Advanced Technology

[mikim]

At the Consumer Electronics Show one of the highlights was the driverless technology that is ready to deploy. Several car companies have approached Congress to start working on new laws for this technology. Lighter cars, no accidents and potentially no more tickets. RV's and Trucks well not need a driver. Tesla is ready to deploy their technology in 2015.

RV'ers well be able to continue traveling even into their older ages and kids will not have to decided when to take the keys away. Of course does this mean 10 year old's well be able to take the car to the store?

[realter]

My phone talks to me, and today it asked me to tell it something about myself. Heaven help me if it asks to take my truck for a spin.

[wa8yxm]

shakyjay wrote:
Yes they are already on the road, at least in the testing stages. So far they seem to be proving to be safe. I have only read of one accident. The "driverless" car was rear ended and not at fault. Because of the video and data recording systems on the vehicle they were able to get a great eyewitness so to speak.

I can just see a car driven by "Andy" (Andy the Android if you do not get it, A dummy in the driver's seat (Manikin kind) and a computer driving the car, well a rack of computers). Video recorders all around, and the other idiot saying "He just suddenly pulled in front of me and stopped yammer yammer yammer) and the officer saying "OH, Watch this".

I have heard of police investigations that basically went like that by the way.. Only it was an audio recording not video..

And one murder investigation where the defense was supplied with a true copy of the officer's dash cam video and arrived all smiley because you could not tell much from that tape.. NOTE it was a true copy.

The original was sent to the FBI video lab and an enhanced copy came back.. Dang near studio quality.. Clearly showed the defendants doing the deed..... Defense smiles suddenly went away.. This was in Texas. and.. Well, those killers won't be doing it again in this life anyway.

[mlts22]

Security can be done right. Look at satellite pirates. In '04 or so, they got the boot in a sophisticated way, and that form of security breaches has been dealt with. Similar to GSM/LTE. Other than governments, those protocols have held up extremely well against attack. Even the venerable ATMs which were made in the '80s still are decently secure (although in 2015, everything is changing to chip-on-pin systems.)

However, in general, because some businesses feel there is no return on investment from security, they go cheap. However, with the risk of reputation loss, I think autopiloting cars will be done "right", and only the top tier hacker organizations will be able to get a foothold.

[shakyjay]

Yes they are already on the road, at least in the testing stages. So far they seem to be proving to be safe. I have only read of one accident. The "driverless" car was rear ended and not at fault. Because of the video and data recording systems on the vehicle they were able to get a great eyewitness so to speak.

At this point being "driverless" does not mean no human involvement. A human is still required to be behind the wheel and able to take over if necessary.

While, like some others, I have my apprehensions the technology itself is pretty impressive. If you think about it we are already seeing some of it in new cars. For instance the accident avoidance systems utilizes some of this technology. As time goes on I expect they will introduce more and more. Over time the cars will evolve to the point of being "driverless".

As far as concerns that the car's computer system can fail. As already pointed out the cars being tested have quite a bit of redundancy. That's not to say that glitches can't or won't happen. If you think about it though we face the same issue with human drivers. A stroke or heart attack for instance can easily and does disable drivers and cause accidents. It has also been pointed out that humans tend to become very distracted. Between the phone conversations, texting, eating, putting on make up, etc. it is amazing that some people ever get to their destinations unharmed.

While a little far fetched at the moment I tend to be a little more concerned about the security aspect. Minor programming changes uploaded to these cars could cause some major damage.

I know for some of us all of this is hard to accept. If you think about it though much of yesterday's science fiction is now the norm. Likewise today's science fiction will become the norm in the future and the future is not always that far off.

[quartzster]

powderman426 wrote:
For those who think its a far off fantasy, Nevada has already licensed driverless vehicles. Florida was second and California third. So some of these vehicles are already on the roads with us now. As for the computer crashing, you need to understand that there is not one computer, but several all of which would need to fail at the same time. Possible, but not likely and way less likely than having a texting, drunk or distracted driver run into you.

Here are the actual facts about Nevada licences at this point in time.

http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Driverless-cars-can-be-licensed-in-Nevada-3353981.php

[powderman426]

For those who think its a far off fantasy, Nevada has already licensed driverless vehicles. Florida was second and California third. So some of these vehicles are already on the roads with us now. As for the computer crashing, you need to understand that there is not one computer, but several all of which would need to fail at the same time. Possible, but not likely and way less likely than having a texting, drunk or distracted driver run into you.

[dverstra]

Does this mean that I will have to get my own coffee and sandwiches while I am driving? Not sure that I like this idea.:B

[wa8yxm]

sch911 wrote:
Driverless cars are still 8 to 10 years away. The tech may be there (sort of) but the insurance industry (among other things) is not ready yet.

Driverless cars are not as far off as you might think though they are, for the most part, not ready for "Prime time" (Rush hour).

Fact is you can see driverless cars at many fairs and amusement parks, One of the earliest driverless technologies was a pair of rails and a pin on the car that went between the rails and steered the car.. At the Amusement park they often have mini-vintage cars with such a system, they follow a track, now they spaced the rails a bit farther apart so you can "Drive" them to a point but of one were to clear the track and set a brick on the accelerator the cars would run the track without any human input.

GOOGLE is supposed to have some on the road now that can drive themselves.

The office I used to work out of was shared by several entienties. One of them was a Driverless car project.

[fj12ryder]

IMO it will be many decades before there are driverless cars anywhere other than major city streets, and interstates/freeways.

So you're safe. 🙂

[mlts22]

With all the drunk, stoned, tweaking, high, texting drivers in Austin, I'll take autopiloting cars any day.

I can then take a nap while the vehicle handles the parking lot of local roads rather than losing a few weeks from my life's total due to commute stress. Or just read a book.

Then at night, the car can whisk itself to a service depot when it needs it, get the oil changed and such, then be ready for the morrow.

[monkey44]

fj12ryder wrote:
Maybe, maybe not.

In my experience I usually have less trouble with machinery/technology than with the people operating/programming it.

Well, yes, some truth in that for sure. 🙂

But, I'd be worried about a minor failure, a small glitch in the car/truck that would create a major problem.

At this point, it's beyond my comprehension that I would ever put myself or my family in a vehicle and trust it to drive me through city traffic or up the winding canyon roads looking out the window at a few hundred feet of drop-off.

It's not the design or the programming, it's the minor failures that occur often in LT, PC, connectors (a bit of dust, a disconnect) ...

The results are too final (off the cliff) in my mind to trust that it would never fail.

[fj12ryder]

Maybe, maybe not.

In my experience I usually have less trouble with machinery/technology than with the people operating/programming it.

[monkey44]

fj12ryder wrote:
I think it would be wonderful if we didn't have to drive. I mean that's why trains, airplanes, and boats got to be so useful: you just were along for the ride. I like to ride motorcycles, but driving a car just to get somewhere is a real bore.

Imagine a 150 mile drive to visit relatives: get in the car, put it on autopilot, then just relax, nap, read, whatever. Wonderful!!

Planes, trains, buses have a driver - not the same thing.

And, if the GPS service sends you off a cliff because the road washed away and the GPS hasn't done its daily/weekly update? Then what?

Oh, They'll send the driver-less ambulance to get you ... 🙂 🙂

Pretty soon, we'll be sending our vehicles to visit for us - a virtual visit with grandma ! Send your Galaxy III instead of yourself.

Technology is a great thing if handled properly - and to do that, we need a human in the mix, somewhere.

[fj12ryder]

I think it would be wonderful if we didn't have to drive. I mean that's why trains, airplanes, and boats got to be so useful: you just were along for the ride. I like to ride motorcycles, but driving a car just to get somewhere is a real bore.

Imagine a 150 mile drive to visit relatives: get in the car, put it on autopilot, then just relax, nap, read, whatever. Wonderful!!