Weinreich
Taxi Treats
April 31, 2012
Brian Shimmerlik sat in the back of a New York cab one
day last September trying to come up with an idea for a
business. He had just begun his second year as a graduate
student in the business school of New York University and
knew that if he wanted to work in venture capital after
graduation, he was going to have to develop his chops as an
entrepreneur.
He had but one problem. He was having a hard time
coming up with an idea for a business.
“And then I kept thinking about how I find taxi TV so
annoying,” he said. “It was making me nauseous. So I asked
myself, ‘how can I make this space better?’”
The answer to his question began to unfold. The space
inside a cab, he said, is “undervalued and misused real
estate.” He started to think about the kinds of people that
prefer cabs instead of subways. The action of taking a
taxi, he said, means that you value convenience and time.
He needed to figure out how he could deliver to the
masses. What else do these people want?
The answer became clear: bring them snacks in a cab.
His business was born; he would set out to install vending
machines in cabs. And he would call it Taxi Treats. He
envisioned people purchasing Advil, five-hour energy, mints
and granola bars from the back of a cab.
“Most people thought I was crazy,” he said. “On a
couple days, I thought I was crazy, too.”
Two months later, while researching start-ups on the
website for the Economic Development Corporation, he
noticed a contest for “NYC Next Idea.” The submission form
was due in three days.
Two months and 20-pages of business proposals later,
he was given good news. The Corporation notified him that
out of a pool of 270 entries, he was named one of 20 people
to move on to the next round of selection.
The list was soon whittled down to six and then this
past March, he was named one of two finalists after giving
a 10-minute presentation at Columbia University.
The other finalists had developed an iPhone app that
allows clothing shoppers to choose from a body type to
envision how clothes will appear on the body before making
the purchase online.
For his innovative idea, Shimmerlik was given six
months of office space and $17,500.
But he was a businessman. He didn’t have the knowhow
for developing a technology to bring mints to people in the
back of a taxicab. So he teamed up with a few engineers,
one of whom he met through his cousin.
Steve Bofill, an aerospace engineer, had a degree in
mechanical engineering and had spent almost a decade
designing airplanes.
“Aircrafts are way more advanced than taxi treats,”
Bofill laughed. “But you can still tell what’ll work and
what’s ridiculous in any field of engineering.”
The group is now working to develop a wireless, iPadtype of touch screen next to the taxi TV. It’ll measure 20
inches wide, 24 inches tall and three inches deep. Behind
the screen, in the divider between the driver and the
passenger, there will be an assortment of products.
Shimmerlik attended a vending machine conference in
Las Vegas in April and said that no one on the market has
developed the sort of technology for restocking vending
machines quite like he and his team have envisioned. Most
vending machines are restocked by a person inserting
product into the machine, one by one.
The technology that Bofill is working on would allow
the tray to be removed from the machine like a drawer. The
product would be loaded in and the tray would then slide
back into the machine.
He said there would be a facility where cabs would go
no more than once a week and they’d be restocked with new
cartridges in the same quick fashion as a pit stop during a
NASCAR race. They’re also working on a way to have gas
stations carry the cartridges to avoid making a cab driver
go out of the way to restock.
“The new cartridges come already stocked with product
to minimize the downtime for cabs,” Bofill said.
Shimmerlik and Bofill are currently working on a
prototype that will be presented to the New York City Taxi
and Limousine Commission in a few months.
The qualifying part of the process will be the biggest
expense. Taxi Treats will need to demonstrate that it’s
built in an environmentally friendly way and will need to
go through the rigors to be certified with all of the
proper inspections.
“The coils and the hardware is the least of our
expenses,” added Bofill.
And, of course, the Commission would receive a cut of
the profits. The Commission confirmed that it received the
proposal but that it’s still mulling it over.
But one thing remains unclear: what will happen when a
driver becomes nauseous from watching taxi TV, like
Shimmerlik did when he had his a-ha moment back in
September, and then decides to purchase a taxi treat?
A Taxi-tissues dispensary may be the next big idea...
###
Cynthia Martinez
Prof. Wald-National Affairs.
Technology Story
4/30/12
The Brave New Road
In 1939, the autonomous car was introduced by General Motors at the World’s Fair in
New York City. It was called the Futurerama concept. Now Google has brought the
concept of autonomous cars to American roads. Google has patented a system of
sophisticated software technology that enables a car to drive without any human
intervention. The state of Nevada is working with Google to ensure proper testing in reallife traffic situations. The driverless car is now on track to become a commercial reality
in the next 15 years.
Automotive innovation has brought us cruise control, automating lane changes, automatic
parking and blind spot detection devices. All of these innovations have been building
blocks to automated driving. The next stepping stone is a completely autonomous
automobile, and according to Sven Beiker, PhD, Executive Director of the Center for
Automative Research at Stanford University (CARS). He believes that we will see this
happen in the not to distant future. “A fully autonomous vehicle I see in 2025.” He
continues, “Traffic Management is the biggest challenge, a mix of human driven vehicles
and autonomously controlled vehicles. Can an autonomously controlled, meaning a
preprogrammed vehicle, keep up with this?”
“The United States is certainly the most advanced in regulation. As far as research,
Google is at the forefront,” said Beiker.
In a recent Mashable report a Google spokesperson stated, “Self-driving cars have the
potential to significantly increase driving safety.” Google went on to say, “We applaud
Nevada for building a thoughtful framework to enable safe, ongoing testing of the
technology and to anticipate the needs and best interests of Nevada citizens who may
own vehicles with self-driving capabilities one day.”
The U.S. Department of Transportation has even established April as Distracted Driving
Awareness month, whereby the slogan “One Text or Call could Wreck it all” has been in
place for the past three years. According to the National Highway Traffic and Safety
Administration in 2009, 16% of fatal crashes involved a distracted driver. Approximately
5,500 people were killed in crashes involving driver distraction and an estimated 448,000
were injured. “The goal for an autonomous car is to make it safer than a human driver.
It’s really a safety system. The big problem we are seeing in our country is with drivers
whose attention is taken away by different things, whether that be talking on a cell phone,
texting or putting on their makeup. We have distracted drivers driving,” said Bruce
Breslow, Nevada’s Director of the Department of Motor Vehicles. “The autonomous
vehicle would never get distracted. Google’s systems allow the car to drive via laser,
radar and other sensors. The car can see in a complete 360 degree panorama where a
human can’t. It can detect things coming from all different directions where a person
wouldn’t be able. It sees more than a human can,” according to Breslow. Nevada has
been a pioneer in passing legislation enabling the continued testing of these autos in live
traffic situations on state roads.
Automotive pundits feel that driverless cars will revolutionize the way we think about
driving. The experience of driving will be similar to the experience of taking a train- the
"driver" will be able to read, work, or relax.
Despite all the safety and lifestyle benefits, with every new technology there are some
detractors. According to Aptus Insurance, the downside effects of an autonomous vehicle
would mean shocking unemployment rates among taxi drivers and chauffeurs, and
discouragement of public transportation. Along with the biggest issue is that driving laws
are created for human beings to be behind the wheel, not computers.
Driverless cars are now a reality. They are able to navigate with the help of sensors that
already exist within traffic lights, stop signs, and lane sensors. The original purpose of
these sensors was to catch traffic violations, but driverless cars utilize it to navigate.
According to Google blogs, these robotic cars have “now safely completed more than
200,000 miles of computer-led driving.” Whether you like it or not, driverless cars are
here.