McLaren Eyes Sports Beyond Auto Racing; Briggo Eyes the Coffee Line
At Dell Technologies World last week in Las Vegas, the company made lots of announcements, which have been beautifully covered by the hundreds of analysts and journalists who attended. For my part, I would like to highlight the progress of two Dell partners whose work struck me personally: McLaren and Briggo. The former is known for its Formula 1 racing cars. The latter isn’t known yet — but will be — for its barista robot.
I’m not much of spectator-sports guy. I attended my first professional basketball game a few years ago, and I think I’m good with that. I’ve never been to a pro football or hockey game, and that’s not likely to change. I will admit to a slight weakness for baseball, which can perhaps be explained by the fact that I grew up in Red Sox territory. But at the level of individual sports — cycling, skiing, sailing, and others — I’m all in.
So, McLaren is not an obvious fit for me. However, stopping by their booth on the show floor, I met Paul Brimacombe, head of IT architecture, and while others ogled the car on display, we talked about driving algorithms. It turns out, Brimacombe has done many of the same thought exercises that I have about driving protocol in general and how self-driving vehicles should behave in particular. That conversation led to another over drinks at a partner-analyst…
