It’s funny that we all now believe that Google got the automated driving ball rolling. The reality is that the government started it all with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and its famous DARPA Grand Challenge, which consisted of three tests (in 2004, 2005 and 2007) of driverless cars in different driving… Read More
Author: Roger C. Lanctot
Autonomy at Odds with Security
Why Can’t My Car be Like My iPhone?
Car companies must gaze with envy at Apple in the midst of its current confrontation with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the U.S. over access to data on the iPhone of a terrorist. If only, they must say, if only we had Apple-like security for our cars.
By and large, when law enforcement agencies around the world need or want to… Read More
The Emerging Battle for Your Car’s Data
The Future Networked Car gathering put on by the International Telecommunications Union at the Geneva Motor Show last week highlighted the intensifying debate over automotive data privacy. A representative from FIA, the international federation of car clubs, and Stephan Appt, legal director and attorney at Pinsent Masons,… Read More
Carol Burnett and Automotive Safety
American television viewers of a certain age will remember the Carol Burnett Show and its star, Carol Burnett, and her customary ear tug at the end of each show. TV Guide tells us the “ear tug first made famous during the 1967-79 run of CBS’s Carol Burnett Show was a message to her grandmother, a way of saying, “Hello,… Read More
Waze Stealing the Keys to Your City!
Waze’s Connected Citizens program continues to get a lot of positive attention for its partnerships with cities and states around the world. The program provides free access to Waze traffic and crowd-sourced data in exchange for information about road closures and traffic incidents.… Read More
Millennial Tyranny, Tattoos and Scions!
Millennials tiring of TV commercials for erectile dysfunction and rheumatoid arthritis will have their revenge soon enough. The population bulge of under-35-year-olds is making its way through the demographic grinder and will soon be reformatting everything from business models and television advertising budgets to the… Read More
Tesla’s Secret Weapon!
Some CEO’s make things look easy and appear to enjoy their work. CEO’s like Richard Branson and Warren Buffet come to mind. These are guys that clearly enjoy what they are doing and, as a result, make everything they do look effortless and fun.
Tesla’s Chairman and CEO, Elon Musk, is another one of these types. There is an impishness… Read More
NHTSA and Google’s War on Drivers
Google and the National Highway Traffic Safety Admnistration (NHTSA) have recently joined forces in a battle against drivers. It is an unusual alliance and one with significant implications for the future of automotive safety in the U.S. and globally.
That alliance was manifest this week in a letter sent by NHTSA to Chris Urmson… Read More
India: Transcending Transportation Transformation
Dr. Werner Heisenberg’s “uncertainty principle” states that the more precisely the position of some particle is determined, the less precisely its momentum can be known and vice versa. Transportation is the same way. The more we study the current state of transportation the less precisely we understand … Read More
Automotive Deaths and Big Data
Nothing focuses peoples’ attention quite as effectively as death and there’s been a lot of it on U.S. highways lately. Preliminary figures released this week by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reveal that for the first nine months of 2015 traffic fatalities increased 9.3%.… Read More
Intel High NA Adoption