What do Pied Piper and blockchain tools have in common? Both are always “coming soon.” By now most of us are familiar with blockchain, the technology underpinning cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Outside of cryptocurrency, blockchain has many purported use cases in scenarios that require an immutable ledger. Rhetoric has elevated blockchain to godly status, […]
Tag Archives: transport
India to block any self-driving vehicles that enter the country
India doesn’t want anything to do with self-driving vehicles. The highway and transport minister, Nitin Gadkari, told reporters that he wouldn’t let driverless cars take away jobs. “We won’t allow driverless cars in India. I am very clear on this. We won’t allow any technology that takes away jobs. In a country where you have […]
Uber to merge Russian operations with Yandex
Uber has announced it will scale back operations in Russia, creating a new transport company with local search giant Yandex. Yandex.Taxi and Uber driver-side apps will be merged into one service, but both apps will remain available to customers in Russia. The new company will also take over operations in Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. See […]
Waymo picks ex-Tesla engineering chief to build them a driverless car
Google’s self-driving division Waymo has hired Satish Jeyachandran, the former director of hardware engineering at Tesla, a close competitor in the self-driving race. Jeyachandran will lead the hardware division, according to Bloomberg, focused on building Lidar, radar, cameras, sensors, and silicon for the company’s self-driving cars. See Also: Waymo working on competitor to Uber’s self-driving […]
Germany greenlights self-driving vehicle tests on public roads
Germany’s large automotive industry will soon be able to test self-driving cars in their home-country. The upper house of parliament approved a law on Friday that enables manufacturers to test vehicles on public roads for the first time. The legislation requires a human driver to remain in the vehicle at all times and a black […]
SoftBank wants autonomous shuttle on public roads by 2020
Japan could have a fleet of self-driving shuttles on the road within three years, if SB Drive, a new entity created by tech conglomerate SoftBank, reaches its target date for commercialization. SB Drive wants to have a range of autonomous vehicles serving the public in the next five years, and has already completed trial runs […]
U.S. mid-sized cities lead the charge for smart city projects
Though the big American metropolises often hog the smart city headlines, a new study found that U.S. mid-sized cities are the true technology leaders. A new study into U.S. smart city activity demonstrated that mid-sized cities were filling the pipeline with the most urban technology projects. The survey of 54 American cities was produced by […]
Really? A 50-year ban to self-driving cars in New York?
An organization representing professional drivers has called on New York state legislators to ban self-driving vehicles for 50 years, citing the potential eradication of thousands of transport jobs. The Upstate Transportation Association, which advocates for professional drivers, said it expects Uber and Lyft, the two major ridesharing services in New York City, to convert to […]
Google’s Waymo self-driving cars kept offline to avoid hackers
Google’s self-driving division, Waymo, has revealed that its cars receive limited internet access to minimize the window for hackers to penetrate the system. “Our cars communicate with the outside world only when they need to, so there isn’t a continuous line that’s able to be hacked, going into the car,” said Waymo CEO John Krafcik […]
Mercedes-Benz expects zone restrictions for self-driving cars
Mercedes-Benz wants to have its first autonomous vehicle on the roads by 2020, but expects there will be roadblocks for the first few years as regulators and infrastructure remain in the age of human-controlled cars. Speaking to CarAdvice at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2017, Mercedes head of R&D Ola Kallenius said that it plans […]
The Car Hacking Village brings car knowledge to the CES masses
When you think of car hacking, it’s easy to simply think of it as a nefarious activity when in reality it’s just as likely to be the work of a researcher or DIY enthusiast wanting to extend a vehicle’s capabilities and understand its weaknesses. Last year we saw Chinese security researchers take remote control of […]
Get My Parking launches smart city pilot in India
Studies of traffic congestion regularly point much blame at cars circling for parking. To tackle this perennial problem, Get My Parking is joining a smart city initiative to launch a smart parking pilot in India. As reported in Firstpost, the Delhi-based startup’s technology is being tested in government smart city initiatives. “We are getting a […]
Ford will test driverless cars in Europe next year
Ford announced it will plans to start testing its autonomous vehicles on European roads by next year as it ramps up its robot car strategy. According to Digital Trends the U.S. car manufacturing goliath is moving ahead with European testing as it pursues its ambitious strategy to introduce fully autonomous vehicles for ride-hailing by 2021. […]
Otto and Budweiser buys the world the first autonomous trucking round
Budweiser and Otto just achieved a major feat, completing the world’s first shipment by autonomous truck. Otto announced this accomplishment today by first stating, “We’re not ones to sit around idly. We are driven by an urgency to make our transportation network safer — and more efficient — for drivers and consumers alike.” See Also: Will autonomous vehicles cruise the factories […]
Michigan legislators consider driverless car legalization
Michigan could become the first state to legalize driverless cars. A new Senate bill to amend the Michigan vehicle code calls for the approval of a system that enables “the motor vehicle to be operated without any control or monitoring by a human operator.” It would be the first state law that allows auto manufacturers […]
How do you charge your autonomous car remotely? WiTricity knows.
Autonomous cars are going to change the way we think of our vehicle. Instead of something that spends the majority of the day in a parking spot, you (and other members of your family) may be able to remotely call the car and might even be able to lease your car for a few hours […]
Nissan adds semi-autonomousness to next Serena minivan
Nissan introduced the 2017 Serena minivan on Wednesday, a slightly redesigned model that features semi-autonomous highway driving. The Nissan ProPilot system provides one-lane highway driving for the Serena minivan, but that’s where the system sophistication ends. It cannot change lanes or routes autonomously, and is not functional in urban environments. See Also: BMW strikes autonomous […]
Californians and New Yorkers most enthusiastic about autonomous cars
Autonomous cars are still a foreign concept to a lot of drivers on the road, as evidenced by a recent British survey that showed most had an unfavorable view of the technology. Swedish automaker Volvo ran another survey in the U.S., looking at how the opinions towards autonomous cars differ on a state level. Turns […]
Drones are so done: U.S. military looking at self-driving tanks?
Autonomous vehicles have already shown their worth in consumer and enterprise markets, and the military might be the next sector to see the advantages of a driverless system. The Army’s Tank Automotive Research, Development, and Engineering Center (TARDEC) and Michigan Department of Transportation announced on Thursday plans to test army tanks and jeeps fitted with […]
Can the blockchain and IoT solve international freight’s issues?
It’s become well established that the blockchain has an almost infinite range of functional applications outside of pure financial transactions. This is particularly pertinent when it comes to the Internet of Things where technology is being used to disrupt a range of traditional industries. One example is cargo freight, an industry traditionally reliant on paperwork […]