Perspective

Last mile trends

Crowd sourcing
 Using Uber as a model, this shift seeks to create greater elasticity in logistical systems, making them less…

Stop freaking out about robots

A 2017 New Yorker cover by R Kikuo Johnson painted a dystopian scene. Robots pace and trundle past a homeless human kneeling at their feet, while one deigns to lower its gaze to flip a few coins in his cup. The image expressed perfectly the pervading, and misplaced…

Perspective 05 has arrived

We’re now sending out Plan’s fifth annual take on notable developments in the world of mobility and tech. Our magazine Perspective is a collection of all the writing and thinking we’ve done throughout the year. And what a year 2018 has been, from the backlash against Big Tech on…

Perspective 05

Perspective magazine separates the signal from the noise, distilling new insights from the most important recent developments, data and opinions

In this issue we look at the next phases in the development of autonomous vehicles, particularly on how cities will influence their…

Human Machine Interlace

The impact of AI on society is typically posed in terms of how it will replace humans, as pundits draw up lists of jobs that are at risk and those which are ‘AI proof’. While some tasks — and even careers — will be replaced, a more useful way to think about the future is how we will…

Don’t fear the robots

A recent new Yorker cover by R Kikuo Johnson painted a dystopian scene. Robots pace and trundle past a homeless human kneeling at their feet, while one deigns to lower its gaze to flip a few coins in his cup. The image expressed perfectly the pervading, and misplaced, pessimism around the…

Choices in customisation

For years mass customisation has been the holy grail of product development, providing products or services that people actually want, rather than creating backstock. Dell started selling build-to-order PCs in the 1990s, and while brands like Nike iD soon followed suit, the coming era…