. They range from the high fashion commerce of Gilt Groupe to the quirky marketplace of Brooklyn-based Etsy.

Appnexus, an ad-tech platform with 500 employees, is expected to go public soon and Outbrain, a media tech company, is expected also to do so.

Kickstarter's crowdfunding platform has funded 49,316 projects to the tune of $807m, revolutionising the way filmmakers, musicians and hardware companies raise money.

Zocdoc, which boasts more than 450 employees, is changing the way 2. 5 million people get access to doctors.

Nosql database vendor Mongodb was called recently the King of New york start-ups after it raised an eye-popping $150m in funding at a valuation of $1. 2 bn.

These companies and the followers they inspire, are less shy about embracing revenue, even if it's at the expense of a big, magical, idealistic vision.

People have started doing this as business, not just as religion or passion, says Jen Berrent, a partner at New york law firm Wilmerhale who's worked with start-ups since late 1990s.

I do think (a focus on revenue) is more in the blood here than it seems to be out west.

You can be a little less visionary and try to build a real business. Spin-offsthe new class of NYC tech leaders aren't pure

Wework is innovating on the city's thriving real estate industry, building communities around New york's high-rise buildings.

Appnexus has seen already ex-employees start and raise capital for several companies, including Triplelift and Rockerbox.

000 employees, has been built on talent from the fashion industry, but has spawned also its own mafia of founders, many of

They are making money, and they're likely to remain independent. The new generation will head to the stock exchange,

not be on the lookout for buyers. The CEOS of Kickstarter and Etsy have said both they plan to stay independent.

and his investors are onboard on that basis. Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson has hinted the company will take a nontraditional route to paying back its venture capitalists, possibly through recapitalisation and debt financing.

a rare feat for venture capital-backed companies.##For now, at least, New york's tech is not for sale.#

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BBC 00264.txt

#Philippines: The innovation drive that turned social There was a summit, a steering committee, a policy document and even a somewhat awkward new brand name:"

the Philippine economy had grown 7. 8%year-on-year, knocking China, which grew 7. 7%,into second place in Asia.

In 2011,93. 9%of internet users in the Philippines were Facebook users#the highest penetration in the world,

according to an analysis published by web analytics company comscore. But what's interesting is that the drive for innovation hasn't been driven primarily by profit motives.

Instead they are about finding local solutions to social problems, such as poor access to clean water, the high costs of joint replacement surgery and slow responses to natural disasters.

Persuaded by country's improving economic prospects comparative youth and high social media use, Earl Martin Valencia returned to his home country after studying for an MBA at Stanford university, California.

Last year he helped found Ideaspace, a not-for-profit technology business incubation and education scheme with $12. 5 million of funds to invest in Filipino start-ups.

In April, Ideaspace announced the winners of its competition to identify the most promising start-ups in the country.

especially those related to health and the environment.""Necessity is the mother of invention, people are looking at the needs they see every day,

#says Valencia, Head of Corporate Innovation for Smart Communications, the country's largest telecoms company."

Every day, according to the company, 55 Filipinos die from water-related diseases. The company claims its prototype fits onto most taps,

was Tudlo, a smart phone app that crowdsources information in real-time on road accidents, storms, floods and other natural disasters,

while displaying hotline numbers as well as relevant user-generated content. In 2011 over 1, 200 people were killed in severe flooding in the Philippines,

which ranks third in a 2012 United nations league table of countries most vulnerable to natural disasters.

one winner, Mirand, was founded by Dr Rene Catan, a 55-year old orthopaedic surgeon. For over 20 years Catan had been dreaming of a way to make knee and joint replacements more affordable for Filipinos.

and using local labour, Catan says he has produced a prototype joint that should cut the cost of such surgery in half#from nearly $10, 000 to around $5, 000 or less.

He is due to conduct the first seven surgeries with his new technology this month. Henry Motte-Munoz, a former analyst at Goldman sachs and cofounder at Bantay. ph, a Philippine NGO that seeks to reduce corruption in the country through education

and the use of technology, says that the recent rise in social innovation has occurred because despite impressive economic growth figures,

there has been little reduction in inequality.""The wealthy are always at an advantage here, always have the upper hand,

#he says.""What I find so interesting is inequality-reducing innovation, trying to bring equality to consumers.#

especially when it comes to financing, says Motte-Munoz.""It's a high-risk country already,

#This risky environment helps explain why large companies are behind tech start-up incubator schemes. Ideaspace was created by Smart Communications,

is backed by Globe, the country's second biggest telecoms company. While these telecom giants are helping fund and spur grassroots entrepreneurial social innovations,

they are also backing novel solutions to social problems more directly. The Philippines is hailed as the"text messaging capital#of the world.

Mobile subscribers send an average of 600 text messages per month, around 43%more than those in the US.

The market for mobile phones is 90%prepaid and people change Sim cards frequently. Last year, Smart realized they were sitting on a stockpile of unused and expired Sim cards,

and decided to try to put them to good use. The result was Txtbks, a system that transforms Sim cards into lightweight textbooks,

with lessons broken down into 160-character text messages. The scheme has been tested, primarily as a means to teach English, in three schools.

Smart hope to turn the pilot into a commercial service for the country's Alternative Learning System programme,

whereby teachers travel to students in more remote locations and islands around the country, holding classes in the hills, farms and marketplaces.

Of course part of Macapagal-Arroyo's rationale for stimulating the competitiveness of the private sector through innovation was the provision of jobs for Filipinos,

Irrespective of the politics, for many of the country's apparently growing band of social innovators, improving the lot of ordinary people is a higher priority than making profits.

head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter. There was a summit, a steering committee, a policy document and even a somewhat awkward new brand name:"