Car tech News
10 high tech cars to tear up the tarmac
Our pick of the world’s most advanced street autos
By John Brandon
Friday at 15:20 GMT
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Car technology is advancing quickly – partly to save the auto industry from imminent collapse, but also because tech innovations can help save lives on the road.
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Not sure if I need it to tell me that there are people in front of me. Maybe in a decade or two.
I probably could use it to remember the last speed sign we passed. Or remind where I see the radar traps.
Replicators, Innovators, and Bill Gates
by Vivek Wadhwa
on Mar 6, 2010
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After agonizing over this for weeks, I went to my friends at the Kauffman Foundation, and they referred me to their book titled “Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism”. Carl Schramm and Bob Litan wrote that all who take the risk are entrepreneurs, but that there are two types of entrepreneurs: “Replicative entrepreneurs”, who constitute the vast majority of small businesses (such as restaurants and dry cleaners), and “innovative entrepreneurs” — the rare few who bring new products/services to market or who pioneer new production methods (such as Walmart, eBay, and Dell).
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(Has Vivek gotten smarter since when I worked with him? Or, am I slipping?)
Interesting distinction.
My take on it is that the USA needs more of both kinds.
It has not escaped our notice that in the United States, Eastern standard time is the same as Central daylight time and Mountain standard time is the same as Pacific Daylight Time. Thus, we propose that The Pacific and Central time zones remain on permanent daylight saving time, and that the Mountain and Eastern time zones remain on permanent standard time.
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This proposal will simplify scheduling, travel, and commerce. And by ending semi-annual clock tampering, it will also allow people to get more sleep, be better adjusted to their daily routine, avoid missed appointments resulting from failure to reset clocks, and, most importantly, save lives.
ABCDEF wants to know how you can be trapped in a runaway car with a stuck accelerator for 20 minutes. I would like to know if people are so stupid to not know that turning off the car will at least allow you to coast to a stop if the brakes are not working (icluding the emergency brake). Or is there some hidden part of the st…ories where the cars cannot be turned off? If there is… why hasn’t any media outlet said that?
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I “believe” (Medicine from Doctor Phil, Law from Judge Judy, and Politics from Glen Beck) that the stupid things do NOT respond to turning the key OFF. (Not to ACC or to the position that allows the key to be extracted and locks the steering.) The lame street Press has reported that there is SOME kind of a button, somewhere in the cabin, that can … See Morebe pushed for an “emergency stop”. (I’d have thought pushing the brake pedal would engage the brake. OH NO, dumm, there’s some SOFTWARE involved in the process. Are they out of their freakin’ minds. Nobody involved ever done “software” support.) Sigh.
P.S. In my Mom’s garage, sometimes people block me in. I used to move cars. Now, if it’s a Toyota, I call the attendant. :-) Discretion!
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I, and others, don’t think it’s that easy. From what I understand, admittedly just from what I read, software is allowed to over ride the operator stomping on the brake. I find that incredulous. But, evidently, this little gem has a software that has a mind of its own. I’ll play Sargent Shultz, who says “I know nuthin, Nuting, Nothing at all”! But, it may not be so clear cut. Just an opinion.
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GHIJKL: sorry , i’ve never known a car that doesn’t allow you to take it out of gear , and emergency breaks are a physical cable with 0 electronics in them ( thats sort of the point of them else they wouldn’t be able to pass inspection ) although i believe breaks could be disabled due to abs and you may not be able to turn off the engine , a gear box is a gear box , can ALWAYS put it in neutral even if you cant do park/reverse.
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Sorry, but I think we are ALL going to need to do a “software update”. A month ago, I’d have said the same thing. (Probably with a lot more sarcasm!) Without having gotten one of these gems and ripped it apart, the Main Stream Media — or Lamestream Media — has led me to believe that this is no longer true. The car has a significant software …
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[JR: I’ll continue to follow the reports.]
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UPDATE
Now it appears that there is some question about the authenticity and accuracy of these claims.
Due to the congestion in all Yahoo users and removal of all unused Yahoo! Accounts, Yahoo would be shutting down all unused accounts, You will have to confirm your E-mail by filling out your Login Info below after clicking the reply botton, or your account will be suspended within 24 hours for security reasons.
UserName: ………………………………
Password:………………………………….
Date Of Birth: …………………………………..
Country Or Territory:..……………………….
After Following the instructions in the sheet, your account will not be interrupted and will continue as normal. Thanks for your attention to this request. We apologize for any inconvinience.
Yahoo! Customer Care
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This type of SPAM is exceptionally frustrating.
Yahoo should at least be able to catch it.
They even have a offering of “hidden addresses”. So you’d thing they could use that to ensure that their sers KNOW what’s really from them.
Subject Important Information: New Security Enhancement
Message New security step on Caremark.com starting Feb. 20!
The security of your personal and health information is of utmost importance to us. For your protection, we’ll ask you to answer a “challenge question” the first time you log on to Caremark.com on or after Feb. 20, 2010. If you’re using your own computer, you only have to answer the question once, or if you prefer, you may set your User Profile to require it more often. If you are logging on from a different computer, you will be asked the question each time. If you cannot remember your answer, contact our Web Customer Care at 1-800-378-9442.
Thank you.
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Arghhhhhhh!
First, this email is only available on their “portal” AFTER you logon. You can’t logon because “secondary questions” were NEVER set up. You can’t email into them because they only respond to your inbound email on their “portal” which you can’t get into. And, more aggravating is that they send you an email to saying “look at the portal inbox”. From an unattended email address.
Are they kidding? Has any one THOUGHT about this “barbara streisand”? Doubtful!
Arghhhhhhh!
(I HATE “secondary” identification. It merely provides hackers an alternative way to crack your account. How many favorite colors or mother’s maiden names do you have? My mother’s maiden name changes by web site as does my color. Here’s my five favorite colors: Cxu14, H4v4j, s7Jb5, T9B68, and 1dsz6. And, yes, I use different passwords on every site. Also stupid are those sites that force a format for passwords.)
Arghhhhhhh!
Then, you’re left with no choice but calling in to “tech support”. Innumerable prompts, and delays.
ScienceDaily (Feb. 26, 2010) — The most frequent error in medicine seems to occur nearly one out of three times a patient is referred to a specialist. A new study found that nearly a third of patients age 65 and older referred to a specialist are not scheduled for appointments and therefore do not receive the treatment their primary care doctor intended.
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It would seem that technology could eliminate that “disconnect” problem. It’s the “committed database transaction” problem.
NSFW: Cherchez la fame – or why the media’s obsession with Twitter campaigns will make customer service smell French
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by Paul Carr on Feb 28, 2010
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Time was, companies knew how to keep track of their important customers.
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Two years ago, none of this would have been news. A cult film maker was kicked off a flight? So? What was he going to do? Make a film called ‘Jay and Silent Bob hate Southwest airlines’? (Admittedly that would still have been better than Jersey Girl). An entrepreneur’s got quietly kicked out of a members’ club to make way for more profitable clients? Tough shit: that one’s not even newsworthy enough for the most desperate trade magazine. A little known designer gets ripped off by a gigantic retail chain? Boo hoo. Tell it to someone who cares. Without a major celebrity angle, there was little to no chance of the media picking up a run-of-the-mill intellectual property complaint and forcing the company into action.
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Really there’s only one answer – and it’s one that strikes at the very heart of the established hierarchy of customer importance. Companies are going to have to start treating every single customer like a VIP. Actually, no, it’s worse than that – consider the Hidden Eloise example; she wasn’t a customer, but just a humble designer. Companies are going to have to start treating every single person in the world like a VIP.
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Twitter will burn more and more organizations that are inconsiderate, fraudulent, or deceptive.
I love the strategy: form up your ‘David vs Goliath’ story and get people tweeting and retweeting about it.
AT&T has made some major changes to its internet system. They included removing the term “worldnet” from the Email address that some of you use to contact me. They will not transmit emails that contain that term after 3/15.
In my mind, it’s impossible to communicate the change to everyone who has your old email address. It may have been given to them by someone else.
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May I suggest that you might want to avoid giving out your ISP’s email address?
Your ISP’s email is a trap to lock you in to their service. It can leave you high and dry at the most inopportune times.
They can: (1) be acquired; (2) sell out; (3) change their brand; (4) go out of business; (5) do something dumb; OR (6) have a meltdown of some type.
And, you can be out of luck. No email temporarily or permanently. Then you’re forced to change.
Good luck finding everyone who HAS your email address. They may have been given it by someone you know. But you don’t know them.
You should NEVER permit them to own almost the mort important thing you “own” — your email address. It’s a key to your digital identity. if they get bought out or go out.
As old old mainframe guy, I am positive that most platforms have enough “junk” installed on them so that NO ONE can have what we in the old days would call “system assurance”. Say what one wants about the old centralized computing systems, they had change control. Until IBM started to NOT share its microcode and source code with its Customers, any one could sit down with a module and examine what was in fact running with what was supposed to be running. Often when there was an “opportunity”, the first thing that folks did was conduct a “witch hunt” for what was wrong. Today, that is impossible and unheard of.
What’s even more amusing to us “old hands” is the Linux movement and the Web-i-fication of applications. Funny how the world of “distributed computing” is swinging back to “centralization” with Web Operating Systems and Web Applications.
The Linux distribtuions are putting the end users back in control of the Operating System source code.
The Web application are making “system assurance” impossible.
A virus writer no longer has the luxury of the Microsoft mono-culture. Find a operating system hole and exploit it everywhere. And, the Microsoft death grip on applications (i.e., word processing) is being exploded by Google Docs, Zoho, and their ilk. As well as competed with by Open Office.
Anyone who feels confident that they, and their data, are not literally walking a high-wire tight rope across Niagra Falls on a windy day … Well, they are at best naive and at worst foolish.
After my visit to the Apple store for them to replace my Mac Book Air display, I found that TEXTEXPANDER had “lost its mind”. All my registration and abbreviations were gone.
Great Brother Jasper’s Ghost!!! No real backup. Argh!
I started the rebuild from an old old print and griped at the maker. Software; not THE Maker! Please, no lightening bolt for me. Surely not for something so trivial as lost data. Lost date maybe; lost partial data not so much.
Here’s their response.
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Sorry about that, on rare occasions TextExpander can reset. If you have v 2.8 then there is a backup in TextExpander. Go to:
That Settings.textexpander file is what you need to replace with a backup to restore your snippets and registration information. Also, you will see a SettingsBackup.textexpander. Rename that to Settings.textexpander when you need to restore your settings.
Another less that satisfying reply. At least next time it happens, I will know where to go and restore a file from my Time Machine. (It just keeps chugging away. I’m kinda looking forward to a bare metal restore. How’s that for over confidence?)
And, I’ll keep a weekly print of my abbreviations file.
My response to “support”:
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Too late. I already started rebuilding it.
Really need a explicit back up and recovery option. Over on window, my copy of ROBOFORM has a really nice UI. Explicit menu choice to BACKUP and RESTORE from a user chosen location. Suggest same.
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And not a WTx, Argh, or other expletive in it. (One small checkmark for the Final Judgement?)
So my opinion hasn’t changed much on TEXTEXPANDER. Great utility; dangerous as a falling knife.
Vol. 2, # 5 – Feb 4, 2010 – Issue # 21 How Well does Windows 7 Run on a Notebook with Modest Specs?
Deb Shinder, Editor
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I bought the Sony TX back in January 2007, right after Vista was released. I had specifically waited for the release so I could get a new notebook that came with Vista pre-installed, because my Sony T didn’t support an upgrade to Vista. The TX came with Vista Business edition. The hardware was very nice, but the operating system ran as slowly as molasses. I had been running Vista Ultimate on my Dell XPS for over a year (in beta and RC) with no problems, so I was shocked at the lousy performance on my brand new notebook.
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Ahh, yes, the planned obsolescence of the Intel Windoze platform.
Here we have an tech editor, who by her own figures, has spent about 6k$ over 4 years on platforms. To accomplish basically the same computing tasks.
(I’d accept buying new hardware if she had a catastrophic failure, like a smoking hard disk, spill or drop. Or if she wanted to do them new flangledy U Tubby videos that need editing. But, for no “GOOD” reason?)
That doesn’t count all the “administration” costs of the platform and switching.
No, for the average use, who wants a tool, the Intel Windoze platform doesn’t make sense.
And, what happened to all the “greenies” saving the planet? (Not that I think the planet needs saving!) How about the “footprint” of three machines?
Argh!
I’m on my way to Linux when my current hardware dies.
In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology. This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5. As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.
We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010. After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar.
Google Apps will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above, Google Chrome 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above.
Starting this week, users on these older browsers will see a message in Google Docs and the Google Sites editor explaining this change and asking them to upgrade their browser. We will also alert you again closer to March 1 to remind you of this change.
In 2009, the Google Apps team delivered more than 100 improvements to enhance your product experience. We are aiming to beat that in 2010 and continue to deliver the best and most innovative collaboration products for businesses.
We’ve designed EggWatchers with hopes to banish forgetting, boredom, and bad cooking. We’ve done our best to make sure it’s awesome and works and stuff, but the fact is – we’re not responsible for any bad egg related incidents.
US State Department clerk sentenced for passport peeking
Jan 22 09:22 AM US/Eastern
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A US State Department file clerk on Thursday was sentenced to 12 months’ probation for illegally accessing dozens of confidential passport applications of movie actors, professional athletes and other celebrities. The employee, Susan Holloman, 58, was also ordered by the judge in the case to perform 75 hours of community service. Holloman, a file assistant at the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, admitted that between February 2007 and December 2007 she repeatedly logged on to the department’s secure computer database and viewed passport applications belonging to some 70 celebrities and their families.
She acknowledged to prosecutors that she had no reason to access the passport applications, other than “idle curiosity,” a State Department press release said.
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The more interesting question with respect to technology is why was “idle curiosity” possible?
The security systems are obviously REACTIVE rather than PROACTIVE. There should be a way of specifying the “business requirements” such that there isn’t an open playground of personal data.
But, this is the gooferment, and it can’t do ANYTHING right!
Patients demand: ‘Give us our damned data’
By Elizabeth Cohen, CNN Senior Medical Correspondent
January 14, 2010 9:13 a.m. EST
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The federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which governs access to medical records, gives hospitals and doctors 30 days to respond to a request for medical records, although some state laws provide for a shorter time frame, and in urgent situations, such as a transfer to another hospital, it’s customary for hospitals to move more quickly.
Be prepared to make your request in writing, McCabe says. You can bring it in person, or fax the request in, but make sure you confirm that the hospital’s received it.
One way to get your medical records more quickly is to seek out providers who use electronic medical records so the records can be e-mailed to you, she says. Some providers have an electronic portal so you can read your records anytime you want on a secure site on the Internet.
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Here’s a great advice. With all of Frau’s medical problems, I wish I kept better records. I have a lot, but not everything. And not organized in the most useable fashion.
President Barack Obama, accompanied by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, speaks to the media after a discussion with 6th grade students at Graham Road Elementary School in Falls Church, Va., Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2010.
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What was the derisive term TELEPROMPTER instead of PRESIDENT. TOTUS?
Can he ever be unscripted?
If the media had shown this before the election, maybe we’d be screaming about McCain and stuff?
ENUM: Dragging telephone numbers into the Internet Age
E-mail, IM, Facebook, phones—what if all of these ways to reach you over a network could be condensed into a single, unique number? The ENUM proposal aims to do just that, by giving everyone a single phone number that maps to all of their identifiers. Here’s how it works, and why it isn’t already widely used.
By Rudolf van der Berg | Last updated January 13, 2010 11:30 PM
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The main issue is that the ENUM standard (RFC 3761) demands that ENUM is a public service and that the control of the telephone number lies in the hands of the end-user. For this reason, it’s known as “Public-” or “User ENUM.” This is all in line with the Internet’s user- and endpoint-centric creed. This becomes quite clear if you read, for instance, the documentation of Nominet, which controls the UK’s ENUM registry (the +44 registry). It explicitly states that users can bypass their communications provider when they register in the ENUM registry. A significant amount of money is made by today’s telephony providers (be they traditional providers or ISPs providing VoIP bundled with Internet access). Telephony providers see User ENUM as a threat to their bottom line and are therefore not keen on introducing the technology nationally.
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The inet was driven by motivated individuals, not gooferments, not ISPs, not companies.
We need to get back to the fast innovation cycle of the old inet!
it’s been our experience that, quite often, papers initially made available for free online will eventually disappear behind the pay wall at some point. So if we post something you think you might want to reread or use in the future, grab a copy of the full text as soon as you see it. No telling how long it will remain freely available.
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It’s a shame that has to happen. If it’s not “pay” to start with, then why “pay” after a time.
Unfortunately, the inet isn’t a library. And, as I find out more and more, Google ain’t that good!
But it had no way to identify itself to a finder who might be interested in returning it.
The product design should have a place for a name or phone number. Maybe it should have a sensor to alert me that it was “leaving”. Or the ability to “phone home”?
Argh!
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John Edward OConnor
or maybe just use one of those address labels every charity ion the world sends you trying to guilt you into a donation?
Do you really need a technical solution where glue and paper will work? :)
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No good place on the old or new camera to put one. And, they wipe off over time. (I’ve tried it on other things. Like cars and toys.) Same the maker doesn’t do serial number registration and retrieval services. Give a token to the finder; modest recovery fee to the owner? Like an extended warranty against loss?
Many Web sites offer some form of registration, which typically ask you to add your personal contact information and specify a username and password.
Why do some sites require me to enter my e-mail address or my password twice? They’re going to verify all this anyway. Why do I have to enter city, state and ZIP code, when the ZIP code already knows the city and state, and vice versa.
Bad, redundant and obsolete technologies make life needlessly complex, expensive, irritating and ugly. Let’s get rid of them.
Irish breast cancer breakthrough could end mammograms
Major cancer discovery from team at Galway University
By ANTOINETTE KELLY, IrishCentral.com
Published Tuesday, December 22, 2009, 1:50 PM
Updated Tuesday, December 22, 2009, 4:24 PM
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Irish scientists may have found an alternative to the dreaded mammogram in a bid to reduce the incidence of breast cancer.
Researchers from the National University of Ireland Galway have identified a new blood test that can act as an “early warning” system.
The test, which is being discussed as a potential replacement for mammograms, can alert doctors if the disease is recurring.
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The study found a link between breast cancer and substances called microRNAs which are found in the blood of patients with breast cancer.
Professor Michael Kerin, who led the team, said there was good reason for optimism.
“This early work suggests a combination of mir195 and Let7a (two specific types of microRNA) are sensitive markers for the presence of breast cancers in over 90 percent of cases,” he said. “This raises the possibility of their use in screening for breast cancer.”
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Recent gooferment “pronouncements” about cancer screening was suspect. Suspect that they were looking at the cost as opposed to the benefits. Here may be an opportunity to satisfy both conflicting priorities.
The value of human life can’t be reduced into dollars and sense.
Sorry. Apologies to all the accountants and gooferment bureaucrats, but your wrong. Heartlessly wrong.
When people buy their own health care, they make a very tough “value” judgement.
I’ve seen “old people” and “terminally ill” people make the tough decisions easily. When we insert an insurance company or Medicare welfare into the process, people don’t see the costs as impacting their legacy and their families.
So substituting a potentially cheaper and more accurate chemistry test is a real winner.
Text Messages: Digital Lipstick on the Collar
By LAURA M. HOLSON
Published: December 8, 2009
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Robert Stephan Cohen, the lawyer who represented Christie Brinkley in her divorce from Peter Cook, said a spouse’s finding out about a cheating partner by reading their personal text messages would have a profound effect on how such cases were played out, both in court and among friends and family. Mr. Cohen predicted that the battles in even the most routine divorces would become uglier with more text messages as evidence.
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People really don’t understand the technology they are using. Nor, do they understand the implications of an “eternal love letter”.
And, in a corporate setting, it’s even worse. Why aren’t they REQUIRED to preserve email forever.
The “digital dirt”, created voluntarily, CAN come back to haunt you.
November 19th, 2009 at 7:19 am
Audi Autonomous TTS – Driverless Sports Car
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It could also help with the more mundane aspects of driving. With the Autonomous TTS, you could let your car go find its own parking space in the garage. “The technology could return time to the cars’ owners by taking care of routine driving chores, such as winding through a parking garage to an assigned spot each morning,” Audi says.
I don’t care for the name. Meme, like gene, is supposed to represent a defining concept. Paradigm is perception. Meme is the mental construction that we can share. (A meme can be “wrong” like government. But it’s something (an idea) we can exchange and understand. I think Yahoo has muddled the pond. IMHO!
Japan’s major nuclear reactor manufacturers have begun developing small nuclear power systems for both developed and emerging countries, a report said on Saturday.
Toshiba Corp. is developing an ultra-compact reactor with an output of about 10,000 kilowatts and has started procedures for approval in the United States, the Nikkei business daily said.
The new reactor, the Toshiba 4S, is designed to minimise the need for monitoring and maintenance, with an automatic shutdown function to ensure safety in case of problems, the newspaper said.
Toshiba plans to market the reactor first in the United States, while foreseeing demand from emerging countries in Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe as well as in Africa, it said.
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For America’s “lost generation” of nuke engineers, I’m sure the approval of this will really put a knot in their shorts.
At one time, America “owned” the nuclear engineering niche.
France gets 80% of its power from nukes; we get near zero.
Thanks for signing up for the Qipit online service, the company that specializes in high quality mobile copy solutions. We are making a change in the focus of the company toward the development of smart phone applications and technology for the enterprise. In fact, our first application Qipit White, is available now for the iPhone, with more applications and platforms to follow. Starting this past Wednesday (October 21, 2009), the Qipit online mobile copy service stopped accepting new user registrations.
What this means to you?
As an existing user, you can still use the service as normal until November 9, 2009, at which time the ability to create new copies (using Web upload, our facebook applications, Shozu, copy@qipit.com, and color@qipit.com) and to share (by sending faxes and emails) will be discontinued. On December 6, 2009, the service will be completely taken offline. We encourage users to download all of the information you would like to keep, prior to this date. After the service is taken offline, your information will no longer be available.
As we say goodbye to Qipit the online service, Qipit will live on in a series of smart phone applications and as a technology for the enterprise. Back in September we launched our first smart phone application, Qipit White, for the iPhone, it shares much of the same functionality of the online service, but works much faster! We will continue to support Qipit White and future applications based on the technology behind Qipit for the iPhone, Android and other smart phone platforms. Be sure to keep an eye on www.qipit.com and the Qipit Blog for the latest news on new applications.
You can read more about the changes at Qipit at our blog. Please feel free to share your thoughts and farewells to the Qipit online service.
Posted by reinkefj 
