Nice concept UI for robotic taxi and delivery, plus a new blog

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Hats off to the video embedded below, which was prepared for a futuristic transportation expo in my home town of Toronto.

Called the PAT (People and Things) this video outlines the UI and shows a period in the day of a robotic taxi/delivery vehicle as it moves around Toronto picking up people and packages.

I first learned about the video from a new blog on the subject of consumer self driving cars -- as far as I know the second serious one to exist after this one. The Driverless Car HQ started up earlier this year and posts with a pretty solid volume. They are more comprehensive in posting various items that appear in the media than I am, and cover some areas I don't, so you may want to check them out. (That's a conscious choice on my part, as I tend not to post links to stories that I judge don't tell us much new. An example would be that the SARTRE road train just did a demo in Spain last month, but it was not much different from demos they had done before.)

Of course, as I said earlier, sadly "Driverless Car" is one of my least favourite terms for this technology, but that doesn't impede the quality of the blog. In addition, while I do report news on the Google car on this blog, I tend to refrain from commentary due to being on that team, and the folks at DCHQ are not constrained this way.

On to the video from Apparatus Inc. It was made for MOVE: The Transportation Expo at the Evergreen Brick Works. The car in the video features things like:

  • Face recognition of passengers as they approach the car
  • Automatic playing of media for the passengers (apparently resuming from media paused earlier in some cases)
  • Doing package delivery work when needed
  • Self-cleaning after each passenger
  • Optional ride-share with friends
  • In-car video conferencing on the car's screens
  • Offering the menu of a cafe which is the destination of a trip. (Some suspect this is a location-based ad spam, but I think it's a more benign feature because the passenger is picking up his ride-share friend at the cafe.)

And the UIs are slick, if a bit busy, and nicely done.

The concept vehicle at the Brickworks is fairly simple but does present some ideas I have felt are worthwhile, such as single passenger vehicles, face to face seating etc. It's a bit too futuristic, and not aerodynamic. In the concept, it adjusts for the handicapped. I actually think that's the reverse of what is likely to happen. Rather than making all cars able to meet all needs, it makes more sense to me to have specialized cars that are cheaper and more cost effective at their particular task, and have dedicated (more expensive) vehicles for wheelchairs. (For example, I like the hollow vehicles like the Kenguru.) I think you serve the disabled better for the same money by having these specialized vehicles -- the wait may be slightly longer, but the vehicle can be much better at serving the individual's needs.

Comments

Thanks for the mention Brad. My writing skills don't level up to yours so I try to overwhelm readers with posts in order to distract them. ;)

Mat.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/12/eric-schmidt-google-self-driving-cars-should-become-the-predominant-mode-of-transport-in-our-lifetime/

I liked the part where he said, "The current biggest problem is that it runs at the speed limit and nobody drives at the speed limit,”

I put that in the category of things that are true, but still amusing.

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