61986185
submission
cartechboy writes:
Big rig operators may not be thrilled to hear it (or maybe they will). Daimler board member Dr. Wolfgang Bernhard was quoted as saying "The truck of the future is a Mercedes-Benz that drives itself." The German automaker has completed a first public road test of an autonomously-driven truck. Radar and stereo cameras keep the rig on the right course once it's at cruising speed, freeing the driver to get "other" work done. (Watch the video to get a sense for a trucker being able to settle in with his iPad.) Mercedes says the self-driving truck could allow drivers to perform tasks that might otherwise be handled by office workers. So maybe it's office workers that need to worry about autonomous trucks, rather than the drivers.
61563639
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cartechboy writes:
What if you got into your car and you had to authenticate that it was you behind the wheel? That might be what's coming in the near future as Ford's working with Intel to bring facial recognition to the car. The idea would be to improve safety and in-car tech with this system which is being called Project Mobil. When someone enters a Project Mobil-equipped car the system uses front-facing cameras to authenticate the driver. If the driver can't be authenticated it'll send a photo to the vehicle owner's phone asking for permission for this person to drive the vehicle. Once identified, the car can then automatically adjust certain settings to the driver's preference. This could also theoretically allow parents to control how loud their kids listen to the music while driving, how fast they can drive, and even simply monitor them driving. Obviously this NSA-like surveillance tech is a bit creepy on some levels, but there could be a lot of terrific applications for it. While only an experiment, don't be surprised if your dashboard stares back at you eventually.
61542141
submission
cartechboy writes:
Tired of waiting for self-driving cars from the automakers? If 2017 and 2020 just feel too far away there's now a solution it's called Cruise, and for $10,000 it'll turn your current ride into a self-driving car. Kyle Vogt started the company and recruited a team of engineers and roboticists from MIT to work on autonomous vehicles. Cruise plans to market the hardware as something that can be retrofitted to existing cars using roof-mounted sensors near the windshield, actuators to operate the controls, and a trunk-mounted computer that manages everything. The idea is that drivers can merge onto the highway and simply hit the "Cruise" button on the dashboard. This will engage the system and basically turns the car on autopilot. The system can use the steering, brakes, and throttle to keep the car in its lane. Currently the first system called RP-1 only works on current-generatinon Audi A4 and S4 models, but one would have to assume there are plans for expanding that. RP-1 is currently available for pre-order with the launch set for near year.
61531081
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cartechboy writes:
Let's face it, regenerative braking is now old tech. It's on everything from the Toyota Prius to your mom's new Ford Fusion Hybrid. So what's next? We've already heard about thermoelectric technology which recovers energy from hot surfaces such as exhaust, but what about the energy used by your car while moving up and down? That's right, recovering energy normally lost through a vehicle's suspension. Audi is reportedly developing a regenerative suspension system that could reclaim energy in a similar way to regenerative braking, providing an extra boost of electricity from the up-and-down motion of the shock absorbers. Shocks can become quite hot, especially on a bumpy road. That heat is pretty much wasted as it dissipates into the atmosphere as wasted energy, but the Audi system would collect it with an attached generator. That recovered energy would be stored in batteries and used to power a hybrid's electric motor or electrical accessories in a conventional car. Audi hasn't said when this tech will make its public debut, but this stuff is the next step in when it comes to energy recovery in cars.
61527741
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bsharma writes:
In a sweeping decision in favor of digital privacy, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that police need a warrant to search a person's cellphone, even in the case of someone placed under arrest.
In an 8-1 decision, the court ruled against the Obama administration.
The usual law is that police can search anything on a person when they make an arrest. Opponents argued that smartphones were different because they hold such massive and personal stores of information.
61527315
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bsharma writes:
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday dealt a potentially fatal blow to Aereo, an Internet service that allows customers to watch broadcast TV programs on mobile devices.
Launched a year ago in New York and then extended to 10 other U.S. cities, it allows customers to watch over-the-air TV programs on a smartphone, tablet, or computer for as little as $8 a month. Selections can be viewed live or recorded for later viewing.
61367129
submission
cartechboy writes:
You own a smartphone and a laptop, and you've likely experienced your device's lithium-ion battery performance degrading over time after repeated charging cycles. Why? The simple answer is each time you charge and discharge the batteries they lose a little capacity. While you won't notice this every day, you will after a year or two. The technical reasoning behind this has to do with how the ions move through the battery change the physical structure of the electrodes. In a lithium-ion battery, lithium ions move from the anode to cathode through a non-aqueous electrolyte. As they do, the physical structures of the electrodes are very slightly altered at an atomic level. During discharge, they wear at irregularities on its surface in a non-uniform way. In the future, there might be a way to possibly coat the cathodes with elements that resist crystallization, but a commercially-realistic timescale for such advances will be years away.
61303353
submission
cartechboy writes:
It's no secret that the National Automobile Dealers Association has been trying to block Tesla from selling cars directly from consumers, but to date, it has been defeated countless times in many states. Now NADA put out a release and promotional video touting the benefits of dealer franchises, something Tesla has shunned. NADA mentions price competition, consumer safety, local economic benefits, and added value. While NADA argues its points, there's no question that Tesla could easily turn around and argue right back with valid counter points. There may be some truth to NADA's claims, but there are some gaping holes in the arguments that can't be ignored, and I'm sure Tesla won't. Hey NADA, you scared?
61268635
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Daniel_Stuckey writes:
It hopefully doesn't come as a surprise that your friends shape who you are. But we tend to think of that on a micro level: If your close circle of friends tends to have tattoos, wear polo shirts, or say "chill" a lot, it's quite possible that you'll emulate them over time—and they'll emulate you too.
But what happens on a macro scale, when your friend circle doesn't just include the dozen people you actually hang out with regularly, but also the hundreds or thousands of acquaintances you have online? All of those feeds may seem filled with frivolities from random people (and they are!) but that steady stream of life updates—photos, rants, slang—are probably shaping you more than you think.
A massive Facebook study recently published in PNAS found solid evidence of so-called emotional contagion—emotional states spreading socially, like a virus made of emoji—on the social network.
61268615
submission
cartechboy writes:
Come on, you didn't think Google was going to let Apple take over your car without a fight, did you? Of course not. Now that automakers are taking Apple's CarPlay system seriously, and starting to put it into production, Google's set to unveil its own automotive operating system known internally as Google Auto Link. The search giant plans to unveil its system at a software developer conference this month. Interestingly, Auto Link is the first production developed in conjunction with the Open Automotive Alliance, a group of companies including Audi, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, NVIDIA, and Google itself. Like CarPlay, Auto Link won't be an "embedded" system, rather, a "projected" one--an operating system that uses a driver's own smartphone operating system. We'll obviously learn details soon enough, but for now, we are left to wonder whether it'll be Apple or Google that ends up owning the automotive market.
61268177
submission
cartechboy writes:
"Made In China." It's a sticker we all know too well here in the U.S., and yet, it seems not everything we buy is made in China. To date, there haven't been Chinese-built cars in the U.S., but we keep hearing they are coming. Now it seems it's about to become a reality, as Chinese-built Volvos will be arriving in the U.S. as early as 2015. The first model to arrive will be the S60L. The payoff for Volvo if it manages to convince buyers that its cars built in China are just as good as those currently built in Europe is vast. Not only will it save on production costs, but it will help buffer against exchange rate fluctuations. Volvo's planning to make China a manufacturing hub, and that makes sense since it's now owned by Chinese parent company Geely. But will Chinese-built cars be just as good as European-built cars, and will consumers be able to tell the difference?
61237039
submission
cartechboy writes:
The Toyota Prius is pretty darn popular, especially in California. One might think that hybrid sales are on the rise as gas prices continue to fluctuate, but it seems hybrid sales in the U.S. might be peaking. Researchers at IHS Automotive found that U.S. hybrid sales haven't kept pace with the rest of the market. In the automotive world, conventional wisdom states that adding a model to a brand or segment will increase sales--but that hasn't happened with hybrids. The number of hybrid offerings has almost doubled from 24 in 2009 to 47 in 2014--but U.S. hybrid sales haven't dramatically increased. In fact, hybrid market share actually declined from 2009 to 2010, and then again from 2013 to 2014. So if consumers aren't buying hybrids, what are they buying? It seems some hybrid early adopters are now switching to plug-in hybrids or electric cars stating that these models are just nicer to drive. Is this already the beginning of the end in some way for hybrids, or is it merely a blip on the sales chart?
61236731
submission
cartechboy writes:
For the most part, you probably have a simple understanding of how your car's brakes work. But a race car, that's a whole different beast. Brembo's the biggest name in the brake industry, and it just released a video explaining the technology that goes into the brakes on a Formula 1 race car from pedal to caliper. Obviously it starts with every component being beefed up from a normal braking system, but there's also aluminum monoblock calipers, carbon rotors and pads, a brake-by-wire system with a redundancy in case of an electronic failure, and a kinetic energy recovery system (KERS). Of course, KERS is the most interesting bit as the it allows for smaller rear calipers than before which of course reduces mass. Believe it or not, all of this stuff ends up trickling down to mass-market cars eventually, it's just a matter of time. So the next time you tap your brakes, remember, that technology was likely proven on a race car at some point.
61235477
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mrspoonsi writes:
The Skunk, built by Desert Wolf, is designed to "control unruly crowds without endangering the lives of security staff," and is reportedly already being adopted by South African mine owners. Equipped with a 4,000-strong clip and four paintball gun barrels, the Skunk can fire up to 80 projectiles in a single second. It can carry dye markers, pepper spray bullets or even solid plastic balls, which somewhat stretches the definition of "non lethal." The hardware also carries strobe lights and on-board speakers to disorientate and warn the crowd, as well as a FLIR thermal camera for night vision operations.
