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The Future of the Car
Gandul writes "Radar, lasers, wireless radio networks and other embedded tech will enable our cars to sense faraway traffic and stop accidents before they happen. But who will be in the driver's seat?"
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Help! Help! It burns!
Just like always. Either that or Microsoft. :P
flying cars
that is all.
But who will be in the driver's seat?
Whoever's driving the car, duh.
Disconnect and self-destruct, one bullet at a time.
Where is my flying car? It is the 21st century and we were promised flying cars. Where are they?
What do you know I wrote a novel
What will they be fueled with?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
The vast majority of accidents are caused because human beings are either incapable or unwilling to drive a vehicle safely. Because of this, we have lost many civil liberties. Due to safety concerns, the police can pull you over and search your vehicle at almost any time without real justification.
I'd rather have robots drive.
The robotic guy who says, "You're in a Johnnycab" when you ask where you are. Oh yeah, here's some fun trivia for ST Voyager fans (all 8 of us): Robert Picardo, the holodoctor, was the voice of Johnnycab.
Advice for my fellow geeks: before seeking out that threesome you dream of, you might see what a TWOsome is like first.
1. people will still drive
2. cruise control will advance to auto-following
3. diesel hybrids will take over, achieving awesome, high double digit mileages
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
Title says it all ;)
Roses are red
Violets are blue
In Soviet Russia
Poems write you!
my genetically engineered chauffeur-lemur
duh
We can all sleep tonight.
I really do think they need to start focusing on a rail type system that does all the driving for us. If we finally would convert roads to a electromagnetic railway system (like the bullet train) and just program cars to drive and stop when they need, then we would have a much much better system than we have now. This completly gets rid of Car insurance, gas, 95% of death related accidents(I would have the 5% is left for cars that malfunction), drunk drivers, pollution, and many other negative aspects.
I definitely think it would takes a lot of time to complete and would cost a ton of money. But we as citizens and as a country would save a whole lot more money having this implemented as a final solution to all of the stable and rising issues that circles around transportation.
Who cares, as long as it isn't me. I hate driving.
I'm more curious about what the car will be running on now that oil prices are skyrocketing and there are dire words about peak oil.
Imagine having your own car that can drive you on its own, and you can sit in the back doing whatever you want, be it getting another hours rest on the way to work, watching a movie on the way home, fooling around, getting drunk, you name it.
The drinking aspect alone would make this a best seller. Can you say "Designated Driver comes standard with this model!"
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
The vast majority of accidents are caused because human beings are either incapable or unwilling to drive a vehicle safely
This is plain truth. Most accidents are caused either because the drivers chose to drive wrecklessly and/or under the influence, or were caused simply because human reaction time is not as good as computers' reaction time.
Because of this, we have lost many civil liberties.
This is also true, and quite an insight. Think about random road blocks where you're tested for being under the influence even if you're NOT driving wrecklessly or even swerving. The equation is simple: am I willing to give up a little bit of my privacy to prevent myself from being killed? Generally, yes! Of course! But, if drunk driving didn't cause accidents because people weren't driving, there would be no need to pull this person over.
Mods, please please please stop modding based on your own beliefs, and rather based on the intelligence of people's responses -- I'm going to get modded down for that, eh?
Me. I'll have no parts of these new cars.
They suck. Assembled in Mexico from Chinese parts.
Garbage. OVERPRICED garbage..
My car is 30 years old and it still runs fine and looks fine. How is that? It was made in Germany where they appreciate and exercise quality control.
I have several trucks that are 20 years old or older.
Guess what? I can fix them all myself. There is nothing in any of them that I can't troubleshoot or repair.
I wouldn't have one of these new cars that you can't work on without $100,000 car-o-scope and a PHD..
Screw that. I've never taken a car to be repaired by someone else except one time when I was traveling and had no tools.
Son of a bitches told me the transmission was blown and it was going to cost me $800 to have it fixed.
I told them to stick up their ass.
They put the transmission in the trunk and I called a tow truck to bring it home for me. My dad came out to help me with it. The repair cost $24 in parts and took one day. That was the LAST time I ever took anything to someone else for repair. And that means anything.
I get the service manuals, schematics, tools and test equipment for every thing I own, what tools or skills I don't have, my dad can cover as he's good with cars.
Bottom line, I'll never purchase a new car, ever, for any reason. The older the vehicle, the better I like it.
It has generally been the trend that the more complex a system becomes, similarities it will have to the foundations of the modern operating system. ATMs are a prime example of machines that started as moderately sophisticated PCBs and now routinely run Windows Embedded.
If a vehicle is "smart" enough to handle driving, it will have the computational power and flexibility to run reasonably sophisticated software. Consider that increasing wireless bandwidth (WiMax, anyone?) will lead to offloading the heavy-duty positional and map processing to a remote service over the Internet, with the software to display becoming a thin client for a remote database. A clever programmer will find a stack overflow in MapQuestClientForYourCar and BAM! Suddenly cars are automatically veering for each other instead of away.
The level of scrutiny and security applied to such systems will have to be on par, or higher than, such applications as air traffic controlling before it can be considered safe.
Rex is 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
that is a very small article.
I think you are missing one very important point. Once the following car has a decent amount of space between itself and the car in front of it, it can go back up to 60 mph, maintaining the buffer space.
Technoli
Of course non-destination based travel idiosyncracies(sp?) arise because it is taken for granted that someone has to drive the car. Hence you have "cruising the strip", "joy-riding", "drive-in movies", and other random and BASICALLY useless things.
The main point im trying to make here is that there is no BIG, SCARY revelation in... "OMG WHO IS DRIVING THE CAR?!?!!! W3 4R3 S0 PWN3D!!!"...who cares, we will always get where we need to be and if worse comes to worse i bet they will even let us sit in the front seats so we can feel like we are still driving.
if these systems truly make the roads safer by avoiding and mitigating hazardous actions, then it would also be useful to raise the speed limits to compensate.
That might be sort of fun.
So long, and thanks for all the fish
Big Brother, of course.
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
If your falling a sleep on the highway, perhaps you should have made an effort to get a good 8-9 hours sleep the night before.
Our vehicles don't need to become more complex - automakers need to focus first on making vehicles that dont fall apart while your driving them. Just go to the library and take a look at all the vehicle problems in the Lemon-Aid guides. If automakers can't make vehicles with reliable tie-rods or good quality alternators - then why would i want to ask them to add problems?
Ok, in today's world, i'll support alot of convienient things, like dishwashers and indoor plumbing, but i will never purchase a car that can drive itself. This takes the fun out of it, and i dont trust a computer to replace a human. Also, a knowledge gap would form. If you went from a vehicle with backup sensors to a vehicle without, would you be able to do the job? how about a new driver in 10 years time when all cars have sensors? would he/she be able to step into an older vehicle and be able to drive it? And vehicle ad-hoc networks are a good idea, untill you go to a city like victoria bc in canada. cars last so long here, there would not be enough vehicles with the system to see any benifits.
So i ask why? Why would you want to add things that will require maintenance? why would you want to increase the cost of vehicles? Why?
You are confusing me with someone who cares.
Or the Saudi's will be in the drivers seat.
The ad-hoc wireless networking the article talks about could be great for notifiying other drivers of speed traps. But what happens to the system when someone poisons it with misinformation...say
directing the navigation system to recommend a detour that is the middle of a huge traffic jam.
All the tools needed for accident avoidance already are in place in vehicles:
Brakes - now even better with ABS.
Lights - To see and to be seen.
Windshie1d - Permits driver to see outside the vehicle, presumably to see other vehicles, people, and other hazards.
No computer assistance will help at all while idiots are still in control of the vehicle. Want less accidents? Put everyone on rail based transport who cannot pass a battery of tests that measure: IQ, reactions, literacy(this is a big one), driving skills. Anyone who wants to drive should be forced to take extensive and expensive driving courses, then have to pass said tests.
Steering Wheel - To manuever the vehicle.
Tires - Tire technology has come along way, safer and more reliable tires.
The problem is that most people are morons and shouldn't be allowed behind the wheel of any vehicle.
Entropy just isn't what it used to be.
Bear is driving, how can that be!
Automatic speed control will never happen. Not because the tinfoil-hat brigade will be successful in lobbying against it, but rather it'll be the law enforcement personnnel who will kill it. Speeding fines are too large a part of the police budget, and that opportunity must be maintained. The police vehemently oppose any measure that justifies a reduction in the number of officers required. The insurance companies will probably oppose anything that eliminates fender-benders, too. Fatal accidents cost them money, but the fender-benders are income generators.
I'm not paranoid, just following the money.
I held still, gazing at her as a anal red flush rose up her body, as pleasure washed over me. It isn't enough to avoid the crash, but the impact speed is about half what it would have been without the new system.
The next generation of environment-sensing cars will use more than just radar and infrared sensors to watch for signs of trouble. Anal stretching fingers in your cunt are making it hard for you to breathe. Video cameras will look for stoplights that have turned red and for children who are running toward the road. Distance-sensing lasers will check for vehicles in the driver's blind spot and the passing lane. These sensors won't do anything that a vigilant driver can't already do, but what if they could? What if your car could sense road conditions and traffic problems that are out of your sight? First, anal penetration and then get a big facial or swallow a massive load of cum. That's coming too.
informative?!?!
Once the buffer is there, the trailing car will go the same speed as the car in front of it or else the buffer will increase.
Behold the All-Seeing, Self-Parking, Safety-Enforcing, Networked Automobile
But does it have Auto-Birdy for those tough commutes?
Table-ized A.I.
Yes. People will run linux, but drive Microsoft.
Now I need to learn how to program my car for fast and the furious!
1)Put GPS in some cars.
2)Track GPS on roads, and network all connections, so the computer can determine 'average road speed' by the last car to drive that road.
3)Have the computer determine bottle in the trip you are taking in case it has a faster route for you to go. If it has a faster route for you, it will tell you.
It would be very simple to actually get to work, as we have all the technology already: GPS and Mapping Software.
God spoke to me.
Hasn't this dumb shit been on the drawing board for like, 20 fucking years? Last I heard they were planning on rolling it out in Orlando, which of course never happened. Is this any closer to fruition now?
A revolving plastic torso with an annoying voice named Johnny, who randomly bursts into flames, that's who!
How about you have to get a license, in addition to the regular driver's license, that shows you can handle a non-enhanced (not sure what to call it) car. Or, maybe include it in the regular driver's test.
Oh, and cars don't last forever. They can last a damn long time for sure but even in Victoria they won't last indefinitely. This seems to be more of an eventual goal, that starts with making smaller steps, to be reached many years from now (article says networked cars will only start roll out in 2010). And, the network won't be a necessity, just an additional sensor that allows for an even better sense of the area around the vehicle. I do hope they can improve the quality though. Some cars do struggle seriously in this dept.
Driving is freedom. What you seem to advocate is giving up all the rest of the control we have. If all cars are robotically driven, it will take about six seconds for the government to mandate where they can and can't go - for your safety.
People seem so willing to give up freedom in exchange for safety. Seat belts. Helmets. Speed limits. Astronauts, the modern epitome of risk-taking adventurer, now have to be kept perfectly safe, even.
Tyranny is looking less and less like Big Brother and more and more like Big Mother.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
Like the RUF?
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Due to peak oil.
If an American-made Boeing jet is about to go outside the envelope, a cockpit alarm sounds, but the stick still responds.
But every Boeing airliner uses a yoke, not a stick. And Boeing F/A-18E/F's have FLCS soft g-limits as well.
This is one of the funniest things I have read on slashdot. Good find.
Let's look at the list of advantages:
*No worries about Opec raising prices
*Unmatched acceleration ability. If you hit the accelerator pulling out of a light and see craters out the window, you've gone too far. Turn around and drive toward the round blue orb.
*Sure, you might get tailgated. But not twice by the same person!
I think the future of the car is dual-mode vehicles. That is, a car which operates as today's cars do, but which can also drive up onto a monorail. One design is the RUF. On ordinary roads, it runs off batteries. Not a trunkfull of lead-acid batteries, but a modest battery, sufficient to get from home to the nearest monorail. Maybe a 50 mile trip max. Once on the monorail, electrical pickups power the vehicle. On the monorail, the vehicle is mechnically inherently safe. Braking works by gripping the monorail, not relying on the weight of the vehicle and a constant coefficient of friction with the road. So with reliable braking, vehicles can form a phalanx, to increase traffic density and reduce wind resistance.
Vehicles on a monorail will drive a 90 MPH, and do so with great safety. Even grandma, because the cars are computer-controlled on the monorail. You designate your exit, and the computer takes care of routing you. Each car does its own routing based on global traffic announcements. Just like BGP4 on the Internet.
Damn but I'd like to say "Take me to Boston and exit onto Boylston St." and then read a book, or fall asleep, or use the Internet access provided by the monorail connection.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Sure, you fixed the cars, but tagging all the deer that pop put into traffic will be a bitch. You know crap like this would only fly in places where the only scenery is either pavement or desert.
There are a few too many "anal" references in there that weren't in the actual article.
Ha. ha. funny. You got a few moderators to mod it up.
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
HAH, My new Ferrari puts 720 horses to the brakes and is running a 7ghz dual core PENTIUM 5! POST YOUR 1/4mi and million-digits-of-pi times here!
You're free to do whatever you like on private property. Keep in mind that public roads are based on socialist ideals, so any restrictions are done for the good of the majority. If you want freedom, then lobby your government to stop spending tax money on roads and highways.
I personally be fine with allowing motorcycle drivers to not wear helmets if they were willing to waive their rights to public healthcare and their family's right to welfare.
Are you the scriptwriter for NUMB3RS?
fuck all those lasers and radar, where is my Johnny Cab?
There is truth in humor.
Ford/Volvo is doing safety testing for cars that will take over if the driver falls asleep at the wheel. http://media.ford.com/newsroom/release_display.cfm ?release=17087
. . . by humans at the wheel: acceptable risk. One death caused by a computer at the helm: lawsuit of Biblical proportions.
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
The Lexus mentioned in the article decides for you how hard you should be braking in an emergency. I wonder if you can turn that off ... That's just one example of computer interference in the article.
My car has traction control. I couldn't get it without it. It has a "Trac Off" button, but it doesn't completely turn off. It still chooses to apply brakes to wheels when it thinks I took a corner too fast.
I hate to tell you this, Toyota, but I can drive better than your computers in the dashboard can. Please let me drive my car ...
I'm all for this sort of technology in cars. But I hope they make cars without it, or at least offer cars with a real off button.
In soviet russia, You ask not what country do for you, but what you do for country!
Oh wait...
The upper-middle-class (both those that have lots of money and those who have lots of education) will be buying hybrids and other smaller cars that get very good fuel economy.
As the price of gasoline continues to go up, people who are currently driving giant SUVs (here I'm talking about Mommy going a mile to the supermarket in a vehicle that is almost as big as a space shuttle) will sell them off to the lower middle class and working class people.
Then as they break and wear out, the working class people won't repair them. Instead they will strip out the non-functioning systems. Here's a scenario from 2008:
Some light on the dash goes on that says "Engine problem". You take it to the dealer who charges you $80 to plug in an OBD cable and find out what the problem is. They say that it's a bad Bi-Nitrogen Catalytic Emission sensor (don't tell me that this doesn't exist, I know it. This is a scenario). It has an 89 cent microcontroller and a $3 relay in a $2 little plastic box. It costs $369.87 and you have to replace all four if one goes out because there 'calibrated' to each other.
So is the working-class guy going to replace the dohickey? No way. He goes to his brother-in-law's cousin who knows this guy who can take care of these little SUV problems. Year after year the car works less and less. Finally it doesn't pass emissions testing and can't get a registration renewal. Joe Six-Pack just say's the hell with it and drives it anyway, maybe even with a fake license plate year sticker.
One day the cops stop him and run the VIN through the DMV computer. They confiscate the vehicle and tow it. It gets sold at a police auction to a wholesaler who sells it again to an illegal immigrant no questions asked, no papers. It's back out on the street.
This is the real future of the car. Millions and millions of loud, junky, polluting, giant stupid and ugly half-broken SUVs. All driven by guys with no money and serious attitude problems.
Thanks a lot, Detroit. It's nice to know that we can count on you for well-balanced long-term positive solutions to our tranportation needs! How's you stock ratings? Still as junky as the SUVs that you sell?
The future of the car is very bleak given that at the current rate of oil consumption we have enough reserves (optimistically) for 40 years. Even that is irrelevant because oil production will peak over the next few years when demand is soaring in Asia.
Forget about Hydrogen, it's only a means of energy storage not a source. There is no way we could biuld the infrastructure let alone produce enough hydrogen or hydrogen powered vehicles.
Forget about LNG, there's no way we can replace even 5 million barrels of oil equivalent given that natural gas will peak in the next 15 years and North America has peaked already.
Forget about biogas/biodiesel, most of it doesn't even have a positive net energy return.
I would hazard a guess that if we maxed out all the alternative liquid fuels that we could use for air/road transportation we might make up less than 5% of global oil demand. That's a guess, I would be interested in some real numbers.
Don't give me any of that "The markets will automatically react, adjust and allow alternatives to become economically viable" BS. The economic system that we live in depends on growing energy supplies to feed the system so that people can pay the interest on their loans. The energy supply is going to stop growing then start declining and the worlds economies will crash to various degrees: The larger they are, the harder they will fall.
Personally I think hardly anyone will be driving cars in 10 years time.
But only after his license is reinstated...
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
Look at all the millions of people that die each year from car crashes. Systems like these could save those lives.
That's a good enough reason for me.
It would in fact be faster. Computers will give a chance to each other and hence would not get caught somewhere where it's impossible to find a small hole to pass.
Slashdot anagrams to "Sad Sloth"
I've actually worked for a number of years on autonomous vehicle technologies, and am more than passingly familiar with most of this stuff.
Wireless ad-hoc traffic information networks run into some major security issues. How do you establish trust? If the trust model is basically wide open, then antisocial people are going to put together systems which look at your route and start telling other cars "Avoid these roads at all costs! It's backed up for miles!", so that their own personal drive is relatively free of cars.
How do you prevent this? Do you require warnings from multiple sources before you believe them? Then you've just increased the required critical mass before usability by an order of magnitude. Do you trust that automobile makers can put together some sort of embedded crypto system that's "secure enough" and "tamper proof"? Well, that's worked so well for the DRM people, hasn't it?
Of course, if you're relying on the wireless system for safety, you're essentially giving the ability to swerve/brake hard to systems you don't own, so the matter of trust becomes even more significant, and liability becomes killer. Any way you tie the systems together to try to keep people safer, there's someone who's going to argue (with a non-negligable probability of success) that you should have done it a different way, and now you owe someone $millions.
In addition, liability is going to keep this stuff down for a while yet. No autonomous system is ever going to be perfect, and when dealing with loss of human life, liability more or less demands perfection. If I could put together a fully autonomous system tomorrow which provably had 99% fewer accidents than human drivers, I'd still get sued by the 1%.
This is the primary reason all remote sensing tech on the market today is in the form of "driver assist". If your system screws up, it's still primarily the driver's responsibility to avoid accidents.
I'm not a complete pessimist. I don't think the issues I'm raising are insoluable, and I believe we'll have good autonomous systems eventually. I just think the problems are fundamentally hard, and the legal environment doesn't help; it may be a few decades before the more exotic stuff gets into production cars.
You any your buddies have just spent a night drinking. Nobody was nice enough to be the designated driver, and everyones broke from buying rounds of drinks (so no taxi)
Cop see's your car, driving normally, but you're asleep at the wheel. He pulls you over, starts giving the DUI tests. Touch your nose while standing on one foot, recite the alphabet backwards, touch your fingers, etc. You're obviously smashed.
Are you really driving drunk though? All you did was tell the car "take me home".
When cars do start driving themselves, i'm sure this argument will be fought out plenty of times in court. Judges will probably be prone to "let the law stand" as it goes as to not set a precedent.
I know in California (where I live) technically, having your keys in the ignition while intoxicated is considered by the state to be "driving while intoxicated" even if the motor is off. The law varies from state to state though, some states don't actually consider it operating a motor vehicle until you actually turn the ignition key and put the car in drive(such as texas).
I can't wait to see how this all pans out. Good food for thought.
Screw it all. I still want a Subaru Impreza WRX STi powered by gasoline making 20 mpg on a good day. Cars aren't tools.
no joke here, has anyone watched 'ex-driver'? it deals with all the issues of automated driving, it's cyber punk for the car enthusiasts, 6 episodes and a movie yes animated but well done ^^ go try it out. it is dubbed if ya insist on english, couldn't tell ya how well though.
In Soviet Russia, car already drives self!
Luke, what's wrong? You've disabled your targeting computer!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I see no reason why shotgun rules would not apply.
Just because you can't afford simple modern monopoly-priced diagnostic equipment doesn't mean it's useless or made the job any harder either.
Fixed.
"Still as junky as the SUVs that you sell?"
Yup, still as junky as the SUVs YOU buy.
The profit margin on truck based SUVs is huge. You, the consumer are willing to pay way over the odds for something that uses 1970's technology and a modern body. Quite why YOU are so happy to do this is a mystery to me, but, given that YOU want to pay me to do it, I am happy to oblige, since the profit margins n the rest of the range are pretty lousy. Incidentally did you know that Toyota claim a return on sales of 1% in Australia? It's not just the big 3 who find it hard to make money.
Car makers are price takers, not price makers.
http://www.venganza.org/
Decay! Decay! Decay! -Helium
I fully believe a 'puter can drive your car to follow another car safe than a human.
But what about all the other unpredictable crap that happens? Humans can react with a level of intelligence that computers cannot. Will it react to the hard-to-see deer at dusk that bounded in front of my car on my way home a few weeks ago? I saw it in plenty of time, anticipated its action, and slowed way down so I wouldn't hit it. Will the computer do that?
Will the computer notice the dog that just darted out into the road?
Will it notice that the pack of bicyclists about to be passed will need to swerve out into the car lane in several seconds to avoid some trash on the roadside? Will it anticipate and move over to give them room like I can?
If it cannot do those things, I don't want to let it anywhere near my car.
The vast majority of accidents are caused because human beings are either incapable or unwilling to drive a vehicle safely.
To get the hell away from them before their next accident.
Driving slower makes you the target for the next accident.
Good luck out there.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Read "the age of spiritual machines" by Ray Kurzweil. He goes beyond this Car business, into what will Man become as we see the technology progress at the current rapid pace. Will we loose our own identity and be assimilated into what can only be defined as a cyborg? cyborg being a human that's been 'enhanced' with numerous implants.. for eyes (contacts) for hearing (hearing aid), memory implants, physical implants (stronger limbs) tracking devices (RFID capsules) etc. etc.
I don't think this will ever become practical because the calculations and sensors and reliable communications really required to do this properly are going to be out of reach for a long time.
Imagine a simple accident on a crowded highway - most cars slow down but one doesn't get the message, and comes upon the accident simply too fast to stop as dictated by the laws of physics and traction. Blam! An accident that did not have to happen if a driver could have seen the whole thing from further away.
Is a computer supposed to really anticipate if an object by the side of the road is a hazard or not? I guess you bikers are out of luck because you'll confuse the hell out of the AI.
I can also see humerous stories about things like flying debris from a truck going through the windshield of a car, which then arrives at the destination with a dead driver. Great I guess because no-one else got hurt, possibly bad if a real driver could have seen the debris and swerved and didn't have to die to start with.
Take responsibility away from drivers and they really will abdicate all attention away from the road, meaning the most intelligent part of the car is out of commission. How soon to we get AI's that equal human intellect?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Oh, wait, this wasn't a poll, was it? Nevermind.
Stop learning! Only you can prevent esoterrorism.
Since the probability of one person as awesome as myself reading slashdot is as close to zero as possible, it's safe to assume that you are my inferior, and therefore fair game for my petty jabs.
/., the probability is now ONE
Since you ARE reading
Suchetha
learn from yesterday, plan for tomorrow, party tonight
or one out of three ain't bad
The person in the drivers seat will be the same person who is driving now. Why? Because the pundits that write about this stuff have been proclaiming we're going to have all these fancy gadgets to drive our cars "real soon now" since I was teenager (and I passed 'teen' 24 years ago).
Just like all those mythical flying cars.
I'll believe cars are going to have that stuff when they start coming off the showroom floor with it installed. Until then, its not worth even thinking about it much.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Why, Clippy, of course.
a t/winauto/default.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/embedded/getstart/devpl
Clippy: "I see that you are attempting to apply the brakes. The Microsoft Brakes 2006 feature is not currently Installed. Please insert Microsoft Automotive Disk #7 in order to Install Microsoft Brakes 2006."
What? You'd prefer a "Johnny Cab?"
or will not be
who cares about the bells and whistles what we want is
a car that doesn't consume gas but has another source
of power that doesn't pollute and rely on foreign imports.
As far as the driver seat goes, the pleasure of driving
is too great to give to a machine.
...stuck in future traffic
Peak oil? Who cares? Let's build more SUVs that get 10 to 12 miles to the fucking gallon. While these folks are paying $5 per gallon and up, I'll take the money and run all the way to the bank. I'll be dead before the oil runs out anyway so it's not my problem.
I'd bet anyone $100 that this is ultimately what those fat cats at the big three are thinking deep down inside, and I'll bet another $100 that this is what Dubya and your republican controlled Congress is thinking, too. How else do you explain them passing that piece of shit they call an energy bill?
It's safer. I'd much rather be alive, but short a buck of gas every month, than dead.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Engine fuel consumption is based on displacement and load. To use less fuel, you need less of a load (weight), or reduce the time (final speed). If you are accelerating slowly to 50, you'll find it has the same load as accelerating quickly to 50. This is, if you integrate the fuel consumption curves for both, the area is very close (around 1-2%).
A better way to minimize load (since romping on the gas doesn't affect mileage nearly as much as people think it does) is to make your average speed higher. By having your average speed higher, you reduce the time you spend loading your engine with acceleration, and keep it in the nicer "maintain velocity" part of the curve. It's even better if you maintain velocity at a slower speed, so as to reduce wind resistance. Most cars have a pretty bad wind resistance, even today!
How do you keep a higher average speed? When you know a light is going red a couple of blocks ahead, let yourself coast to it, instead of gasing up to it. If you know the period of the light, slow down very early, coast in at the slower speed, and then arrive just as it's changing. You won't have to stop, and you'll not have to accelerate over whatever speed you kept! This is also good for winter driving (less braking = less chances to lose grip on the tires).
One thing you'll notice with this is that most people tend to gas as hard as they can, slam on the breaks, and then jack rabbit when the light changes. By slowing early, you'll end up next to them at the light for a second, but pass them because you'll still have all your momentum working for you!
Mainaining a higher speed in corners is good, too. Just make sure your tire pressures are correct (check every 2nd time you fill, depending on tire quality), and learn how to handle your car. Note that most SUVs are not stable at cornering above 17mph/27kph, but a car like a late-1980s Accord can do 90 degree turns at around 28mph/45kph!
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
*Robot runs in flames*
Robot: Why was I programmed to feel pain!
Son of a bitches told me the transmission was blown and it was going to cost me $800 to have it fixed.
I told them to stick up their ass.
They put the transmission in the trunk and I called a tow truck to bring it home for me. My dad came out to help me with it. The repair cost $24 in parts and took one day.
Sorry to point this out. But the parent poster hasn't given us enough information for us to deduce to whether this repair was truly a huge ripoff.
The repair only cost him $24 in parts, but he didn't specify what the problem actually was. Transmission repairs can be very labor intensive. He didn't say how long the repair took in hours either (and keep in mind this is two people working together). On a front wheel drive, transverse mounted engine, you might find transmission removal to be a simple bolt-off affair, but on an older, rear wheel drive car removing a transmission may mean hoisting an engine or removing major suspension parts.
So to give a more accurate comparision between these two jobs consider:
* The shop is charging probably $60/hour in labor for the repair. The poster had "free" labor (I'm sure beer was involved).
* The shop has various environmental/shop fees it charges. Not to mention state taxes.
* The shop repair undoubtedly has a warranty of some sort (many shops give 1-3 yrs/12-36,000 mi depending on what they're doing).
* The tranny was already off the car by the time the poster started working on it. (I'm sure the shop wanted some reimbursement for the time they spent pulling it).
* The poster had to have his car towed home to work on it - that wasn't free.
There are many problems with the tranportation systems.They waste energy.A simple human error should not result in a fatality.Seatbelts are a sign that a system is not safe.I want a tranportation system that works.I want a transportation system that is so simple that a dog could use it. I want it to be fast and smooth.I dont want to rely on fighter pilot drugs or large bummpers for my safty.Our transportation system belongs in the dumpster.
There's been at least two Hydrogen cars that I know of that ran off tap water from the garden hose. But both the dudes that did it got capped off. We had this fucking technology since 1990. It's past time to start taking out the fucking Big Oil Boys one at a time. These fucking cars and the greedy (cap them too) are going to be the death of 5 billion people!
I would have to say that it will be Microsoft Longhorn^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HVista Embedded, AKA "Vista Cruiser(TM)".
Microsoft's Trusted Computing Platform asks "Where do you want to BSOD and crash today?"
nt
The future of the car is...
A very large percentage of BMWs and VWs on the road exhibit some electrical problem. These are visible to other drivers as blown out lights. I rarely see burnt out lights on Honda and Toyota vehicles but see them all the time on BMWs (Mercedes is a totally different class of vehicle). My American-made Honda has more American content than a typical vehicle from Detroit. The US parts content of my Accord is 75%. Many American cars are 65% North-American (not just US). So I guess that makes me more patriotic since I'm doing more to support the U.S. labor force than those true blue (I mean red) die hards who only by vehicles from Detroit.
I'd like to see a vehicle option to install cameras and a video recorder to prove who's at fault in an accident.
signature pending slashdot approval
California is already beginning to build an infrastructure for a hydrogen future. Thankfully there's no silly messing around with biodiesel (which is complicated and requires farming). Their main site is here:
..and there's a map here:a ps.pdf
..are one of the key companies that seem to be making the equipment for a fueling station. There are also a bunch of car manufacturers participating like GM, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, Honda, Nissan and BMW... full list here:
r s.htm
http://www.hydrogenhighway.ca.gov/
http://www.cafcp.org/fuel-vehl_map.html
http://www.hydrogenhighway.ca.gov/facts/cah2net_m
(Warning, last link there is a PDF but it's more detailed). And these guys:
http://www.stuartenergy.com/
http://www.hydrogenhighway.ca.gov/partners/partne
Anyway, the plan seems to be to concentrate on the population centers first (cities), then to gradually build hydrogen fueling stations out along the highways connecting the major population centers. This should solve the "chicken-and-egg" problem of needing widespread hydrogen stations before anyone is able to sell hydrogen cars.
Eventually (I guess), there will be enough hydrogen stations to sell hydrogen cars outside of fleet leases, then hydrogen stations will gradually replace gasoline stations. And it'll spread. I know I'd buy a hydrogen car tomorrow if it had a comparable capacity to my existing vehicle, they were available, and there was a fueling station within a 10 mile radius!
The nice thing about Hydrogen is that development has come so far in so little time - and it looks like all the big problems are finally coming together: efficient solar electric generation is on the way (or there's always the genetically-engineered bacteria that produces hydrogen); nano-engineered nickel has the promise of efficient hydrogen storage (instead of using exotic metals); advanced fuel cells do a fantastic job at hydrogen to electricity conversion; ultracapacitors work better than batteries for storing energy stored during regenerative braking.
Yes, the biggest problem with hydrogen is currently production - but it's simply that we've not yet built such an infrastructure because there's not yet been the demand. It doesn't matter how you make the electricity required to extract hydrogen from water via simple chemistry (nuclear, solar, mirror in space, etc). But when you think of the logistics of digging up and transporting millions of barrels of oil halfway around the world - and that energy companies do this daily - it seems like there would be no problem for them to scale hydrogen production up if they wanted to.
Our hydrogen future is gradually coming together. I can't wait.
In California (IIRC, it's been a while), the laws reads something to the effect that if you're in control of the vehicle, you can be busted. So, as you say, you're in the fron seat, the motor is off, and they keys are in the ignition, you are in control of whether the car starts up and drives away. If you are also using your example of a complelty autonomous car, and the passengers then have no control other than the destination point, then I don't think the DUI laws could apply, since the car is acting as the designated driver. But if there's a "manual" option to drive the car yourself, then that law could apply.
Napalm is nature's toothpaste
Looks like we may have horse-drawn cars in the near future.......the way the price of gas is going.
Only boring people are ever bored.
In the USA for example, a country of 500 million people, the odds of being killed by a terrorist attack is infantesimal. Yet here we are, giving up our basic civil liberties in droves.
There are two reasons that the risk of dying from terrorism is small:
1/ There are already security measures being taken, and they were taken before the problem got large, or out of hand. If your bags weren't screened before you boarded the plane, they would be falling from the skies in dozens (the planes, not the bags...well, the bags would kind of follow).
2/ The risk of being killed by traffic accidents is quite high, so it masks the risk of terrorism death.
Now, would you prefer to wait for the risk of dying of something was large before doing something about it?
Not to mention how expen$ive it would be to upgrade/replace all of the existing infrastructure!
"In soviet Russia, car drive you.
The have the rail cutting through the middle of the car, through the engine and passanger compartment,
and out back through the trunk. I know there will be
some sort of protective "hump" to protect the passangers from the rail, but it still looks like the car is getting sliced in half from front to back.
a car that can autotomously navigate an undivided road covered with snow and ice, unsanded and unplowed with a 1000 Ft. dropoff, No guardrails. For 6 years at times, I hugged the ditch, just catching the left tires in the exposed edge and driving at 5 miles/hr. I'd like to see a machine get past the first curve. Since Darpa's little game seems to have gone to shit, state of the art is looking pretty crude. Maybe in the big city, but then you're surrounded by idiots with guns and attitudes, how about you robocar cutting off a bunch of thugs? Just like AI, Driving is something that cannot be automated, unknown conditions and events cannot be programmed. I wonder how machines will decide when the going gets to rough to continue, and what's the "fail safe" mode?
Uh, sorry, but the actual population of the USA is only just below 300 million. See http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.ht ml - the 500 million figure is from the last election :p
As if the US system is anywhere NEAR being a 'democracy'.
Remind me where you live so I can stay the hell out of whichever state recommends driving faster to avoid accidents as safe driving.
Well I was actually trying to be funny, but in reality when they raised the speed limit in Colorado from 65 to 75, accident rates went down.
It turns out if you make smaller the DIFFERENCE in speed between other cars, you have fewer accidents - that's what people who dislike speeding cannot understand, overly slow drivers are actually just as dangerous as people who speed excessivley. Both cause accidents, as statistics from Colorado show when the speed limit was simply set to the speed people generally drove anyway.
So by avoiding the states that increased speed, you are putting yourself in harms way. Good luck wtih that!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
i love you
Kind of stolen from some article I read on Kurtzwell, but...
* Predictions on the success of AI are always too optimistic
* Predictions on the success of tools are always too pessimistic
What I would say is that in my lifetime, cars that really "drive themselves" simply will not happen. But what will happen is some very cool tools for drivers, like visual overlays that can see into IR for night, motion detecting systems to help you see potential obstacles, other materials that help protect car occupants in crashes.
After all, think about which is easier - detecting motion and pointing it out to the driver, who can then take action - of having a computer figure out that something by the side of the road is a real threat or not and then actually steering to get far enough away but not the other lane (unless it was needed, which a real driver could decide but a computer might simply forbid).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Can someone please give me a legitimate technical reason why individual average citizens are permitted to operate several thousand kilogram machines in close proximity to one another in wreckless fashion on paths that often pass through major cities?
Why does everyone think that trying to automate this insanity is the future? Why would we even be considering it instead of PRT's, light rails, and intercity trains & planes?
Given the alternatives and the energy problems of the states, I no longer consider the automobile anything but a ridiculous & deadly cash cow.
Read up on PRT's and you might ending up with the same conclusion.
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
... welcome our new high-tech petrol-guzzling overlords.
Sounds like you are just putting the vehicles on rails. If that's the case, why not just go ahead and do it? Most destinations are predictable anyway. On a PRT system, you just put a station there.
Besides that, even 2 to 4 people per vehicle is still a very low cargo to weight ratio.
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
When you are stuck behind someone driving slow who is selfish and greedy enough to not let you pass them. You don't want to go fast, fine, but there is no need to play cop and try to stop me. The fast people are outnumbering the slow people. Better be nice to us now, so we will be inclined to be nice to you later.
Blar.
Nope, sorry. Slow down and obey the law or get off our roads. If you want to go to a race track and pay to drive fast, do so. Do not expect anyone to yield to you if you wish to behave that way on public roads, however.
Significant privacy concerns emerge with the development of such technologies - the flow of personal information in the context of highway travel will be altered. I've written about this, for those who are interested.
Blah, blah $70-grand.
Blah, blah 2010.
Blah, blah Daimler-Chrysler.
Here's an idea for U.S. automakers: quit spoon-feeding everyone with this gee whiz technology which will NEVER be used, at least not in the U.S., while continuing to "move the steel" so they can squeeze every last drop out of their factories.
Hybrids are here NOW. D-C's smart brand sells a cool little car in much of the developed world, including Canada, that gets 70 mpg NOW. Electric cares are here, n-, oh, they quit selling those. What's wrong with some useful technology? Is TRANSPORTATION, people, not Viagra for your commute.
Make love, not reality television.
I'd like a car that uses sonar/lidar or something to create an overhead view of my car and the traffic around it. The image could be somewhere just below the windsheild, or even projected onto it, translucently.
This feature would make highway and city driving much safer.
My state government doesn't think speeding is important enough a crime to take my license despite many tickets. They know that speed limits aren't based in reality and are arbitrary laws designed for revenue collection. I have never been in an accident that wasn't an under 25-MPH mishap...due to douchebags who might drive the speedlimit but can't handle a four-way stop, or a yeild sign, or a roundabout, or use their turn signals....
We obviously have different views of what is safe driving.
Blar.
"But who will be in the driver's seat?"
Some very wealthy folks, as the price and scarcity of petroleum rises.
Urine!
I don't get it.
That's an easy one, voluntarily I'd be on a deserted island somewhere... Or anywhere else without completely automatic cars.
;)
Having just experienced a car suffer some type of general spreading electronic failure I really don't fancy being trapped in one if it was "driving".
First the indicators/blinkers stopped working, then the speedo died, then everything else started to fail... I pulled over and turned it off. Result: One comatose car sitting there beeping at me forlornly. If that sucker had been driving things might have been exciting
After disconnecting the battery it would at least start again, but the dashboard was lit up like a Christmas tree. No ABS, no stability control, diffs locked and a very nice orange ECU warning light. When contacted the dealer said "on no account should you drive it".
It was then attended to by an engineer (of one of those reassuring German manufacturers), he reflashed the main computer and reset the others. Then said he had no idea why that happened, but he thought it would probably be OK.
I think K.I.S.S is the motto we should be encouraging here. Cars driving themselves *shudder*
Windows CTD that's who. That stands for Crash Test Dummy ;-{)
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
"Nope, sorry. Slow down and obey the law or get off our roads. If you want to go to a race track and pay to drive fast, do so. Do not expect anyone to yield to you if you wish to behave that way on public roads, however."
Doing the speedlimit is obeying the law. You holding me back is not. Several states have passed what I have heard referred to as the Left Lane Vigilante law. That means if you are holding up traffic in the left lane, you will be cited, even if traffic is exceeding the speed limit. The reason that there are more than one lane is to that those who cannot or do not wish to go the max speed can MOVE TO THE RIGHT!
"It seems that we are at the age where life stops giving us things, and starts taking them away..." Indiana Jones
Test
"As far as the law, minimum speeds are posted. As for being cited for holding up traffic while traveling at the speed limit, that is a myth. You can not be cited for driving at the speed limit, and if you were it would be thrown out. In fact, if I am in a hurry I intentionally drive in the "fast lane" at the exact speed limit. Why? Because it is the fasted speed at which I am legally allowed to travel and those who wish to pass are in violation of the law. If they wish to speed they will have to wait until they can pass me on the right."
Check the laws in various states. Idaho is one of the states which has passed the "Left Lane Vigilante" law. I assure you that if you are impeding the flow of traffic in the states where these laws have been passed that you will be cited. I don't speed much myself, but when I am trying to go the speed limit and someone, such as yourself, is going 5 under, next to a truck or another driver, such as yourself, going 5 under, and I have some hotfoot hot on my tail, and I can't get around you to get out of fireballs way, I get annoyed. At that point you are an impediment and a danger. BTW, in Arizona, where I live, most highways have no posted minimum.
"It seems that we are at the age where life stops giving us things, and starts taking them away..." Indiana Jones
Priceless quote!
"Even Ford Exploders last longer than the old stuff"
Reports of my deaf have been greatly exaggerated.
I'm sorry I responded to you before. I hadn't realized that you are an ignorant, inconsiderate asshole and a troll.
I hope you lose your drivers license and your posting privileges for the good of all those around you.
Twit.
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.
Kids, play nice.
If you're going slow, stay in the right lane, if you're going fast, know how to pass on the left(reverse these instructions as locale dictates). If I'm in the left lane doing 70-75mph in a 70, and someone comes up on me a lot faster than that (say, 90mph), I get out of the way. Doesn't matter if he should be going that fast or not, doing anything else will just make it more dangerous for everyone.
Nobody knows what the ^H joke means unless you are ready for a retirement home
Exceeding the recommended torque is not recommended.
There, that's better.
Exceeding the recommended torque is not recommended.
Leaving that funny stuff aside I have two points to make:
"But who will be in the driver's seat?" Big Brother of course.
You can not be cited for driving at the speed limit, and if you were it would be thrown out.
Good. I now know for sure that you are a liar. I know traffic lawyers, so I hear cases that go through. There have been people cited, while traveling the speed limit, for a violation. They may have been going the limit, but they were in the left lane and the other cars were traveling faster. "Keep right except to pass" will get you a citation if you are in the left lane and not passing, whether you are going under the minimum, over the maximum, or anywhere in between. "Slow traffic keep right" means that traffic slower than the others on the road must keep right. This means that if everyone is going limit+5 and passing you on the right, and you are traveling the limit in the left lane, then you are breaking the law.
Also, I would like to know where you get your spedometer calibrated. I once inquired as to how to get mine officially calibrated, and the services were not offered to the general public. I ask because you are obviously not running with the regular spedometers, which I have verified to be off by 10+ mph. If you were on a consumer spedometer, then you wouldn't be so smug about your "exactly the speed limit" attitude. You can't know because you haven't been calibrated. For all you know, you are showing 65 in a 65 and traveling 60, or maybe 70.
As an aside, you are an asshole. It is perfectly legal to drive on the shoulder for long periods of time to allow others to pass in the state I grew up in. So, there are three types of people. There are ignorant people that block people because they are too stupid and lazy to learn the law. There are the people that are too mean and spiteful to pull over when appropriate to let others pass. And there are the people that are safe and let others pass, even if they are already at or above the limit. You would rather purposefully disrupt traffic in order to prove a point than to drive in a more safe and polite manner. You are less safe than the speeders you complain about. And, since the statistics kept by the federal government indicate that the vast majority of fatal crashes take place below the speed limit, you aren't any safer than all those speeders out there.
Learn to love Alaska
So you're saying that people should drive faster than they want to just because you don't know how to takeover? Slow people don't cause accidents, fast impatient people cause accidents.
People have no patience these days, unless you're going 20 over the limit you have cars right up your arse, even on narrow bendy roads in the rain where even the speed limit is unsafe. All the arguments about accidents/safe speeds aside, people just like driving as fast as they can get away with, and expect everyone else to cooperate with them.
will lead to offloading the heavy-duty positional and map processing to a remote service over the Internet
"Heavy-duty positional and map processing"??? You do realize my half-inch thick Pocket PC with GPS can handle it with no problem, right? Do you expect technology to get more powerful or less powerful in the future?
Even if the driving processor needed to be reserved 100% for driving, what is to stop the manufacturer from putting in a $100 unit with full GPS routing capability? Do you think they'll remove turn signals and airbags too, because of the processing they require?
I've seen this claim many times. However every scientific study I have seen has not found any truth to that statement. In fact some speculate it makes things worse because headlights on in the daytime no longer mean anything when you see it, so you don't pay attention to unusual situations.
I have no choice in the matter though, all my cars have 'day time running lights'.
http://www.ntu.edu.sg/nbs/sabre/working_papers/05- 98.pdf
http://www.iihs.org/safety_facts/qanda/drl.htm (cites many sources).
For anecdotal evidence, I find that having lights on helps, because cars which have lights on and are moving are more obvious than cars which do not have lights on and are moving. Much like I notice cars that (while parked) have their lights on, and am prepared to see them pull out into traffic.
I still pay attention to the road otherwise, but this makes it easier for me to differentiate between non-objects (cars off to the side, parked, off), and important objects (cars which are traveling, active, on) on the roadway. Making my job easier is good.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.