Texas High-Speed Rail route takes a big step forward

2019-09-16T12:45:00-04:00

Texas Central, the private company developing the Texas Bullet Train, announced it had signed a deal with Salini Impregilo, the Italian construction giant, and its American subsidiary, Lane Construction, to design, construct and install the 240-mile high-speed rail line using Japan’s Shinkansen trains.

The plan to build a 90-minute bullet train between Dallas and Houston still requires a number of local, state, and federal approvals before it can move forward.

Nonetheless, backers of the project are raising funding for the initiative and setting out to complete early design work. Texas Central optimistically hopes to break ground sometime in 2020.

Are phone-booth-sized offices the future of workstations?

2019-08-30T08:00:00-04:00

The idea of a workspace has transformed over the past decade, in large part, due to the emergence of co-working spaces like WeWork and Industrious. The shift has fueled the proliferation of the "open office," and the many documented problems associated with the setup. Is the pendulum ready to swing back to a focus on single-person workspaces?

Mitsubishi Estate Co., a Japanese real estate investment company, thinks so and has offered a potential solution to the problem of the open-office: a phone-booth-sized mini-workspace for one. Meet Telecube, the 13-square-foot, soundproof workspace that comes complete with a desk, seat, and power outlets.

In collaboration with office furniture maker Okamura Corp. and video-conferencing software vendor V-Cube Inc, Mistsubishi Estate Co. has unveiled plans to install 1,000 Telecube units by 2023. According to recent coverage from Bloomberg: "The companies are betting there will be enough demand for the mini workstations. Coffee shops in Tokyo ar...

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Texas High-Speed Rail route takes a big step forward

Are phone-booth-sized offices the future of workstations?