Linux-Powered Auto-Parking Car

megmag writes "A really cool project using a Linux P4 machine for automatic parking of a Volvo S60 was presented last week. Take a look at the video. That's how your parking problem should be solved. It is a final-year student project within the mechanical engineering department at Linköping University, Sweden."

Comments

This is cool

[AviLazar]

For the inept :) Then again I know a few women (no offense) who could really use this. Especially suburbanites :)

Re:This is cool

[MoonFog]

Why is this modded flamebait? Women, and also alot of men, really HAVE problems parking because it often involves driving in reverse. It doesn't help that you often have little time to do the parking because of the other cars waiting to get past you. Alot of people tend to turn the wheels the wrong way when driving in reverse.

Re:This is cool

[robertjw]

Personally I feel that any person that can't manage to park their car shouldn't be allowed to drive it at all.

Of course I also think that at least 80% of the people on the road are scarier than hell and shouldn't be allowed to drive. Don't believe me? Turn on your local news for the first snow storm of the season (if you don't get snow, find the Denver newscast - it's always humorus). I'm always amazed at the way people who live in an area that gets bad weather EVERY YEAR will wreck their car the first time there is three inches of snow. Maybe if we actually taught people how to drive there would be less traffic fatalities in this country - actually, probably not, Everybody knows that traffic accidents are caused by people not wearing their seat belt.

Re:This is cool

[Paulrothrock]

There was a show on the Discovery channel a while back about the differences between men and women. They were given the task of parking a car (VW New Beetle) in a space 1 foot longer than the length of the car. All of the men who tried could do it. Only 70% of the women could get it in. While not a definitive study, it does provide some non-anecdotal evidence that this is the case.

To be fair, in the same show they did an experiment where men and women were given a list of things to do in a time limit. Things like answering the door, the phone, cooking, cleaning, writing out a grocery list, and other basic household stuff. All but one of the men failed to finish in the time period, and experienced significantly more stress in accomplishing these tasks. They also tended to do one thing at a time and got flustered when their concentration was broken. All of the women had no trouble finishing the same tasks from the same list in the same environment.

Re:This is cool

[Last_Available_Usern]

I can reach over to the passenger side and roll the window down, but I'd much rather click a little button next to me that does it automatically. Doesn't mean I don't still know how to roll down a window.

Re:This is cool

[cloudmaster]

Sometimes I need to roll that window down while driving. Back before power windows, the speed limits were higher *and* people leaned over to roll their windows down. If you want a real shock, wait 'till I get hot enough to roll the *back* windows down while driving... ;)

Re:This is cool

[jswhiting]

I just hope nobody takes this anecdotal evidence and makes the wrong conclusion - that men and women have inherent, instrinctive, or otherwise natural propensities for either driving cars or making grocery lists.

Simply put, we get good at what we do, and we "do" gender differences all the time, therefore we get good at them :)

Re:This is cool

[WormholeFiend]

reminds me of a spoof "cigarettes kill" radio joke, modelled after the "drinking and driving ads".

You hear a guy driving, talking to himself "now where did I put my cigs... oh there they are -- on the back seat! hmmf hmmf hmmmf almost... almost..." *tires screeching* *CRASH!*

Voice-Over: "Don't Smoke and Drive"

Re:This is cool

[billcopc]

The only reason women get lower rates is because insurance agents, much like bankers, are too damn quirky to get laid, so they use favoritism to steer the materialistic socialites toward their pants.

Re:This is cool

[Paulrothrock]

Same show, different experiment.

Men and women were asked to draw a bike from memory. Women always had all the right parts, but rarely in the right places. Men rarely had all the parts, but always in the right places. There is a difference in how men and women's minds work. It's not that one is better or worse than the other, it's that they're different.

Re:This is cool

[jswhiting]

There are exhibitable differences in how men and women think and behave, no doubt, but who can show that these differences are not the result of a lifetime of training in a complex social environment under intense pressures?

Maybe you could do an experiment to show that men "have a higher capacity for algebra", or "have a higher capacity for mechanical engineering," by doing some basic tests. However, in our society, women are encouraged NOT to understand algebra and engineering. Why? Because a woman who does is unattractive!! Think about the stereotypes and the status quo here - imagine what the general student opinion would be of a girl in high school who took and aced advanced calculus? Do you think the guys would be "all over her"? What would her friends think? In the greater scheme of the social environment, we enforce gender difference in a very complex interlocking web of pressures.

Re:This is cool

[cloudmaster]

While "click it or ticket" is a nationwide program with federal funding, it's enforced by the states, and the money from the tickets goes to the state and county of issue.

Anyway, they're approaching the problem in the wrong way. The way to reduce problems due to accidents is to reduce accidents to begin with, not to make people safer if they're involved in an accident. A "no fault" accident is caused by incompetence or bad choices, in general. Enforcing turn signal usage would be a good way to prevent a whole pile of accidents (and a good way to prevent "road rage") before they happen, as would making people actually prove that they can drive *well* rather than just proving that they can memorize some following distances to pass a written test.

There needs to be a friggin' autocross course located behind each and every DMV, IMHO, and if you can't get the provided car (or your own, possibly) though the course in the prescribed time without running over some cones, then you can't navigate the streets adequately and therefore can't have a license. *That* would reduce the number of accidents, and would probably save more money than it'd cost. It'd also get some politicians voted out of office by the old and/or incompetent, and therefore won't happen. :(

Re:This is cool

[DaZedAdAm]

Well I happened to take my AP Calculus class two years ago with a girl who aced it and had guys "all over her." Not only that, but she was the homecoming queen, Miss , senior class president, and finished in the top 10 of our 367 in our class. Also, like me, she was a band nerd. She marched in the marching band, played in the symphonic band, tried out for all-state and other honor bands, and even became one of the three drum majors of our 200+ person marching band.

This girl was one of the most physically attractive, popular, and intelligent people in our school, while also being a math and band nerd.

Re:This is cool

[(54)T-Dub]

How does one get their car to "wrap around" and speed limit sign? Unless you are driving a golf cart wouldn't you simply plow over it? Maybe my exageration meter is broken.

Re:This is cool

[funshine]

No offense to anyone, but my personal pet peeve recently has been people who appear to be foreigners who are driving around in big cities and clearly do not know the rules of the road. Its wayyyy too easy to get a driver's license in California. :(

Re:This is cool

[mandalayx]

Personally I feel that any person that can't manage to park their car shouldn't be allowed to drive it at all.

I understand your sentiment: if someone can't even park their car, how can they drive?

But consider that parallel parking, in particular, might be a skill completely independent of actually driving. Here in Orange County you can have a complete and fulfilling driving life without EVER having to parallel park. There is some subset of those folks who are safe drivesr. Are you implying that they can't drive? Of course that's not the case.

It seems it has but one flaw

[foidulus]

whenever it parks behind Darl McBride's car, it keeps on slamming the gas and ramming into it...I wonder why

Re:It seems it has but one flaw

[ideatrack]

You're failing to see the potential in making a joke about Darl McBride being rammed from behind repeatedly, with a huge metal object.

Re:It seems it has but one flaw

[EvilTwinSkippy]

I dunno, but I keep seeing this message flash on the console when it does:

Jun 30 08:25:06 [parkd] Collision Warning
Jun 30 08:25:07 [parkd] SCOre!
Jun 30 08:25:24 [parkd] Backing up for another attempt...

what the?

[FatAlb3rt]

cool, but i really could've done without the shirtless guy. wtf?

Re:what the?

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

Another fine example why we need more women in engineering.

Re:what the?

[PetoskeyGuy]

There is another video without the guy. http://www.ikp.liu.se/evolve/2004/filmer/Park_auto .wmv

uhhhhh

[Choachy]

He can program a car to park itself, but he cant put on a shirt?

Video clip, my ass!

[Osgyth]

And here I was thinking that I might actually get to see the clip. But alas, all I saw was a 30 sec long logo. Silly me, I must be new here.

that space would almost fit two cars

[funkdancer]

video is cool, but now try doing it in a real world situation where you've got 60% of that space...

I was surprised to be able to download the vid at full speed, though. :)

Re:that space would almost fit two cars

[mirko]

When I was in Germany, they'd fine you if you 'd let less than a meter between your park and the next so it might be the worst still legal situation in Sweden too.

Re:that space would almost fit two cars

[MrSpiff]

I was surprised to be able to download the vid at full speed, though. :)

one reason would be that Linköping's University has a 2.5Gbit uplink to the 10Gbit backbone called SUNET, one of the (if not "the") fastest university networks in the world :)

Re:that space would almost fit two cars

[Sique]

I am German, and I never got fined for having less than a meter between my car and the next one. I can't also remember such a regulation from my driving lessons.

What may happen is that if the car parking next to you can't get out of its parking space, then you could get a fine for blocking it.

Re:that space would almost fit two cars

[dcsmith]

Hell, even I could park in that spot. They did a good job, but until they can park in a spot 8 inches longer than your car like in NYC, it doesn't have so much practical purpose.

Hell, I can carry a disk between computers faster than that 300 baud modem. If it can't transmit data any faster than that, it doesn't have much practical purpose. What's that? It'll get faster once people start using it and the technology improves? Huh. Who'd a thunk it?

Sheesh, people, lighten up. Proof of concept.

Re:that space would almost fit two cars

[AndroidCat]

Yup, you could park a small country in that space!

Did they use any kind of three laws of robotic parking?
1. I will not squash a human being.
2. I will not dent another car, except when this can not be observed by a human being that I can not squash.
3. I will not hang with my shiny metal ass out in the traffic. Blow horn and rules #1 and #2 can hang.
4. Restricted

Re:that space would almost fit two cars

[vrt3]

Not in Belgium. Check http://www.wegcode.be/wegcode/art25.htm (if you understand Dutch...):

Art. 25: parkeerverbod

* 25.1. Het is verboden een voertuig te parkeren:

1. op minder dan 1 meter zowel voor als achter een ander stilstaand of geparkeerd voertuig en op elke plaats waar het voertuig het instappen in of het wegrijden van een ander voertuig zou verhinderen;

Babelfish translation:

Art. 25: parkeerverbod

* 25.1. It has been prohibited park a vehicle:

1. parked on less than 1 meter both for and behind a another one stationary or vehicle and at each place where the vehicle getting in in or driving away a another vehicle would prevent;

Hm, I think I can bo better than the fish...

Art. 25: parking prohibition

* 25.1. It is prohibited to park a vehicle:

1. at less than 1 meter both before and behind another stationary or parked vehicle and at each place where the vehicle would prevent getting in or driving away another vehicle;

Suspicious

[PhysicsGenius]

The article notes that it uses ultrasound sensors to detect the curb and other cars, but I see there are a number of equally spaced white lines painted on the ground (farther out than parking lines are normally painted). How artificial was this test? Can it do arbitrary parallel parking?

Re:Suspicious

[dizdar]

that is because the parking lot that it is in is a normal parking lot. hence the lines pointing the wrong way.

Re:Suspicious

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Arbitrary parallel parking? Man they use a beowulf cluster for everything.

Why they used Linux...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

It crashed less than windows.

Re:Why they used Linux...

[eraserewind]

yeah, but having to type:

driver@volvo> park --parallel --time +5 --left

befrore getting out of the car gets to be a drag.

Re:Why they used Linux...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Sure beats: I see that you have activated that Automatic Parking System. Would you like to:

• Locate the nearest farmer's market?
• Park your car in the spot selected?
• Drive up a tree?
• Block in the guy who is trying to pull out of the spot you want?

Re:Why they used Linux...

[Ilgaz]

No, first

modprobe volvo.o
chmod /dev/volvo 666
etc etc etc

Re:Why they used Linux...

[dema]

Yes, as opposed to

Insert CD
Click Ok
Click Ok
Click Ok
Select I Agree
Click Ok
Click Ok
Click OK
Wait...
Click Finish
Click Ok
Restart
Login
Click Ok
Eject CD
PARK!

Linux-powered car

[amliebsch]

Gee, mine's still powered my gasoline.

Re:Linux-powered car

[Dolda2000]

Then wait until you hear this - from what I've heard, this Linux thing is actually free!

Funny, but if you look at the lines on the ground

[rsidd]

it looks like cars are supposed to park perpendicular to the edge there, not parallel. But both existing cars were also marked parallel.

mirror

[Chalex]

Here's a mirror of the 3.84MB video.

Nah, that's M$ parking, HERE'S linux parking

[potus98]

Check out this high-speed parking manuever!

[obligatory /. MS bash complete]

for when the site gets slashdotted

[haluness]

park.wmv

Re:Strange pull

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Only a geek would design a car that parked itself.

I personally prefer parking with a friend. Especially parallel parking.

Yeah I tried this once

[Stevyn]

I tried this with my laptop running gentoo once. It worked pretty well until I hit a wifi hotspot and it found 3 updates and started compiling for 8 hours.

Re:Yeah I tried this once

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Would have been ok too, but they just unrapped yet another release of glibc...

Would the results have been different I wonder

[Timesprout]

If a team of women had written the software ? hmmmm

Notice how much space is available to park the car

[forged]

I wonder if this will also work in tight spaces, where you end-up inching your way through.

Yep - good call..

[oz_ko]

Write an article about linux parking your car - post the video in WMV format...

And while they're at it...

[Last_Available_Usern]

...can they also add a subroutine that will automatically slow down your car when you pass an accident?

Parking meters

[GillBates0]

$699.00 per minute.
Only 25c, 10c and 5c coins accepted.
Meters enforced 24 hours.
Violators will be towed courtesy McBride Breakdown Services.

More information

[Creamsickle]

One of the students on the project is actually the kid of an old friend of mine. In case you're wondering, the Linux system they are using is a custom system based on the Gentoo-HA (High Availability) distribution. In addition to parking cars, the optimized P4 box is also allegedly used for many games of Quake. :)

Also, according to my friend, large quantities of pizza were consumed as an essential part of this project.

Interesting, but dangerous

[grunt107]

Self-driving vehicles (destination by traveler, drive by vehicle) are interesting, but the more removed people get from the driving responsibilities, the worse they actually drive - inattention AND inability both are rising. With the 'self-park', people will now lose another driving skill. That important? Not really - I have rarely PP'd (parallel-parked) - but I believe PPing gives important spatial vehicular training that helps in other driving areas.

Re:Interesting, but dangerous

[koreth]

Self-driving vehicles (destination by traveler, drive by vehicle) are interesting, but the more removed people get from the driving responsibilities, the worse they actually drive

Once the vehicles drive themselves, who cares? I've lost the ability to translate my high-level code into assembly language by hand, but I don't think I'll ever need to do that again, so I'm not losing sleep over it. If a particular driving skill is taken over (and done at least as well) by automation, then good riddance, the roads will probably be safer without a bunch of drunks and crazies weaving unpredictably back and forth.

Anyway, my guess is the first real self-driving will be on freeways, and people will still have to keep their driving skills up to snuff to get to the freeway and drive wherever they're going after they exit. I really doubt there'll be much degradation in driving skill if people are no longer forced to manually drive in a straight line for an hour with an occasional lane change to break the monotony. City street navigation is a much harder problem and I'm guessing it'll be a lot longer before we see it automated.

white cars only?

[harmanjd]

Does it only work if you park between two white cars?

Toyota

[pyreblade]

This is exciting and all, but the Japanese version of the Toyota Prius already does this.

Re:Toyota

[iggy3]

cool inventions 2003: Parking Space Invaders

Re:Toyota

[gearry]

If you RTFA, and then read this, you will see that what the two cars do is quite different. The Prius requires quite a bit of user interaction, whereas the system engineered with Volvo appears to require very little driver interaction, as well as the flexibility to be applied in vehicles with different steering systems.

Practical application

[Mordaximus]

If you can't parallel park, you shouldn't be licensed to drive.

But I can see a practical application of this device : Device determins if driver is an incompetent moron who should never have been issued a license, and if that is the case, automatically pull over, park and cut power to the engine.

Imagine the look on the asshole tailgater's face when upon pulling up within inches of your bumper, is denied control of his car, and pulls over to the side of the road (perfectly parked of course.)

Or the moron who is in such a rush that he thinks red lights are optional.

Or my personal pet peeve, the idiots who think signals are optional, and that everyone should just guess what their next move will be...

yup, I think I'd enjoy having the road to myself :)

Questions...

[Whispers_in_the_dark]

1) Who gets the bill when the system screws up and slams the nice $200K car instead of parking neatly next to it?

2) How does the system deal with engine/linkage issues. Cars don't provide smooth power/steering at all times. If the engine is out of tune or has a catchy throttle, can the system deal with that as well as/better than a human?

3) How is it told where to park? It would have been nice if it was clear in the video what the driver did to tell it that. The article alludes to some sort of analysis system for this, but I like pretty pictures. ;)

Pretty nifty anyway!

Re:Questions...

[Ryne]

I'm a student at that university. Not at that department though so I don't know very much about the project.

However, I saw another demo that had a short explanation. It has three cameras on the side of the car that can spot a free slot. So, when you want to park you say that to the computer and then you drive slowly past the line of cars. When the computer finds a slot that it deems is large enough it tells you to get your hands/feet off the wheel and pedals. Then it proceeds to park.

It actually looked pretty userfriendly and nice. I don't know how small gaps it can manage though.

Re:Questions...

[HokieJP]

2) How does the system deal with engine/linkage issues. Cars don't provide smooth power/steering at all times. If the engine is out of tune or has a catchy throttle, can the system deal with that as well as/better than a human?

The same way a human does it, feedback control. i.e. You measure your acceleration, and you adjust the throttle until you get the value you want. With the right control system, the computer should be able to do a better job than a person. This is actually a famous problem in controls, and has been much studied. I was a bit disappointed that the article talked more about the mechanics of interfacing with the car, but maybe they consider the controller a "solved problem"

3) How is it told where to park? It would have been nice if it was clear in the video what the driver did to tell it that. The article alludes to some sort of analysis system for this, but I like pretty pictures. ;)

It looks like it just scans to the car's right for a space large enough to hold the car. It alerts you when it finds one, and you probably just hit a button to "go to most recent available space". Since this is a prototype, it probably doesn't have a very sophisticated UI.

Re:Questions...

[Whispers_in_the_dark]

The same way a human does it, feedback control. i.e. You measure your acceleration, and you adjust the throttle until you get the value you want. With the right control system, the computer should be able to do a better job than a person. This is actually a famous problem in controls, and has been much studied. I was a bit disappointed that the article talked more about the mechanics of interfacing with the car, but maybe they consider the controller a "solved problem"

I appreciate the detailed article. I will confess up front that I am going to reply without reading the entire thing, but from what I read (could grasp quickly without resorting to formulae) it appears to describe a normal feedback system augmented by visual sensors.

The thing is, AFAIK, that people usually don't handle controls the same way a machine does. People (although my statistical sample is the smallish one -- myself) will remember how a machine reacts to their inputs and (attempt to) compensate when dealing with those controls. In addition to sight I also rely on hearing and vibration to tell me what the machine is doing. Machines, even ones sophisticated enough to employ a visual augmentation, don't have those (occasionally critical) advantages.

As an example, my minivan has a sticky accelerator first thing in the morning. I know this, so to make sure it doesn't jump when I try to back out I rev the engine a bit while still in park to clear the stickiness. It doesn't happen after the first start of the day but it has become ritual. A computer, unless employing a learning system or very well programmed, won't act the same way. A feedback system would normally just keep applying force until it got an expected reaction (motion). In my sticky-peddal problem the computer may very well have just rammed the car ahead/behind before realizing it got more force than expected. If I find excessive resistance in the pedal I don't go any further unless I'm SURE I'm in Park.

Maybe at the millisecond resolution computers can handle the feedback and the my sticky pedal issue isn't a problem (not being in that particular field of computing I wouldn't know). But I suspect those sorts of tactile-memory skills wouldn't transfer easily or well to a machine.

OTOH, I could be completely off base. It wouldn't be the first time! :)

Re:Nice, but...

[LighthouseJ]

I was going to spread some mod points around this topic, but I'll respond.

Both Honda and Chrysler are doing tests. On TV, I also saw an engineering school equip a Silhouette minivan with a computer that could drive the minivan. They did a test from the east coast to the west coast, and the car drove itself about 97.5% of the way across the country. A couple guys rode along in case, say, they encountered freshly paved areas with no lines on the road.

The minivan was equipped with color cameras and image recognition to find lines in the road, other vehicles and such. The main one was behind the rear-view mirror. It's harder because you can't use ultrasonic. They had to come up with algorithims to detect lines in the road. You'd need some method of differentiating flat yellow lines from a black background.

If Windows powered it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Clippy would say: "Looks like you are trying to parallel park. This feature is not currently installed. Please insert the Microsoft Parking CD."

Future Car concepts

[Colourspace]

I see a lot of people scoffing here but were on the brink of the next revolution in personal transport here and nobody seems to be taking notice. Just how long will it be before cars are wirelessly networked together, an onboard PC on each vehicle doing black-box, GPS navigation, localised proximity sensing and collision avoidance, parking, MP3 and entertainment etc - All of which we have the technology for now (but have not quite driven the cost out of yet) When these vehicles are networked via a mesh system to a basestation this could be used to the greater good for traffic networking (ie using data to redirect away from traffic hotspots) and accident/emergency uses. Of course there's privacy issues too - all of which need to be discussed. But if I see another 'linux won't crash' comment...

Re:Future Car concepts

[geoffspear]

When some script kiddie can wirelessly take control of the collision-avoidance system of random drivers' cars and crash them into mine, I for one won't want to be driving anymore.

Of course, at that point car insurance will cost more than your car, because the insurance companies sure as hell aren't going to trust the computers.

This reminds me of...

[fgb]

The system previewed in BMW Magazine a few months ago. As you drive by the parking space, it measures how big the space is and lets you know if the car will fit. If you tell it to park, it will take over the steering and acceleration. You retain control of the brakes so that you can stop it if necessary. I believe the article said that it would be available in the 6 series in a couple of years.

I don't believe they recommended that you got out of the car before the parking manuever was completed.

Re:Notice how much space is available to park the

[SilveRo_kun]

Dude, this is a student project.... It can be improved a lot if a company works on it. Actually, the japanese already came up with this

What about pedestrians?

[defile]

The hardest and most annoying part about parallel parking for me is constantly checking all of my blind spots to make sure that I'm not about to mangle a pedestrian/stick my car out into oncoming traffic.

How does the parking system handle that, I wonder.

Re:What about pedestrians?

[Iamthefallen]

It doesn't, that's why you control the accelerator.

Prague

[Alif]

Can it park in Prague?

Re:Funny, but if you look at the lines on the grou

[Diabolical]

Gee.. i dunno, perhaps because the parkinspace they tested this out on was layed out with perpendicular spaces instead of parallel, and they wanted to show how it worked with parallel parking space?

Re:Funny, but if you look at the lines on the grou

[ballpoint]

And both non-existing cars were ma/parked in the fourth dimension.

Pshoa.

[Mr_Icon]

If it could really park by itself, it would have to be able to do all of the following:

• Roam the parking lot for 20 minutes looking for a spot, with windows rolled down, blaring bad techno at the surrounings.
• Predatorily follow someone walking along the parking lot in the hopes that they will get in the car and pull out, and mouth them off in anger when realizing that they just wanted to pick up their wallet left in the car.
• Know not to park next to the door-dinging Canyonero.
• Mouth off at the "ass-clown in his fucking Porsche" who parked diagonally across two parking spaces.
• Yell "WHAT THE FUCK! THAT WAS MINE!" at the soccer mom who just pulled into the available space that you have spotted while four rows across and have been navigating to it ever since.
• Drop into neutral and rev up the engine behind the two old ladies who don't know any better to fucking get off the road.
• Bitterly bitch at the handicapped people for wasting perfectly good parking spaces that are never taken anyway.
• Say "that's it, I'm taking the goddamn bus next time!" at least once every two minutes while still circling the lot.
• Finally find a parking space after 30 minutes of circling, parking with the front wheels over the "absolutely no parking" line.
• Find that someone double-parked you upon your return, and be able to pull out over the curb, nearly leaving your exhaust pipe behind you.

Until then, don't talk to me about self-parking cars.

Imagine a ...

[Cyburbia]

... never mind.

obligatory

[Nspace13]

how long til someone learns to hack it. they stop by your car when your asleep and change a few numbers. the next day you park right into cars instead of next to them.

Toyota has done this

[drawfour]

Toyota has already done this, at least according to Wired. In August 2003, they said a Prius hybrid would be released in Japan in a month that did this. I heard Honda was doing something similar, but haven't heard any details.

Still, it's a cool project. Lots of drivers need all the help they can get. :)

Key point missed

[Rei]

The key thing that people seem to be missing about this article is not the automation, but the fact that this is a *Linux Powered Car*. Bush has been pushing hydrogen, but Linux power is really the power of the 21st century.

Of course, I probably won't switch - my XML powered car has been working just fine for now.

Already been streamlined

[crache]

I knew this looked familiar: Self-Parking Car Available In Japan

CALL FROM THE FRONT DESK!!

[lcsjk]

(Over company intercome)Could I have your attention? Someone left an unparked car out front with the motor still running. Did one of you engineers drive your wife's car again today?

I find this amazing.

[Atario]

I had no problem getting it either -- a 3.8 meg video in about a minute, linked directly on the front page of Slashdot...from an overseas server. Now that's impressive. Screw the car, tell me how they pulled off that bandwidth!

LINUX Real-Time Target

[Knacklappen]

RTFA'd, saw the movies. Where does it say Linux?

Nowhere, that's how I got to the conclusion that this story must have been submitted by one of my colleagues (am associated to that department, myself)... :)

As far as I remember, the computer controlling the electro-servo hydraulics actually *is* powered by Linux. I suppose it was RTLT, because the students and several of my colleagues did much modelling in Simulink.

Well, there is some more information available, but this year's students did not as equally good a job of documenting their project as the 2003 students (Swedish only, though)...

That's great, but...

[Poseidon88]

I'll be really impressed when they can make it drive around the lot and find a space by itself.

What a collosal waste of time....

[switcha]

C'mon, people. Why waste time with this shit? It's too late. The Segway is going to revolutionize the way we build cities and it's already here! Did you hear me? The way we build cities!