The State of Autonomous Cars - DTNS WEEKLY TECH UPDATE 04/27/2017
Added 2017-04-27 22:15:45 +0000 UTCFirst of all, thanks for reading! This is the weekly newsletter companion to Daily Tech News Show at http://dailytechnewsshow.com/
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This week I took some time (while I was waiting for the doctor) to dive into where we are with Autonomous Cars. From what the heck we mean when we say "self-driving"to who's working on the cars and where, to when we can expect them. I have all the latest for you right her.
CLOSER LOOK - AUTONOMOUS CARS
WHAT PEOPLE MEAN WHEN THEY SAY AUTONOMOUS?
For those who don’t already know the scale there are four levels agreed to be the rankings of how much autonomy is in a car.
Level 1 - Cars that can assist the driver in avoiding accidents, though the human is always driving. These are the cars out there right now with lane departure warnings, and parking assist an the like.
Level 2- This level allows the human driver to take their hands off the wheel for brief periods of time, in limited circumstances like on highways. If you’ve heard of Tesla’s Autopilot, that’s Level 2.
Level 3 - sort of flips level 2 putting the computer in charge of the car most of the time, but still requiring a human driver to be available to take over in certain circumstances, either emergencies or difficult situations, like weather.
Level 4 - This is the self-dricing car. This one is the one that does all the driving and the human is just a passenger if there’s even a human inside at all. However they may have a limited area
Level 5 - No limited area. Robocar goes where robocar wants to go.
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/autonomous-car-levels-sae-ranking
WHO’S WORKING ON THEM? AND WHERE?
PITTSBURGH - Uber has been testing its autonomous car technology in Pittsburgh since last September. Some reports have indicated the tech isn’t as advanced as Waymo’s but in the first six months there were no accidents or injuries.
BOSTON- nuTonomy got approval to operate two electric autonomous Renault Zoe cars in Boston’s Seaport district and parts of Fort Point. The tests can only happen in dry conditions. The cars previously were tested in the Raymond L. Flynn Marine Park.
LONDON - Stan Boland of FiveAI received £12.8 million from the government to head up a driverless car project in London, has a unique view on driverless technology.FiveAI hopes to develop a system that doesn’t need connectivity and would be licensed by companies who want to set up ride-hailing systems.
PHOENIX - Alphabet’s Google spin-off called Waymo started offering limited free service to approved riders in the Phoenix area. It’s autonomous cars all have a human driver though the car is left to do the driving as much as possible. Uber and several others also test in Arizona.
http://newatlas.com/waymo-autonomous-phoenix-arizona-trial/49212/
PORTLAND, Oregon opened itself up to autonomous car testing by ordering its Bureau of Transportation to create rules for pilot programs that want to test in Portland.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-19/portland-opens-its-streets-to-self-driving-cars
NISSAN joined BMW and Volkswagen as part of MobileEye’s Road Experience Management platform to build high-precision road maps for autonomous cars. Intel is part of the group too, working with BMW.
APPLE On April 21, a filing with the California DMV described an Apple training program to operate vehicles to test its Automated System for cars. The documents were part of a filing for permits to test cars on California roads. Apple’s development platform describes sending electronic commands for steering, accelerating, and decelerating and may carry out portions of the dynamic driving task.” The cars use Logitech’s steering wheel and pedals. Apple applied for a permit for six drivers to drive three Lexus RX450h SUVs.
AMAZON is reportedly assembling a team to investigate how autonomous cars and particularly, autonomous trucks, could help improve Amazon’s shipping and logistics issues.
GENERAL MOTORS supposedly is in the midst of hiring 1,100 people to work at an R&D center in California to develop autonomous car technology. IEEE reported GM wants to launch the largest fleet of autonomous cars in the US across three cities. GM is testing autonomous cars in Detroit, San Francisco, and Scottsdale, Arizona.
https://jalopnik.com/gm-is-getting-serious-about-autonomous-cars-1794328033
HOW SOON ARE THEY COMING
2018? Amber Mobility announced it will provide autonomous vehicles for use by customers of its business-to-business car sharing service in Eindhoven, Netherlands by mid-2018. Helmond, will get it next and the rest of Europe to follow. Amber is partnering with TomTom for mapping, Nvidia for image and sensor data, Microsoft for cloud and AI and the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research for autonomous vehicle software.
2021? DAIMLER’S MERCEDES And auto-parts supplier BOSCH announced a join partnership in early April to put fully autonomous cars on the road as part of a ride hailing service, by 2021. Ford is also setting 2021 as its target date for fully autonomous cars.
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/autos/race-autonomous-vehicles-picks-speed-n743076
http://insideevs.com/daimler-partners-bosch-level-4-5-autonomous-vehicles/
2020? Chinese company Baidu hopes to gradually introduce its fully autonomous driving system on highways and open city roads by 2020.It needs car manufacturers as a partner. Baidu has approval to test in California but not in China.
https://www.geek.com/tech/baidu-to-launch-autonomous-cars-by-2020-1696952/
2025? - That’s when Kathy Winter, VP and GM of the Automated Driving Solutions Division at Intel believes fully automated vehicles will be ready. Well she thinks the technology is already ready. Winter used to work at DELPHI which has its own autonomous car program and used Intel to make a cross-country autonomous trip from San Francisco to New York. Winter thinks the delay will be caused by insurance, regulation and infrastructure concerns. The solution to all that rests on data and Intel is marketing itself as the best company to handle that data.
http://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/intel-ready-to-tackle-autonomous-cars-and-big-data
THE DOWNSIDE OF AUTONOMOUS CARS
Autonomous cars may reduce congestion but they also might encourage more sprawl.
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-self-driving-cars-make-life-worse-2017-4
People may not trust them either. A J.D Power study found that 55 percent of people born in the 1990s trust self-driving technology. That falls to 40 percent for people born between 1930 and 1945.
http://www.autoblog.com/2017/04/18/younger-buyers-trust-autonomous-cars-jd-power/
And don’t forget people whose job is driving may be displaced and have to find other work.
In the end autonomous cars may come to roads by the early 2020s but they won’t become mainstream until several challenges are solved including unexpected road conditions of ALL kinds, not just common ones like a pedestrian jumping out in front of you. Also weather is a big challenge which sensors are getting better at but not so good you could throw an autonomous car out in any conditions. At least not yet.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/520431/driverless-cars-are-further-away-than-you-think/
NEWS RECAP
Bloomberg reports ride-hailing company Didi Chuxing is close to an agreement to raise $5 billion that would make it the most valuable startup in China and second in the world behind Uber. The deal would value Didi Chuxing at $50 billion, up from the $34 billion estimated during its acquisition of Uber’s Chinese business last year. https://www.techinasia.com/chinas-didi-valued-50b-rumored-6b
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced his plan to reclassify Internet providers as Title I information services, end rules that allow the commission to adapt rules to future practices, and open questions about the no blocking and no throttling rules implemented in 2015. The full text of the proposal will be published Thursday afternoon and voted on by the FCC May 18th. If approved it will be opened up for public comment. The commission then will revise rules based on public feedback before voting to enact a final proposal. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/04/ajit-pai-announces-plan-to-eliminate-title-ii-net-neutrality-rules/
Nintendo said it expects to sell 10 million Nintendo Switch consoles which will help double annual operating profit and end an eight-year sales decline. 2.74 million Switch systems shipped in March beating a goal of 2 million by 40 percent. Nintendo also noted Super Mario Run has neared 150 million free downloads with paying users below 10 percent. And 3DS sales increased to 7.27 million. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nintendo-results-idUSKBN17T0SX
Twitter COO and CFO Anthony Noto told BuzzFeed News that Twitter plans to stream video 24 hours a day 7 days a week covering news, sports and entertainment. Noto didn’t give a date saying it will take some time to ramp up the “many, many things.” Twitter is expected to announce original shows at the NewFronts next week, events designed to give advertisers a look into upcoming video programming. https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/26/15430838/twitter-live-video-broadcast-24-hours
Twitter announced earnings of 11 cents a share on revenue of $548 million last quarter with 328 million monthly active users, a rise of 9 million over last quarter. The earnings beat expectations by 10 cents a share and 36 million. Revenue did fall 8% year over year, it just didn’t fall as far as analysts expected. Data licensing revenue grew but advertising revenue declined as did expenses. https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/26/twitters-first-quarter-was-a-surprise-much-needed-hit/
Microsoft says it will offer updates to Windows 10 and Office 365 Pro Plus at the same time, twice a year. Each update will be supported for 18 months. Also starting October 13, 2020 Office 365 can only be used with versions of Office still in mainstream support. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/04/windows-office-to-get-synchronized-twice-yearly-releases/
Instagram announced it now has 700 million monthly active users for its entire platform, up from 600 million in December. This is the total number of users not just the users of Instagram Stories. https://thenextweb.com/apps/2017/04/26/instagram-shows-no-sign-slowing-hits-700-million-users/#.tnw_6C3O8BRl
As of Tuesday, residents of Phoenix, Arizona can sign up for rides in Waymo’s self-driving minivan for free. The “early rider program” will gather data on how people want to use autonomous cars. You can apply at waymo.com/apply and applicants will be selected based on how they want to use the service. A human will be behind the wheel but the cars will operate as autonomously as possible. https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/25/15415840/waymo-self-driving-minivan-early-rider-phoenix
Google announced Project Owl which takes into account ratings by human reviewers in search results and also gives you ways to report problems with Autocomplete and Featured Snippets. Facebook is testing showing related articles, and links to fact-checkers, before you read a topic. And the third of the news efforts is led by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales. Wikitribune will allow anyone to participate but a paid staff of journalists will edit contributions and decide what gets published. Staff will also write original articles and take into account the wishes of crowdfunders on what to cover. The site will not take advertising. Advisers to WikiTribune include Guy Kawasaki, Lawrence Lessig, Jeff Jarvis and Lily Cole.
http://searchengineland.com/googles-project-owl-attack-fake-news-273700
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39695767
An update to Google Home adds support for up to six different users. Not only can six different accounts be connected to a device but Google Home can tell them apart by voice. Each user will train the device by saying the trigger word three times. While Google thinks its voice detection is pretty good it admits it isn’t perfect and does not recommend relying on it as a security feature. https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/4/20/15364960/google-home-speaker-multi-user-new-feature
Samsung met its earnings forecast, with revenue rising 2 percent to 50.5 trillion won. Chips led the way as expected with a record 6.3 trillion won operating profit as prices rose for DRAM and NAND memory. Mobile operating profit fell 3.89 trillion won year over year with the absence of the Note 7. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-samsung-elec-results-idUSKBN17S376
Google officially began its WiFi and broadband service in Cuba Thursday, becoming the first non-Cuban internet company to operate there. The service involves the Google Global Cache which speeds up loading for popular content like video. https://www.engadget.com/2017/04/26/google-becomes-first-foreign-internet-company-to-go-live-in-cuba/
KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has weighed in on upcoming new iPhones. As several others have reported, Kuo expects two minor upgrades to the iPhone 7 and 7 plus a significant upgraded model with an OLED screen. Kuo says this OLED model will not enter production until October or November due to manufacturing issues with the OLED screen, changes to sensors and the A11 chip being manufacture on a 10-nanometer process. http://fortune.com/2017/04/24/apple-iphone-8-delay-kuo/
A new York Times report claims Apple’s Tim Cook told Uber’s Travis Kalanick to stop a practice of trying to match users who deleted the Uber app and then reinstalled it on the same phone under a different account. Uber says the practice was meant to combat fraud. Supposedly drivers in China had been registering multiple Uber accounts on stolen phones in order to inflate the number of rider requests and raise prices. Will Strafach, president of Sudo security group told TechCrunch it appears Uber was using the device Serial Number in a way that violates Apple’s rules in its 2014 version of the app. Uber told TechCrunch it does use a form of fingerprinting that complies with Apple’s rules in order to combat fraud. https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/23/uber-responds-to-report-that-it-tracked-users-who-deleted-its-app/
AT&T announced it will launch a combination of tech from LTE-Advanced and LTE-Advanced Pro in 20 cities by the end of this year. AT&T however has decided to start calling this LTE service, 5G-Evolution. AT&T also announced it lost 191,000 postpaid wireless subscribers and 233,000 cable TV subscribers last quarter. https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/25/15425414/att-5g-evolution-network-lte-advanced-misleading-marketing
-- http://www.reuters.com/article/us-at-t-results-idUSKBN17R2Q6
Comments
They're still trucking along. I suppose they get less press because you can't ride in one.
Daily Tech News Show
2017-04-28 22:55:11 +0000 UTCNice one. What about Otto and the like? I have not seen any dates being given for trucks and lorries and wonder if the air is out of that balloon.
seerpea
2017-04-28 22:30:03 +0000 UTC
