StartGoogle+ looks very interesting. It effectively brings FaceBook and Twitter into Google+. Watch everything there, post to everything there... quite nice even for early beta software.
I expect that it allows us to start using interfaces designed by other people (i.e. non Facebook, Google or Twitter) that pull things together in interesting ways.
For the Google+ with StartGoogle+ just looks cleaner than FaceBooks older interface.
Have to say I *love* the new self checkout lines in the local super market... short (usually no) lines and I can typically scan, bag and pay for my groceries faster than the checkout person would have.
I wonder what happens when you enter the US with a Chromebook?
Currently it appears that custom agents can seize and search your laptop, possibly even force you to divulge passwords to encrypted files. [We're waiting for this to hit the US Supreme Court... it will eventually.]
With a Chromebook nothing is on the laptop. Its all in the cloud. You are not importing anything other than a bunch of wires and transistors (very very tiny ones...)
And your data is in the clouds, who knows (well maybe your cloud provider) where in the world it is actually stored. In the US? Somewhere else?
So now instead of forcing you to divulge keys; the question is can they force you to divulge your credentials? And possibly with judicious use of two-factor authentication you may not even be able to provide that (usb key, destroy as you leave the plane..., replacement comes from outside of the country, can't be forced with a court order, etc etc.)
Yes the data may be obtainable directly IFF they can prove probable cause etc (and the cloud provider is in an amenable jurisdiction). But currently crossing the border the data actually on a laptop (or phone) is subject to the whim of the border agent.
Apple's iCloud may actually be the first usable instance of this. Reset your phone to factory default. Go through customs. Re-provision via the cloud as you sit in the back of the taxi going home.
For better or worse robotic cars will need to detect pedestrians and cyclists without any special devices on them. If only because the consequences from hitting ANYTHING in a small light car at speed will be significant and there is no way to get the "special" devices attached to everything. Think dogs, cats, raccoons, coyotes, deer, moose, garbage cans (thrown into traffic by teens wanting to have some fun.)
So the designers will have to solve the general case which in turn solves the more special (pedestrian) case.
They do have some advantages though. Robotic cars have far better reaction times (est 50ms compared to ~200ms for humans). They don't fall asleep. They can "watch" much more of the surrounding area (got to love that multi-tasking) and for longer distances. They can broadcast signals to surrounding cars to move and slow down so they have more room for evasive action (fish school behavior).
Robotic cars need only be MORE reliable and (therefore one hopes) safer than the current drivers (human that is.) As soon as the injury rate shifts significantly (say 30% less) then that is reliable enough to start adopting it.
Indications from the Google tests seem to show they are probably more or less there now. Just need to put more miles in to make the measurements statistically valid and get the cost for reliable sensors down.
And as a cyclist I totally look forward to the much safer streets when there it is populated by 100% robotic cars... Most of the traffic related cycling accidents are caused by stupid driver behavior. Robotic cars won't run me off the road, hit me from behind, take me out with the infamous right hook, pull in front of me and hit the brakes so it can make a turn. Etc, etc, etc.
It will be a far safer world for cyclists and pedestrians.
I suspect you thought that was a good joke (and actually it is...)
But in fact there will be a lot of driverless cars driving around. For example your car drops you off at the front door at work and then drives itself to the parking lot or perhaps home to drive the kids to school or to the local battery charging station or just around the block a few times while you pick something up and go and wait for it to take you to your first appointment. A lot of deliveries will get done without anyone in the vehicle (it can be unloaded by the recipient.)
In fact your car may not be your car but just a robo-taxi taking you somewhere and once it drops you off then it simply travels to where its next passenger needs to be picked up.
So yes a lot of those driverless vehicles will definitely be driverless and still doing exactly what they need to do (and probably at a lower operating cost then current equivalents.)
The rewards will go to wherever this is done first.... as that is where the development, research and initial manufacturing takes place.
So if (for example) Singapore, China or Nevada "solves" the liability issues first, then assume that there will be some early adopter benefits accruing to them.
And of course the usual suspects (in this case the lawyers) will proclaim this to be the end of the world and civilization etc etc etc.
We don't see stories about that because there doesn't appear to be any solution short of simply not driving.
Contrast that to the problem of impaired driving. Used to kill a lot of people. The solution was obvious, increase (drastically) the firms and penalties for driving while under the influence, couple that with extensive marketing and you get a corresponding reduction in fatalities.
Once there is solution that can start to drastically reduce traffic accidents (and associated injuries, fatalities and property damage) society will very quickly engage and start to adopt it.
Of course the usual suspects and nay sayers (in this case pretty much anyone who makes a living actually driving, e.g. taxis, delivery trucks, long distance truckers, mass transit etc, especially those with strong unions) will claim that this involves pretty much the end of the world and civilization as we know it.
Once this works the conversion will take place far faster than anyone expects.
Copied from there: CLAIMS prominent climate change scientists had recently received death threats have been revealed as an opportunistic ploy, with the Australian National University admitting that they occurred up to five years ago. Only two of ANU's climate change scientists allegedly received death threats, the first in a letter posted in 2006-2007 and the other an offhand remark made in person 12 months ago. Neither was officially reported to ACT Police or Australian Federal Police, despite such crimes carrying a 10-year prison sentence. The outdated threats raised question marks over the timing of their release to the public, with claims they were aired last week to draw sympathy to scientists and their climate change cause.
Even without guns the RCMP can be deadly just using Tasers.... Fortunately (but not for Robert Dziekanski) a bystander videoed them tasering someone repeatedly until he was unconscious and then died. Several years later, lots of lies and improbable stories (before the video came out) and they (the four RCMP officers) may finally get their day in court for lieing about it. Certainly without the video that would never have happened. Their story (we, all four of us, where afraid for our lives when he (supposedly) attacked us with a stapler so we tasered him, repeatedly, four (five?) times.)
Once 4g arrives most cell phone video will go straight to the cloud and crap like this will be on YouTube before the cops finish their shift. Breaking a phone after the fact will get them nothing but lawsuits.
Alternatively, given the continued increase in HD size... the next gen streaming box may just come with 50 years of video pre-installed ready to view:-)
Two 1920x1200 monitors to program with (ubuntu with a window manager that gives me many virtual desktops to organize different projects.) The standard layout is 8x2 rxvts, 7 to edit (vim) and 1 to make in.
Two 2048x1152 monitors for Windows for personal productivity tools as well as lab test bench tools (which unfortunately only seem to come well supported in Windows.)
One 1920x1080 monitor plugged into an Aten 1728 eight way switch for the various systems used for testing the hardware and software. If I could find a KVM that supported two keyboards and two monitors I would immediately add another 1920x1080 screen here as well. I do networking software and have to work with two of the eight systems at a time.
Its not unusual to be working with four to five source code files on the Linux system, checking results from an analyzer and displaying documentation PDF's on Windows and watching logs on one of the test systems. I presume I could do all of this funneled through one or two monitors but it would be painful at best.
The only other thing missing from this setup is a usable network clipboard. It would be nice to be able to cut and paste across all of the Linux development systems, Windows productivity, some VMWare systems and the systems under test.
I've been programming with multiple screens since the dark ages (three 80x24 terminals @ 19200 baud, back in about 1985.) and have found that it improves my productivity.
> There have been studies that show a huge increase in collision, especially rear-end collisions at intersection cameras.
The studies mostly showed that there was a slight increase of rear-end collisions at some intersections and a slight decrease of other types of collisions. Overall it was pretty much a wash statistically. I.e. no overall benefit (except to the revenue stream.)
I think the defense stated that the pictures are taken "about 50 feet" down the road... Or possibly 500-800 mS after the system determined that the vehicle was speeding.
I don't think changes the facts though, a loaded truck won't be able to slow down to 35 MPH from 50 MPH in roughly one second.
Regulators won't mind as they will save big time on traffic fine issuers.
The unions for those people will scream blue murder though and make it sound like the end of the world is nigh if anything like this is even thought of never mind actually implemented.
Googles cars drove 140,000 miles without a problem. Thats about the same as 8 years of trouble free driving for most people. Whats long term expected value for time between accidents for all human drivers. Is it less than one accident (of any type, including fender benders) every 8 years?
The number one "perq" of being rich is you get a chauffeur driven car... sit in the back and relax.....
Which is exactly what robotic cars hope to offer to the masses.
I really think that while there may be some Luddites out there who insist they enjoy driving their car for their 45 minute commute to and from work each day, most likely most people would love to be able to simply nap or read the paper (on their iPad of course) while getting driven to work.
Probably about the same number of people who think seat belts are unsafe and disable their air bags.
Slashdot Mirror
Amen, I keep bringing my .fvwm2rc script forward ....
One of the other problems is that Apple is running BSD in there instead of Linux so they wouldn't have to worry about GPL :-)
StartGoogle+ chrome extension... brings Facebook and Twitter into Google+ for reading and posting. Best of all worlds (to some definition of best.)
StartGoogle+ looks very interesting. It effectively brings FaceBook and Twitter into Google+. Watch everything there, post to everything there... quite nice even for early beta software.
I expect that it allows us to start using interfaces designed by other people (i.e. non Facebook, Google or Twitter) that pull things together in interesting ways.
For the Google+ with StartGoogle+ just looks cleaner than FaceBooks older interface.
Have to say I *love* the new self checkout lines in the local super market... short (usually no) lines and I can typically scan, bag and pay for my groceries faster than the checkout person would have.
I wonder what happens when you enter the US with a Chromebook?
Currently it appears that custom agents can seize and search your laptop, possibly even force you to divulge passwords to encrypted files. [We're waiting for this to hit the US Supreme Court... it will eventually.]
With a Chromebook nothing is on the laptop. Its all in the cloud. You are not importing anything other than a bunch of wires and transistors (very very tiny ones...)
And your data is in the clouds, who knows (well maybe your cloud provider) where in the world it is actually stored. In the US? Somewhere else?
So now instead of forcing you to divulge keys; the question is can they force you to divulge your credentials? And possibly with judicious use of two-factor authentication you may not even be able to provide that (usb key, destroy as you leave the plane..., replacement comes from outside of the country, can't be forced with a court order, etc etc.)
Yes the data may be obtainable directly IFF they can prove probable cause etc (and the cloud provider is in an amenable jurisdiction). But currently crossing the border the data actually on a laptop (or phone) is subject to the whim of the border agent.
Apple's iCloud may actually be the first usable instance of this. Reset your phone to factory default. Go through customs. Re-provision via the cloud as you sit in the back of the taxi going home.
The number of people who have (successfully) pulled out an iPhone battery to reset it is vanishingly small :-)
For better or worse robotic cars will need to detect pedestrians and cyclists without any special devices on them. If only because the consequences from hitting ANYTHING in a small light car at speed will be significant and there is no way to get the "special" devices attached to everything. Think dogs, cats, raccoons, coyotes, deer, moose, garbage cans (thrown into traffic by teens wanting to have some fun.)
So the designers will have to solve the general case which in turn solves the more special (pedestrian) case.
They do have some advantages though. Robotic cars have far better reaction times (est 50ms compared to ~200ms for humans). They don't fall asleep. They can "watch" much more of the surrounding area (got to love that multi-tasking) and for longer distances. They can broadcast signals to surrounding cars to move and slow down so they have more room for evasive action (fish school behavior).
Robotic cars need only be MORE reliable and (therefore one hopes) safer than the current drivers (human that is.) As soon as the injury rate shifts significantly (say 30% less) then that is reliable enough to start adopting it.
Indications from the Google tests seem to show they are probably more or less there now. Just need to put more miles in to make the measurements statistically valid and get the cost for reliable sensors down.
And as a cyclist I totally look forward to the much safer streets when there it is populated by 100% robotic cars... Most of the traffic related cycling accidents are caused by stupid driver behavior. Robotic cars won't run me off the road, hit me from behind, take me out with the infamous right hook, pull in front of me and hit the brakes so it can make a turn. Etc, etc, etc.
It will be a far safer world for cyclists and pedestrians.
I suspect you thought that was a good joke (and actually it is...)
But in fact there will be a lot of driverless cars driving around. For example your car drops you off at the front door at work and then drives itself to the parking lot or perhaps home to drive the kids to school or to the local battery charging station or just around the block a few times while you pick something up and go and wait for it to take you to your first appointment. A lot of deliveries will get done without anyone in the vehicle (it can be unloaded by the recipient.)
In fact your car may not be your car but just a robo-taxi taking you somewhere and once it drops you off then it simply travels to where its next passenger needs to be picked up.
So yes a lot of those driverless vehicles will definitely be driverless and still doing exactly what they need to do (and probably at a lower operating cost then current equivalents.)
The rewards will go to wherever this is done first.... as that is where the development, research and initial manufacturing takes place.
So if (for example) Singapore, China or Nevada "solves" the liability issues first, then assume that there will be some early adopter benefits accruing to them.
And of course the usual suspects (in this case the lawyers) will proclaim this to be the end of the world and civilization etc etc etc.
We don't see stories about that because there doesn't appear to be any solution short of simply not driving.
Contrast that to the problem of impaired driving. Used to kill a lot of people. The solution was obvious, increase (drastically) the firms and penalties for driving while under the influence, couple that with extensive marketing and you get a corresponding reduction in fatalities.
Once there is solution that can start to drastically reduce traffic accidents (and associated injuries, fatalities and property damage) society will very quickly engage and start to adopt it.
Of course the usual suspects and nay sayers (in this case pretty much anyone who makes a living actually driving, e.g. taxis, delivery trucks, long distance truckers, mass transit etc, especially those with strong unions) will claim that this involves pretty much the end of the world and civilization as we know it.
Once this works the conversion will take place far faster than anyone expects.
This is reheated hash from a month back when it was shown to be a lots of smoke and a couple of mirrors (two threats, years ago)
http://www.news.com.au/national/carbon-death-threats-go-cold/story-e6frfkvr-1226072073038
Copied from there:
CLAIMS prominent climate change scientists had recently received death threats have been revealed as an opportunistic ploy, with the Australian National University admitting that they occurred up to five years ago.
Only two of ANU's climate change scientists allegedly received death threats, the first in a letter posted in 2006-2007 and the other an offhand remark made in person 12 months ago.
Neither was officially reported to ACT Police or Australian Federal Police, despite such crimes carrying a 10-year prison sentence.
The outdated threats raised question marks over the timing of their release to the public, with claims they were aired last week to draw sympathy to scientists and their climate change cause.
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national/carbon-death-threats-go-cold/story-e6frfkvr-1226072073038#ixzz1PqVWfYS6
These ancillary chips are provided for free? Paid for by who?
Processing takes CPU power regardless of where the CPU is located.
Even without guns the RCMP can be deadly just using Tasers.... Fortunately (but not for Robert Dziekanski) a bystander videoed them tasering someone repeatedly until he was unconscious and then died. Several years later, lots of lies and improbable stories (before the video came out) and they (the four RCMP officers) may finally get their day in court for lieing about it. Certainly without the video that would never have happened. Their story (we, all four of us, where afraid for our lives when he (supposedly) attacked us with a stapler so we tasered him, repeatedly, four (five?) times.)
Once 4g arrives most cell phone video will go straight to the cloud and crap like this will be on YouTube before the cops finish their shift. Breaking a phone after the fact will get them nothing but lawsuits.
Alternatively, given the continued increase in HD size... the next gen streaming box may just come with 50 years of video pre-installed ready to view :-)
Its time to go back to when men were men and engineers used slide rules....
Pretty much impossible to hack and re-program.
Two 1920x1200 monitors to program with (ubuntu with a window manager that gives me many virtual desktops to organize different projects.) The standard layout is 8x2 rxvts, 7 to edit (vim) and 1 to make in.
Two 2048x1152 monitors for Windows for personal productivity tools as well as lab test bench tools (which unfortunately only seem to come well supported in Windows.)
One 1920x1080 monitor plugged into an Aten 1728 eight way switch for the various systems used for testing the hardware and software. If I could find a KVM that supported two keyboards and two monitors I would immediately add another 1920x1080 screen here as well. I do networking software and have to work with two of the eight systems at a time.
Its not unusual to be working with four to five source code files on the Linux system, checking results from an analyzer and displaying documentation PDF's on Windows and watching logs on one of the test systems. I presume I could do all of this funneled through one or two monitors but it would be painful at best.
The only other thing missing from this setup is a usable network clipboard. It would be nice to be able to cut and paste across all of the Linux development systems, Windows productivity, some VMWare systems and the systems under test.
I've been programming with multiple screens since the dark ages (three 80x24 terminals @ 19200 baud, back in about 1985.) and have found that it improves my productivity.
If mafiaafire is removed, I'm sure that mafiaafire2 will soon be added to the plugin lists. Then thisisnotmafiafire, etc, etc, etc.
> There have been studies that show a huge increase in collision, especially rear-end collisions at intersection cameras.
The studies mostly showed that there was a slight increase of rear-end collisions at some intersections and a slight decrease of other types of collisions. Overall it was pretty much a wash statistically. I.e. no overall benefit (except to the revenue stream.)
I think the defense stated that the pictures are taken "about 50 feet" down the road... Or possibly 500-800 mS after the system determined that the vehicle was speeding.
I don't think changes the facts though, a loaded truck won't be able to slow down to 35 MPH from 50 MPH in roughly one second.
Regulators won't mind as they will save big time on traffic fine issuers.
The unions for those people will scream blue murder though and make it sound like the end of the world is nigh if anything like this is even thought of never mind actually implemented.
Googles cars drove 140,000 miles without a problem. Thats about the same as 8 years of trouble free driving for most people. Whats long term expected value for time between accidents for all human drivers. Is it less than one accident (of any type, including fender benders) every 8 years?
The number one "perq" of being rich is you get a chauffeur driven car... sit in the back and relax.....
Which is exactly what robotic cars hope to offer to the masses.
I really think that while there may be some Luddites out there who insist they enjoy driving their car for their 45 minute commute to and from work each day, most likely most people would love to be able to simply nap or read the paper (on their iPad of course) while getting driven to work.
Probably about the same number of people who think seat belts are unsafe and disable their air bags.