Slashdot Mirror
A New Use For Drones: Traffic Scouting
Nerval's Lobster writes "Renault's new concept car gives drivers an unusual companion: a small flying drone, controllable via tablet or preset GPS waypoints, which scans the area ahead for obstacles and traffic. The so-called 'flying companion' can exit the vehicle via a retractable hatch in the roof, and buzz around the immediate vicinity shooting video and photos; as this is a concept, actual hardware and software specs aren't available, although Renault's engineers envision something closer to the size of a small bird than some of the larger drones currently available. But how practical is a 'driving drone'? Considering all the accidents caused by people texting or Web-surfing while driving, it seems questionable to introduce a piece of hardware that could prove even more distracting—imagine trying to successfully guide a drone with touch-screen controls while navigating a fast-paced roadway, and you can see why the idea of a "flying companion" would raise the collective blood pressure of traffic-safety officials. Yes, it would be safer for a passenger to handle drone-flying duties while the driver concentrates on the road; but it's also a near-certainty, if such a concept ever went into production, that more than one driver would attempt to multi-task the navigation of two vehicles at once. Do you think this idea is feasible?"
Wow, did they actually disable the firehose because of the Beta protest? I can't seem to get to it.
Boycott on next week!
Please post this to new articles if it hasn't been posted yet. (Copy-paste the html from here so links don't get mangled!)
On February 5, 2014, Slashdot announced through a javascript popup that they are starting to "move in to" the new Slashdot Beta design. Slashdot Beta is a trend-following attempt to give Slashdot a fresh look, an approach that has led to less space for text and an abandonment of the traditional Slashdot look. Much worse than that, Slashdot Beta fundamentally breaks the classic Slashdot discussion and moderation system.
If you haven't seen Slashdot Beta already, open this in a new tab. After seeing that, click here to return to classic Slashdot.
We should boycott stories and only discuss the abomination that is Slashdot Beta until Dice abandons the project.
We should boycott slashdot entirely during the week of Feb 10 to Feb 17 as part of the wider slashcott
Moderators - only spend mod points on comments that discuss Beta
Commentors - only discuss Beta
http://slashdot.org/recent - Vote up the Fuck Beta stories
Keep this up for a few days and we may finally get the PHBs attention.
-----=====##### LINKS #####=====-----
Discussion of Beta: http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=56395415
Discussion of where to go if Beta goes live: http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&type=submission&id=3321441
Alternative Slashdot: http://altslashdot.org (thanks Okian Warrior (537106))
Sure, if your car is the only car doing it.
More than 10 years ago even!
If only Dice had a way to learn from the past...
Why on earth would you need to manually control the drone? It could easily know the route you are intending to take, and could be 100% automated...
Would it not be easier to just install traffic monitoring devices along roadways, and let your car's on-board navigation system interface with those? That way you don't need the traffic scouting drone, and the inherent risks that come with trying to operate one while driving.
I could see it now.. inattentive drivers/operaters causing the traffic scouting drones to collide with other traffic scouting drones, creating drone "road kill". What a mess.. No, this is a Bad Idea(TM) all around.
Don Head
UNIX/Linux Administrator
Actually as far back as the 1960's: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Can I come back?
No.
Besides, it looks like you've already posted several times in this thread.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Now we all get to be Speed Racer!
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
Umm... bridges? Power lines?
Someone had to do it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
~Sticky
Absolutely, man! This was my first thought also - Renault needs to make a version of The Powerful Mach 5.
Wir sind geboren, um frei zu sein - Rio Reiser
Fuck Beta. The community should come together, put together a drone, and have it trail a banner over the Dice HQ building that says: "F U C K B E T A." I've got a five on it, if we can make this happen.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
Err, what happens if two or three or more users are flying these at the same time, along the same ideal path and elevation? Until we get some real nice automated localized collision avoidance, you're going to end up with tangled wrecks of drones falling out of the sky into traffic.
I'll get one if it includes weapons for deployment on stupid drivers. Or even Kamikaze mode.
Please post this to new articles if it hasn't been posted yet. (Copy-paste the html from here so links don't get mangled!)
On February 5, 2014, Slashdot announced through a javascript popup that they are starting to "move in to" the new Slashdot Beta design. Slashdot Beta is a trend-following attempt to give Slashdot a fresh look, an approach that has led to less space for text and an abandonment of the traditional Slashdot look. Much worse than that, Slashdot Beta fundamentally breaks the classic Slashdot discussion and moderation system.
If you haven't seen Slashdot Beta already, open this in a new tab. After seeing that, click here to return to classic Slashdot.
We should boycott stories and only discuss the abomination that is Slashdot Beta until Dice abandons the project.
We should boycott slashdot entirely during the week of Feb 10 to Feb 17 as part of the wider slashcott
Moderators - only spend mod points on comments that discuss Beta
Commentors - only discuss Beta
http://slashdot.org/recent - Vote up the Fuck Beta stories
Keep this up for a few days and we may finally get the PHBs attention.
-----=====##### LINKS #####=====-----
Discussion of Beta: http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=56395415
Discussion of where to go if Beta goes live: http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&type=submission&id=3321441
Alternative Slashdot: http://altslashdot.org (thanks Okian Warrior (537106))
The comment listing is broken now too (only shows one page, with no "Next" option). And it looks like the editors are trying to delete posts and downmod all the beta posters. Guess they found the time to do all that in between listening to us and changing the beta based on our valued input.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
Considering the fact that driverless cars are also being worked on, all the drone would need to do is communicate the information to the car so that the car's computer can reroute/slow down/act accordingly. So, yeah. Seems pretty feasible.
How about we stop looking for ways to have to glue ourselves to some digital screen for every moment in our lives... And how much time is it going to save when you got idiots trying to find their lost drones.
Its amazing that technology and companies are finally catching up with the old Speed Racer cartoons.
Now if they make it operate by pressing 'G', that will be cool. Something interesting stuck me watching that clip (besides the memories, I loved Speed Racer), the Mach Five was a little environmentally unfriendly. Cutting down trees without concern about the impact of the forest, for shame. I think later on there was a dump oil mod (or maybe that was the bad guys) which certainly did not help the environment either. Watching Speed Racer did not turn me into a race car driver, but in an odd way, I thunk it made me a better driver. At the least, it taught me to be aware, have good situational awareness otherwise the bad guy is going to run you off the road.
Great post....and the obligatory "BETTTTTTAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaa"
Life is a great ride, the vehicle doesn't matter
The only way this could be useful is if it unleashes a finger of doom from a minigun to do away with the "motorist" causing the backup.
Although, I'll "settle" for having this scout go out, locate said "motorist" and send me back footage of why this one person is causing the 2 mile backup behind them.
My morbid sense of curiosity demands that I know who the fuck just backed up the turnpike.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
Um, whoosh?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I would love something like this for parking, especially if it could be semi-automated. Push a button, drone flies up and does a survey of the parking lot. It then finds a space and "squats" it for you while you drive there on the ground.
I even thought of this idea like 10 years ago, when trying to come up with random ideas for fictitious gov't technology programs while bored at work. I think the name we coined was "OPLSS" (pronounced "Hopeless"), for "Objective Parking Lot Survey System".
But, just like many superpowers we'd all love to have, this sort of thing is *only* useful if you're the only one who has it. If everyone had this capability, it would cause far more problems than it would solve.
Great idea! We can tie the kites to bridges. And power lines!
I, for one, am looking forward to the inevitable
How about protesting (and not commenting) on even days and commenting normally on odd days? That way, Dice will be able to gauge how much of their so called "audience" that creates the actual deliverable of the site is leaving for good, while still preserving some value just in case they see the error of their ways soon.
Not if it doesn't include working links...
Also my first thought and glad I found the same thought here so I didn't become redundant.
Question: Doesn't this qualify as Prior Art? It should.
This might, marginally, make sense for serious off-roaders, which is what Renault is pitching. There's been a lot of interest in this in the military, where knowing what's over the next hill can save your life. For road driving, it's silly.
Noooooooooo! The stupidity of manual driver control (are there really people out there this fucking dumb?) would just give them the reason they're seeking anyway to clamp down on a showy and unorthodox public behaviour.
Everyone else, you can boycott the BETA. I'm going to trash the stupidity of the story submission in the vast majority of stories that show up here now. To each his own.
A proper geek knows the difference between one kind of blame masturbation and another. Most of our stories these days are wank wank wank random blame masturbation wank wank wank.
This is the kind of military model scout concept that works great when the 1 percent do it - but utterly fails when the 99 percent do it.
One drone over a traffic jam is one thing.
6543 drones over a traffic jam crashing into planes and helicopters and police drones and DOT drones is a total catastrophe.
People don't get that stuff that works when very FEW people use them is ok but when anyone can buy it, the impacts - and by this I mean the objects falling from 1000 feet through your sunroof and killing you or causing more crashes when they hit your windscreen - are a nightmare.
They're just like the Slashdot Beta - great idea on paper, incredibly bad very bad insane idea in reality. Kill that with fire!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
There are already production cars with night vision and thermal vision.
Combine this drone with the phone/tablet killswitch and much hilarity can be had!
- or -
A new sport. After all, skeets can't dodge, and mailboxes are just too easy a target... Highway drone shooting!
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I used to think /.'s biggest problem was dups! Now we've got BETA -- and I promise to NEVER complain about dups again!
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
I have had this daydream before, many times actually. In theory it wouldn't really even need to be driven by the driver but could be nearly completely autonomous, or sync up to navigation systems already being used to provide more relevant data....etc. Sure.
However, I doubt it would be that useful in many situations. Sure it may be able to bring back some nice shots, or something but, if you are stuck in traffic, you are stuck. If its about to clear up, it may clear up before your drone can return.
Mostly it wouldn't be that useful since its only useful after you are already stuck. The situations where it might actually provide useful data, seem likely to be outnumbered by the ones where it is useless or, at best, frivilous.
There may be uses of course, but, likely not for traffic scouting.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
WEAPONS! So you got cut off. You've got a drone at your disposal. Imagine the possibilities.... hack that puppy into a lean mean traffic revenge machine! The roads just got safer my friends!
I've often wished for one of those in the car.
Especially after jacked up trucks with with tractor tires became popular.
And please vote this out of the Firehose:
http://slashdot.org/submission...
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
There's too many off topic comments here. Please stay focused, the topic is fuck beta.
Seriously, while the 'scout' concept is flawed, a real life cam-bot that can keep up with traffic could be quite useful.
There's no need for a human operator in this case because it's just keeping a static position relative to your vehicle.
What do you think sirs? I'm quite anti-drone, but given that our Orwellian police state seems dead set on having them we may as well get a few perks too.
Funny because reddit deletes posts all the time. Sometimes whole articles that are actively being commented on are removed either temporarily or permanently (Obama iama, Boston Bombing threads where people were locating relatives, etc.).
How about my car just takes-off? That way, I only have to control one device at a time.
Just use Google Maps.
1) Open parking lot that provides open spot information to aware vehicles. 2) Sell video footage of spectacular crashes as multiple drivers race to the same spot. 3) Profit!
By the time the drone has enough collision-avoidance to keep from crashing into everyone else's drones (probably using some kind of identifying beacon), it will be better to have the drones form a mesh network to transmit views from different places, than to have each drone fly to a point of interest to get their own (redundant) view.
"If you're not passionate about your operating system, you're married to the wrong one."
Until bird-sized drones become as cheap as disposable cell phones, no one will fork out money for a one that's limited to the single use of scouting traffic, or limited to being able to communicate only with a Renault vehicle. It will have to be a general-purpose device, able to communicate via wi-fi (or similar non-proprietary means) with other computing devices.
And there are better ways to gather data about traffic... such as the Waze app, which knows the precise speed and position of other Waze users who are themselves stuck in the same traffic.
The concern about a driver trying to control two vehicles at once seems silly. Any consumer-grade drone is never going to ask that of its owner; it will be able to autonomously deploy, perform its task, and return home.
Maybe Renault will release a sucky beta version of its drone.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Both on anime race cars, both used for scouting ahead and navigation.
Speed Racer's Mach 5 could launch a fixed-wing drone that looked like a bird. Also good for shenanigans :-P
The Cyber Formula (basically fantasy F1) cars from Future GPX Cyber Formula launched what we might today call "atmospheric satellites." It gave live maps and provided something like a GPS signal, I guess the authors thought GPS would never be available to civilians. Only slightly better than what you can get on a smartphone today. Also good for knocking open the landing gear doors on a hypersonic space plane :-P
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I'm imagining a system where the drone's position isn't controlled by the driver/tablet app but instead it automatically stays directly above the car. The drone would have a 360deg camera underneath and the tablet app would just control the panning.
The speed of the car would also be automatically limited while the drone is in the air so that the car can't get ahead of the drone, you probably wouldn't be able to launch the drone while moving anyway.
I cant wait for my personal drone to fly me to worj=k, with Lois Lane in my arms
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada