Tag: google

Could the U.S. Postal Service fleet be outfitted like Google Street View?

Filed under: Etc., Technology

US Postal Service

The U.S. Post Office is having a rough run of things. With expenses increasing at every corner, our nation’s mail system is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Needless to say, the institution is currently looking into extra ways to rake in cash that doesn’t involve hiking the price of stamps. Michael Ravnitzky, Counsel to the Chairman of the Postal Regulatory Commission, has come up with a pretty clever plan that could turn postal vehicles into high-tech havens capable of pulling down information on everything from weather and air pollution to road conditions and public safety.

The premise is simple: slap a cheap set of data recording equipment on the roof of each mail truck and then sell the collected data to interested parties. The trucks could be calibrated to warn of biological or radiological attacks to alert the defense department or simply provide a larger sample group for meteorological study. The post office could even lease space on its vehicles for whatever sort of data collection equipment government agencies or private entities could dream up, and Ravnitzky says that it could even be used to fill in blank spots in cell phone coverage. Of course, the likelihood of this coming to fruition seems pretty slim. After all, this is the federal government we’re talking about…

[Source: The New York Times | Image: Joe Raedle/Getty Images]

Could the U.S. Postal Service fleet be outfitted like Google Street View? originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 20 Dec 2010 18:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Video: Frenzied cross-country race carried out… on Google Street View?!

Filed under: Technology, Videos

Google Street View video

Racing across the country via Google Street View – Click above to watch the video after the jump

Driving across the United States is no simple task. As our own editors John Neff and Damon Lavrinc recently found out, it takes a few days, a lot of planning and plenty of Red Bull to successfully motor across the good ol’ U-S-of-A. However, our tech-savvy culture now allows us to virtually experience the open road through the magic of Google Street View, and two men took it upon themselves to see if you could “drive” from California to New York only using Google’s street-mapping software.

It took 90 hours and 104,619 mouse clicks, but these two gents successfully piloted their way across the United States (San Francisco to New York) all through the magic of the internet. Some 2,958 miles were covered in this webtastic task, and you can check out a full recap of the events in the video, after the jump.

[Source: YouTube]

Continue reading Video: Frenzied cross-country race carried out… on Google Street View?!

Video: Frenzied cross-country race carried out… on Google Street View?! originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 10 Dec 2010 20:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Pontiac still a hotter Google keyword than Buick?

Filed under: Etc., Buick, GM, Pontiac

Pontiac may be dead, phased out by parent company General Motors in the wake of its financial collapse, but you wouldn’t know it from searching these interwebs. According to search trends tracked by BringPontiacBack.org, more people are still searching for Pontiac on Google than they are for Buick.

This, despite Pontiac’s demise and Buick’s increased sales and marketing. The Trans Am loyalists admit that part of the discrepancy could come down to the city of Pontiac, Michigan, which is still standing. But would that be enough to account for Pontiac’s 2:1 search popularity over Buick? Or is it that Buick’s demographic has yet to figure out what the internet is? One way or another, the numbers are interesting. Hat tip to Christopher!

[Source: BringPontiacBack.org]

Pontiac still a hotter Google keyword than Buick? originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 09 Dec 2010 11:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Video: ABC News gets taken for a spin in Google’s self-driving Toyota Prius

Filed under: Etc., Technology, Videos, Toyota

Testing Google's driverless car

ABC News goes for a spin with one of Google’s driverless cars – Click above to watch video after the jump

Google’s autonomous fleet has been clandestinely racking up the computer-driven miles, and so far, their autonomous autos have been fault-free. One minor incident happened when a car was rear-ended, but the Skynet Google cars have yet to incur any points on their virtual licenses. Earlier this week, ABC News got the chance to go for a spin in one of the tech company’s automated cars, riding shotgun in a computer-controlled Toyota Prius.

The engineers from Google explain that the Prius utilizes a series of cameras and a roof-mounted, spinning laser to see what is going on around it. The result is a vehicle which might just be safer than one with a human behind the wheel. However, according to the report, the goal of the system is not to completely remove the driver from the equation, the system is pitched as more of a “super cruise-control” than a full auto-drive system. The theory is that it would be useful for traffic-filled commutes to and from work, and it might be a nice solution to eliminate or reduce distracted-driving. Get a phone call? Hit the Google button and let the car have the wheel while you take your call.

Becky Worley, the news correspondent in the video clip, even gets up the guts to give the Google car a real-life brake test. She steps in front of it as it’s motoring down the road. What happens? The car “sees” her and slams on the binders. Check it all out in the video after the jump.

[Source: ABC News]

Continue reading Video: ABC News gets taken for a spin in Google’s self-driving Toyota Prius

Video: ABC News gets taken for a spin in Google’s self-driving Toyota Prius originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 14 Oct 2010 12:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Report: Google quietly logs over 140k on autonomous cars in U.S. city traffic

Filed under: Technology

Sebastian Thrun, the man behind Google Streetview and work on Stanley, the autonomous vehicle from Stanford that’s won DARPA competitions, has teamed up with Google to create a fleet of self-piloting vehicles that have racked up over 140,000 unmanned miles. A handful of the vehicles have traveled 1,000 miles without any human intervention at all, and there’s been only one crash – when one of the autonomous vehicles was rear-ended by another car.

Of course, it will still be a long time before you’re popping down to the corner Ford dealer to pick up a Fiesta AI Edition. Still, to have seven cars plying California streets and highways making their own decisions puts us that much closer to concluding the first generation of data acquisition. One day the threat of car crashes could be virtually eliminated, if only we could get computers that didn’t crash.

[Source: Google, New York Times]

Report: Google quietly logs over 140k on autonomous cars in U.S. city traffic originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 10 Oct 2010 19:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google CEO: Ridiculous that humans drive cars

Filed under: Technology

We have a hard time imagining a world in which we don’t drive. Google CEO Eric Schmidt doesn’t have that problem. He feels that humans should give up their right to the steering wheel and hand the keys over to a computer. At a recent TechCrunch conference, Schmidt opined that we humans aren’t very good at driving, adding that “it’s a bug that cars were invented before computers.”

It’s hard to fight Schmidt’s logic. After all, thousands of Americans die each year due to accidents that are mostly avoidable. Then there’s the matter of traffic jams; Computers could one day seamlessly route vehicles to the best possible road, virtually eliminating the Interstate parking lot. Oh, and don’t forget that drivers are becoming increasingly distracted by electronic gadgets like smartphones.

Autonomous vehicles? Nice idea, but until it truly feasible and reliable on a massive scale, we’re more than happy to drive ourselves. And while we’re at it, we’ll row our own gears, too.

[Source: TechCrunch]

Google CEO: Ridiculous that humans drive cars originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 02 Oct 2010 17:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google Maps goes steampunk with scrolling brass wristlet

Filed under: Classics, Etc., Design/Style

Google Maps gone steampunk?

Google Maps directions are great, but when the turns are coming one after the other, it can be challenging to follow the route and simultaneously avoid mowing down passersby. Simon Jansen’s Brass Wristlet Navigator Watch offers a potential solution and puts a little piece of steampunk on your wrist.

A navigation system that delivers your route in the way proclamations were read back in ancient Rome or rally notes were read at the advent of the sport, the brass, leather and glass Wristlet needs no batteries and couldn’t be easier to use. Simply turn one of the knurled knobs to move the scroll. Head on over to the Makezine blog to get inspired; let’s see what kind of chops y’all got.

[Source: Asciimation via MakeZine | Photo: Asciimation]

Google Maps goes steampunk with scrolling brass wristlet originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 21 Aug 2010 12:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ford improves voice recognition for SYNC, adds Send-to-Car for Google Maps [w/video]

Filed under: Technology, Videos, Ford

Ford SYNC 2011 demonstration – click above to watch the video

Those that have been paying attention to Autoblog for any length of time will know that the staff here have long been enamored with the voice recognition (VR) technology that is a part of Ford’s SYNC system. SYNC VR generally does a better job of recognizing commands than any other such system and has a flatter menu structure than most.

For its 2011 iteration, Ford and its technology partner Nuance have significantly upgraded the system which now recognizes more than 10,000 commands without having to traverse a single menu. One of the frustrations of dealing with other VR systems has been figuring out the specific commands required to enter a destination or make a call. Nuance has implemented an array of aliases that let users say the same thing in different ways such as “play track” or “play song.”

Starting this week, owners of SYNC-equipped cars can now send directions from Google Maps on their computer directly to their car – even if they don’t have a navigation system. The send-to-car system has been available for several weeks on General Motors OnStar-equipped vehicles and Ford brings the number of automakers that support this technology to 20 worldwide including Audi and BMW. Check out the technology in the video and press release available after the jump.

[Sources: Ford, Google]

Continue reading Ford improves voice recognition for SYNC, adds Send-to-Car for Google Maps [w/video]

Ford improves voice recognition for SYNC, adds Send-to-Car for Google Maps [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 16 Jul 2010 13:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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