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The Self-Driving Car Revolution Will Arrive Slowly

Posted on June 21, 2017 by admin Posted in Hardware, Software Leave a comment

What it is: The University of Michigan is testing a self-driving shuttle.

The fantasy is that self-driving technology is almost ready and that self-driving cars will soon flood the world’s roads. The reality is that self-driving technology isn’t ready for snow-covered roads, detours due to traffic accidents, and dirt roads in rural areas. Just as the Wright Brothers started with a simple airplane rather than build a 747 jumbo jet, self-driving technology is going too tart off slowly until the technology matures.

The simplest way to test self-driving technology is to limit its scope. Rather than put a self-driving car on the road and hope for the best, the University of Michigan is putting self-driving shuttles on part of its campus that has the least amount of traffic. The goal is simply to test self-driving technology within a restricted space to minimize problems while still gathering data on self-driving technology.

Once self-driving cars master a restricted space, then it’s likely self-driving cars will graduate to larger domains such as driving only on certain roads. By limiting self-driving cars to major roads, engineers can gradually overcome problems such as snow, hard rain, pedestrians darting in front of moving cars, and avoiding cars driven by human drivers. Besides limiting self-driving cars to restricted domains, the second way to introduce self-driving technology is to put it in cars as assisted-driving technology.

Instead of a car driving itself, a car can display warnings if a human driver gets too close to another car and automatically brake before an impending collision. Such assisted-driving technology will aid drivers and collect more data for the future of self-driving cars.

The eventual goal is a self-driving car. The immediate goal is to learn the flaws and drawbacks of self-driving technology before releasing them to roam in the wild on their own. Self-driving technology isn’t ready for total freedom and trust from both a technology and social point of view. Can a self-driving car drive itself over a snow-covered road while winds constantly blow snow over the road, hiding the road’s surface? Probably not.

Will people trust a self-driving car? Probably not. At least not until they see self-driving cars working in limited domains or get used to assisted-driving technology in their own cars. Self-driving cars will arrive eventually, but it will take time. Until then, projects like the Apple Car can continue learning and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. Just don’t expect the possible to become reality too soon.

Apple Developing Self-Driving Car

Posted on June 13, 2017 by admin Posted in Hardware, Software Leave a comment

What it is: Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, verified that Apple is working on a self-driving car.

In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Tim Cook confirmed that Apple is working on autonomous driving technology, otherwise known as self-driving cars. “We sort of see it as the mother of all AI projects,” Cook said. “It’s probably one of the most difficult AI projects actually to work on.”

Previous rumors suggested Apple was either backing away from self-driving cars and pursuing just the entertainment portion of a car system through CarPlay. However Tim cook’s recent comments indicate Apple is researching self-driving cars although they don’t have a definite time frame for when (if ever) this technology will reach the public.

While Apple may seem late to the self-driving car market, Apple was also late to the MP3 digital player market before they introduced the iPod, they were late to the smartphone market before they introduced the iPhone, and they were late to the tablet market before they introduced the iPad. Being first is only an advantage if you can maintain your lead. Just ask Blackberry, Nokia, and Microsoft what happens if you get complacent.

Initially, self-driving cars will likely appear in limited situations such as shuttles at airport terminals or as vehicles carrying objects in a warehouse. Putting self-driving cars on the road filled with human drivers will take time, especially as self-driving cars will need to react to snow, ice, accidents, police directing traffic, and other varying situations that aren’t as simple as driving along an empty road.

Yet the automotive industry is undergoing change in three areas:

Self-driving technology
Ride-sharing services
Non-gasoline powered cars (electric or hydrogen fuel cells)

Just one of these technologies threatens the current automotive industry. Having three of them rapidly reaching acceptance at the same time means tremendous upheaval for the automotive industry. Right now, the Big Three auto makers make the bulk of their profits selling gas guzzlers, pickups and SUVs. Once ride-sharing services and self-driving cars start reducing car ownership, the business model of today’s Big Three auto makers goes down.

How can the Big Three auto makers transition from gasoline engines to electric or hydrogen fuel cells rapidly? That means they’ll likely run into the same dilemma that Kodak faced. Kodak initially made the bulk of their income from film processing and developing. When digital photography arrived, Kodak resisted it because there wasn’t as much profit in digital photography as there was in film.

When Kodak realized digital photography was the future, they changed too slowly. The profits from digital photography couldn’t offset the expense of running a film processing and developing business. The old business model expenses kept Kodak from profiting from digital photography. On the other hand, companies with no investment in film could easily transition to digital photography with no burden to the past whatsoever.

That means the Big Three auto makers will have to make a similar transition from car ownership and gas cars to ride-sharing services, self-driving cars, and non-gas powered vehicles. Think they can do that while still maintaining the expenses of their current business model? Maybe, but it’s not likely. That means today’s big car companies are likely going to go the way of Kodak, Blockbuster Video, and Radio Shack. They’re obsolete.

That means the future depends less on today’s entrenched car companies and more on tomorrow’s car companies like Tesla, Google, and Apple. Forget about Ford and General Motors. The future is not them any more than the future of retailing was Montgomery Wards and Sears.

The fact that Tim Cook verified that Apple is working on self-driving technology means this technology will eventually arrive someday. The big question is which company will be the big winner in the future? It’s clear that any company not working on self-driving cars can’t possibly succeed (where is Microsoft in the self-driving technology market?), but it’s also clear that today’s car leaders likely won’t transition fast enough to embrace the future.

That means Tesla, Google, Apple, or some other company has the best chance of embracing the future. It’s going to be big. The only question is who will profit from this major change in transportation?

To learn more about Apple’s self-driving plans, click here.

The Apple Car Project

Posted on May 11, 2017 by admin Posted in Hardware Leave a comment

What it is: Apple’s Project Titan involves cars, but it may not be what people think.

When word leaked out that Apple was working on cars, people immediately jumped to the conclusion that Apple was going to build their own car that didn’t use gasoline such as an electric car or a hydrogen fuel cell powered car. People also thought that Apple could develop a self-driving car, but the reality may be much different.

First of all, building a car is expensive and difficult. Tesla has been building cars for years and still can’t produce them at the rate they’d like to. Second, self-driving cars are the future, but Apple is behind Google and other companies in testing self-driving cars.

So perhaps Project Titan isn’t about creating an electric, self-driving car but designing the experience inside a self-driving car. If you don’t have to drive, then you can spend more time doing anything else and that anything else would be no different than sitting at your desk. What would you do at a desk? You would probably browse the Internet, listen to music, watch movies, or read an ebook. Creating this experience inside a car could be what Apple’s Project Titan is all about.

The future will be self-driving cars and ride-sharing services. When self-driving cars become practical, human drivers will be unnecessary. When ride-sharing services become cheaper to use than owning and maintaining a car, then ride-sharing will become more popular. Combine the two and it’s not hard to see that the future lies in self-driving cars that work with ride-sharing services.

That means people will have plenty of time to sit in a self-driving car to do anything other than worry about driving. The inside of a self-driving car will simply be a new user interface for entertainment or work. Tesla, Ford, Honda, and Google are busy pursuing self-driving cars. Uber, Lyft, and Didi Chuxing are busy pursuing ride-sharing services. Who’s focusing on the inside of a self-driving car?

Cars will be a new entertainment center. Just as most people use a computer for games and entertainment, so will many people ride in self-driving cars and focus on entertainment as well. People will want more than a radio inside a self-driving car but also a movie player, a video game console, a browser, and an ebook reader. People will always buy cars from Tesla, Ford, or Toyota, but Apple can target the inside of these cars by putting their own computer system inside these cars. Just as people would never buy a car without a radio and DVD player, so many people in the future won’t buy a car unless it contains a complete entertainment system inside. If Apple can dominate the market for in-car entertainment systems, they’ll have a dominant market no matter which car manufacturer ultimately dominates the self-driving, electric car market.

The idea of Apple building a car may be too obvious. The idea of Apple building an in-car entertainment system could be jumping ahead of the competition before the competition even thinks about competing in this same market.

The world of driving will look radically different in the future. That opens the door for new companies to take over, and Apple could be one of them.

Apple’s Satellites

Posted on April 22, 2017 by admin Posted in Business, Hardware Leave a comment

What it is: Apple recently hired two satellite specialists from Google. The big question is why?

Most companies don’t own their own satellites or even care anything about them. If a company needs services that a satellite provides, they can just buy those services from a vendor who takes care of all the details about running and managing a satellite in orbit. Yet Apple recently hired two satellite experts away from Google. Why would Apple need their own satellite experts?

Satellites can be used for mapping, but it’s far cheaper to simply buy satellite imagery from another company rather than hire your own satellite experts. What’s likely he reason Apple wants satellite expertise is because Apple needs satellites for communication.

When Apple first came up with the iPhone, Steve Jobs actually wanted to have it run on its own network. Since that proved impossible at the time, Apple had to partner with a limited number of carriers such as AT&T in the United States. These carriers often created a poor user experience for these early iPhone users, but as more carriers offered the iPhone, fewer people complained about their carriers when using an iPhone.

So one possible reason Apple wants their own satellite experts is to create their own communication network. This could provide better coverage in rural areas without putting up cellular towers everywhere. A big bonus would be that Apple could control the total iPhone experience and cut the traditional wireless carriers out of the loop.

A second, more likely reason is that Apple plans to develop a self-driving car platform. That means constant communication with an Apple Car no matter where it goes on the roads. Since many roads go through rural areas where cellular phone coverage isn’t available, satellite coverage may be the only option.

Self-driving cars rely on artificial intelligence and artificial intelligence relies on collecting as much data as possible to learn from. Voice assistants like Siri rely on a cellular network to send data for collection and processing to a server. This server then sends the results back to the user’s Siri-powered device such as an iPhone or iPad. This keeps the processing of natural languages on servers, freeing up processing power and storage space on the user’s device.

Self-driving cars using machine learning will be no different. Early self-driving cars aren’t likely going to have a supercomputer on board to process driving data. Instead, self-driving cars will stay connected to a server to provide that server with driving data. Then that server will gradually get smarter about driving and provide each self-driving car on the road with improved algorithms for driving.

So Apple’s satellite interests likely lie in self-driving cars. Of course, such as network could also double as a distinct worldwide carrier network of its own, which Apple is likely eyeing at the same time, but the more immediate use for satellites will be for self-driving cars.

Self-driving cars are coming faster than people expect. By developing expertise in satellites today, Apple is preparing for the inevitable future. After all, controlling as much of your product as possible is Apple’s goal, so an Apple satellite network seems likely in the near future for both making phone calls and machine learning for self-driving cars.

Tesla Worth More Than Older Auto Makers

Posted on April 11, 2017 by admin Posted in Business, Hardware Leave a comment

What it is: Based on stock value alone, Tesla is now more valuable than any of the more established auto makers.

There’s a general rule that companies rarely last 100 years. If you look at the original companies that made up the Dow Jones Industrial Average, only General Electric still exists. The others like the American Cotton Oil Company, the U.S. Leather Company, or the United States Rubber Company no longer exist under their original names. That’s because older companies generally fail to anticipate the future. Just look at the fate of Blockbuster Video, Borders Books, Kodak, and Montgomery Wards.

The reason why investors value Tesla higher than General Motors or Ford is because Tesla represents the future while General Motors and Ford represent the past. Strangely, Tesla has yet to make a profit, but everyone knows that electric cars and self-driving cars are the future. Even General Motors and Ford know that.

The huge problem with General Motors and Ford is that they make the bulk of their income selling SUVs and pickup trucks. The moment people rely on self-driving cars and ride-sharing services, demand for SUVs and pickup trucks will plummet. So no matter how much General Motors and Ford may invest in self-driving technology, they’re burdened by the expenses of maintaining factories designed to keep profiting off SUVs and pickup trucks.

Tesla is different. Even though they have yet to turn a profit and can’t even manufacture cars anywhere near the scale of Ford or General Motors, their future is far brighter. Tesla can devote 100% of their resources towards electric, self-driving cars. In comparison, General Motors and Ford cannot devote 100% of their resources towards electric, self-driving cars. Instead, they have to devote just a portion of their resources to the future while allocating a larger portion of their resources to maintaining their current business model of selling SUVs and pickup trucks.

Kodak once found themselves caught between the past and the future. Kodak used to make money processing film and selling film, so they clung to their film business until digital photography completely wiped out both of those formerly profitable businesses. The same will likely happen to Ford and General Motors.

That’s why investors value Tesla more because Ford and General Motors have already proven they can’t survive on their own. General Motors had to take a government bailout and Ford had to borrow heavily to avoid taking a government bailout. Although both companies are profitable now, they’re still saddled with the expenses of their old businesses that will eventually sink them in the future.

This is why Tesla represents the future of car makers even though they haven’t made money yet. This is also why the rumored Apple Car project has everyone excited because an Apple Car would also represent the future in ways that General Motors and Ford do not.

The future is clear. Older companies have no future. Be prepared to say good-bye to Ford and General Motors just like people are currently saying good-bye to Sears and Radio Shack. Old companies rarely transition to the future, so expect Tesla to lead the way and older car companies to disappear as just another footnote in business history.

Mixing AI with Humans on the Road

Posted on March 26, 2017 by admin Posted in Hardware, Software Leave a comment

What it is: A self-driving Uber car recently got into an accident in Arizona when a human-controlled vehicle refused to yield to it.

Today, the roads are controlled by human drivers who get into accidents through mistakes, texting while driving, driving while drunk, or just taking unnecessary risks. Yet no one suggests we could save lives by banning human drivers.

That’s why Uber’s recent accident raised eyebrows among self-driving critics. Eventually, a self-driving car will get into an accident and someone will die. The problem isn’t that self-driving cars should be 100% accident-free, but that self-driving cars must still deal with human drivers. Uber’s recent accident in Arizona occurred when a human driver failed to yield to Uber’s self-driving car, so the fault of the accident lies with the human driver, not the self-driving car.

For the near future, human drivers and self-driving cars will be sharing the road, and that creates numerous chances for accidents, largely caused by human drivers. The real goal of self-driving cars is to get human drivers completely off the roads so computers can optimize traffic speeds and flow in ways that human drivers could never do on their own. Until that moment arrives when self-driving cars dominate the roads, we’ll have to live in the imperfect mix of self-driving cars mingling with human drivers.

Every time you hear of an accident with a self-driving car, chances are good it will be because of interaction with a human driver. In rare cases the accident may be due to the self-driving car’s mistake, but those occurrences will likely be rare. On the roads, human drivers will always be far more likely to cause an accident than a self-driving car will ever do.

So how do we remove human drivers from the road voluntarily? Some people will always stubbornly insist on driving for fun or because they don’t trust self-driving cars (although these same people do trust other human drivers such as taxi drivers). The best way to remove human drivers from the road is through financial incentives such as lower car insurance rates for cars with assisted driving technology or self-driving capabilities. Assisted driving will help provide warnings to drivers and automatically,y take control in emergencies.

Right now, anti-lock brakes work this way by eliminating human control when braking suddenly. Soon other forms of assisted driving technology will control brakes, steering, and acceleration. If insurance companies offer lower premiums for assisted-driving technology, it will only be a matter of time before people gradually accept self-driving capabilities.

Initially, a handful of people will embrace self-driving cars. A much larger majority will embrace assisted-driving technology in cars. A still smaller portion of people will stubbornly resist technology and change at all costs.

So don’t expect self-driving cars to take over the roads any time soon. Expect assisted-driving technology to become more dominant with self-driving capabilities built-in. Until people can trust self-driving cars, they’ll likely trust their own, more blatantly flawed driving skills instead. With insurance premiums helping motivate people to purchase more cars with assisted-driving technology or self-driving features, it will soon be too expensive for most people to drive themselves in older vehicles. That’s when the shift to self-driving cars and greater safety for everyone will finally occur.

The Apple Car project is likely pursuing assisted-driving technology with an eye towards self-driving capabilities. That’s because assisted-driving technology is the bridge to self-driving cars. It will come far slower than it should, but far faster than most people will realize. Then the roads will be far safer and people will suddenly wonder why humans resisted self-driving technology for so long.