[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="">  Ditch the GPS. It’s ruining your brain

M. O'conner, June 5, "It has become the most natural thing to do: get in the car, type a destination into a smartphone, and let an algorithm using GPS data show the way. Personal GPS-equipped devices entered the mass market in only the past 15 or so years  ???... Actually we put the first nationwide GPS system, CoPilot,  on the market @ J& R Computer World in August 1997 :-) ...  , but hundreds of millions of people now rarely travel without them. These gadgets are extremely powerful, allowing people to know their location at all times, to explore unknown places and to avoid getting lost.

But they also affect perception and judgment. When people are told which way to turn, it relieves them of the need to create their own routes and remember them. They pay less attention to their surroundings. And neuroscientists can now see that brain behavior changes when people rely on turn-by-turn directions.

In a study published in Nature Communications in 2017, researchers asked subjects to navigate a virtual simulation of London’s Soho neighborhood and monitored their brain activity, specifically the hippocampus, which is integral to spatial navigation. Those who were guided by directions showed less activity in this part of the brain than participants who navigated without the device. “The hippocampus makes an internal map of the environment and this map becomes active only when you are engaged in navigating and not using GPS,” Amir-Homayoun Javadi, one of the study’s authors, told me.

Read more  Hmmmm... Now I know why I can't function anymore.  :-(  Abstract of the study "Topological networks lie at the heart of our cities and social milieu. However, it remains unclear how and when the brain processes topological structures to guide future behaviour during everyday life. Using fMRI in humans and a simulation of London (UK), here we show that, specifically when new streets are entered during navigation of the city, right posterior hippocampal activity indexes the change in the number of local topological connections available for future travel and right anterior hippocampal activity reflects global properties of the street entered. When forced detours require re-planning of the route to the goal, bilateral inferior lateral prefrontal activity scales with the planning demands of a breadth-first search of future paths. These results help shape models of how hippocampal and prefrontal regions support navigation, planning and future simulation."  Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="" width="126" height="36">  Tesla – the Dark Horse MaaS Provider? #SmartDrivingCarSummit

K. Pyle, June 7, "Could the robotaxi model that Tesla’s Elon Musk has been touting be a successful approach for a Mobility as a Service (MaaS) model? After some recent first-hand experience with the Tesla driving experience, MaaS champion, Princeton’s Dr. Alain Kornhauser states why he believes Musk be on the right path. In the above video, Kornhauser provides an overview of some of the innovative human-machine research initiated at the 2019 SmartDrivingCar Summit, the importance of community acceptance of autonomous vehicles and, at approximately 03:55, the discussion of Tesla as a MaaS provider.

As Kornhauser mentions, it’s plausible to believe that such a service could quickly scale to something like 2.5% of the daily U.S. rides. As he notes in the above interview, that would equate to a little more than 60% of today’s public transportation ridership...."  Read more  Hmmmm... See video.  Think about it. :-)  Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="" width="161" height="20">  Global EV Sales In April 2019: Over 166,000 At 2.1% Market Share

J. Pontes, June 3, "Tesla Model 3 sales globally are almost three times higher than the second best plug-in electric car, but BYD remains the biggest manufacturer so far this year.  In April, global sales of plug-in electric cars grew at a slower pace than we would hope for, but 29% gain year-over-year is not a bad thing either.

In total, EV Sales Blog estimates some 166,200 sales at an average market share of 2.1%.

Taking into consideration the growth of all-electric cars by 43%, the slowdown was caused by plug-in hybrids (again), which now hold just 29% share out of the overall BEV/PHEV segment.  After four months, sales stand at over 662,000 and 2.1% market share. The target for 2019 is 3.5 million (compared to 2 million in 2018)."  Read more  Hmmmm...  17,464 is not bad, but production is supposed to be 5,000 per week. Hmmmm  ???   Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class=""> Electric Vehicle Sales Up 70% In Europe

M. Kane, June 3, "... #2 Tesla Model 3 — After a delivery peak in March, the poster child for electromobility has dropped to more “normal” performances, with Tesla delivering 3,738 units of its sedan in April. Looking at individual markets, the midsize model was mainly delivered in Norway (720 units), Germany (514), the Netherlands (467), Switzerland (492), and Sweden (446). May seems to be following April performances, but expect another Tesla tide in June..."  Read more  Hmmmm...  Enormous drop from March. They still lead YtD with 23,322; Renault Zoe @15,292.  Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="" width="126" height="36">    Ken Pyle's Appeal to Waymo

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="">  Lyft's self-driving car service in Vegas passes 50,000 rides

S. Lekach, May 31, "Lyft's self-driving cars powered by Aptiv have been picking up passengers around Las Vegas for the past year. This week the autonomous ride service hit 50,000 rides.   The cars are requested through the Lyft app as usual, but are clearly noted as autonomous vehicles. Lyft works with self-driving company Aptiv to offer the service, which charges riders the same as the equivalent usual Lyft ride. A safety driver is still in the car.

At the 50,000 ride marker, Lyft pointed out that its self-driving cars average a 4.97 star rating and 92 percent of riders gave feedback that they felt safe during the ride. For most riders, this was their first time in an autonomous car. ..." Read more  Hmmmm...  Getting there; however, nothing is reported about "disengagements".  This begins to prove that people will ride a computer driven car that has an attendant onboard.  Doesn't say anything about "if no attendant is onboard".  There is essentially zero business case for an automated  mobility system that has an attendant onboard.  Unfortunately, this says nothing about the viability of the technology (attendant-less) that Lyft (and Uber) needs to support its current stock price.  :-(  Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="">  Self-driving train goes wrong way in Tokyo; 14 hurt in crash

APF, June 2, "Fourteen passengers were injured after a driverless five-car train in suburban Tokyo went in the wrong direction and crashed into a buffer stop, Japanese police said Sunday.  Local media reported that some injuries – the first resulting from an accident involving an automated train in 30 years – appeared to be serious but non-life-threatening....

Compared to self-driving cars that have recently taken the road in several countries on a test basis, automated trains have a relatively long history in Japan...."  Read more  Hmmmm...  Very unfortunate, but reality.  Japan will learn from this crash, improve the "30 year old (/antiquated?)" control system and move on to create an even better and safer driverless train to serve some of Japan's mobility needs.  Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="" width="32" height="32">  Evolution of BOSTON DYNAMICS ROBOTS

June 9, 2018,  See video  Hmmmm...  Pretty amazing. Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class=""> Why Aren’t Cities Getting Ready for Autonomous Vehicles?

L. Bliss, Ma7 30, "...So, given what they already know, city officials are surely taking steps to steer us away from an all-autonomous gridlocked hellscape—right? Alas, no. According to a new study published in the Journal of the American Planning Association, very few local leaders are working to anticipate the effects of self-driving cars. And though the arrival of these vehicles en masse could still be decades away, the authors write that now is a rare window of opportunity for cities to write policies that tackle both the unwanted effects of AVs as well as other big civic challenges...."  Read more  Hmmmm...  At the beginning, cities aren't a good place for driverless vehicles. Cities have too much invested in their hopelessly poor, hopelessly bankrupt transit systems. No one working in any transit system dares to create a welcoming environment to a potential competitor.  Communities, smaller cities and transit deserts are he places to start.  It is easier technologically and socially. Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="" width="78" height="23">  There's A Drivers Ed Course For Those Who Test Self-Driving Cars On Public Roads

E. Garsten, June 9, "...But U.K.-based CAT Driver Training has won accreditation for a four-day course aimed at teaching engineers and others involved in testing autonomous vehicles how to do so more safely....  Launched last November, the main thrust of the Autonomous Safety Driver Training Course is centered on defensive driving,...

“How can somebody develop a system to drive safely if they have no knowledge of advanced, or defensive driving?” said Hoad. “You might need to decide when to take over, you might need to anticipate a failure or a vehicle doing something extraordinary on a roundabout that might take somebody untrained by surprise and manage not only yourself and the environment around you but the potential for the system not to behave in the way you might. Quite simply they’re learning how to evaluate road correctly, assess hazards, forward plan, observe.”..."  Read more  Hmmmm... Training of AV "Attendants" is absolutely necessary as may well be the training of each buyer of a Tesla with AutoPilot.  Attending is all about being able to sense that the AV system is about to do the wrong thing.  Once the Self-driving car starts doing the wrong thing, the attendant's "knee jerk" reaction must be able to "save the day".  That is NOT easy because there is essentially zero time to think. All one can do is react. Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="">   Self-driving delivery van startup Gatik AI comes out of stealth with Walmart partnership

K. Korosec, June 6, "Gatik AI,  an autonomous vehicle startup that came out of stealth Thursday with $4.5 million in funding and Walmart  as a customer, is aiming for the sweet middle spot in the world of logistics.

The company, which operates out of Palo Alto and Toronto, isn’t deploying autonomous delivery bots built for sidewalks, nor is it aiming for self-driving trucks, or even robotaxis to shuttle around people. Instead, the founders of Gatik AI are developing a business that will do short hauls of goods between businesses using autonomous light-commercial trucks and vans.

The Ford transit vehicles outfitted with Gatik’s self-driving system will drive up to 200 miles a day and stay within a city environment, co-founder and CEO Gautam Narang told TechCrunch....  The company has been testing its autonomous vehicle technology on public roads in California for about 18 months...."  Read more  Hmmmm... This is Self-driving... an Attendant is on-board.  It is NOT Driverless.  Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class=""> Tesla’s autonomy event: Impressive progress with an unrealistic timeline

T. Lee. April 24, "There's an old joke in the software engineering world, sometimes attributed to Tom Cargill of Bell Labs: "the first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time."...

You can think of self-driving car development as occurring in two stages. Stage one is focused on developing a static understanding of the world. Where is the road? Where are other cars? Are there any pedestrians or bicycles nearby? What are the traffic laws in this particular area?

Once software has mastered this part of the self-driving task, it should be able to drive flawlessly between any two points on empty roads—and it should mostly be able to avoid running into things even on crowded roads. This is the level of autonomy Musk has dubbed "feature complete." Waymo achieved this level of autonomy around 2015, while Tesla is aiming to reach it later this year....

In this second stage, a company also needs to handle a "long tail" of increasingly unusual situations: ...Waymo has spent the last three years in the second stage...

Tesla says that's a 21-fold improvement over the Nvidia chips the company was using before. Of course, Nvidia has produced newer chips since 2016, but Tesla says that its chips are more powerful than even Nvidia's current Drive Xavier chip—144 TOPS compared to 21 TOPS.

But Nvidia argues that's not a fair comparison. The company says its Xavier chip delivers 30 TOPS, not 21. More importantly, Nvidia says it typically packages the Xavier on a chip with a powerful GPU chip, yielding 160 TOPS of computing power. And like Tesla, Nvidia packages these systems in pairs for redundancy, producing an overall system with 320 TOPS of computing power.... Regardless, both companies are working on next-generation designs, so any advantage either company achieves is likely to be fleeting....", Read more  Hmmmm... An absolute MUST read.  Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="" width="155" height="20"> 10 Lessons From Uber's Fatal Self-Driving Car Crash

Sunday, March 17, 2019

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="" width="116" height="32">Automated vehicles could provide mobility to the ‘mobility disadvantaged’

A. Kornhauser, March 13, "The following testimony was provided to the New Jersey State Assembly’s Transportation and Independent Authorities Committee on Monday, March 11....

What we need, what my ask is, that we create in New Jersey a “welcoming environment” for the research, testing and demonstration of this technology and work to focusing it on improving the mobility of the mobility disadvantaged...

While such a demonstration is not prohibited in New Jersey, it is not permitted.  

Consequently, this provides excuses and hurdles to bringing such mobility to our communities and tarnishes any other welcoming efforts aimed at enabling New Jersey to lead instead of follow in what may well address the fundamental objective of this hearing."  Read more  Hmmmm....Seems so simple. I have found it so incredibly hard. Alain

Friday, March 1, 2019

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="" width="35" height="38">  FORM S-1 REGISTRATION STATEMENT Lyft, Inc.

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="">Autonomous Vehicles

• Andrea Censi: "Liability, Ethics, and Culture-Aware Behavior Specification using Rulebooks"  Abstract, Slides, video (via click on  Schedule 11:30 Monday;
• Adam Oberman:"Generalization and adversarial robustness of Regularized Deep Neural Networks "  Abstract, Slides, video (via click on  Schedule 11:30 Tuesday);
• Alain Kornhauser: "Market Forces and Market Potential for SmartDrivingCars (aka Autonomous Vehicles) "  Slides, video, (via click on  Schedule 11:15 Tuesday);
• Hani Mahmassani: "Shared Autonomous Fleet Services and Multimodal Urban Mobility: Optimization, Prediction and Dynamic Network Modeling "  Abstract, video, (via click on  Schedule 4:00 Thursday);

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="">  Facing opposition, Amazon scraps New York HQ2 plans

 Amazon tests autonomous vehicle for deliveries

Waymo’s early rider program, one year in

Thursday, April 26,  2018

 This startup’s CEO wants to open-source self-driving car safety testing

Saturday, March 24,  2018

Experts say video of Uber's self-driving car killing a pedestrian suggests its technology may have fail

Tuesday, April 17, 2017

  Don't Worry, Driverless Cars Are Learning From Grand Theft Auto

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.36&filename=ajafjpkfaclhelpc.png" class="" width="44" height="50" border="0">Extracting Cognition out of Images for the Purpose of Autonomous Driving

announce historic commitment of 20 automakers to make automatic emergency braking standard on new vehicles

Sunday, December 19, 2015

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.38&filename=ccalfjfhllohpdpa.png" class="" width="96" height="63" border="0">Adam Jonas' View on Autonomous Cars

Video similar to part of Adam's Luncheon talk @ 2015 Florida Automated Vehicle Symposium on Dec 1.  Hmmm ... Watch Video  especially at the 13:12 mark.  Compelling; especially after the 60 Minutes segment above!  Also see his TipRanks.  Alain

This list is maintained by Alain Kornhauser and hosted by the Princeton University

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