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      Shock of the old: 11 wild views of the future – from winged postmen to self-cleaning homes

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Wednesday, 13 March - 14:00

    Do you have to brush your own hair, own an umbrella or keep at least one hand on your steering wheel? Don’t blame these visionary thinkers

    “Things can only get better”, D:Ream promised, but they were wrong, and so were most people in history who have tried to predict the future.

    It never stopped us from trying, though, and a few visionaries have been pretty good at it. There was Leonardo da Vinci, of course, with his helicopters and fridges, and Joseph Glanvill , who in 1661 suggested moon voyages and communication using “magnetic waves” might be a thing. Civil engineer John Elfreth Watkins , writing in 1900, predicted mobile phones, ready meals and global digital media ( Photographs will be telegraphed from any distance. If there be a battle in China a hundred years hence, snapshots of its most striking events will be published in the newspapers an hour later ). Visionary US cartoonist Arthur Radebaugh ’s late 1950s and early 1960s Closer Than We Think series conjured wrist-worn TVs, robot-run warehouses and bloodless surgery.

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      Apple reportedly scraps multi-billion plan to build electric car

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Tuesday, 27 February - 22:33

    Reports say tech giant made announcement during meeting and forecast layoffs, ending secretive and resource-heavy project

    Apple is canceling its plans to build an electric car, according to multiple outlets , ending a secretive project that has consumed immense resources over the past decade. Executives from the company made the unexpected announcement during an internal team meeting on Tuesday, forecasting layoffs and telling employees that many of them would shift to working on generative artificial intelligence, per reports.

    Apple is believed to have spent billions of dollars attempting to develop an electric, semi-autonomous vehicle under the codename Project Titan, and its decision to kill the program is a major retreat from its previous strategy.

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      How green are electric cars? – podcast

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Tuesday, 27 February - 05:00

    Electric cars might seem like a no-brainer on a warming planet, but there are plenty of people who remain sceptical about everything from their battery life to their carbon impact and the environmental and human rights costs of their parts. Madeleine Finlay consults Auke Hoekstra, known as the internet’s ‘EV debunker in chief’, to unpick the myths, realities and grey areas surrounding electric cars

    Clips: Joe Rogan, Global Radio

    Read Jasper Jolly’s EV mythbusters series here

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      Driverless cars were the future but now the truth is out: they’re on the road to nowhere | Christian Wolmar

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Wednesday, 6 December - 11:00

    For all the billions spent, the dream of these vehicles ruling the roads remains just that. It would be much smarter to focus on public transport

    Developing driverless cars has been AI’s greatest test. Today we can say it has failed miserably, despite the expenditure of tens of billions of dollars in attempts to produce a viable commercial vehicle. Moreover, the recent withdrawal from the market of a leading provider of robotaxis in the US , coupled with the introduction of strict legislation in the UK , suggests that the developers’ hopes of monetising the concept are even more remote than before. The very future of the idea hangs in the balance.

    The attempt to produce a driverless car started in the mid-00s with a challenge by a US defence research agency, offering a $1m prize for whoever could create one capable of making a very limited journey in the desert. This quickly turned into a race between various tech and car companies (OEMs, as they are now known – original equipment manufacturers) to produce what they thought would be the ultimate cash cow: a car that could operate in all conditions without a driver.

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      Shock of the old: the amazing, infuriating history of the electric car – in pictures

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Tuesday, 24 October - 09:00 · 1 minute

    Believe it or not, battery-powered vehicles have been around since Victorian times – everything from private automobiles to taxis, ambulances and tricycles. We’ve got the photos to prove it

    The history of the electric car is surprisingly enraging. If you imagine early electric vehicles at all (full disclosure: I didn’t until recently), it will probably be as the quixotic and possibly dangerous dream of a few eccentrics, maybe in the 1920s or 1930s, when domestic electrification became widespread. It’s easy to imagine some stiff-collared proto-Musk getting bored of hunting and affairs, eyeing his newly installed electric lights speculatively, then wreaking untold havoc and mass electrocutions.

    The reality is entirely different. By 1900, a third of all cars on the road in the US were electric ; we’re looking at the history of a cruelly missed opportunity, and it started astonishingly early. The Scottish engineer Robert Anderson had a go at an electric car of sorts way back in the 1830s, though his invention was somewhat stymied by the fact rechargeable batteries were not invented until 1859, making his crude carriage something of a one-trick pony (and far less useful than an actual pony).

    Thomas Edison with his electric car, circa 1895.

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      How Honda Legend With Level 3 Self-Driving Tech Is Better Than Tesla?

      pubsub.do.nohost.me / FossBytes · Wednesday, 10 March, 2021 - 09:49 · 3 minutes

    Honda Legend self driving car with level 3 autonomous technology (1)

    Japanese auto giant Honda recently introduced the all-new, ‘Honda Legend’ which is apparently the world’s most advanced self-driving car. Honda Legend will be equipped with an advanced driving assistance system, Honda Sensing Elite, which will be powered by SAE Level 3 self-driving technology.

    The news indeed came as a big surprise as usually names like Tesla, Waymo , Audi, Mercedes come to our mind when we talk about autonomous tech.

    Anyway, with this announcement Honda proved itself to be a strong contender for the leadership of self-driving technology.

    More About Honda Legend And Its Self Driving Tech

    Initially, Honda will manufacture a batch of 100 units for sale in Japan only. Later, as per the response, the automaker will increase production. In Japan, the price of Honda Legend will start at 11 million yen ($101,500).

    What Honda Sensing Elite Will Be Capable Of?

    Honda self-driving car with level 3 autonomous ability Image: The Drive

    Unlike in Tesla that requires a driver to always put their hands on steering while moving in autopilot mode, you will not be required to do so on a Honda Legend.

    With this level 3 autonomous technology, the car will be able to make decisions on its own based on the conditions. Sometimes it won’t even require the driver to put their hands on the steering wheel.

    The new Hyundai Sensing Elite will give the self-driving tech control over steering, brakes, and throttle.

    However, in certain conditions, the car will alert the driver to take over control and if the driver doesn’t do it then the car will stop in a safe spot.

    So basically, the car will be able to perform the following actions:

    • Adaptive In Lane Driving : This will allow the car to drive in lanes while maintaining a safe distance from other vehicles. The system maintains the pre-set speed, distance as well as lane.
    • Active Lane Change With Hands-Off Function : If the car notices that the vehicle moving ahead is slowing down, then the system detects it and assists in switching the lane and overtakes the vehicle. After that, it comes back to its original lane.
    • Traffic Jam Pilot : If there’s traffic congestion, then under Adaptive lane driving, the system takes control of the acceleration, braking, and steering. This way, the driver can relax and do other activities like streaming a video or using a cell phone.
    • Emergency Stop Assist : There will be conditions when the driver has to take control of the car. Under such cases, the system will alert and notify the driver to take control. However, if the driver does not respond to the warnings, the system will start decelerating while monitoring the surroundings, and it will stop at the farthest lane of the road or simply at a safer spot.

    Honda said in its press release that “ approximately 10 million patterns of possible real-world situations were simulated during system development, and real-world demonstration tests were conducted on expressways for a total of approximately 1.3 million kilometres (800,000 miles).”

    Final Thoughts

    Tesla is one of the very few automakers that set the trend for electric vehicles and autonomous driving technology. The automaker has been developing self-driving technology for a long time now.

    However, due to the rules and regulations in many other countries, electric cars with level 3 hardware are not allowed to run on the roads; hence, Tesla is yet to launch its cars with a fully developed level 3 system in it.

    This also gives Honda an edge over Tesla and other automakers in terms of self-driving technology.

    Anyway, what do you guys think? Share your views in the comments section below.

    The post How Honda Legend With Level 3 Self-Driving Tech Is Better Than Tesla? appeared first on Fossbytes .