Google Cars Drive Themselves, in Traffic

[Keatah]

Ah yes, the Moller Skycar. Mr Moller has been working on it for how long now? 10 years?

yeh about those skycar things. The AI software needs to drastically improve. I'd say another 50 or 60 years to go. Most software being developed today (aside from orbiter & add-ons) :lol: is for commercial benefit.

It's been more like 15 years since that skycar graced pop-sci. A whole infrastructure needs to be developed around them, and politicians need to get out of the way. Really.

 

[Moach]

yeh about those skycar things. The AI software needs to drastically improve. I'd say another 50 or 60 years to go. Most software being developed today (aside from orbiter & add-ons) :lol: is for commercial benefit.

It's been more like 15 years since that skycar graced pop-sci. A whole infrastructure needs to be developed around them, and politicians need to get out of the way. Really.

i dont think the AI is really that far off.... but AI is just a one part of it - the pilot interface must be given exceptional amounts of thought in order to make it accessible to the general public...

and politicians REALLY do need to get out of the way....


i, myself have in mind a concept for a personal air vehicle that rivals the modern car in practicallity and ease of use - but it's a lot to talk about, and i don't wanna steer this thread over the off-topic cliff any further

 

[Zachstar]

Will it stop the car in front of a kitten trying to run across the road? :facepalm:

A kitten running across is easily picked up by today's systems much less tomorrow's. It can make a decision in a millisecond which gives it FAR more time to brake gradually to ease traffic behind it instead of slamming on the brakes.

You think a man with a prior DUI and is thinking he can get home just fine despite the beers he consumed an hour before will save the kitten? He could care less that he is far more likely to kill an entire family in a car he could care less about the kitten.

---------- Post added at 10:07 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:03 AM ----------

This is simply meaning that people in mass are in severe need of autopilots for their cars. I dare to predict that in 20 years driving a car manually would be like an art few bother to take up (and permitted only in special driver reservations, otherwise you are FINED! :nono

Is there an issue with that? It is virtually impossible to deny manual driving but making it require far more in education and better records (Any DUI = Auto driving for life)

 

[T.Neo]

I dunno- I doubt the usefulness of a flying car. IMO money would be better spent on making the road network and mass transit systems more effective, than being wasted on fulling the sky with a plethora of (potentially dangerous) aircraft... :shifty:

EDIT:

(Any DUI = Auto driving for life)

Yeah! Because, when people do something wrong, we take away all their freedom, instead of, I dunno, reforming them or making sure they don't do it in the first place. :dry:

 

[Moach]

I dunno- I doubt the usefulness of a flying car.(...)

i don't:

yep - that's the city i live in... and that's an actually pretty well organized crossing, most have much worse phase timing and signaling.... that's part of the reason why we hold the traffic jam world record woth 266km of solid gridlock :facepalm:

it is not uncommon to hear stories of folks who take (and this is for real) over 5 hours to go to/from work every single day....
i consider myself lucky - living about 20 mins from where i work (although i wouldn't even apply for a job located much further)


and there's not much hope of any improvement.... São Paulo is the most densely populated (and second largest) city on earth - which also explains our record-holding helicopter traffic - there are times when ground transport becomes akin to prohibitive....

only way to solve it (someone said), would be to nuke this place flat, and start building a whole new city from scratch (with proper planning, this time around)

 

[Urwumpe]

Just make some proper fines for entering a crossroads during red phase and people will learn... Such jams are also often here in Braunschweig, when people think as long as it is green, they can follow the car in front of them in bumper distance even when the exit of the crossroads is already blocked (by the rules, you would have to wait until you can ensure that you don't block the other lanes during their green phase)

 

[Sky Captain]

I highly doubt it would be possible to make a vehicle that is a good car and good plane and is affordable to general public. I suppose you could make a light aircraft with foldable wings that can drive but it won't be a good car and likely would be deadly to occupants in case of road crash because of light structure. Something like Moller scycar that relies on thrust to get off the ground likely would guzzle fuel like tank making it affordable only for the rich.

 

[Eccentrus]

that kind of culture, urwumpe, is very hard indeed to learn, I live in Jakarta, which have about the same condition with Sao Paolo, the "real" population is about 6 millions, but at daytime, there are more than 20 million people working inside it, in a "giant village with some towers" 60 km wide, and of course, the force of being punctual outpower the sense of making the most for the benefit of all, in here, people will still go and cross that junction even if it's red, and with the corrupt morale of the police, and the inadequate physical conditions of the roads, you should know the end result: the average velocity you can get in rush hour is 10 km/h. I had an experience of driving 20 km worth of distance in about 6 hours, I was going for a scientific exhibition at 8AM in the morning, watch a movie and dropped a friend at 4PM, and arrived home at 10PM (yes that's the 20 km I was talking about)

 

[Urwumpe]

Yikes...don't you have public transportation that is not omnibuses (that are also stuck in the traffic jams without bus lanes)?

 

[Moach]

nope... there's only a few km's worth of subway lines - the trains are pretty good, considering... but the span of the system is negligible, providing little to no relief for the chaotic roads above.....

new lines are being built now... but they are loooooooooooooooooong overdue :dry:


now, i'm still a strong believer in the concept of the flying car - i think it's a logical next step (back when we were being towed around by horses, few would believe that over the next century, most people would have those wonderful horseless carriages)
it might not be soon, and it definately won't be like in "the Jetsons" - but affordable, practical aerial vehicles should become a reality someday

 

[Urwumpe]

That is the nice thing about Europe... even smaller cities already have a proper public transportation system, because of historical growth (cars and omnibuses had not been available when such cities already grew too large for walking and horse carts)

The fate of the Jakarta Monorail project though, is embarrassing.. it is reading like a chain of planning errors and corruption.

 

[Artlav]

yep - that's the city i live in...

driving 20 km worth of distance in about 6 hours

Ouch. And i thought Moscow traffic was the worst. Our problem is mainly idiots and roads - cars are parked across the road by the former, and latter are often designed by some imbecile.

now, i'm still a strong believer in the concept of the flying car, i, myself have in mind a concept for a personal air vehicle that rivals the modern car in practicality and ease of use

Worth starting a new thread.
I think a classic flying car is impossible without a good enough power source to drive several redundant sets of electrical ducted fans, and impractical without anti-gravity or reactionless drive and repulsors for collision avoidance.

 

[OrbiterSpore]

Well, it's official. Google is trying to take over the world.

Google = BnL :rofl::lol:

 

[Zachstar]

I dunno- I doubt the usefulness of a flying car. IMO money would be better spent on making the road network and mass transit systems more effective, than being wasted on fulling the sky with a plethora of (potentially dangerous) aircraft... :shifty:

EDIT:



Yeah! Because, when people do something wrong, we take away all their freedom, instead of, I dunno, reforming them or making sure they don't do it in the first place. :dry:

The next DUI could be issued at the scene of a horrific car crash that takes the life of innocents. Happens far too often.

The penalty for DUI keeps going higher and higher but people still don't get it. It has to be one because the fear must be there to not even attempt it not "learning how to drive buzzed" to try to avoid 2 and 3.

They can drive on their own property all they want.

 

[Moach]

Worth starting a new thread.
I think a classic flying car is impossible without a good enough power source to drive several redundant sets of electrical ducted fans, and impractical without anti-gravity or reactionless drive and repulsors for collision avoidance.

i'll start us a new thread in a bit - i'm still working on an animated concept illustration :thumbup:

no need for sci-fi "repulsion fields" to avoid collisions - a couple of cleverly arranged optical (or sonar/radar?) distance sensors hooked up to the Fly-by-Wire computer should work to the same effect

remember, the Fly-by-Wire concept proposes that the computer is in charge of all flight controls - the joystick in the pilot's hand simply "suggests" to what it should try to do

by that logic - if the computer is set to avoiding crashes, the pilot should be effectivelly unable to cause one - regardless of how unfit his flying skills may be :hmm:

 

[Ghostrider]

I dunno- I doubt the usefulness of a flying car.

When you have Nexus-6 class replicants roaming loose in your city you'll see...

 

[T.Neo]

The next DUI could be issued at the scene of a horrific car crash that takes the life of innocents. Happens far too often.

The penalty for DUI keeps going higher and higher but people still don't get it. It has to be one because the fear must be there to not even attempt it not "learning how to drive buzzed" to try to avoid 2 and 3.

They can drive on their own property all they want.

I don't think you read my post properly- I stated that they should be reformed, or prevented from doing so in the first place altogether. If you have to ban people from driving to prevent repeat offending, the system is doing things wrong.

The idea of banning people from driving for their entire life for a DUI, speaks of such a totalitarian state that makes the commitment of a plethora of violations of freedom. You are missing out on methods of increasing safety, and preventing loss of life, that could be far more effective than what you describe.

 

[Wishbone]

Driving is first and foremost a responsibility. It doesn't matter what you're driving - a car, a glider, a motor yacht, a space shuttle or a shiny new Dreamliner. DUI makes one a threat to society, and a very likely serial killer. No society can hope to survive by tolerating serial killers - in my country the hope is almost extinguished, every now and then there is news of law enforcement, businessmen, govt officials or otherwise privileged folks crushing down innocent bystanders and getting away with bribes and influence.

 

[T.Neo]

Right... serial killers? :uhh:

Look, I definitely don't condone lethal road accidents caused by irresponsibility, or DUI, or any sort of irresponsible driving, but I think we're taking it a bit out of hand here...

 

[JonnyBGoode]

yep - that's the city i live in... and that's an actually pretty well organized crossing, most have much worse phase timing and signaling....

That's absurd. Don't they have traffic lights and regulations in Brazil akin to US regulations? I.e. red lights stop traffic one way and green lights let traffic flow the other, then the lights switch to allow cross traffic to flow and stop the original flow? That looks like if there are lights at all, nobody pays attention to them, everyone just goes into the intersection when they feel like it and hope they get through to the other side.