When self-driving cars hit the market, they will need to monitor the well being of the “driver” and passengers in the car. Infineon Technologies is announcing some sensors today that can do this just that using radar technology.
Everyone makes mistakes, and many people try to cover them up. But if you try to hide an error made behind the wheel of a car made by Tesla Motors, you are liable to be caught out. In fact, trying to hide what really happened in any kind of car accident could soon become just about impossible.
NXP, the Netherlands-based purveyor of automotive semiconductors, today launched a smart-car computing system called BlueBox that knits together devices that the company already sells.
“We already build processors for radar, vision, and LIDAR, and we see these systems now being combined,” says Bob Conrad, who heads NXP’s automotive microcontroller business.
He spoke from his Austin, Texas, office, where he’d worked for Freescale until last year, when NXP bought it for US $12 billion. That acquisition created what NXP now says is the largest supplier of automotive semiconductors in the world.
Until 2012, there had been no significant changes within the automobile industry for 15 years. But that year — 2012, marked an inflection point from which myriad innovative opportunities emerged. Tesla showed us the power of a truly connected car with API’s that could remotely access a vehicle’s data and fix issues with over-the-air updates. Self-driving cars also became a tangible reality with Google and Delphi demonstrating prototypes across America. Since then, in just a four year period, the connected car market has transformed significantly.
Whether the car of the future runs on electricity, hydrogen, or old-fashioned gasoline, it will emit billions of bytes of data. And the battle to control and exploit that data is just getting started.
On Monday, the Japanese carmaker Toyota announced a new subsidiary, called Toyota Connected, that will manage and mine the data collected from its vehicles, and the company said it would collaborate with Microsoft on the venture. The data collected and delivered might include mapping data, engine statistics, and records of driver behavior. Most immediately, this could mean updating vehicle features or patching bugs remotely. But the goal is also to develop new kinds of interfaces that predict a driver’s intention.
The FBI and U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued a bulletin Thursday warning that motor vehicles are “increasingly vulnerable” to hacking.
“The FBI and NHTSA are warning the general public and manufacturers – of vehicles, vehicle components, and aftermarket devices – to maintain awareness of potential issues and cybersecurity threats related to connected vehicle technologies in modern vehicles,” the agencies said in the bulletin.
In July 2015, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV recalled 1.4 million U.S. vehicles to install software after a magazine report raised concerns about hacking, the first action of its kind for the auto industry.
We all spend a lot of time on the roads, both in transit and in traffic. While technology has not yet come up with an alternative to the daily commute (unless you work from home), several Israeli startups are developing technologies to make our daily drive smoother, safer, and more pleasurable.
Here are five Israeli companies using technology to change the way we drive:
Mobileye: Preventing accidents
Making driving safer, Israeli company Mobileye develops driver assistance technology to prevent accidents, but is also one of the major developers of autonomous car technologies.
There is never an official theme at the annual North American International Auto Show (NAIAS), held last week in Detroit, but one usually emerges as automakers showcase their latest innovations, hoping to one-up each other while garnering consumer and media interest. One year it was electrification; another year, it was infotainment. This year, the buzzword capturing the imagination of the automotive industry was mobility.
General Motors (GM) has reportedly acquired what remains of former ridesharing provider Sidecar. In addition to incorporating Sidecar’s technology, the car manufacturer will bring about 20 employees over to bolster its own efforts in the space.
According to Bloomberg, the exact figures of the deal weren’t disclosed, but it was likely less than the $39 million Sidecar raised when it was still in existence. What’s also noteworthy is that among the personnel being kept on is Sidecar cofounder and CEO Jahan Khanna. However, chief executive Sunil Paul has opted not to make the move to GM.
Buy a new car these days and the chances are that it will be fitted with an array of driver-assistance technologies. These can match the speed of a car ahead, manage lane changing safely, and even apply the brakes to help prevent a collision. So an interesting question is how much better these safety systems can become before the inevitable occurs and the car takes over completely.
Today we get a partial answer thanks to the work of Ashesh Jain at Cornell University and a few pals, who have developed a system that can predict a human driver’s next maneuver some three seconds before he or she makes it. This information, they say, can then be used to identify and prevent potential accidents.
