Honda to Make Autonomous Cars with GM’s Cruise; Apple Vets Build New Lidar; Feds Can’t Stop California’s Net Neutrality Law;

Posted: October 3, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Honda has committed to $2.75 billion in a deal with GM’s subsidiary Cruise to develop and produce a new kind of autonomous vehicle. Techcrunch.com reports that the vehicles are being designed from the ground up, but will be ‘space efficient’ and ‘multipurpose.’ GM, their Cruise subsidiary, and Honda said they expect to ‘explore global opportunities for commercial deployment of the Cruise network.’

A couple of refugees from Apple’s still secret Project Titan self driving car project started a company called Aeva, that hat developed a better lidar for self-driving vehicles. According to arstechinica.com, the new lidar can measure the velocity of objects in addition to their distance. Aeva’s version uses frequency modulated carrier wave lidar. If that makes your eyes cross, it basically means they send out a continuous laser beam with steadily changing frequency. The new lidar is nearly immune from interference, too. So far, no word on when they will market these to car makers or how much the cost will be.

The ink from Jerry Brown’s pen wasn’t even dry on California’s new net neutrality bill when the federal government sued to block it. The Department of Justice calls it a strong case, but theverge.com points out that most legal experts say the suit is on shaky legal ground. When the FCC ruled in favor of carriers last year, they included language that the Commission didn’t have authority to regulate the broadband ISPs. To put it succinctly, “An agency that has no power to regulate has no power to preempt the states, according to case law,” Stanford Law professor Barbara van Schewick said in a statement to The Verge.

“When the FCC repealed the 2015 Open Internet Order, it said it had no power to regulate broadband internet access providers,” van Schewick said. “That means the FCC cannot prevent the states from adopting net neutrality protections because the FCC’s repeal order removed its authority to adopt such protections.” So far, court decisions support California’s right to protect consumers rights.

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Galaxy Note 9 May Get Under Display Print Reader; Other Android Makers Looking To Face ID Clones; GM Buys Lidar Maker For Self-Driving; Food Delivered to Your Mouth-We Will Become Like In Wall-E

Posted: October 9, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Apple had to ditch the effort for the iPhone X, but Samsung is working on putting under screen fingerprint sensors in the Galaxy Note 9 for next year. Businessinsider.com reports that they are planning to let you unlock your screen simply by touching a finger on part of it.

Meanwhile, other Android makers are turning to developing 3D sensing for Face ID clones like Apple has in the soon to be released iPhone X. Appleinsider.com says the number of makers looking at 3D sensing has tripled since Apple showed off the tech in September. It’s not all about unlocking phones…the 3D tech also opens the door to AR…augmented reality.

General Motors has bought Strobe, a 3 year old startup that makes lidar tech for self driving vehicles. According to the New York Times, the company will be folded into Cruise Automation, the GM self-driving subsidiary. The General says it will help accelerate its efforts to develop and build electric cars with self-driving capabilities. They are saying the tech will help bring such cars to the market sooner than you think!

Researchers at University of Sussex have developed TastyFloats…a food delivery system that levitates food morsels right into your mouth…no hands or utensils! Thenextweb.com says it’s not really ro make us like the denizens of Wall-E, but to test if food tastes differently without touch or manipulation. It uses two phased arrays of ultrasonic transducers to transport the morsels of food. OTOH, someone may ‘monitize’ the idea, and then we really could all become porky couch potatoes.

iPhone is 10; Freshened iPads Coming, Waymo Says It’s Cut Self-Driving Equipment Cost in Half; Mercedes Autopilot Will Give Tesla a Run

Posted: January 9, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ten years ago today Steve Jobs…remember him?…stood in front of the crowd at Macworld, and introduced the iPhone. Of course, we didn’t get it until almost July, but smartphones were absolutely revolutionized. Now, we wait until September to see if the iPhone 8 will be anywhere near as revolutionary with a wraparound screen that covers the front and wireless charging.

Meanwhile, 9to5mac.com reports that KGI Securities is expecting 3 updated iPads, and they believe a sales slump will be blunted. Apple appears to be preparing a 12.9” model, 10-10.5” size, and a 9.7” version. The first two will get a higher end A10X chip, with the smaller one keeping the A9. More business and enterprise users will gravitate to the larger models, but KGI thinks the cheaper model will grab 50-60% of total iPads sold. They may drop this spring.

The Waymo self driving car division of Google…or if you insist, Alphabet….has cut the cost of LIdar sensors for the rigs by 90%. They’re still pricey, but in 2009 ran $75,000! They have done it by building the sensors in house, according to recode.net. At $7500, and likely to fall more, self driving tech is becoming something that can roll out in vehicles to the mass market soon!

Mercedes showed off its Drive Pilot in conjunction with CES in Las Vegas. Theverge.com says it actually works better than Tesla’s system…in fact, so well, that Mercedes has ‘detuned’ it a bit to make it move around in the lane so drivers won’t be lulled into dialing out completely. It does the emergency stop routine like the Tesla, but in the case of the Mercedes, automatically calls the Mercedes SOS service to connect a live person…a nice touch since both are in the luxury car strata. Drive Pilot will bow this summer in the S class Mercedes cars.

iPhone 7 May Have Fast Charging; New Audis Help With Speed & Green Lights; Ford Teams With Baidu, Buying LIDAR Tech

Posted: August 16, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

According to a rumor out of Asia, Apple’s iPhone 7 will have improved, fast charging circuitry supporting at least 5 volt, 2 amp charging. Right now, iPhone chargers put out a measly one amp. According to appleinsider.com, Samsung’s Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge already have fast charge tech that gets them from totally drained to half charged in 30 minutes. As a lot of iPhone users have griped for years that their phones don’t even make it through the day, this will be a welcome upgrade if true.

New Audi models have what is really a gimmick, but a pretty cool one at that. Arstechnica.com reports that they’ll have a display that will show the real time time to green light countdown in cities that have city-wide traffic management systems. It will be on 2017 A4s and Q7s. Now, you’ll be able to check that display, and know when to mash the pedal to the metal and beat that light. As Evel Knievel used to say, ‘Speed and Green Lights!’ (Ok, no he didn’t…I made that up.)

Ford and Chinese search giant Baidu have dropped a combined 150 million into LIDAR tech. Theverge.com says the two companies, which are both hard at work on developing self-driving tech, have invested in Velodyne, a Silicon Valley operation that makes LIDAR sensors for autonomous cars. LIDAR works on the same principle as RADAR, except using light waves, which gives you the ability to make more detailed 3D maps of what’s around the vehicle. Baidu already has 100 people in the Valley working on self-driving tech, and Ford plans to triple the size of its test fleet this year.