at least some part of architectural practice needs to move on from having buildings as the only output. The answer to every urban question cannot always be a building, clearly. Whilst buildings may be part of some solutions, there are broader, deeper questions in play—good architects see this, but the practice (from education up) is still not exploring this implied question broadly enough. — cityofsound

Created by graphic engineer Patricio Gonzalez Vivo, the animated map gives a sky-high view of the city's hustle and bustle, capturing cars cruising along streets and lights buzzing on and off in buildings. Vivo, who created the project for open source mapping lab Mapzen, applied mathematical functions to street data to create the animated scene. — The Real Deal

Researchers estimate that driverless cars could, by midcentury, reduce traffic fatalities by up to 90 percent. Which means that, using the number of fatalities in 2013 as a baseline, self-driving cars could save 29,447 lives a year. In the United States alone, that's nearly 300,000 fatalities prevented over the course of a decade, and 1.5 million lives saved in a half-century. — CityLab

During the first few weeks of August 2007, the American Midwest was devastated by heavy and repeated flash flooding as a result of Hurricane Dean and Tropical Storm Erin dumping massive amounts of rain on several states. And of the US$549 million or so in property damage that came from it, more than two-thirds was caused by water running off pavements or overflowing from drainage systems. So what's the solution? — Science Alert

The Welikia Project, formerly known as the Mannahatta Project, has gotten a powerful update that now lets you explore New York City's historic ecology using a satellite map that imagines how Manhattan might have looked back in 1609—and all the years between then and now. — 6sqft

Wednesday night’s 8.3-magnitude earthquake had left 11 dead and a 175 houses damaged. While the toll wasn’t negligible, the quake — the world’s strongest this year — might have leveled less-prepared countries.

“Our structural engineering is world class,” Santos, a 62-year-old engineer at the firm Ingenería Estructuras Consultoría, said by phone. “And it’s made in Chile.” — miamiherald.com

After [the 23-foot-tall air filter designed by Daan Roosegaarde] filters smog from the air, it compresses the collected waste particles into cubes that can be embedded into jewelry such as rings and cufflinks — and, hopefully, prompt further conversations about extreme air pollution. — Hyperallergic

This year, “connectivity” has supplanted “horsepower” or “torque” as the prevailing buzzword in Frankfurt. The talk is of self-driving cars, battery-powered cars, and information technology designed to link cars with data networks to make driving safer and more efficient.

Even though neither Apple nor Google is close to mass-producing a vehicle, nervousness about their intentions — which remain cloaked in mystery — is understandable. — the New York Times

even given that the Hyperloop whitepaper was a rough sketch, the most important elements of the plan—its speed and price—have been vastly oversold. [...]

But there’s a final reason to be skeptical, not just of the technical details of the Hyperloop, but of the supposedly utopian motives behind it: It may not even be Musk’s idea. — fortune.com

San Diego may be known as "America's Finest City," but — at least this week — it's also the epicenter of the desalination and water reuse movement. [...]

The area had one of the first desalination plants — opened in Point Loma in 1961 — and will soon see a $1-billion facility open in Carlsbad. [...]

a sustainable water future depends on two things: "political leadership and public engagement, whether it's desalination or reuse." — latimes.com

With real estate prices soaring so high and so quickly, a lot of us are questioning if we even want to live in New York anymore—not to mention if we can. According to NeighborhoodX‘s latest map the price paid for a Bed-Stuy or Harlem apartment could get you a pretty sweet pad in the South of France or even trendy Paris. — 6sqft.com

architects at Tsoi/Kobus & Associates in Cambridge have started using the processing system that powers virtual reality games to put clients inside development projects before they are built.

Using a cloud-based system called Revizto, architects can create a digital hospital down to the last brick, and then invite a client to “walk” through the space to see if the ceilings are high enough or the windows provide enough light. — betaboston.com

...From seemingly out of nowhere, a large quad-rotor drone drops out the cloudless sky over Dubai Internet City, hovering insect-like just above the heads of the men, watching them with camera-eyes.

Before they can even notice, a squad of policemen – wearing helmets, body armour, and carrying assault rifles – rush them...

Welcome to Dubai, and to one of the more awkward moments of an already odd competition called Drones For Good. We’re here to watch teams compete for a million-dollar prize... — the BBC

Apple has announced a range of new products, including a new larger iPad, two new smartphones and a long-awaited update to Apple TV.

In a now traditional September event, this time held at San Francisco’s 7,000 seater Bill Graham civic auditorium, 2,000 engineers, advertisers, executives and journalists saw Apple’s marketing chief Phil Schiller reveal a new 12.9-inch screen iPad that the company hopes will appeal to both professional creatives and committed tablet users. — The Guardian