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When Will the Automotive Internet Arrive?
DeviceGuru writes "European researchers are developing a cooperative traffic system, known CVIS (Cooperative Vehicle-Infrastructure Systems), comprised of vehicle-, roadside-, and central infrastructure-based communications hardware and software, including vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) wireless. Among other capabilities, cars communicate with each other and with 'smart traffic signals' to smooth the flow of traffic and avoid accidents, or with 'smart traffic signs' to avoid dangerous driving conditions. The CVIS project is in the midst of undergoing field trials in Europe, and Audi has recently deployed 15 test vehicles in a similar project. The ambitious vision of intelligent transportation systems (ITS) includes goals such as reduced traffic congestion and fuel consumption, enhanced safety, and improved driver and passenger comfort. Ultimately, the developers envision a sort of Automotive Internet."
I sense a great disturbance in the force, as if dozens of anti-virus executives where salivating all at once.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
If they're smart, they'll build it out on IPV6.
(Those who consider this to be obvious should remember that the government is involved.)
there is a small problem with the current aproach: until "every" car gets the system installed, it's nearly useless. The protocol need to "know" that every other vehicle is going to act accordingly its specification. The false sense of security these devices can provide is very dangerous in case a car break the rules (not only by malice, just think in a malfuction like the infamous toyota) because the react time will be reduced ("The car from the back is too near, lets send a message to brake", "Ups, no response, maybe an interference, lets try again", "wow, its must be broken, lets speed up, i'll send a message to the front car to speed too", "Ups, no r...CARRIER LOST"),
I hope the Automotive Internet never arrives. Why? Because of three issues: privacy, security and bugs. First, this system is basically a giant handout to authoritarians and fascists world wide. One of the goals of all governments that don't care about privacy is to track every private car. They know that measure has to be phased in gradually, so we need to fight against every step of the way. Second, security is a huge issue. We know that we can never provide a %100 percent secure desktop platform - so how in the world are we going to provide a secure automotive platform? Third, bugs are going to be a huge problem - see the Toyota situation. If we have 100 million lines of code, and we have 1-2 bugs per thousand lines, we get 100-200 hundred thousand bugs in the car's software. It's surprising that we don't have more cars flying down the highway uncontrollably. I hope we have less computers in cars in the future, maybe even none if we really could. It'll be tough but it would save a lot of money and a lot of hassle.
Responsibility is an addiction
Virtue is a temptation
Community is a cartel
Cars don't scale. Mass transit scales better.
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
Hopefully NEVER.
For everything good that could come out of this, several somethings BAD will come out of it. Speed tracking for automatic tickets and insurance increases, and - NO TIN FOIL NEEDED - government tracking. The Brits will be the first to require this.
As soon as it's possible, the insurance companies will require this and jack your rates through the roof without it. As well, if your driving does not fit their statistical profile, your rates will goe up. As technology improves, if you take those right-turn-on-reds too fast, your rates will go up. Spend too much time in the "wrong" part of town? Your rates will go up.
The government will for sure figure out a way to leverage the information from this technology for some sort of tax increase.
There is no real benefit to having an Internet connected auto. Flying cars are a fantasy, road / highway technology has reached it's zenith.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
In a way, you are right. Idiots running side by side at the same speed causes people to figure out ways to get around them. Multiple-lane highways exist for a reason, and the *right* lane is the *slow lane* and the *left lane* is the fast lane. As near as I can tell doing as you suggest is a violation in all 50 states of the union.
BTW, truckers passing through Kentucky on I-75 (and probably elsewhere) were protesting the different speed limit for trucks and cars by lining up side by side at the border, and running exactly the speed limit all the way across. That resulted in absolute carnage as people tried to pass on the shoulder, and lined up for miles behind them. If your proposal were implemented, I would expect a huge increase in accidents as people got around the "blocker cars".
Traffic accidents are not caused by excessive speed to any great extent, they are caused by bad driving and discourteous driving - and your proposal is a classic example of both.
Brett