Google Driverless Car

Google has been researching for more than a couple years, the possibility of not having to drive your car anymore. With laser, proximity and other kinds of sensors as eyes, and also with the help of GPS, Google Maps and Navigation, Google has been able to achieve driving without human interaction. Google currently has more than 300.000 miles of travel experience.

There are a lot of car accidents every year, most of them because of human errors. Google wants to reduce this rate by trusting more on a computer that cannot be distracted by other things to do. Google Driverless technology is being developed so that we can be sure that we will arrive to our destination when traveling. To insure this, Google has implemented a set of big infrared sensors on top of the car, which turns around to work as radar to detect whatever is around and so the car has the necessary information to know what action to take. Google has also included sets of other kinds of sensors such as proximity sensors on both sides of the front bumper as well as on the front of it. They have also included cameras to synchronize all the received information so that all that amount of information is completely accurate. For now they have a laptop in the passenger’s seat to monitor and see that every piece of information about the car and its surroundings is correct.

There have been a lot of tests made on this technology and it has been flawless so far. Although Google has developed specific routes to follow, the car itself has the capability to make its own decisions. This is possible because engineers make a layout of the routes before they put the car to drive. That layout allows the car to compare the information it receives with the layout to be able to differentiate between things that are supposed to be on the way, with random circumstances such as pedestrians or other cars. Based on the car’s “perspective” and the layout, the car makes the decisions. For instance, if the car is normally going on a normal street but perceives that a person is going to cross the street it will stop because the person will not be on the usual path.

There are currently 4 states that are making regulations in their law to allow the free transit of Google’s driverless cars. Probably in the upcoming years more states will join this cause allowing the commercialization of driverless cars. In a close future, having your car pick you up from work, picking up your kids from school while you are still at work, or simply sending it to park by itself right after you reached the front door of your destination will be normal and everyday habits that will make our lives even easier than today’s.

Glasses time…

Technology has evolved to a point where we do not know what direction this evolution will take us to, but we get a pretty good idea when we see that most innovations are going towards wearable computing. We can see that there are armbands like the MYO that will allow you to interact with your devices in a more touchless way. But there is another kind of technology that is currently being developed, and it is called Head Mounted Display (HMD). There is currently development being made by Google, with their Google Glass, Sony is also trying to compete from these earlier stages with quite a different idea, and surprisingly the Chinese company Baidu is in the process of developing the “Eye.”

First we’ll mention Google Glass, which is the one that is more popular than the other two. It consists of a pair of glasses that have the extra piece of device on one side, this device is supposed to be lighter than most glasses. This part holds a display to see the information on the top right part of your sight range. This device works with voice commands and it has a lot of functionalities among which are the GPS guide, internet search, and the most important part, the Camera which can take pictures and video at 720p HD. This device has been thought as a device that will enhance human relations to get a little more detached from our cell phones. Google Glass has released an early version of this product that is called the Explorer Edition, and they have been given it to select people, such as developers and testers.

Then we have the Sony device, which as of yet, does not have a name, but they are patenting their product. This device is different mainly because it will feature HMD for both eyes, which make it look a little bit more futuristic and less cyborgy. There are a couple of cool features that we can see from the patent application, like the fact that the lenses are not connected by a regular bridge. Also, the lenses are movable for better adjustment, and at both ends it will have ear buds for sound. It is interesting that to share information from one pair of glasses to the other you need to awkwardly stare at the other person’s glasses.

Baidu’s Eye, alternatively, has a different kind of model, which is a small LCD screen attached to a headset. This is not yet confirmed but leaked pictures show that these speculations are right. Baidu did not confirm any of the details about Eye, except that it is a project that has less attention from Baidu, and that they are certainly working on that project. What we also know so far is that this device’s features include specialized face recognition software.

These pieces of technology are as close as the fourth quarter of 2013; we should expect the best out of these devices. They will definitely be a huge change in the way we see and get our information; it will be totally hands free. So with Google Glass, as well as Baidu’s Eye and Sony’s Glasses, we will have amazing devices to play with by the end of this year.