A Town Built for Driverless Cars

As reported by MIT Technology Review:  A mocked-up set of busy streets in Ann Arbor, Michigan, will provide the sternest test yet for self-driving cars. Complex intersections, confusing lane markings, and busy construction crews will be used to gauge the aptitude of the latest automotive sensors and driving algorithms; mechanical pedestrians will even leap into the road from between parked cars so researchers can see if they trip up onboard safety systems.

The urban setting will be used to create situations that automated driving systems have struggled with, such as subtle driver-pedestrian interactions, unusual road surfaces, tunnels, and tree canopies, which can confuse sensors and obscure GPS signals.



“If you go out on the public streets you come up against rare events that are very challenging for sensors,” says Peter Sweatman, director of the University of Michigan’s Mobility Transformation Center, which is overseeing the project. “Having identified challenging scenarios, we need to re-create them in a highly repeatable way. We don’t want to be just driving around the public roads.”

Google and others have been driving automated cars around public roads for several years, albeit with a human ready to take the wheel if necessary. Most automated vehicles use accurate digital maps and satellite positioning, together with a suite of different sensors, to navigate safely.

Highway driving, which is less complex than city driving, has proved easy enough for self-driving cars, but busy downtown streets—where cars and pedestrians jockey for space and behave in confusing and surprising ways—are more problematic.

“I think it’s a great idea,” says John Leonard, a professor at MIT who led the development of a self-driving vehicle for a challenge run by DARPA in 2007. “It is important for us to try to collect statistically meaningful data about the performance of self-driving cars. Repeated operations—even in a small-scale environment—can yield valuable data sets for testing and evaluating new algorithms.”

The simulation is being built on the edge of the University of Michigan’s campus with funding from the Michigan Department of Transportation and 13 companies involved with developing automated driving technology. It is scheduled to open next spring. It will consist of four miles of roads with 13 different intersections.



Even Google, which has an ambitious vision of vehicle automation, acknowledges that urban driving is a significant challenge. Speaking at an event in California this July, Chris Urmson, who leads the company’s self-driving car project, said several common urban situations remain thorny (see “Urban Jungle a Tough Challenge for Google’s Autonomous Car”). Speaking with MIT Technology Review last month, Urmson gave further details about as-yet-unsolved scenarios (see “Hidden Obstacles for Google’s Self-Driving Cars”).

Such challenges notwithstanding, the first automated cars will go into production shortly. General Motors announced last month that a 2017 Cadillac will be the first car to offer entirely automated driving on highways. It’s not yet clear how the system will work—for example, how it will ensure that the driver isn’t too distracted to take the wheel in an emergency, or under what road conditions it might refuse to take the wheel—but in some situations, the car’s Super Cruise system will take care of steering, braking, and accelerating.

Another technology to be tested in the simulated town is vehicle-to-vehicle communications. The University of Michigan recently concluded a government-funded study in Ann Arbor involving thousands of vehicles equipped with transmitters that broadcast position, direction of travel, speed, and other information to other vehicles and to city infrastructure. The trial showed that vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications could prevent many common accidents by providing advanced warning of a possible collision.



“One of the interesting things, from our point of view, is what extra value you get by combining automation and car-to-car communications”, Sweatman says. “What happens when you put the two together—how much faster can you deploy it?”

Recent Studies Indicate Auto Phone Systems, Apple Siri Distract Drivers

As reported by the LATimes: In many cars, making a hands-free phone call can be more distracting than picking up your phone, according to a new study from AAA and the University of Utah.

In-dash phone systems are overly complicated and prone to errors, the study found, and the same is true for voice-activated functions for music and navigation.

A companion study also found that trying to use Siri — the voice control system on Apple phones — while driving was dangerously distracting. Two participants in the study had virtual crashes in an automotive simulator while attempting to use Siri, the study's authors reported.

"We already know that drivers can miss stop signs, pedestrians and other cars while using voice technologies," said Bob Darbelnet, chief executive of AAA. "We now understand that current shortcomings in these products, intended as safety features, may unintentionally cause greater levels of cognitive distraction."

The studies measured cognitive distraction — the mental workload required of a task — as opposed to the visual distraction, caused by drivers taking their eyes off the road, or physical distraction, such as reaching for a cellphone or brushing hair. The researchers used special test vehicles, heart-rate monitors and other equipment to measure how much mental distraction the systems generated. The systems were rated on a five-point scale, with five representing the most distracting.

Chevrolet's MyLink system, which the researchers tested in a 2013 Chevy Cruz Eco, scored the worst of the six systems from auto manufacturers.

It generated a distraction rating of 3.7 on the study's scoring protocol — compared with 2.45 for a hand-held cellphone. Three of the other systems rated as more distracting than a hand-held phone: Chrysler's UConnect System, 2.7; Ford's Sync with MyFord Touch system, 3.0; and Mercedes' Command system, 3.1.

Only Toyota's Entune, at 1.7, and Hyundai BlueLink, 2.2, scored better.

But the report doesn't recommend using a hand-held cellphone, either.

Studies by AAA and the University of Utah measured motorists' cognitive distraction, the mental workload required of a task. (Dan Campbell Photography / University of Utah and AAA)

"The primary task should be driving. Things that take your attention away make you a poor driver," said University of Utah psychology professor and study leader David Strayer. "Even though your car may be configured to support social media, texting and phone calls, it doesn't mean it is safe to do so."

The voice-based systems distracted drivers because they are too complex and made too many errors in recognizing voice commands, according to the research.

"Drivers were cursing the systems out," Strayer says. "If you want to buy one of these cars, make sure you can actually use the voice-based technology before you leave the lot."

Automakers discounted the findings, noting that the research did not document that cognitive distraction leads to crashes. Conversely, physical activities, such as reaching for a phone, texting or reading emails while driving do create distractions that cause collisions.



A National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study released last year concluded that physical and visual distractions triple the risk of crashes.

That's why Chevrolet installs a voice-command system and steering wheel button controls in its vehicles, said Annalisa Bluhm, a GM spokeswoman.

"We feel that hands on the wheel and eyes on the road is critical to safe vehicle operation," Bluhm said.

Toyota said the study did not show a link between cognitive distraction and car crashes.

"The results actually tell us very little about the relative benefits of in-vehicle versus hand-held systems; or about the relationship between cognitive load and crash risks," said Mike Michels, a Toyota spokesman.

Still, Toyota said it supported AAA's commitment to studying the cognitive demands of various tasks and helping prevent distracted driving incidents. The automaker said it was pleased to score well in the study.

The study of cognitive distraction is still evolving, said AAA spokeswoman Nancy White.

"However, with more than 3,000 people killed a year due to driver distraction, it's what we don't know about distraction that should be of concern," White said.

White noted that the research proves that automakers and phone-makers can and should design systems that are less complex and more intuitive — and safer.

Siri was notable for producing "different responses to seemingly identical commands," the researchers wrote.

In some instances, the Apple system required exact phrases to accomplish a specific task. It wouldn't understand subtle deviations from that phrasing. It also required drivers to start over when it made a dictation error in a message, because it offered no way to edit.

"Siri also made mistakes such as calling someone other than the desired person from the phone contact list," the study said. "Some participants also reported frustration with Siri's sarcasm and wit."  

Apple said the study did not test CarPlay or Siri Eyes Free, which the company has designed for drivers to access features and apps they want in the car with minimized distraction. However, CarPlay is a new system that is just rolling out in some 2015 model year cars. Siri Eyes Free also is fairly new, only widely available in some car brands starting in the 2014 model year.

Marriott Fined $600K for Jamming Guests’ Hotspots, Forcing Them onto Paid WiFi

As reported by Yahoo Tech: Marriott International will pay a $600,000 fine for jamming conference attendees’ WiFi networks at its Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center, forcing them to pay hefty prices to use the hotel’s own connection.

Frequent travelers often carry personal WiFi hotspots — tiny devices that can connect to the Internet via cellphone towers. For $50 a month, they can connect to the Internet on the move, often avoiding hefty fees charged by hotels, airports, and conference facilities. Some people upgrade their wireless data plans to make their smartphones into hotspots.

Last year, a conference attendee at the Opryland hotel in Nashville, Tennessee — which is managed by Marriott — found that the hotel was jamming devices in its ballrooms and complained to the Federal Communications Commission. In the complaint, the guest noted that the same thing happened previously at another Gaylord property. The block didn’t affect WiFi access in guest rooms.

While jamming personal WiFi connections, Marriott was charging conference organizers and exhibitors between $250 and $1,000 per access point to use the Gaylord’s WiFi connection. The FCC declined to release the initial guest complaint except if requested under the Freedom of Information Act, a process that can often take weeks.

Marriott agreed to the fine and has instructed its hotels not to use the jamming technology in the way it was used at Opryland, according to the FCC. But the company on Friday defended the blocking of guests’ own WiFi networks in the interest of network security. The company said it is legal to use FCC-approved technology to protect its WiFi service against “rogue wireless hotspots that can cause degraded service, insidious cyber-attacks and identity theft,” adding that hospitals and universities employ similar jamming practices.

At the four Gaylord hotels in the U.S., Marriott today monitors for hotspots causing interference but does not automatically block such connections, said Harvey Kellman, a lawyer for the hotel company. Only a handful of Marriott’s 4,000 other hotels worldwide currently screen for hotspot interference.

Marriott said it encourages the FCC to change its rules “to eliminate the ongoing confusion” and “to assess the merits of its underlying policy.”

The government said people who purchase cellular data plans should be able to use them without fear that their personal connection will be blocked.

"It is unacceptable for any hotel to intentionally disable personal hotspots while also charging consumers and small businesses high fees to use the hotel’s own Wi-Fi network," Travis LeBlanc, chief of the FCC’s enforcement bureau, said in a statement. "This practice puts consumers in the untenable position of either paying twice for the same service or forgoing Internet access altogether."

Why This Tesla Motors Co-founder Loves Electric Garbage Trucks

As reported by Xconomy: Ian Wright designed what may be one of the coolest street-legal cars of all time: the electric X1 looked like a Formula 1 racecar and went from zero to 60 in a breathtaking 2.9 seconds. Now, though, all Wright wants to talk about is trucks, especially the workaday delivery trucks and garbage trucks that ply city streets.

Why the excitement? Wright is the founder of Wrightspeed, a San Jose, CA-based startup that’s designed electric powertrains for medium- and heavy-duty trucks. “Garbage trucks are the perfect driving cycle for us: they get two or three miles per gallon, drive 130 miles a day with 1,000 hard stops that chew on the brakes. They’re just perfect,” he says.

Wright was among the founders of Tesla Motors. But despite his background in working on luxury performance cars, he’s come around to thinking that the biggest opportunity for electric vehicle disruption is where most of the fuel is burned—that is, big trucks. Cars may go through a few hundred gallons of gas a year but a commercial truck will burn through thousands of gallons or more. That means there’s a better financial incentive in terms of fuel savings to go electric.

The company sold two kits to retrofit FedEx delivery trucks to electric power and recently sold 25 more conversion kits, Wright says. It’s also in the process of putting electric powertrains on 17 garbage trucks in northern California, which will allow the fleet to comply with new air quality rules.

Within the month, Wright expects to raise a Series D round of growth capital, which will include a strategic supplier as an investor, to start building more of its electric powertrains. The company has already raised $16.5 million of venture capital in three rounds and received grants from the California Energy Commission to expand manufacturing. He hopes to take the company public in three years.

Befitting a man who designed the X1, the technology in Wrightspeed’s truck conversion kits is deep. There’s an electric motor on each of the truck’s drive wheels (it can be two or four depending on the vehicle) and an on-board generator to replenish batteries once their charge gets below about 20 percent. The generator can operate on natural gas or diesel.

Conversion costs under $100,000 for medium-duty trucks and under $200,000 for larger trucks, Wright says. For commercial customers, though, the return on investment is what drives buying decisions. By saving fuel and maintenance costs, converting to the extended-range electric powertrain can pay for itself in a reasonable time, Wright says. “At a three-year payback, everybody will do it,” he says.

Credit: Screen capture from Wrightspeed promotional video.

The transformation from glamorous, high-performance cars to the world of trucks came over time. Wright says he spent five years refining the business model after being shut down by investors on Sand Hill Road.

The key was homing in on a large market. A significant number of consumers are buying electric passenger cars, but because they’re more expensive than their gasoline counterparts, the market is limited to a few percent of the overall market, many analysts say.

By contrast, Wrightspeed is targeting fleet owners in metro areas where the regular stop-and-go traffic is an advantage: by braking or slowing down, the powertrain can recharge the battery, just as a hybrid car does.

“With my business model, it’s not a consumer decision—it’s a business-to-business decision. People don’t buy because it’s a fashion statement or because it’s cool. If the numbers line up, they’re going to do it,” he says.

In general, venture investors are skittish of investing in the auto industry over worries that large suppliers will crush smaller competitors or that margins are too small in heavy equipment, Wright says.

But the company does face some startup competition: Greenville, S.C-based Proterra, which is also headed by a former Tesla exec, in June raised another $30 million to manufacture its electric buses, which are aimed at municipalities. Boston-based XL Hybrids also sells a conversion kit to fleet owners, although it converts trucks and vans into more traditional hybrids.

Wright’s belief is that electric powertrain technology is fundamentally better—electric motors are very efficient and generally offer better driving performance. But it needs the right business model to truly become mainstream. “This is such cool stuff. It’s so much better than pistons and gears. But how do you make a difference in the auto industry? How do you get to disruption?” he says.

Brain’s Inner GPS Wins 3 Scientists Nobel Medicine Prize

As reported by Bloomberg: The discovery of cells in the brain that make up an internal global-positioning system won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for three scientists.

John O’Keefe, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London who holds U.S. and U.K. citizenship, and Norwegians May-Britt Moser, 51, and Edvard I. Moser, 52, will share the 8 million-krona ($1.1 million) prize, the Nobel Assembly said today in Stockholm. O’Keefe, 74, will receive half the amount, and the Mosers, the fifth married couple to win a Nobel Prize, will share the rest.

The scientists’ work in finding cells that create a map of the surrounding space and aid navigation may improve understanding of how these abilities deteriorate in people with Alzheimer’s disease. Their research has also illuminated other processes in the brain such as memory, thinking and planning, the Nobel Assembly said in a statement.

“The ability to know where we are and find our way are essential to our existence,” Ole Kiehn, a professor of neuroscience at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, said at a press conference in the Swedish capital. “O’Keefe’s discovery of place cells showed that specialized nerve cells can compute abstract higher brain functions. His finding had a dramatic impact on the study of how the brain creates behavior.”

Place Cells
O’Keefe found in 1971 that a type of nerve cell in the hippocampus area of the brain was always activated when a rat was at a certain place in a room, the Nobel Assembly said. Other cells were active when the rat was in a different place, he found. He dubbed the cells “place cells,” the assembly said.

The finding was controversial as the prevailing wisdom at the time was to approach spatial perception from receptors like the eyes and progress through to the cells that receive information from them, O’Keefe told reporters in London today.

Colleagues “thought it was an act of sheer hubris to think that you could go to this part of the brain, which was as far away as you could get from the periphery and sensory inputs,” he said. “They were surprised and there was a lot of resistance.”

More than three decades later, after working with O’Keefe in London as visiting scientists, the Mosers discovered another component of the positioning system, nerve cells that generate a coordinate system and make precise positioning possible, according to the statement.

Nobel Shock
Edvard Moser is a professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and director of the Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience in Trondheim, Norway. May-Britt Moser is also a professor at the university and director of the Centre for Neural Computation.

“It is such a shock,” May-Britt Moser, the 11th woman to win the medicine prize, said by telephone from Trondheim. When she received the call about the prize, her husband was on a flight to Munich and she couldn’t share the news with him, she said. They’ve been collaborating on research since 1983 and established their laboratory in Trondheim in 1996, she said. “This is a prize for the whole community.”

O’Keefe was working at home revising a grant proposal when he received the news, he said. His “checkered youth” included studying classics in high school and engineering and philosophy as a college student in New York, he said. There, he was seduced by philosophical questions around consciousness and how to solve the mind-body problem, leading him to seek out answers through the field of neuroscience, he said.

Breakfast Meetings
O’Keefe advised the Mosers on how to go about their research in 1995 before they established their lab, May-Britt Moser said in an interview with NobelPrize.org. Asked about the advantages of being a husband-and-wife team, May-Britt said, “we can have breakfast meetings almost every day.” The last married couple to win the same Nobel award were Carl and Gerty Cori, who shared the 1947 medicine prize with Bernardo Houssay.

The scientists’ work is relevant for research in Alzheimer’s as the progress of the disease can be followed and observed in place cells, O’Keefe said. That, in turn, informs how interventions can attack the ailment, he said.

As much of their work has been in rats, O’Keefe expressed concern that regulations on animal research may become too restrictive. The U.S.-born scientist also said immigration rules are posing “large obstacles” to attracting talented scientists to the U.K.

Cell’s Transporters
Last year’s Nobel prize for medicine was awarded to three U.S. scientists -- James Rothman, Randy Schekman and Thomas C. Suedhof -- for detailing how a cell’s transporters navigate and drop off hormones and other molecules, opening avenues of research into treatments for diabetes as well as neurological and immune disorders.

Annual prizes for achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, peace and literature were established in the will of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite, who died in 1896. The Nobel Foundation was established in 1900 and the prizes were first handed out the following year.

An economics prize was created almost seven decades later in memory of Nobel by the Swedish central bank. Only the peace prize is awarded outside Sweden, by the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo.

The Nobel Prize in Physics will be announced tomorrow.

U.S. Navy Tests Robot Boat Swarm to Overwhelm Enemies

As reported by IEEE Spectrum: A fleet of U.S. Navy boats approached an enemy vessel like sharks circling their prey. The scene might not seem so remarkable compared to any of the Navy's usual patrol activities, but in this case, part of an exercise conducted by the U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR), the boats operated without any direct human control: they acted as a robot boat swarm.

The tests on Virginia's James River this past summer represented the first large-scale military demonstration of a swarm of autonomous boats designed to overwhelm enemies. This capability points to a future where the U.S. Navy and other militaries may deploy underwater, surface, and flying robotic vehicles to defend themselves or attack a hostile force.

"What's new about the James River test was having five USVs [unmanned surface vessels] operating together with no humans on board," said Robert Brizzolara, an ONR program manager.

In the test, five robot boats practiced an escort mission that involved protecting a main ship against possible attackers. To command the boats, the Navy use a system called the Control Architecture for Robotic Agent Command and Sensing (CARACaS). The system not only steered the autonomous boats but also coordinated its actions with other vehicles—a larger group of manned and remotely-controlled vessels.

Brizzolara said the CARACaS system evolved from hardware and software originally used in NASA's Mars rover program starting 11 years ago. Each robot boat transmits its radar views to the others so the group shares the same situational awareness. They're also continually computing their own paths to navigate around obstacles and act in a cooperatively manner.

Navy researchers installed the system on regular 7-foot and 11-foot boats and put them through a series of exercises designed to test behaviors such as escort and swarming attack. The boats escorted a manned Navy ship before breaking off to encircle a vessel acting as a possible intruder. The five autonomous boats then formed a protective line between the intruder and the ship they were protecting.

Photo: John F. Williams/U.S. Navy

An unmanned boat operates autonomously during an Office of Naval Research demonstration of swarm boat technology on the James River in Newport News, Va.

Such robotic swarm technology could transform modern warfare for the U.S. Navy and the rest of the U.S. military by reducing the risk to human personnel. Smart robots and drones that don't require close supervision could also act as a "force multiplier" consisting of relatively cheap and disposable forces—engaging more enemy targets and presenting more targets for enemies to worry about.

"Numbers may once again matter in warfare in a way they have not since World War II, when the U.S. and its allies overwhelmed the Axis powers through greater mass," wrote Paul Scharre, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a military research institution in Washington, D.C., in an upcoming report titled "Robotics on the Battlefield Part II: The Coming Swarm."

"Qualitative superiority will still be important, but may not be sufficient alone to guarantee victory," Scharre wrote. "Uninhabited systems in particular have the potential to bring mass back to the fight in a significant way by enabling the development of swarms of low-cost platforms."  

The Navy does not have a firm timeline for when such robot swarms could become operational. For now, ONR researchers hope to improve the autonomous system in terms of its ability to "see" its surroundings using different sensing technologies. They also want to improve how the boats navigate autonomously around obstacles, even in the most unexpected situations that human programmers haven't envisioned. But the decision to have such robot boats open fire upon enemy targets will still rest with human sailors.

Future Smartphones Won’t Necessarily Need Cell Towers to Connect

Qualcomm, Facebook, and other tech companies are experimenting
with technology that lets smartphones use their LTE radio to
connect directly to other devices up to 500 meters away. 

As reported by MIT Technology Review: A new feature being added to the LTE protocol that smartphones use to communicate with cellular towers will make it possible to bypass those towers altogether. Phones will be able to “talk” directly to other mobile devices and to beacons located in shops and other businesses.

Known as LTE Direct, the wireless technology has a range of up to 500 meters, far more than either Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. It is included in update to the LTE standard slated for approval this year, and devices capable of LTE Direct could appear as soon as late 2015.

LTE Direct has been pioneered by Qualcomm, which has been working on the technology for around seven years. At the mobile chip manufacturer’s Uplinq conference in San Francisco this month, it announced that it’s helping partners including Facebook and Yahoo experiment with the technology. 

Researchers are, for example, testing LTE Direct as a way to allow smartphones to automatically discover nearby people, businesses, and other information. Some see the technology as a potential new channel for targeted promotions or advertising.

Despite its long range, LTE Direct uses relatively little power, so a phone could be constantly looking for nearby devices without significantly draining its battery life. A device with LTE Direct active might discover other phones using the technology or communicate with beacons—fixed devices installed in businesses or integrated into the infrastructure of an airport or train station.

“You can think of LTE Direct as a sixth sense that is always aware of the environment around you,” said Mahesh Makhijani, technical marketing director at Qualcomm, at a session on the technology. “The world around you is full of information, and the phone can use that to predict and to help you in your everyday life.”

Beacons using LTE Direct could broadcast useful information as well as special offers. A beacon installed in an airline check-in desk, for instance, might offer information on delays to people nearby who are booked on an affected flight.

Facebook is exploring how the technology could be used with its mobile app. “LTE Direct would allow us to create user experiences around serendipitous interactions with a local business or a friend nearby,” said Jay Parikh, Facebook’s vice president of infrastructure engineering. “You could find out about events or do impromptu meet-ups.”

LTE Direct can be used much like the iBeacons announced by Apple last year, which retailers including Macy’s are testing as a way to track and connect with shoppers’ mobile devices. However, iBeacon devices use the Bluetooth protocol, which has a much shorter range, and which not everyone leaves switched on.

Yahoo has also begun developing apps that use LTE Direct, says Beverly Harrison, a principal scientist at Yahoo Labs. One is a kind of digital tour guide. If you tell the app how long you have to spare, from 10 minutes to two hours, it will suggest a route past nearby points of interest, drawing on online information about places detected using LTE Direct. Harrison says Yahoo plans to start testing the app in January.

LTE Direct could also help smooth out the network glitches that occur when large numbers of users are trying to connect to the same cell tower. R/GA, an ad agency in New York whose clients include Nike and Beats, is designing a system that would use LTE Direct to serve up to a million people in or around Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Roman Kalantari, a creative director at RG/A, says LTE Direct is the only wireless technology that could keep devices online under such conditions.

RG/A and another ad agency, Control Group, are also interested in using LTE Direct to serve targeted promotions. A smartphone could use LTE Direct to signal to nearby businesses what types of foods or products a customer is interested in so that it can offer customized deals, says Kalantari. “The idea that every retailer could be observing purchase intent is extraordinary valuable,” he says.  

In theory, LTE Direct could be used to create communication apps that route all data from device to device. Some chat apps can already use Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to link up nearby phones (see “The Latest Chat App for iPhone Needs No Internet Connection”), but LTE Direct could offer extended range and better performance. However, carriers will control which devices on their networks can use LTE Direct because it uses the same radio spectrum as conventional cellular links. Wireless carriers might even gain a new stream of revenue by charging companies that want to offer services or apps using the technology, Qualcomm says.