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IBM's Patent-Pending Traffic Lights Stop Car Engines
theodp writes "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't let your engine idle. The USPTO has just published IBM's patent application for a 'System and Method for Controlling Vehicle Engine Running State at Busy Intersections for Increased Fuel Consumption Efficiency.' Here's how Big Blue explains the invention: 'The present disclosure is directed to a method for managing engines in response to a traffic signal. The method may comprise establishing communications with participating vehicles; responding to a stop status indicated by the traffic signal, further comprising: receiving a position data from each participating vehicles; determining a queue of participating vehicles stopped at the traffic signal; determining a remaining duration of the stop status; sending a stop-engine notification to the list of participating vehicles stopped at the traffic signal when the remaining duration is greater than a threshold of time; responding to a proceed status indicated by the traffic signal, further comprising: sending a start-engine notification to a first vehicle in the queue; calculating an optimal time for an engine of a second vehicle in the queue to start; and sending the start-engine notification to the second vehicle at the optimal time.' IBM notes that 'traffic signals may include, but are not limited to, traffic lights at intersections, railway crossing signals, or other devices for indicating correct moments to stop and to proceed.'"
Yes, back in the day we had Luddites, but in our times, people who are uncomfortable with the progress of technology say "What could possibly go wrong?" instead.
Screw you. It's For The Earth. When it's For The Earth, you will obey the authorities.
But what if I don't want my car to shut off at a stop light.
If you know what's good for you, you'll learn to say you want it.
i agree, this is better than the 'mere humans should not be allowed to drive' attitude that proponents of government regulation are pushing.
a simpler system would be to just put an electric motor in the car and be done with it, failing that there are already cars around that switch off while standing still.
Some of these people pushing for more government control and regulation are trying to basically put DRM into the car - trying to make your own property that you paid thousands for obey the government instead of you.
*Mandatory GPS speed limiters
*Mandatory driverless cars
*Pervasive ANPR systems
*GPS/tag based road charging
*Banning of motorcycles
All this shit is bad news and its all thought up by people who prefer their life to be boring and clinical. Sure if these people had their way things would be safer, maybe there would even be a tiny bit less pollution but fuck it, would life even be worth living with those guys controlling it?
Let's see... A whole line of middle-class people making the daily commute from the city center to the prosperous suburbs. They pass daily through the ring of dangerous and not-so-prosperous blighted urban areas that surround the city center with all its gleaming skyscrapers.
A resident presses a button, which sends a signal to a hacked cell-phone tower, which sends a series of codes that transmits a set of random stop-engine notifications that immediately disables one in ten autos. A huge traffic jam and multi-car crash happens. The local residents of the not-so-prosperous blighted urban areas, annoyed at the delay in receiving their reparations checks, run out onto the highway and have a joyous time relieving the immobilized overpaid suburbanites of their surplus belonging, petty cash, and rectal chastity. A splendid time is guaranteed for all.
And next week,just when it seems that all is back to normal, it all happens again. And again.
Someone discovers that the ability to disrupt the normal operation of a motor vehicle is patented by IBM. Who quietly paid off politicians to mandate that this ability to wirelessly stop car engines in all new vehicles (using chips and equipment supplied by a wholly-owned IBM subsidiary company). Huge waves of lawsuits against IBM result. IBM goes bankrupt. People refuse to drive into the city. Prosperous gleaming skyscrapers can't pay property tax and start to empty out. Pissed NWMs burn down large sections of the city.
City becomes another Detroit.
I can't believe that people actually get paid to develop stupid shit like this. What are they thinking? In the depths of their souls and the distant regions of their pointed little heads, they must truly believe that it still is 1962, and it will be forever.
Actually, you're the racist, blindly assuming that the non-well-to-do in the GP's post are of a different race than the well-to-do. At no time did the GP specify race or skin color, and yet you're so blinded by your racial hatreds that you just automatically assume race is involved. For shame!
Sorry IBM, this one is just plain stupid.
Besides, electric cars will probably drive all these smoggers off the road within ten years. This'll never overcome the inertia of implementation in IC cars before the factories that make them, no longer do so. Just look at how far behind car manufacturers are with heat-IR vision, GPS, collision avoidance... working systems are *decades* old, and the number of cars today that implement them is simply pitiful. And when you do find something, for example GPS, the GPS is old, old, old. The auto industry is *very* slow to do anything.
One thing I am pretty sure of is that I'm done buying smoggers. I suspect a lot of other people have made the same determination. My family's current vehicles should last us until the time where decent electrics are available at sensible prices. Current generation vehicles have decent longevity, so with just a little luck, no chance of IBM ever shutting me down. :)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.