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Samsung Launches Business Unit To Focus On Driverless Cars (koreatimes.co.kr)

Posted by Soulskill on from the looking-forward-to-autonomous-car-market-fragmentation dept.

An anonymous reader writes: South Korean electronics giant Samsung has announced a new focus on developing driverless cars and infotainment systems in its attempt to compete with domestic rival LG in the automobile arena. The chip and smartphone company has placed executive VP Park Jong Hwan at the front of the push. The project will combine efforts from various technology units, including battery maker Samsung SDI and software service provider branch Samsung SDS. The sector is an opportunity to make up for Samsung's declining television sales, and a slowing smartphone business which is struggling to compete with fresher, cheaper models in China and India.

8 of 37 comments (clear)

  1. Korea really needs this by Spy+Handler · · Score: 2

    If any country needs driverless cars, it's Korea. If you think American roads are full of drunk drivers and aggressive douchebag drivers who ignore rules of the road, you haven't been to Korea.

    And I say that as an ethnic Korean.

    1. Re:Korea really needs this by rsborg · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If any country needs driverless cars, it's Korea. If you think American roads are full of drunk drivers and aggressive douchebag drivers who ignore rules of the road, you haven't been to Korea.

      And I say that as an ethnic Korean.

      Whatever. Try south India - like in Chennai, you have any of the given on a road at any given time: cars, busses, mopeds, rickshaws, auto-rickshaws, motorcycles, bikes, pedestrians crossing randomly, farm animals crossing randomly, and street peddlers aggressively soliciting motorists (esp. when traffic crawls).

      Additionally, it's accepted that traffic rules are best treated as "suggestions" or "recommendations", it's perfectly commonplace to see motorcycles, cars, mopeds, and the like veer into oncoming traffic on the other side to pass (I've seen a bus do this occasionally also).

      It amazes me every day that more people don't die in this manifestation of primal chaos.

      --
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  2. Smartphones have developed driverless cars already by turkeydance · · Score: 4, Funny

    no need to innovate

  3. Aggro drivers by sjbe · · Score: 2

    If you think American roads are full of drunk drivers and aggressive douchebag drivers who ignore rules of the road, you haven't been to Korea.

    I've been to China and much of Southeast Asia and frankly most US drivers are pretty tame and rule abiding by comparison. I've been to a number of places where the traffic signals and lines on the road are merely suggestions that are routinely ignored. I haven't been to Korea but I can't imagine it is worse than India or some parts of China.

    1. Re:Aggro drivers by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      I've been to China and much of Southeast Asia and frankly most US drivers are pretty tame and rule abiding by comparison.

      Other than Japan and Western Europe, pretty much anywhere in the world has worse drivers than America. Some places in Africa and the Middle East have 10 times the deaths per mile driven. But even Japan and Western Europe are not directly comparable to America, since a lower proportion of their population drives. Many of the people taking public transit are likely the worst drivers, and in America, where public transit is rarely a realistic option, those people are behind the wheel.

      I once saw a pedestrian killed in a Shanghai crosswalk. She was crossing with her kid when the light changed. The cars didn't even hesitate to accelerate. She was trapped between two lanes of continuous traffic, and maybe 30 cars sped by while she stood there, until one hit her. She died, and her kid was seriously injured. When the cops showed up, they just treated it as part of their daily routine.

  4. Re:Reminds me of the early 80s by LessThanObvious · · Score: 2

    Driver-less cars is an R&D money pit with no chance of return on investment. I would hope companies know this, but they too afraid to let another company get ten years ahead on the technology and achieve total domination when the driver-less nut finally cracks in 2035 when there will finally be any possibility to sell enough volume to turn a real profit. IMHO.

  5. They're going to have a naming problem... by MiniMike · · Score: 2

    They're going to have a problem using their favorite name, since Ford already came out with a Galaxy model.

    Personally, I would wait for the Note SUV anyway...

  6. Re:Reminds me of the early 80s by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

    There's so many roads with crappy or no road markings or hidden by mud or snow

    The way that Tesla handles this, is to collect the GPS data of other Teslas that have driven the same road. If you drive down a road a dozen times, then it has enough data to know where the lane is, regardless of mud or snow. That is a more redundant and reliable algorithm than a human driver has. Please note: this is technology that is already working and available to consumers.