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?"
More than 10 years ago even!
If only Dice had a way to learn from the past...
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...
Now we all get to be Speed Racer!
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
They're also actually deleting posts now too. Quite a few of mine have disappeared. Amazing that they have time for this, what with all the effort they're putting into listening to us and modifying the beta accordingly.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
It's not that I don't believe you...but I don't believe you. Find a hole in the post ID numbers where yours used to be. It looks like they're incremental, so if there is a post 47190001 and 47190003 but no 47190002, then we know something is wrong. (Same thing if they fill the gap with a later post and the timestamp on 47190002 is greater than the one on 47190003.) Yeah yeah I know it's a pain to track all the post IDs you make, but for something like this, if it's really happening to you, it would be worthwhile.
One of the absolute core tenets of Slashdot has always been that they don't delete things (unless someone sues them for a billion dollars, and even then, only once). It's important to be able to prove it if it happens.
You can't. The comment list is suddenly broken now too. I can only look at about the last 20 or so posts (the list end abruptly and there is no longer an option to go to the next page). But I looked back through the articles from this morning and can tell you that several of my posts that I know were there are suddenly gone.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
Fuck Beta! Fuck Beta
My Lord! The peasants are revolting!
Slashdot Valentines Beta Massacre: iT WORKED! The boycotts killed Beta!!
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.
Quite a bit of constructive criticism has been offered (not just in the last two days, but for months now). The exact complaints are pretty damned clear at this point. The problem isn't that they aren't aware of the problems with the beta. The problem is that they've not been corrected, and now they're going to force the beta on us.
I personally don't care about the beta, as long as we can keep the Classic option. But if you're going to force it on me, at least make sure that you're not stripping functionality away from me. Add whatever dumb feature you like (as long as it doesn't get in my way), but don't take away my ability to see a simple comment list with replies and mods listed. Quite a few others have also complained about the lack of Unicode support, the annoying whitespace issues, and onerous javascript.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
So from now on keep a list on your end of post IDs. Each time you post add the ID to your list. Next time one is deleted you will be able to prove it.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
To be clear, I looked at the Beta site and am in line with the general thinking. Having been a /. member since 2000 there is something solid about the look and feel that has not changed much in over 14 years. Clearly the beta site is trying to look like other sites (presumably held by Dice?) and it does not work (or look good).
I made my comment before I read some posts that advocated a protest/boycott. How funny though, with all the "we need to boycott" statements i've read in /. over the years taht was met with "grow up, boycotts don't work", here is now one called on the fertile soil of /. ... will this one work?
I'm going otu on a limb and say, boycotts never work unless you can truly convince the vast majority to join in and I'm guessing that demographics of /. have changed. Current owners figure they can weather the storm.
As for me, I may check out this very young upstart I just read about here on this site. Though I'll hang with this ship for a bit, I'll check out the upstart and at the least, add my voice (I cannot help code as I don't do python).
Life is a great ride, the vehicle doesn't matter
There's too many off topic comments here. Please stay focused, the topic is fuck beta.