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Category: transportation – Page 527

Jaguar’s steering wheel of the future revolves around AI

The steering wheel as we know it doesn’t have a bright future — in fact, it might disappear altogether as self-driving cars hit the road. Jaguar Land Rover, however, has an idea as to how it might survive. The British automaker has unveiled a concept steering wheel, Sayer, that’s designed for an era where cars normally drive themselves and personal ownership is a thing of the past. The wheel would have its own AI system, and would follow you from car to car — you’d just hook it in to bring your experience with you.

The AI would largely serve as a concierge. It would link you to an on-demand service club, whether or not you own your car, and would help you get a ride when and where you need it. If there’s a must-attend meeting, for example, you could tell the wheel while it’s still in your living room and it would figure out when a car needs to arrive and tell you when you might want to take control.

Sayer (named after influential designer Malcolm Sayer) will be a core feature on an upcoming concept car, the Future-Type.

Car navigation tech brings new twists and turns to driving

How dumb AI came to run the world

“People are becoming trained to just blindly follow their mapping apps. The concern is the apps aren’t making any distinction between what happens when cars travel on highways and when they travel on city streets by schools and through neighborhoods,” says Hans Larsen, public works director in Fremont, California, a San Francisco Bay area suburb on the fringes of Silicon Valley.”

“The traffic being diverted off clogged highways during the morning and evening commutes became so insufferable in Fremont that city leaders decided about a year ago to try to outwit the apps. The city of about 230,000 people started to ban turns at several key intersections at certain times along the shortcuts being touted by Waze and other mapping services.”

U.S. to unveil revised self-driving car guidelines: sources

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — President Donald Trump’s administration is set to unveil revised self-driving vehicle guidelines next week in Michigan, responding to automakers’ calls for elimination of legal barriers to putting autonomous vehicles on the road, sources briefed on the matter said on Tuesday.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao was expected to unveil the revised guidelines next Tuesday at a self-driving vehicle testing facility in Ann Arbor, Michigan, four people briefed on the matter said.

A spokesman for Chao did not immediately comment. The White House Office of Management and Budget approved the undisclosed Transportation Department changes to the guidelines on Aug. 31, according a posting on a government website.

It’s Time to Think Beyond Cloud Computing

That problem from the frontier of technology is why many tech leaders foresee the need for a new “edge computing” network—one that turns the logic of today’s cloud inside out. Today the $247 billion cloud computing industry funnels everything through massive centralized data centers operated by giants like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. That’s been a smart model for scaling up web search and social networks, as well as streaming media to billions of users. But it’s not so smart for latency-intolerant applications like autonomous cars or mobile mixed reality.

Cloud computing’s big, distant data centers can’t support VR and self-driving cars—but “edge computing” can.

I’m excited to see Mark O’Connell’s book “To Be a Machine” (about #transhumanism) get shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize, one the biggest science book prizes in the world

I’m excited to see Mark O’Connell’s book “To Be a Machine” (about # transhumanism ) get shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize, one the biggest science book prizes in the world. The final chapter of “To Be a Machine” is about my Immortality Bus journey and presidential campaign (a version of that chapter appeared in The New York Times Magazine after Mark rode with me on the bus). The book also has a wikipedia page now. Winner to be announced on September 19. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Be_a_Machine

Tesla CEO Elon Musk Gives Us a Peek At His L.A. Tunnel Project

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk teased his newest endeavor with a picture of a Model S inside a tunnel that he’s digging in Los Angeles.

Like so many of Musk’s projects, this isn’t just any ol’ tunnel. Musk’s startup, The Boring Company, is digging a tunnel that will be used to transport vehicles at high speeds to avoid traffic congestion. The idea is to lower vehicles via an elevator to a tunnel, where it’s then transported—not driven—in a “sled” along magnetic rails at high speeds.

The Boring Company, was inspired by traffic congestion Musk experienced in Los Angeles. The aim is to find a way cost-effectively dig networks of tunnels for vehicles and high-speed trains.

How Realistic Is Elon Musk’s Hyperloop?

Elon Musk’s plan for the hyperloop promised city-to-city travel at speeds in excess of 700 mph, making the trip between New York City and Washington, D.C., 29 minutes. Bloomberg QuickTake Q&A explains what hurdles exist, and how they can be overcome, before the hyperloop becomes reality. (video by Henry Baker) (Source: Bloomberg)