Prost to a great idea!

As we discussed earlier this week, the recent iPhone mystery has been the subject of much speculation – and a TON of media coverage. Since then, one genius airline has found a way to insert their latest service into a seemingly unrelated conversation.

Lufthansa has invited Gray Powell, the now infamous iPhone ‘loser,’ to come to Munich and experience their new Bavarian Beer Garden Business Lounge on a free business class flight. The letter, posted on Twitter and sent to Gawker’s ValleyWag, pokes fun at the recent news stating ‘we thought you could use a break soon,’ noting his ‘passion for German beer,’ and acknowledging that it can be frustrating to lose unique personal belongings (the understatement of the year, according to PC World).

This invitation to Powell cost absolutely nothing for the company to send, and in the unlikely case that he takes them up on this offer, will end up costing only a few thousand dollars. The value of the top tier media coverage that this invitation has received from outlets such as CBS News and NPR, however, and the additional coverage if Powell does end up partying in the Bavarian Beer Garden Business Lounge, could be considered priceless.

As the airline industry continues to face challenges daily, and evolve their online marketing, it is refreshing to see Lufthansa make this creative move. In the words of one ValleyWag commenter, well played, Lufthansa.

I just returned from a trip to Palo Alto to support the Volkswagen North America team as they held a dedication and ribbon cutting ceremony for the brand new VAIL facility on the Stanford University campus. VAIL – theVolkswagen Group Automotive Innovation Laboratory— is a joint research and development facility that is a collaboration between Volkswagen and the Stanford School of Engineering.

The 8,000 suqare foot facility features seven bays, a full machine shop, driving simulator, two conference rooms and a presentation room. Oh, and did I mention the six vehicles on display, including the robotic Pike’s Peak Audi TTS Coupe (Shelley), the Solar Car “Apogee,” the hydrogen fuel cell-powered Touran HyMotin and the Clean Air Audi A8.

Opening remarks were made by Dean Jim Plummer of Stanford School of Engineering, followed by remarks by David Geanacopoulos, EVP for Public Affairs and General Counsel of Volkswagen Group of America, and Dr.Karl-Thomas Neumann, Chief Officer for Electric Traction at Volkswagen Group.

The ribbon cutting and formal dedication was done by honored guest, German Chancellor Angela Merkel. In Chancellor Merkel’s speech, she commended the VW Engineers and Stanford students at VAIL for their collaboration in developing automobiles of the future. She took a tour of the VAIL facility and got a chance to interact with some of the Engineering students and learn about the projects they are working on.

Also in attendance to catch all the action were press and analysts from outlets like Associated Press, Reuters,  Autoblog, Bloomberg News, CNet, Fast Company, MarketWatch, Gartner, San Francisco Chronicle and Technologizer.

After touring the VAIL facility, Chancellor Merkel helped out with a demo of the Autonomous Vehicle, a car developed by VW/Stanford that drives itself with a tap on an iPhone (yes—apparently there’s even an app for that!). The demo was with Junior 2, a robotic Volkswagen Passat, which we watched pull out of a driveway then back into a parking spot with nobody behind the wheel.

Click here to view the embedded video.

One of the highlights of my day was getting to sit in the backseat of Junior 2 and taking a test drive. It was bazaar to see the wheel move on its own and see the minor adjustments that were made according to the trunk full of lasers and sensors. I think my car insurance rates would go down if I could drive with the help of Junior 2 more often…

Here are some photos I took:

The Solar Car, “Apogee” which raced across Australia (north to south) last fall going up to 180km/hr powered completely by solar energy.

Junior 1, a robotic Volkswagen Passat with the on-board sensors, computing hardware and artificial intelligence software to drive in urban traffic without any human assistance. Check out all those wires, bells and whistles!

Shelley, the Pike’s Peak Audi TTS coupe that drives itself at the limits of handling and friction to help researchers develop and refine control algorithms that can improve driver safety. This fall, the team hopes to test it’s ability to hold the road at high speeds on the famous Pike’s Peak mountain race course.

We live-Tweeted during the event and the Tweets can be found @Volkswagen. In addition, here are some stories with great photos and video that have run so far:

Technologizer

Fast Company

Bot Junkie

San Francisco Business Times

Market Watch

Stanford University News

Here is a video of my new friend, David Hoffert,  Ph.D. Student, Mechanical Engineering Researcher and Dynamic Design Laboratory Kunzel Fellow at Stanford Universtiy,  who spent time speaking with me about his work on Shelley.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The “818? 310. Nice.” line in the movie “Swingers” was classic, but 13 years later it’s beginning to show its age.

This isn’t just because the real estate market has moved all the good girls to The Valley in Los Angeles. It’s because as more and more of us cut our land lines (at home and in the office), move from job to job and city to city, we have started to cling to that one number that can follow us anywhere: our cell phone number.

In fact, since I moved to Seattle, I have met half a dozen people that live here but have decided to hang onto their out-of-state cell numbers.

I can relate. I am keeping my old, out-of-state number too! But my decision was based on the fact that where my cell phone company could give me a new and shiny area code, they couldn’t put a message on my old line to let callers know my number had changed. I have a lot of long standing media relationship, and having them get a dead line wasn’t going to work.

Well I just nabbed my new Google Voice number and this is all going to change. I now have a single number (with an area code of my choosing) that I am putting on my business cards. One number, and each caller (friend, client, media, wife, bill collector) will be routed not only to a special message, but also to any number I choose.

Here are some of the things it can do:

• Screen calls before you accept them
• Hear voicemails as they are being left
• Automatically transcribes voicemails and deliver them to you via text, email, etc.
• Allows you to automatically forward both calls and texts to any phone number
• Allows you to create separate greetings depending on who is calling (e.g., my wife is from Germany and her family gets a special voicemail from her in German)
• Most importantly, gives you the ability to separate your business and professional lives with one phone number (and one cell phone)

To get a Google Voice number — go to www.google.com/voice and sign-up for a phone line. If you don’t mind having a random area code, you can put in words or expressions to see if you can nab a vanity number. I won’t put my number here, but I will say that it includes the words: ski and fun.

I "heart" my MiFi

A couple of weeks ago I was at CTIA in San Diego with my client Samsung Mobile to launch a new phone. We had some issues with WiFi, which is to say it wasn’t working! Between needing it to power Internet for some pre-release phones and for media to file their stories — let’s just say: AWKWARD. It actually all worked out beautifully and we had a great event. But while I was there, Greg Kumparak at MobileCrunch.com was nice enough to let me borrow one of his five MiFi connections to fiddle with. This device is amazing. It fits in your front pocket (or back pocket if that’s your thing) and delivers about 30 feet of EVDO RevA or HSDPA speeds — which would have been perfect for our booth-side event.

I made an immediate note to self: buy several of these for team and have them at every event in the future. You should too!