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I worked with Alain Kornhauser about thirty years ago, first taking his robotics course as an undergraduate, later managing his robotics lab as an employee, and then again even later (briefly) as a grad student tangentially as part of a group doing self-driving car research focused mainly on a neural networks approach. I had also been hanging around Red Whittaker's group making the first ALVAN (Autonomous Land Vehicle) around 1986 before going back to Princeton to work as an employee.

While I did not contribute much of significance to that self-driving car group (I had other interests), I had suggested we train cars to just drive one specific route based on videos from driving that route a variety of times. I guessed that most daily commutes are just along the same route and so that could be a big win. But he dismissed that idea for some reason I'm still not sure I understand. Still think it made a lot of sense though for the resources we had at the time.

About ten years ago I suggested he get his PAVE students to write software to drive Gran Turismo as a challenge. Not much response from him on that then though. Glad to see his is finally doing that -- although with much better game/simulation software now.

I also suggested he could make PAVE the free and open source software hub for self-driving vehicle software to address some concerns I outlined back in 2001 in the essay to the Markle Foundation:
http://pdfernhout.net/on-fundi...

From the email I sent Alain in 2007-02-02:

"Glad to read of your group's successes with the Grand Challenge. I've long thought a fun project for your students would be to write software that takes visual input from a a PlayStation 2 driving game like "Gran Turismo"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...
http://www.gran-turismo.com/
(direct via video out to video capture, or even through a camera focused on a TV) and processes that image to drive the simulation via a USB hookup into the PlayStation. Not quite the real thing (and Red Whittaker might rightfully scoff at that approach as ignoring much of the challenge of making real hardware survive in a tough environment :-) , but it is cheap, easy, and safe to do in an undergraduate lab with limited supervision. And the racing game simulators just keep getting more and more realistic. And if that challenge becomes too easy, you can then add noise to the video signal to make it harder... Or introduce lags or noise in the USB steering. And then start working on controlling ATV Off Road Fury or the the Snowmobile racing games, and so on. Or have kids write software to control one game and then give them only one day to make it work for another... Probably lots of good science and engineering and education to do there on a (relatively) small budget."

I mentioned that idea again to him in 2011-06-18 when I was looking for jobs:

"Or maybe you need someone to do more work on cars that drive themselves, which sounds like more fun? :-) Except that PAVE stuff is all student run, and good for that approach, so I can see you probably won't need someone for that. I still feel getting students interested in writing open source software to process images from the latest driving simulator games is a good (safe) project that might advance the state-of-the-art in automotive intelligence in a very positive way. :-) I'm sure it would at lead to lots of funny press though ("Students at Princeton are seriously playing with video games", and so on). Whether that is good or bad depends on your point of view, perhaps."

Anyway, glad to see that idea finally getting some traction. :-)

While he did not take some of my ideas that seriously, I did not take his

Yes, I wanted to point that one out too. I suspect that it also has a lot to do with how Gran Turismo aims to be a driving *simulator* and not so much a game. Most game designers drop a certain level of realism from their games to make them more fun, but the designers of GT are a) car nuts and b) totally of the mind that driving race cars is plenty of fun all by itself, thankyouverymuch.

To prove his point, and to prove that not only is GT realistic, but works well as a racing trainer, Gran Turismo's director Kazunori Yamauchi competed in the Nurburgring 4 hour race and won his class, with no other training but 1,000 laps in Gran Turismo (and any futzing around he may have done in his own cars). It was the first time he actually raced on the track, and it's worth noting for those not in the know, that the Nurbergring Nordschlief (the full course - in this particular race it took Kazunori 10 minutes to complete a single lap) is the world's most difficult race track.

That aside, the original article is pretty funny.

http://www.gran-turismo.com/jp/movie/d2612.html

The Wii appears to have one fundamental problem now that I've been around multiple people who have the system, including myself. The novelty wears off pretty quickly. For some people it takes only a few minutes, for others maybe a couple of weeks. But it seems like everyone has a moment where the Wii goes from 'amazing and revolutionary system with a controller that has unlimited possibilities' to 'eh, just a GameCube with a pointer for a controller that doesn't really work very well for most games'.

With games that look like this:

http://www.gran-turismo.com/jp/movie/d483.html

already on the PS3(free playable demo just released this week), after the holidays the Wii is going to have a hard time keeping up sales - especially when you look at how bleak the release schedule is for the system in 2007. Right now I am looking at nothing worth buying for my Wii until at least March and maybe later.

I can already play all that stuff for free on my PS3's emulators.

Look what PS3 owners got for Christmas:

http://www.gran-turismo.com/jp/movie/d483.html
http://www.gran-turismo.com/jp/movie/d485.html

Free playable demo of Gran Turismo. After playing through Zelda, my Wii is pretty much sitting unused now. Metroid needs to come out soon...

I can already play all that stuff for free on my PS3's emulators.

Look what PS3 owners got for Christmas:

http://www.gran-turismo.com/jp/movie/d483.html
http://www.gran-turismo.com/jp/movie/d485.html

Free playable demo of Gran Turismo. After playing through Zelda, my Wii is pretty much sitting unused now. Metroid needs to come out soon...

Some of the facts aren't entirely straight: Both HD-Premium (GT5) and HD-Classic (GT4 HD) will be pakaged and sold together, and Yamauchi has stated it will be "cheap" (so its not full retail price). Most of the pricing has not been decided. It will have cars and tracks included, but there will be over 770 cars and 51 extra tracks that can be downloaded. The game will be designed more like an MMO where will be cars clubs (aka Guilds), teams, custimizable logos and license plates, online-tournaments etc will be included. The game will run at full 1080p(1980x1080) and 60fps. Ferrari has also been confirmed for the game. Official GT Hompage: http://www.gran-turismo.com/jp/sp/detail.do?articl e_id=376 http://www.gran-turismo.com/jp/sp/detail.do?articl e_id=375

Some of the facts aren't entirely straight: Both HD-Premium (GT5) and HD-Classic (GT4 HD) will be pakaged and sold together, and Yamauchi has stated it will be "cheap" (so its not full retail price). Most of the pricing has not been decided. It will have cars and tracks included, but there will be over 770 cars and 51 extra tracks that can be downloaded. The game will be designed more like an MMO where will be cars clubs (aka Guilds), teams, custimizable logos and license plates, online-tournaments etc will be included. The game will run at full 1080p(1980x1080) and 60fps. Ferrari has also been confirmed for the game. Official GT Hompage: http://www.gran-turismo.com/jp/sp/detail.do?articl e_id=376 http://www.gran-turismo.com/jp/sp/detail.do?articl e_id=375