6 talented Engineers + 9 hours of hardware hacking at YCombinator = Velo Sense (Haptic Motors + Bluetooth 4.0+ Google Bicycle Turn-by-Turn Navigation API)
Y Combinator Hardware Hackathon
The Pivot
I want to announce an important update: Velo Motorworks is doing a pivot. Yup, it’s the startuppy thing to do. Right around Christmas of last year, the team decided that Velo-1 was probably too big in scope to be our first commercial product. As a bootstrap company, the time and costs necessary to execute our [...]
Using WiFi to Create the Mobility Internet
A few months ago I wrote a blog post about creating the mobility internet using NFC tags. I’m going to refine that idea a bit, now with the use of wifi. The reason why wifi is a great medium to create the mobility internet is because it’s ability to create a mesh, ad-hoc, peer-to-peer network. [...]
Evolution of the Bicycle
In 1817 Baron von Drais invented a walking machine that would help him get around the royal gardens faster: two same-size in-line wheels, the front one steerable, mounted in a frame which you straddled. The device was propelled by pushing your feet against the ground, thus rolling yourself and the device forward in a sort [...]
Code Name: Mallard
Testing out the Velo-1 Alpha Prototype (Code Name: Mallard)
Summer Update
Just wanted to share our game plan for the end of summer. We’re putting together a lot of moving pieces: The Velo team has found a new home at TechShop in SF (http://www.techshop.ws) This co-working factory is a perfect home for us as we will begin prototyping the Beta using machines such as a 3 [...]
Mobility 3.0
Mobility 3.0 We are shifting from Car 2.0 to Mobility 3.0. Electric vehicles, cruise control, web-connected cars, and many other electronic novelties are moving us closer and closer to a new era. Cars are becoming an accessory to our digital universe. Beyond “driver optional” cars, we are about to rethink the way [...]
Unlocking the potential of the NFC tag to create the Mobility Internet
Suppose we could track every car in the nation. What could statisticians mine from all this data? We think it could revolutionize the way people drive and here is how: Technology: Car + NFC Tag + Smartphone = Network nodes on wheels How it will work: Users will upload GPS data to our server (with [...]
How to reinvent the bike
Problems: Year 2007 is the first year in history that more of the world’s population has lived in urban rather than rural areas UN projects tat 60% of the world’s population will be living in urban areas by 2030 and 80% of world’s wealth will be concentrated in urban areas by that date Electric-drive urban [...]
How to Reinvent Personal Urban Mobility
“How to Reinvent Personal Urban Mobility” Step 1: Design a clean, safe, fast, fun, attractive, and inexpensive vehicle. Step 2: Integrate this vehicle into an efficiently operated urban systems.”