Lacisoft's » future

Google works on self driving cars

lacisoft — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 09:16:10 +0000

Well it seems that not only i think that automobiles have a way too primitive technology and usability. You should read my 2008 article and see what i was requiring for a modern car. Now Google just announced that they are working on a technology for cars that will allow them to automatically drive from one place to another without a driver. These cars are equipped with video cameras, radar sensors and a laser range finder to detect other cars in traffic. Also detailed maps allow them to navigate to the destination required. These cars that Google created already navigated 140.000 miles without a driver (actually there was someone in the car to take over if something went wrong).

Although these cars are in an experimental phase i think that this is a great progress and a required evolutionary path for the transportation systems of mankind. According to the World Health Organization annually 1.2 million people die in traffic accidents. Also in the US the average time spent commuting is 52 minutes. Imagine that all these lives and all this time could be spared and could be used for progress.

Also when cars will be able to automatically drive themselves probably the number of cars will decrease and we will have less traffic and less pollution. The urge to have your own car will be less smaller and car sharing (as Google says it) will increase. They also speak about “highway trains of tomorrow”, these “trains” could significantly increase the number of people transported giving access to transportation to more and more people.

This is great, but let’s see how soon this can be implemented in our daily life. If it were up to me i would switch tomorrow!

Evolution forgot someone behind: The Automobile

lacisoft — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 16:28:31 +0000

In the last few decades technology evolved with giant steps, especially computers and communications but not only. We can now clone animals, we can comunicate over the internet, we can travel to the moon if we want to. But there is a thing that didn’t evolved too much. At least it is not yet there where it could be. The automobile (car). And transportation in general.

Yes, we have all the new cool gadgets in the car from last generation navigation systems to all kind of technological helping stuff like ABS, airbags and so on. But driving a car is the same as it was 100 years ago. We need to steer, change gears, accelerate, use the brake and find directions. Engines are still the same, combustion based or electric in best case but that is rare and underdeveloped. Some may say that this is cool and what could i want more from tehnology?

Here is what my vision of using a car or a transportation device is:

before leaving the house you call your car by remote, the car comes and parks outside your house
you enter the car and sit down confortably, there is no wheel, no pedals only a big touchscreen
you choose your destination from the touchscreen and choose drive mode: economical, fastest, shortest
the car communicates with traffic guidance systems and gives you an estimation on the time needed to get there
the car starts all by himself using satellite navigation and autopilot to take you where you want to go, meantime you can work, enjoy the ride, start a conversation with someone or even have breakfast
you reach your destination

This may sound strange to you. But we actually have the technology to do this. We have GPS to determine locations, we have sensors to detect objects in motion (other cars on the road) and much more.

This way transportation could be faster, safer for everyone as cars would not cause so many accidents and more economic as autopilots would use a driving mode that has optimal fuel consumption.

Why aren’t we there yet? When you think we will be able to accomplish this?

The future of internet browsers

lacisoft — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 17:47:13 +0000

An interesting concept presented by Chris Beard from Mozilla Labs. It is interesting to see how they imagine the future of web browsers. The mix of 3d rendering and user interaction is in the focus of this so called Aurora project.