This morning I finished watching the rest of Steve Jurvetson’s Spark 2014 talk, which I shared with you all yesterday. And so I’ve got technology on the brain right now.

I’ve said this many times before on ATC, but I truly believe that the pace in which technology is infiltrating “non-technology” companies is only going to increase. The video clip of Flux.io is a perfect example of that. After watching that demo yesterday, I immediately thought a handful of consultants that real estate developers use on projects that the Flux platform could replace.

So today I thought I would share another company that Steve talks about in yesterday’s video called Planet Labs. Planet Labs’ mission to image the entire world and make it universally accessible to people. But unlike Google and Microsoft – who already offer satellite photography – Planet Labs has figured out a cost effective way to do it on a daily basis.

Because the problem with services like Google Maps and Bing is that they’re updated too infrequently. If I go to Google Maps right now, the building I live in doesn’t even exist in their aerial photography of Toronto – it’s still a parking lot. So there are limits to what you can do with this information.

But once you increase the image frequency to daily, you create all sorts of new opportunities. You could track the number of cars in every parking lot in the world to measure retail activity (an example Steve gives in his talk). You could track changing water levels. You could track deforestation. You could track urbanization in China. And the list goes on. Here’s a blog post from Planet Labs that gives a few examples of the benefits of daily imaging.

To return to my earlier point, consider the fact that every potential use case I’ve just outlined is in an industry that most of you wouldn’t consider to be tech. And yet Planet Labs is clearly a technology company. So the key insight here is really to focus less on the way things are done and classified today, and more on the way they could be – and likely will be – done in the future.

Image: Planet Labs

If you’re involved in the built environment in any way, shape, or form – as a developer, architect, policy maker, and so on – I would highly recommend you watch the video below. My friend Candice Luck, who I went to Rotman with, sent it to me this morning with a link starting at the 24 minute mark. I haven’t yet watched the whole thing, but given how interesting this short section was, I plan to.

The video is a talk by Steve Jurvetson, who is a venture capitalist with DFJ. He was one of the founding investors in Hotmail and currently sits on the board of companies like SpaceX and Tesla Motors. At the 24 minute mark he talks about a startup called Flux.io that hasn’t yet launched their product, but is working towards “reimagining building design”. They’re a spin-off from Google X and plan to officially launch in early 2015.

Rather than try and describe the video here, I will just say that it’s an incredible example of how technology and digitization could completely change the real estate development industry. If you can’t see the video below, click here. The video starts at the Flux.io section.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPgyb6euISs]

This morning I finished watching the rest of Steve Jurvetson’s Spark 2014 talk, which I shared with you all yesterday. And so I’ve got technology on the brain right now.

I’ve said this many times before on ATC, but I truly believe that the pace in which technology is infiltrating “non-technology” companies is only going to increase. The video clip of Flux.io is a perfect example of that. After watching that demo yesterday, I immediately thought a handful of consultants that real estate developers use on projects that the Flux platform could replace.

So today I thought I would share another company that Steve talks about in yesterday’s video called Planet Labs. Planet Labs’ mission to image the entire world and make it universally accessible to people. But unlike Google and Microsoft – who already offer satellite photography – Planet Labs has figured out a cost effective way to do it on a daily basis.

Because the problem with services like Google Maps and Bing is that they’re updated too infrequently. If I go to Google Maps right now, the building I live in doesn’t even exist in their aerial photography of Toronto – it’s still a parking lot. So there are limits to what you can do with this information.

But once you increase the image frequency to daily, you create all sorts of new opportunities. You could track the number of cars in every parking lot in the world to measure retail activity (an example Steve gives in his talk). You could track changing water levels. You could track deforestation. You could track urbanization in China. And the list goes on. Here’s a blog post from Planet Labs that gives a few examples of the benefits of daily imaging.

To return to my earlier point, consider the fact that every potential use case I’ve just outlined is in an industry that most of you wouldn’t consider to be tech. And yet Planet Labs is clearly a technology company. So the key insight here is really to focus less on the way things are done and classified today, and more on the way they could be – and likely will be – done in the future.

Image: Planet Labs

If you’re involved in the built environment in any way, shape, or form – as a developer, architect, policy maker, and so on – I would highly recommend you watch the video below. My friend Candice Luck, who I went to Rotman with, sent it to me this morning with a link starting at the 24 minute mark. I haven’t yet watched the whole thing, but given how interesting this short section was, I plan to.

The video is a talk by Steve Jurvetson, who is a venture capitalist with DFJ. He was one of the founding investors in Hotmail and currently sits on the board of companies like SpaceX and Tesla Motors. At the 24 minute mark he talks about a startup called Flux.io that hasn’t yet launched their product, but is working towards “reimagining building design”. They’re a spin-off from Google X and plan to officially launch in early 2015.

Rather than try and describe the video here, I will just say that it’s an incredible example of how technology and digitization could completely change the real estate development industry. If you can’t see the video below, click here. The video starts at the Flux.io section.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPgyb6euISs]