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Will Robot Cars Need Windows?
An anonymous reader writes: The Atlantic has an article asking whether autonomous cars need windows. If there's no driver, will the passengers want to look outside? In the summer, will anyone want to endure the relentless heat from the sun? The robot cars offer us a great opportunity to rethink the platform which is largely devoted to supporting the driver. But if a computer is in charge and it sees with dozens of cameras ringing the car, what else can we change? What else don't we need? What can improve?
The passengers in a plane do not need windows but clearly because planes have windows at considerable cost to design properly (remember the Dehavilland Comet?) there's clearly a want for them to be there.
If I remember correctly, the Comet windows were designed properly (though they turned out to have less safety margin than intended), but they weren't installed properly. And I believe the window that failed was the one used for navigation fixes, which would have been hard to live without in the days before GPS.
The DH-106 Comet had square windows. The resulting point at each corner was a stress concentrator, and as the skin expanded and contracted during normal flights metal fatigue started. A year into service, the metal fatigue reached a point where the skin failed catastrophically and the aircraft came apart in mid-flight.
Installation of the windows was a factor, true, but the square windows was the primary point of failure.
If your sense of smell was strong enough to let you smell something at the bottom of a lake, and if as a beloved pet your entire life was spent mostly in the same restricted area - a particular home, yard and neighborhood, you would also jump at the chance to get as much new, fresh and undiscovered air drift past your nostrils as you could. If ever you observe a dog with its head out the window in a car, it will have the "smiling" pose known by dog owners (relaxed jaw, ears back, tongue out) but also those nostrils will be working furiously the entire time. The dog is smelling everything it can, as much as it can.
Dogs are curious creatures (which is why wolves were first drawn to human habitations). Wild dogs and wolves in packs usually roam over large territories. Modern dogs have adapted to living a human lifestyle more or less, provided they get plenty of exercise and toys and social stimulation to keep them from being bored. But when they get the chance to add new smells to their experience, they love that most of all.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.