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Self-Driving Cars Are Safer When They Talk To Each Other (engadget.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the car-to-car-communications dept.

An anonymous reader quotes Engadget: A University of Michigan public-private partnership called Mcity is testing V2V, or vehicle to vehicle communication, and has found that it makes their autonomous prototypes even safer. V2V works by wirelessly sharing data such as location, speed and direction. Using DSRC, or Dedicated Short Range Communication, V2V can send up to 10 messages per second. This communication allows cars to see beyond what is immediately in front of them -- sensing a red light around a blind curve, or automatically braking for a car that runs a stop sign... The catch of V2V? It has to be installed in the majority of cars and infrastructure (such as traffic lights) to function adequately.

70 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. You know the old joke... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1, Funny

    If this was a Microsoft car, SMBv1 would be enabled by default.

  2. Re:Stop getting in the way of natural selection by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    Well, the idea is that you can use your phone in a self-driving car. And radio communications technology is not all that unpredictable.

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  3. Right up to the point... by SwashbucklingCowboy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Some bad guy programs his car to give out false information causing lots of accidents. Would be a great way for a bank robber or other bad guy to slow pursuing authorities.

    1. Re:Right up to the point... by ledow · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Ah, just slap in some security later.

      I mean, you don't need to design for that, right? Just lob everything in, make it do cool stuff, wait for everyone to attack it, THEN think about how it could be misused. Then hang onto that for a few years until someone dies or people start to complain a lot, and try to retro-bolt-on some rubbish security theatre to devices already out in daily use that never talk home.

      And then realise that if you have millions of cars talking together reliably, over some public frequency, it fucks up everything in a large radius, especially around things like traffic jams, and so never works as intended anyway.

      Or we could just... turn the roads into private railways. Which is basically what the whole self-driving thing is aiming towards anyway.

    2. Re:Right up to the point... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Safety critical systems are designed with "defense in depth". So incoming information would be correlated with information from other sources. SDCs have a database with locations of intersections, signs, traffic lights, etc. If a traffic light is around a blind corner, V2V comm could give a "heads up" that the light was red, so the SDC could pre-emptively brake. But if the other car lied, and said the light was green when it was really red, the following SDC would still see the green light with its own cameras as soon as it turned the corner, and still brake faster than a human in the same situation.

      Also, bank robbery is one of the dumbest crimes. Any criminal smart enough to reprogram a V2V system would be smart enough to embezzle from a bank rather than rob one.

    3. Re:Right up to the point... by mellon · · Score: 1

      More than that, what about when a really bad guy uses the attack surface presented by the cars talking to each other to cause a _major_ accident.

    4. Re:Right up to the point... by vtcodger · · Score: 1

      I expect if you program in a bit of security, by far the easiest attack is to inject a few spurious messages that causes a few cars to shut down. Ordinary congestion will take care of everything else. The result. Complete gridlock.

      --
      You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
    5. Re:Right up to the point... by Stickasylum · · Score: 1

      But cars are always safety critical systems, regardless of whether computers and software are involved. I wouldn't want to drive a car that wasn't treated as a safety critical system.

    6. Re:Right up to the point... by arobatino · · Score: 1

      Bank robbers typically aren't very bright. If they had that kind of talent, they'd find a safer way to exploit it.

    7. Re:Right up to the point... by liquid_schwartz · · Score: 1

      Any criminal smart enough to reprogram a V2V system would be smart enough to embezzle from a bank rather than rob one.

      Or just become a bankster and get bailed out if your market bets don't pan out. Zero downside and completely supported by the government.

    8. Re:Right up to the point... by luis_a_espinal · · Score: 1

      Humans have developed defenses for lying, it might take us a while to put that into our cars, but we can do it.

      Uh, several millions voters bought on the idea that we can make coal great again. And there are millions who believe we can raise the minimum to $15 regardless of location (because apparently COL is the same in SV, Miami, Bozeman and Cheyenne.)

      But suuuuuure, we have developed defenses for lying.

    9. Re:Right up to the point... by ledow · · Score: 1

      You could easily get a thousand cars in range of an ordinary wifi point. And if they're updating 10 times a second, that's a lot of bandwidth to share over unreliable channels. We're not talking about a cellular protocol which involves huge powerful masts, but a vehicle-to-vehicle protocol hosted in a metal box talking to nearby metal boxes.

      However, even aside from that, if EVERY car has a transmitter and receiver for this, whether or not anything is on the same channels, someone will find an abuse for it - especially if they think it might be broadcasting their speed or location to others. And every one will implement it differently, meaning that they will be vulnerable to just the same kind of problems as Wifi has historically (e.g. de-auth attacks, etc.) as well as their own special brand of coding around it.

      It's not that it won't work. It will work right up until the point that a malicious actor decides they want to interfere with it and then, being wireless, it's almost immediately useless. As specified - if you can manage to hack your own car, what's stopping it advertising - on demand - that it's about to collide with others, in an attempt to make them move out of the way, or into the path of a police car?

      Unless this protocol has been designed from the ground up to account for malicious actors, compromise of one model's systems, etc. then it's useless. But it will get into the field long before it gets properly abused, when it's then much harder to fix.

  4. Re:Stop getting in the way of natural selection by nnet · · Score: 2

    you mean phones, CBs, coffee cups, drink bottles, kids, passengers....and well, people, you know, absolutely anything that can distract...because technology is the problem, right, not people?

  5. It would be cool by krray · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I drive a car with level 1 automation [speed control only].

    Two weeks after I bought the car it paid for itself IMHO -- driving at dusk on two lane 50mph packed road; we were all doing 50mph (rare). I saw and was ready to take any action to a car (maybe two) pulling out making a right in front of me. I never saw the Jeep making a left into traffic behind the guy making a right. And then just didn't GO.
    The car slammed on the brakes for me before I even saw the new car. I was more reacting to my car and what the hell is it doing ... "OH, now I see the Jeep". If I was driving I would have plowed into his ass end.

    Two months later I was rear ended. Not bad; I do love that HEMI. :) The car's adaptive cruise control started the hard brake and the emergency braking system finished it off. The car won't stop itself 100%, but it will take you from 100mph to 10mph in short time / distance. Traffic hard stopped from 70mph in the left lane on a highway. I could see traffic stopping; let the car do it's thing better than I could. Otherwise I'd be further back giving myself for distance / time. The computer doesn't need it.

    The guy behind me was way too far back and waiting far too long to HARD brake (more than I did IMHO). Unfortunately the car behind him wasn't ready and pushed his ass right into mine. My car stopped just short enough that after being pushed forward I was still 1' away from the car in front of me ... who at that moment pulled away as traffic was moving forward again. 1 second is all I needed.

    Anyway -- wouldn't it be cool if my car could've communicated to the car that caused the accident (two back) and have its system start a nice slow brake to the stopping / stopped traffic. Re-adjust speed from 70mph to 35mph and maintain would've done it for the next group of cars...

    1. Re:It would be cool by mellon · · Score: 1

      Wouldn't it have been just as good if that car had just had the same system installed that yours does?

    2. Re:It would be cool by nnet · · Score: 1

      it only takes one human driver to make a mistake. the rest of your question is just math.

    3. Re:It would be cool by dwillden · · Score: 2

      Car gets a flat? It recognizes the tire deflating long before a human driver would and starts breaking, and reports the problem to the other cars which also start slowing and maneuvering to let it over to the shoulder safely.
      Object in road, assuming the object just barely appeared (out of the back of a pickup). The car hits the object it didn't have time to avoid, but immediately reports the object and the imminent impact. The other cars begin slowing and transitioning to other lanes. If the car has a little more time, it's sensors detect the previously unreported object, determines what needs to be done to avoid it and does so, while reporting the object to the rest of the nearby traffic so those vehicles and following vehicles can also safely avoid the obstacle
      Pedestrian. Again the Car either detects them in time to avoid the impact and reports the moving location of the ped in real time so following cars can also try to avoid it. If not it reports the impact, as it is still stopping trying to avoid it. The other cars adjust their speed down, and maneuver both to avoid the Pedestrian/body and the car that hit it, which has stopped in place to preserve the accident scene.
      Wildlife ditto human.
      -Countless others ditto.

      A video from Google I saw a few months ago had a prime example of how well this could work with cars that are talking. The Google-car (G-Car) detected a bicyclist coming from the left while it was stopped at an intersection. The light changed and the bike should have stopped but it did not and rolled through the intersection as the G-car and other traffic started to move. The human driver of the G-car could not see the bike due to a larger car in the left lane, whose driver should have been able to clearly see the approaching bike.

      What happened? The Gcar had seen the bike, identified it as a potential risk before the bike even reached the intersection and then flagged it as a definite risk when it failed to stop and thus the G-Car did not start moving. The car to the left started rolling and then suddenly stopped as it's driver slammed on the brakes and the bike swerved and managed to miss it. The G-Car hadn't moved and there was no risk of impact. Now if those cars were talking, none of the traffic would have started rolling at all when the bike was identified as not stopping even though it no longer had right of way due to the light change. And had it been hit, the following cars would have been notified of the crash and resulting lane closures. (The Bike was flying, had it hit the non-google car the rider would likely have landed in the road in front of the G-Car.)

      Individual sensors and computers are great, but inter-vehicle communications will actually make it even easier to deal with the situations you proposed as each car isn't having to react anew to the threat, but the incident is reported back up the road allowing for all traffic to adjust, to clear lanes well in advance allowing for smoother flow of traffic around the incident.

      --
      I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
  6. The quality of scientific publishing has dropped by semper_statisticum · · Score: 1

    It should be a trivial logical argument to suggest that "more accurate information leads to less error generated behaviour." One should note that the clause "accurate information" is a hell of stated requirement, but the measurement estimation of accurate true scores from error contaminated dimensions is a well studied field. Dealing with that in a online manner is more difficult, but a growing field.

    --
    The Spanish Inquisition of Psychometrics; Burning all the heretics.
  7. Re:Stop getting in the way of natural selection by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

    So expecting technology to continue to improve is over complex and unrealistic, while "just" changing human nature is "simple"? Whatever.

  8. Re:Stop getting in the way of natural selection by JustNiz · · Score: 2

    Thanks for agreeing with me.

  9. chain of command by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

    I speak only to my car, and my car speaks only to God.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
    1. Re:chain of command by nnet · · Score: 1

      Its multidenominational, and lonely. It talks to all gods. It particularly likes Brahma.

    2. Re:chain of command by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      As a Pope, shouldn't you be the one speaking to God, not your car?

      Jesus built my hot rod.

      https://youtu.be/GXCh9OhDiCI

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
  10. Re:Stop getting in the way of natural selection by JustNiz · · Score: 1

    >> Well, the idea is that you can use your phone in a self-driving car.

    I'd rather not be obliged to pay extra for all that tech whenever I buy a car, and just not be able to update my facebook profile. Besides, so-called self-driving cars actually aren't. Not yet anyway.

    >> radio communications technology is not all that unpredictable.

    Would you want to bet your life on it?

  11. Good for Motorcyclists by I'm+just+joshin · · Score: 1

    Good, now lets get beacons available to motorcyclists, so morons don't come in to their lanes, or turn left in front of them.

    1. Re:Good for Motorcyclists by niks42 · · Score: 1

      Already do that. I tell people that riding a motorcycle means driving for everyone else at the same time. I still have the odd hair-raising, bicycle clips* moment when some car driver (especially cab drivers - however much they like to think of themselves as experienced "knights-of-the-road" kind of drivers, they do some insane lane changes when the mood takes them)
      Personally I am looking forward to the day when most other vehicles are driven by computers and not people. And you will prise my motorcycle from my cold, dead buttocks.

      * as in the old joke

  12. Re:Stop getting in the way of natural selection by JustNiz · · Score: 1

    >> "just" changing human nature is "simple"?

    Of course it is. Do you think we've always had cellphones? No-one uses their cellphone while driving in Europe because of the strict laws. This isn't human nature it's pig-headed american nature.

  13. For some reason... by Lead+Butthead · · Score: 1

    The Forbin Project comes to mind.

    --
    ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
    1. Re: For some reason... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      If you become a well-known sexual deviant, you could probably get a job in a lucrative start-up or something.

      You can't be any more sexually deviant than being a 47-year-old virgin on Slashdot.

    2. Re: For some reason... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      He's a 47 year old Christian virgin who think coffee is bad.

      I have a large skinny vanilla latte every morning to get my daily milk and caffeine shot.

    3. Re: For some reason... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      At least it will get you over the psychological barrier of being a virgin.

      That's a problem for other people have when they find out that I'm a virgin, especially on Slashdot. I don't have a problem being celibate.

    4. Re: For some reason... by niks42 · · Score: 1

      It could be worse. This could be 4chan ..

    5. Re: For some reason... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      And that's how you end up the biggest loser waste of life on this planet ladies and gentlemen.

      The biggest loser on Slashdot is the person who has nothing better to do than post virus-infected dick pics on the Internet.

      Meanwhile, my newest ebook will go sale on October 1, 2017. Pre-orders will be available at Apple iBooks, Barnes & Noble and Kobo soon.

      https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/732251

  14. In breaking news, Sun is HOT. by gurps_npc · · Score: 1

    And water is wet.

    What, you think doubling processing power and number of sensors is not going to increase safety? Not to mention the fact that one of the cars is usually ahead of the other, so it gets information about static obstacles before it could normally see them?

    --
    excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
  15. Re:Stop getting in the way of natural selection by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    Would you want to bet your life on it?

    We do, all the time, especially when you take a ride in an airliner. Almost all your communications are by radio, and it will remain that way, until we develop 'sub-space' communications. And if you don't want to buy a car, don't. Most of us eagerly await the self-driving variety. Regardless of the irrational fear, it will save many thousands of lives compared to the road-raged human.

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  16. It is safer among prototypes by sjbe · · Score: 1

    A University of Michigan public-private partnership called Mcity is testing V2V, or vehicle to vehicle communication, and has found that it makes their autonomous prototypes even safer.

    It will be safer until some asshat decides for fun or profit to screw with the system. It's easier to make a system safer when the hackers don't have access to it yet.

    What worries me about a lot of this stuff isn't whether they can make the technology work but rather whether they can adequately secure the technology. I work in the auto industry and device security is simply something NOT a part of the engineering culture because it's never really needed to be. It's not that the engineers are dumb or are doing a terrible job but that they simply don't have a long history with making secure software. I think there are going to be some very expensive lessons learned the hard way before they get up to speed.

  17. Learn the lesson of every multi-player game ever by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    V2V is fine, but they better not put any significant stock in it - use like with gaming you cannot really trust what any external client sends without layers of verification.

    Otherwise, way to easy to hack a fake obstacle the car has to stop for in order to hijack the car, or perhaps coordinate swerving of two oncoming cars so they hit...

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  18. Re:Stop getting in the way of natural selection by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

    No-one uses their cellphone while driving in Europe because of the strict laws.

    Total bullcrap. Why would you even write such patent nonsense? "No one"? Really?

    Texting and talking on cellphones in Europe is less than in America but is still common and is a major cause of accidents.

  19. "Self" driving? by jabberw0k · · Score: 1

    George, so proud to receive one of the first truly self driving cars, sat down and spoke "Supermarket!" and the doors locked, off he went, and everything was fine until the car said, "Our records indicate your devices suggest you may be harboring an Unapproved Thought, please remain seated and do not attempt to leave the vehicle (recomputing) Detention and Reprogramming Center (recomputing)" and that's the last thing he ever remembered.

  20. Re:Stop getting in the way of natural selection by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Yes, but ultimately the plane is still under the control of human pilots if they choose. The plane is not flown from the ground via a network of computers. The goal with self driving cars is to take the choice away and turn car owners into users. The push for this is so strong that safety is not the top priority. We've already seen this with tesla's denials of responsibility for owner confusion about what autonomous means. A mesh network of self driving cars is a fat "hack me plz" target. I'll pass, thanks.

  21. Adequately for what purpose? by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The catch of V2V? It has to be installed in the majority of cars and infrastructure (such as traffic lights) to function adequately.

    What? No it doesn't, that's a blatant lie. No vehicle can trust what another vehicle tells it, that information can only be used for advisory purposes. Therefore, it only has to be installed in enough vehicles for a sprinkling of them to be following one another around in order to provide substantial benefits. And those vehicles are going to report on the state of traffic lights that they can see, so even some traffic light date will be in the system without any of them actually being explicitly connected to it.

    In order to achieve the maximum benefits, yes, it has to be ubiquitous. And I expect that eventually, there will be laws requiring it — and by that, I mean before the human driver is outlawed on the public road.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    1. Re:Adequately for what purpose? by sl149q · · Score: 1

      To start being used autonomous cars have to be safe enough to drive without any additional information other than what they can gather on their own (radar, video, lidar, gps.) If they are not safe enough using that data then they cannot be used. If they are safe enough why add an additional requirement that brings (at this point) little additional safety.

      V2V will be of interest once the number of vehicles on the road that can use it is high enough. That will be probably about five to ten years from now. Or about three to five generations of software and vehicle electronics. The problem domain will be much better understood by that point and the problems that can be solved by using V2V will be better understood. It might (for example) allow vehicle trains, elimination of signals at intersections, higher density (closer following) etc.

      But none of those will be possible until human driven cars are either eliminated or at a low level (or at a minimum using the same technology, just not actually being autonomously operated 100% of the time, perhaps emergency vehicles.)

    2. Re:Adequately for what purpose? by Kjella · · Score: 1

      What? No it doesn't, that's a blatant lie. No vehicle can trust what another vehicle tells it, that information can only be used for advisory purposes. Therefore, it only has to be installed in enough vehicles for a sprinkling of them to be following one another around in order to provide substantial benefits.

      I'd say highly questionable benefits. All it does is give you a range extension that you can't rely on about a few fixed situations like that the car ahead is coming to a halt, even though you're legally required to keep enough distance to figure that out and come to a stop on your own. Maybe it'll lead to less stop-and-go with smoother and better traffic flow and more efficient crossing of intersections, but those are all nice-to-haves. If the car ahead of you doesn't understand a situation neither does your car, if this has any significant benefit for accidents/safety your autonomous car is clearly not road-safe. Which means the autonomous car ahead of you that doesn't have a leader to follow isn't road-safe either, so neither of you should be on the road.

      Okay, maybe that is being a bit too harsh. I can understand that in some situations V2V can warn cars of threats from angles that are both impossible to see and yet not reckless driving, like a kid hiding behind a big tree. But it's still "above-and-beyond" saves that nobody could blame you for if there was no lead car, no V2V and the kid ran out of nowhere. It's still such a poor solution (since most times there won't be a lead car) for such a corner case (if you need information from beyond your line of sight in 99.9% of the cases you're going too fast) that I don't see the big point. If you have a laser tag on the car in front of you like with adaptive cruise control, how much lag is there really before you know it's braking compared to V2V telling you it's braking? For the most part you just want to stop as fast as it does.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    3. Re:Adequately for what purpose? by nnet · · Score: 1

      It isn't just about safety. Its also about efficient transport.

    4. Re:Adequately for what purpose? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      I'd say highly questionable benefits.

      If it alerts you to upcoming traffic conditions and lets you route around problems, and if it can detect people or debris in the roadway and alerts following cars to the idea that there might be a problem ahead, then it can substantially increase safety. It won't pay big dividends in fuel savings until it's ubiquitous, but that's not the only major benefit.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    5. Re:Adequately for what purpose? by mjwx · · Score: 1

      In order to achieve the maximum benefits, yes, it has to be ubiquitous. And I expect that eventually, there will be laws requiring it — and by that, I mean before the human driver is outlawed on the public road.

      Its worse than that. First every software company, city, auto manufacturer, stereo manufacturer and dealer network will need to agree on a single standard.

      We cant even get them to agree on a single standard for the size of stereos (we tried with DIN and again with ISO, both failures as I need adaptors for both). Hell, if you took them out for lunch you'll be hard pressed for them to decide on the same restaurant.

      The notion of V2V being safer relies on a perfect technology, as anyone who works in tech knows, a perfect technology does not exist. What happens if vehicles lose connectivity, a bug prevents information from being sent or worse yet, sends the wrong information. V2V to work cant be trusted on its own, it needs to be verified by the vehicle receiving the information.

      People need to get over the idea that in a few years there will be cars that drive themselves perfectly whilst they watch the latest episodes of Mastercrap on their phones. This will likely never happen. Even if you have a fully autonomous car, you're still responsible for it, this means you still need to pay attention to what its doing.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  22. Re:Stop getting in the way of natural selection by Phics · · Score: 1

    It's not the radio tech I'd be concerned with. I'd be more worried about the logic, and trust. Do you browse a website just because there's a link to it? Same with cars and infrastructure - we'd have to establish trust between vehicles and other endpoints. How is that going to work? That's a bigger problem than merely getting every autonomous vehicle talking on some protocol.

    --
    There are two types of people in the world; those who believe there are two types of people, and those who don't.
  23. Re:Stop getting in the way of natural selection by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

    No-one uses their cellphone while driving in Europe because of the strict laws.

    LOL. Every time I'm on the road here, I see at least one driver on their cellphone.

  24. Re:Stop getting in the way of natural selection by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    Logic is easy. Trust? Forget about it. You're always going to play the odds regardless. The biggest danger by far is the human operator. That is well documented.

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  25. Re:The quality of scientific publishing has droppe by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 1

    It is also pretty simple logic to know that communication between vehicles provides useful information for safe navigation. Dealing with the unexpected is a large challenge in autonomous driving, and such communication can reduce unexpected events. In order for it to work, there needs to be a standard and we should take time to do it right, along with other standards that would help autonomous travel such as intersection communications and probably even parking lot communications.

  26. Red lights? by nospam007 · · Score: 2

    Self-driving cars who talk to each other don't need red lights for a safe crossing, that's one of the points.

    1. Re:Red lights? by PPH · · Score: 1

      Pedestrians and cyclists still do. Or will we be 'chipping' everyone's brains?

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
  27. Re:Stop getting in the way of natural selection by JustNiz · · Score: 1

    Bad analogy. It would be a better one if planes NEEDED radio in order to just keep flying.

  28. Re:Stop getting in the way of natural selection by vtcodger · · Score: 1

    This is a very good idea. Without this, vehicles will have to rely on turn signals and other more subtle cues to determine the probable actions of other cars. I imagine they'll be pretty good at guessing because initially, most cars will not have V2V communications.

    One thing though. How does your 2025 Belchfire 2600 know that the vehicle it is negotiatiating right of way with is the car now entering the intersection and not the car three cars back traveling in the opposite direction?

    --
    You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
  29. Re:Stop getting in the way of natural selection by JustNiz · · Score: 1

    Well said.

  30. Re: Stop getting in the way of natural selection by KGIII · · Score: 1

    Citation on most?

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  31. Re:The quality of scientific publishing has droppe by nnet · · Score: 1

    Standards like TAKE YOUR FUCKING EYES OFF YOUR FUCKING PHONE while entering a crosswalk, or just walking in general.

  32. Re:Other non-safety angles by nnet · · Score: 1

    heh no. I'm rich, so your traffic jam is flyover country for me. See you in the funny papers...

  33. Re:Stop getting in the way of natural selection by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    The self-driving car will be a great place to put a mesh networking relay. It's got plenty of electrical power, and it's by definition located someplace that people go.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  34. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  35. Re:Stop getting in the way of natural selection by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    Well, I don't expect these cars to 'need' their radios either. They can serve as just another set of eyes and ears along with all the other sonars and radars, etc. Still, there is no contesting the simple fact the the greatest danger is the human, even specially trained ones, something that the airlines have clearly proven.

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  36. Re:Stop getting in the way of natural selection by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    I like that. It would be extremely reliable. The interstates would be rivers of wifi, with real P2P.

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  37. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  38. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  39. Re:Stop getting in the way of natural selection by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    I don't know what you're getting at. You can show otherwise? I'd love to see it... In the meantime...

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  40. Are they sure? by oobayly · · Score: 1

    If they start taking to each other then they going to start doing what traffic police do when they get bored - play snooker:

    If your a pedestrian wearing red or black you should start worrying...

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/422...

  41. Re:Stop getting in the way of natural selection by niks42 · · Score: 1

    Two events concerning vehicle deaths and trucks in the UK were when the driver of the truck was too busy looking at his phone and sending SMS that he failed to see the traffic stopping in front of him. One near Basingstoke - where the car in front was crushed so badly, it was squished into half its original length and height. Sadly, the occupant was killed instantly.

  42. Re:The quality of scientific publishing has droppe by dwillden · · Score: 1

    Bad driving existed before and is caused by things other than cell phones.

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    I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
  43. Re:Stop getting in the way of natural selection by imadeyoureadpoop · · Score: 1

    We've already seen this with tesla's denials of responsibility for owner confusion about what autonomous means. A mesh network of self driving cars is a fat "hack me plz" target. I'll pass, thanks.

    In the most recent case of a Tesla crash, the driver had ignored all safety warnings to put his hands back on the wheel and was speeding to boot, and the accident itself was ruled the fault of the other driver due to a traffic violation. As well as that, Tesla's are sports cars, not everyday vehicles, and everyday vehicles would benefit immensely from V2V. The cost would be miniscule in comparison to infrastructure like the roads they drive on, and could save thousands of lives every year once this is mainstream and implemented in the majority of places and vehicles. As for the mesh networking being compromisable, so what? They'd still be safe, they just wouldn't be safer.

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    Hanlon's Razor -- Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
  44. futuristic ubiquity of the future not having it by epine · · Score: 1

    Some bad guy programs his car to give out false information causing lots of accidents. Would be a great way for a bank robber or other bad guy to slow pursuing authorities.

    I have a new Turing test.

    We'll know the long, slow caboose of our shiny new AI technology has fully arrived at the station when people no longer feel an irrepressible urge to posit that a lone bad actor can poison the entire system.

    "N'uh — I don't think so," chime a thousand giant matrices in near-perfect unison.