Self-driving cars offer a safe, efficient and cost-effective solution that will dramatically redefine the future of human mobility. 

The emergence of smarter cars means automotive companies are looking for smarter ways to work. And they know getting there requires new efficiencies in their existing design and development processes.

This year at NIWeek in Austin, Texas, I had the privilege of presenting on five killer mistakes companies make when embarking on “big data” and Industrial Internet of Things projects. In it, I also talked about how the world is turning to NI technology to allow sensors and instrumentation to better measure and analyze machine data. It turns out, sensor data does not always work well with traditional IT software, and there is a distinct lack of software tools in this area.

The complexity of the electric power industry creates enormous opportunity for Fortune 500 companies and promising technology companies. Increased energy demands, capacity limitations, environmental constraints, varying load shapes, distributed generation and the deployment of new smart technologies all come into play. While new technologies will be developed to build a robust and resilient 21st Century grid, this new grid is still in its infancy and will take years, most likely decades, to reach that utopia of which we dream.

I was struck by a headline in Dataconomy: “German Companies Are Behind on the Trend of using Data to Solve Business Challenges.” Headlines are a hook, but is there truth behind this statement? Well, no, I don’t think so.

I have been around a long time and  I remember many years ago, when I was at IBM, the big buzz word was "Open Systems". This really was code for buy anything that is not made by IBM. In fairness it was the beginning of the rise of Enterprise Unix and the push for standards so customers would not be locked into a single vendor.  There was a cynical saying one of my customers use to say that made me laugh. "Anyone with an open mouth has an open system".