Reading this, a question comes to my mind: how cheap does an energy storage solution has to become, to finance it through speculation on energy/power exchanges (buying in times of overproduction and selling at high consumption times) ?
For the UX of hololens/AR, I really hope - as a step before neural links - they combine it with something like a keyboard glove (there are several ongoing developments for such devices). Something to make an input, while barely moving as it is today with the mouse and/or keyboard.
This just might lead to the experience you mentioned, that the AR device recognizes objects you can interact with and the minimal effort to make the interaction.
Of course, you can try to interact while in VR or AR by throwing your arms around and pointing in the air. This works, if you'd like to be immersed in a game. But for everyday tasks, that is not the subtle interaction as provided by current haptic interfaces like a mouse, keyboard or touchscreen.
It is more like "convention over configuration". In fact, it isn't a hack. It is the simple applyance of putting elements in a system, because of a contract.
Another good analogy in software would be UX and style guides. You'd like the user to have a consistent experience.
The replacement is like running a cron job to do some stuff and forget to check if it makes sense. It can be done better, but on the other hand, it's less complicated this way (and never change a running system).
This one red light has been removed btw. The street is a dead end towards the intersection now. But you can find another one near Wasaplatz.
They can go that way, because the technology is far enough. A traditional automatic is not suitable for sporty driving. Not only because it may choose the wrong gear at the wrong time.
In racing, the balance of the car is highly important. Making an uncontrolled shift within a corner, can spin off the car because of the associated weight shift. You counter that in traditional transmissions with double clutching and heal-and-toe, where you get the rev in the transmission about right, to guarantie a smooth shift and a stable car.
Ferrari and the like managed through timed automated gas bursts and other technologies to conquer the effect in automatic transmissions.
At least, you can see, that they are working on it. For example mercedes/daimler is working on energy storage near Dresden [1] for homes [2]. Mercedes is pushing this fab with €500mil [3]. Furthermore, there is another fab right next to it, which startet a few years earlier [4].
As for the bankruptcy speculation: they are too big to fail - whatever the consequences might be for the german taxpayer.
There already is such a market and the audience is paying premium. Yes, handcrafted products are a luxury good and yes it is justified by the creativity which went into the crafting. Am I missing your point?
First thing coming to my mind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuckoo_clock
Isn't the right question to ask, why the information was released now? Who can win by publishing a report, showing the wrongdoing of a former leadership?