Rick Monteverde wrote:
I want a wireless dashboard system that's all but driverless. You
put in your offramp or destination it guides you, recommending
speed, lane to be in, recording time of day, etc. as you drive the
route, and bills you accordingly.
This sort of thing will come eventually, but I expect it will take
decades. I discussed it in my book.
I think we are seeing incremental progress in this direction, which is good.
The Japanese government and industry have demonstrated partially
automated cars on the national news lately, that will be introduced
in 2010. The project is mainly intended to reduce urban surface road
accidents and especially pedestrian fatalities. It looks complicated
and expensive to me. They showed yesterday how intersections will be
equipped with sensors that detect automobiles and pedestrians and
send signals to approaching vehicles. (That is, vehicles equipped
with the high tech gadgets needed to receive the signal.) When a car
approaches an intersection and the driver pushes the left turn signal
(for example), the car checks to see if pedestrians are crossing on
the left side of the road, and if they are, it issues a visible alarm
on the dashboard and an audio alarm. The audio alarm is one of these
high-pitched cloying, annoying female voices are always telling you
what to do in Japan: "prepare to get off the escalator" and "if you
go swimming, please don't drown" (I kid you not). There are so many
of these voices I fear this will be a case of the little girl who
cried wolf, and drivers will ignore her.
The GPS voice in my car sounds like a Midwestern middle-age
schoolmarm -- the kind of voice you don't ignore. If you take a wrong
turn you feel like she is going to send you to detention.
- Jed
