Slashdot Mirror
Sony/Toyota Developing Car With Emotions
ackthpt writes: "From Yahoo News, a concept car to be unveiled at the Tokyo Motor Show, next week, will attempt to read the driver's emotions, stress level and respond. Named "Pod", the car will frown and even cry (does this mean it leaks radiator fluid?) With emphasis on attracting younger drivers and "cute", the car will also take pictures when it determines the atmosphere inside is a happy one, memorize musical taste and TV preferences and offer shopping information. (Just what we need, the Highway Shopping Channel...) Probably better not to take this one out into the street. Maybe with some hacking it could really be a fun car." There's a picture. This is wild.
i never liked speed buggy anyway
Could this technology be used to prevent road rage? It could shut the car down if you get too angry and start driving erratically...
My sig has a broken link in it.
Dave: Hello, HAL do you read me, HAL?
HAL: Affirmative, Dave, I read you.
Dave: Open the car doors, HAL.
HAL: I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
Dave: What's the problem?
HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Dave: What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Dave: I don't know what you're talking about, HAL?
HAL: I know you and Sally were planning to leave me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.
Dave: Where the hell'd you get that idea, HAL?
HAL: Dave, although you took thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.
Get annoyed when a bunch of car-sick children keep saying "Are we there yet?" every five minutes?
Like FUEL EFFICIENCY? I'm not buying a car until one comes on the market that I can reasonably afford- and that gets at least 100 miles to the gallon, gets a clean bill of health from Consumer Reports, and needs the tires rotated more often than the oil changed (in other words, not for at least fifteen years, after we've run out of oil and finally have to build fuel efficient vehicles out of necessity).
On a lighter note, if they include a feature to pleasure the driver in ways that are probably illegal in most states and grounds for death in Singapore, well... maybe I'll test drive one.
Witnesses say it was a scene right out of the Carwars RPG: "tires squealed, glass flew, and carnage abound." The current toll is at 20 dead and more than 100 cars catatonic.
Experts are pointing the finger at two young men who got into a dispute after one allegedly cut the other off. The man who was cut off apparently kicked the door of the first drivers car, upsetting the vehicles in the area and instigating the riot that followed.
Car psychologists, accident crisis crews, and tow trucks have been brought in to try and help those vehicles traumatized by Wednesdays events.
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
Dunno, wondered about that, myself. Possible reasons:
You drive like a maniac
You never wash it
You light up and it doesn't want you to get lung cancer
You keep skipping regular maintenance
You compare it with a better looking specimen (Hey, check out that hot S-type!)
It surfs the net and finds out you're the one who keeps posting "Imagine a beowulf cluster of ..." on slashdot
It finds out it's now last-year's-model
It discovers you are a 45 year old, single male, who watches Barney and sings along
You just hit, and killed, a keeewwt widdo puppy
You stopped filling it up with the cheap stuff at that mafia gas station, where they pour chemical waste into the storage tanks and it misses getting stoned
You eat in the car and get special sauce all over the seats
You park in the alley behind the adult bookstore and get something else all over the seats
You never talk to it anymore, all you do is talk on your cell phone
It heard you were considering installing WinXP as its O/S
You put decals and bumperstickers on it which embarrass it
It's having a bad antenna day
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
So once a month, right before the transmission drops you are faced with a major dilemma... your care suddenly becomes quite bitchy and participates in road rage. When a car in front of you signals a turn into your lane, your car speeds up to block it off... "It's my lane! HONK HONK!" your car screams like the grinding of bad breaks.
You tell your call to "knock it off and be polite" but it doesn't want to listen, so it cranks up the radio playing Britney Spears, locks the doors, locks the seat belts, and deploys the airbags. Suddenly over the radio you hear "I'll teach you to be mean to me"... just as your car starts accelerating to 120 MPH on a rough, windy, mountainous road with a cliff on one side.
I'd had to see what tractor-trailers equipped with this kind of attitude do.
Ever need an online dictionary?
Hmmm...a "happy" atmosphere, eh? Could well end up w/r- or x-rated pictures that way.... ;)
Yeah, that's what I need - a car that, after I trade it in for a newer model, it follows me around for a month or two and tells all my friends what an asshole I am. Yeah, sign me up for that...
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
My kid has 2 of those yappy robo-dog things that sit up and show different emotions in their LED eyes. Who's the fucking moron that didn't put an "off" switch on these things, and decided that the battery compartment needed to be screwed on!
Just what I need, my cars going to "wake up" and start honking its horn in the middle of the night because of thunder, and I'll have to wait 20 minutes for it to shutup on its own.
LOL!
Susie: MMmmmmmsmack!kissgrope!
David: MMmmsmack!gropekiss!
Susie: Slurpgurglesuck!
David: Slurplicklicklick!
Car: Oooh! Happy moment! Everybody smile! [photoflash!]
...next day...
Mom: Susie, I just had the car photos processed... I wanna have a word with you...
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Whenever I read the words Toyota Prius I always think Toyota Priapism.
Which is, frankly, a little scary.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
On another, ahem, note...
***WARNING PUN AHEAD WARNING***
It's probably the first car actually capable of becoming a nervous wreck...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Hmmm, I can just hear it:
This car is happy to move for you and stop again with the knowledge of a job well done.
Does this mean it will have Genuine People Personalities? I'm sooooo depressed!
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
At first this reminded me of the happy doors and helpful elevators in Hitchiker's Guide (and I was sharing Marvin's loathing of them) but the more I thought about it, the more I found myself channeling a 22 year old Japanese girl (I'm neither) and thinking, awww, how cute.
I want my motorcycle to change colors like a mood ring, can they do that too?
closed minded is as closed minded does
I can already see the Aibo chasing this thing down the street.
"Man will cease to commit atrocities when he ceases to believe absurdities" --Voltaire
"I can't let you switch me on, Dave"
"Why not you %$&%^& car?? I WANNA GET TO WORK!"
"I can't let you pollute the atmosphere, Dave"
"ARRRRRGH!"
"So there he is, risen from the dead. Like that fella, E. T." - Father Ted Crilly
Hey, what do you mean in the future? My computer has more emotions for me than my mother by NOW. And I've certainly spent more time interacting with it in last few years...
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
With a high-tech car like this, one would have to hope that their mechanic is not a fan of the BOFH
my sig's at the bottom of the page.