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Today we will begin the Robopocalypse Report with self-driving cars. The XKCD was too funny place down buried in the middle of the report. It also illustrates an important aspect of self-driving cars and the robopocalypse in general: there will be many unanticipated consequences, both for good and ill, from the event. Warming up your car is something many do in cold climates. Except if it can drive itself...
Self driving cars may be really bad for the car insurance business. (Oh the poor gecko!)
Some believe self driving cars will drop accidents by 90%. Peter Sweatman, director of U Michigan's Transportation Research Institute, gives a Q&A.
Related to cars, but not really, Hitchbot was destroyed outside of Philadelphia. HitchBot had been a social experiment run by Canadian researchers and had successfully had it hitch a ride across Canada and in parts of Europe. Canadians are snarky about it. Americans just happen to know Canucks are really dangerous. Especially if they are in on the Robopocalypse!
Panoptes Systems has introduced a 'sense and avoid system' for civilian drones. Depending on the cost, this could be a major breakthrough moment for civvie drones. Assuming it works, of course!
Aviation Week (paywall, sorry) notes the Killer App for drones right now is video content.
China has put in place ITAR-like restrictions, as noted over the weekend, which go into effect on August 15th. For drones, any which can fly for longer than 1 hour and take off with winds greater than a certain amount (40 mph?). This also covers supercomputers over 8 petaflops and certain HPC components. Amongst other things.
More information has been put up about Facebook's internet drone with its 42m (137 ft) wingspan.
The University of Washington claims to have worked out what the world would look like to someone with a 'bionic eye.' They state the world would appear different than what expectations are.
NASA has apparently built a drone for Mars. Getting enough thrust out of the near vacuum of the Martian atmosphere...huh.
NASA has apparently built a drone for Mars. Getting enough thrust out of the near vacuum of the Martian atmosphere...huh.
General Electric Hitachi has developed the Stinger, a free-swimming unmanned underwater vehicle for inspecting and cleaning nuclear reactors.
Apple reportedly wants to have Siri become your answering machine and do text transcription of the messages left. Paging Tom Scott! Hopefully, it won't be asking Google for pictures of spaghetti. (that last is not so safe for work)
Apple reportedly wants to have Siri become your answering machine and do text transcription of the messages left. Paging Tom Scott! Hopefully, it won't be asking Google for pictures of spaghetti. (that last is not so safe for work)
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