A Drone Airplane for Mars

As reported by NBC News: NASA has been talking about sending airplanes to Mars for more than a decade, but the revolution in small satellites and drone airplanes just might turn the concept into a reality at last.

If the plan being hatched at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center works out, a folded-up glider could take a piggyback ride to the Red Planet in the 2022-2024 time frame, inside a spacecraft that would also carry a Mars rover.

During the cruise to Mars, the plane's fuselage and its 2-foot-wide (60-centimeter-wide) wings would be folded up inside a 3U CubeSat receptacle, which is about as big as a loaf of bread. A similarly sized satellite held the LightSail solar sail experiment that went through a successful orbital tryout last month.

A prototype for the airplane, known as Preliminary Research Aerodynamic Design to Land on Mars, or Prandtl-m, is to be tested later this year during a high-altitude balloon mission. The Prandtl-m craft would be sent up either from Tucson in Arizona or from Tillamook in Oregon, and released at an altitude of 100,000 feet — where Earth's atmosphere is about as dense as Mars'.

The full-scale mock-up of NASA's MarCO CubeSat held
by Farah Alibay, a systems engineer for the technology
demonstration, is dwarfed by the one-half-scale model of
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter behind her.

A follow-up balloon flight would test the CubeSat deployment technology, and if that test goes well, yet another prototype would be sent up by a suborbital sounding rocket. That test calls for releasing the CubeSat at about 450,000 feet and deploying the airplane at 110,000 to 115,000 feet.

"If the Prandtl-m completes a 450,000-foot drop, then I think the project stands a very good chance of being able to go to NASA Headquarters and say we would like permission to ride to Mars with one of the rovers," Bowers said.

The idea of sending a drone glider to Mars represents just one small step in a larger effort to send humans to Mars — and there are lots of ideas about how to do it. Here are some of the latest Red Planet rumblings:

Report gives Mars One a boost

The Mars One plan to send citizen astronauts on one-way trips to the Martian surface has come in for a lot of criticism, but on Wednesday, the Dutch-based venture released an independent report saying that it's possible to build habitats to sustain the settlers.

The report from Paragon Space Development Corp. lays out the design for a system that could extract water and oxygen from Martian soil — and recycle much of the waste water that's generated by the crew.

Building a habitat capable of supporting life on Mars is "an attainable goal," Grant Anderson, Paragon's president and CEO, said in a news release. "If the will and the means are provided, we will see humans begin to explore and even colonize other planets in our lifetime."

The report comes in the wake of an MIT study that concluded Mars One's plans to build a Red Planet habitat were not feasible unless new technologies could be developed. In addition to the questions about technical feasibility, Mars One faces the challenge of raising the billions of dollars that would be required for trips to Mars — even if they're only one-way.

Strategy for Mars trips in the 2030s

While Mars One says it's aiming to land humans on Mars starting in 2027, NASA has a more extended timeline for Red Planet exploration. The space agency is working toward a goal of sending astronauts to Mars and its moons starting in the 2030s. But is even that timeline realistic in an age of tight budgets?

In April, a panel of scientists and engineers provided the broad outlines of a mission architecture that could get crews onto the Martian moon Phobos in 2033, onto the Martian surface for a short stay in 2039, and a yearlong mission in 2043 — all while staying within what's expected to be NASA's budgets during that time frame. This week, the full report was published as an article in the journal New Space. It will be freely available to download until July 29.

The report assumes that NASA will go ahead with the development of its Orion deep-space crew vehicle and heavy-lift Space Launch System, as well as a deep-space habitat, a lander with an ascent vehicle, and a space tug that would take advantage of solar electric propulsion.

"I think we can build a consensus around a long-term 'Humans to Mars' program, provided that we acknowledge cost constraints and act accordingly by limiting our appetite for new technology and by pacing the missions to meet our budget," Scott Hubbard, a former NASA official who is now a Stanford professor as well as New Space's editor-in-chief, said in an editorial accompanying the report.

Visions of Mars are on the rise

In his editorial, Hubbard referred to two high-profile movies that feature human missions to Mars: "The Martian," which stars Matt Damon and premieres in October; and "Out of this World," a film in development that has signed up Asa Butterfield ("Ender's Game") as its leading actor.

While you're waiting for the movies to come out, you can either read the novel on which "The Martian" is based, written by Andy Weir; or a thin little volume titled "How We'll Live on Mars," in which Stephen Petranek lays out a scenario for a Mars settlement in 2027.

Petranek traces the history of our Martian aspirations, going back to the era of Wernher von Braun and looking ahead to the era of billionaire-backed space programs. Weir, meanwhile, lays out a human-against-nature story that ranks right up there with "Robinson Crusoe." Either book will whet your appetite for future visions of Mars.

Drone Helps Rescue Trapped Rafters

As reported by Engadget: Drones aren't just useful as scouts and signalers during rescue operations -- they can play a hand in the actual rescue, too. When the Auburn Fire Department went to help recover two young men stranded in the middle of rapids in Mechanics Falls, Maine, Fire Chief Frank Roma used a DJI Phantom 3 to deliver a tag line that carried a much-needed life jacket. It also doubled as an observer while emergency crews sent an inflatable boat to bring the men back to shore, as you can see in the video below. 

While Roma notes that the Phantom 3 was his personal machine rather than official equipment, he's eager to see drones used more often in the field. This only "scratch[es] the surface," he tells TV network WMTW. It'll be a while before robots are carrying you out of danger, unfortunately, but that key role in a river rescue offers a glimpse of what's possible.

Solar Impulse Breaks Solo Flying Record

As reported by BBC News: The Solar Impulse plane has broken the record for the longest non-stop solo flight without refuelling.

The milestone was achieved 76 hours into the latest leg of its attempt to circumnavigate the globe.

Pilot Andre Borschberg is making steady progress as he attempts the first solar-powered crossing of the Pacific.

After leaving Nagoya, Japan, early on Monday (local time), he has now passed Midway Island and is heading towards his destination of Kalaeloa, Hawaii.

At 76 hours into the journey, he broke the record for the longest ever non-stop solo flight without refuelling.

The previous mark was set by the American Steve Fossett in 2006.

His jet-powered Virgin GlobalFlyer vehicle completed a full circumnavigation of the world in that time, travelling more than 41,000km.

In contrast, Mr Borschberg's Solar Impulse plane, which carries no fuel at all, had gone "only" some 5,500km in its 76 hours of flight.

The top surfaces of Solar Impulse are covered with 17,000 photovoltaic cells

Wednesday saw the Swiss pilot fly a holding pattern to time his encounter with an upcoming cold front to the optimum.

This will occur on Thursday, and Mr Borschberg needs good sun conditions to get his aircraft up and over the weather system so that he can navigate the final stretch into Kalaeloa on Friday.

Precisely when this historic landing will occur is somewhat uncertain.

Solar Impulse has some quite strict constraints to ensure the 72m-wingspan vehicle can put its wheels down safely.

These include a maximum cross wind of no more than four knots and a maximum overall wind speed of no more than 10 knots.

If it is too windy at ground level, Mr Borschberg will be instructed to circle overhead until the conditions calm down.

In good spirits: Andre Borschberg puts on his wig and fake beard

By then, he will probably have spent more than 120 hours in the air.

So far, he has coped remarkably well on very little sleep, and on Wednesday even made time to joke around in his cockpit by donning a wig and fake beard.

When he gets to Hawaii, he will be met by fellow adventurer and business partner, Bertrand Piccard.

The pair have shared the flying duties in the single-seater plane's round-the-world quest, which began in Abu Dhabi, UEA, back in March.

It is Mr Piccard – who famously made the first non-stop global circumnavigation in a balloon – who will fly the next leg from Kalaeloa to Phoenix, Arizona.

That is not quite as far as the current stint, but it still likely to take four days and nights.

From Phoenix, Solar Impulse will head for New York and an Atlantic crossing that would eventually see the plane return to Abu Dhabi.

Borschberg and Piccard have used the various stopovers on their round-the-world journey to carry a campaigning message on the topic of clean technologies to local populations.

Their Solar Impulse plane is not intended as a demonstration of the future of aviation. Rather, it is to supposed to show off the capabilities of solar power in general.

The vehicle is covered in 17,000 photovoltaic cells across its wings. These either power the vehicle's electric motors directly, or charge its lithium-ion batteries, which sustain the plane during the night hours.

LEG 1: 9 March. Abu Dhabi (UAE) to Muscat (Oman) - 441km; in 13 hours and 1 minute

LEG 2: 10 March. Muscat (Oman) to Ahmedabad (India) - 1,468km; in 15 hours and 20 minutes

LEG 3: 18 March. Ahmedabad (India) to Varanasi (India) - 1,215km; in 13 hours and 15 minutes

LEG 4: 19 March. Varanasi (India) to Mandalay (Myanmar) - 1,398km; in 13 hours and 29 minutes

LEG 5: 29 March. Mandalay (Myanmar) to Chongqing (China) - 1,459km; in 20 hours and 29 minutes

LEG 6: 21 April. Chongqing (China) to Nanjing China - 1,241km; in 17 hours and 22 minutes

LEG 7: 31 May. Nanjing (China) to Kalaeloa, Hawaii (USA) - 8,200km; journey aborted, plane diverted to Nagoya, Japan

Why Elon Musk is Donating Millions to Make Artificial Intelligence Safer

As reported by Fortune: What do Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates, and Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk have in common?

They all fear that advances in artificial intelligence, an area of computer science in which machines can mimic human behavior and make decisions, could lead to potential unforeseen disasters down the road for humanity.

This is why Musk, the non-profit Open Philanthropy Project, and The Future of Life Institute, a research organization that aims to mitigate possible catastrophes from emerging technology, are teaming up to reward researchers working to prevent calamities caused by artificial intelligence.

So far, 37 research groups have received a share of the $7 million in grants made by the initiative.

Keep in mind, the types of disasters imagined by Musk and others aren’t the typical Hollywood fare involving terminators or robots gaining some sort of consciousness and turning on their human overlords. Rather, they are more practical in nature.

The grants are aimed to explore issues like the legal ramifications that could arise from machines and robots operating independently in society. Automated personal shopping assistants that pick up your groceries and self-driving cars are just a few possible examples. One of the research groups receiving grant is looking into ways to “manage the liability for the harms they might cause to individuals and property.” Essentially, if a robot runs a red light, the researchers want to know who should get the ticket. 

Another research group is looking to develop guidelines on how a computer embedded with artificial intelligence could rationalize and explain its actions to humans. The idea is that people would be able to ask a machine why it is making a specific decision to troubleshoot any potential problems.

Responses from a Google AI chatbot in development

For example, consider a computer using artificial intelligence that is programmed to make trades on the stock market to achieve the best possible financial returns for a company. If part of the reason the machine is doing so well involves some form of illegal trading, a human could potentially stop the activity by asking the computer why is it making the trades it chooses to do.

The goal for all of this research is to lay the groundwork for scientists and engineers to create intelligent systems that can “work with humans in ways that wouldn’t have been possible before,” said Daniel Dewey, a Future of Life program officer that oversees the grants.The grants are just another example of the type of far-out projects that Musk, the CEO of the electric-car maker Tesla, likes to be involved with. Besides Tesla, Musk is also the CEO of commercial aerospace maker SpaceX and he dreamed up the idea of Hyperloop, a transportation system that involves shooting train-like capsules through tunnels at high speed between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Musk first outlined his plans to invest in artificial intelligence research in January. The $7 million in grants announced Wednesday are part of the $10 million Musk donated to the The Future of Life Institute at that time.

DeepFace uses a 3-D model to rotate faces,
virtually, so that they face the camera.
Image (a) shows the original image,
and (g) shows the final, corrected version.

While there’s a lot of research and funding taking place in artificial intelligence, especially from big tech companies like Google and the Chinese search company Baidu, Dewey explained that a lot of that research is geared toward projects that are boosting the performance of artificial intelligence technology. Facebook, for example, has developed technology and algorithms that have led to the social network being able to identify people in photos even if their faces were covered up.

Dewey likens the different kinds of artificial intelligence research to staff at a nuclear power plant, each of whom have different roles. While one power plant engineer might be working on ways to improve the efficiency of the reactor, a safety engineer would be responsible to make sure the reactor doesn’t blow up.

Why SpaceX will Sort Out Sunday's Accident Faster than NASA Ever Could

As reported by The Register: Analysis The perfect delivery record of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket ended on Sunday 139 seconds into flight, but there are good reasons why Elon's Musketeers will be back on schedule far faster than many are predicting.

The accident itself was a disaster, and a very unfortunate birthday present for Elon Musk, who turned 44 that day. It had been hoped he'd celebrate by seeing the first-ever landing of a Falcon rocket on SpaceX's landing barge Of Course I Still Love You. Instead he got fireworks of a different persuasion.

Here's what we know so far about the accident. The rocket completed static testing and was raised into position loaded up with around 4,000lbs (1,814kg) of cargo, including a lot of equipment that was intended to replace material that was lost when Orbital Sciences' commercial resupply rocket blew up last October.

The liftoff went perfectly and the ground crew was getting ready for first stage separation as the rocket reached 44.9 kilometers of altitude and a speed of 4,733kph, when the upper half appeared to bloom and contact was lost.

At that point, the ground crew commentary went silent, which is to be expected. SpaceX has the same procedures as NASA in the event of an accident – lock the doors, backup the data, get everyone to work, and no speculation until the facts are known.

These procedures were rehearsed and set in stone even before the first Falcon's flight, and they're good scientific practice. Musk himself took to social media to provide the first details that SpaceX was positive about, tweeting that: "There was an overpressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank. Data suggests counterintuitive cause."

The advantages of single-source suppliers

There are going to be a few sleepless nights at SpaceX in the coming days as engineers and designers go through the sensor data piece by piece. Musk is known for working his staff hard and this problem needs to be sorted out quickly.

And it will be, because unlike NASA, SpaceX has a huge advantage in dealing with problems. NASA rockets are put together using machinery from hodgepodge of private contractors, all with their own design and build teams – and their own internal politics, not to mention dealing with national politicians with an axe to grind.

When the Space Shuttle Challenger went boom in 1986, it took the Rogers Commission nearly six months to come to a conclusion about what went wrong – and it might have taken longer if the renowned physicist Richard Feynman hadn't been on the team to chivvy things along and occasionally point out the obvious.

All this effort culminated in the report that identified serious problems with the O-rings sealing the shuttle's external solid fuel rockets. But it also revealed that Allan McDonald, director of the Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Motor Project for the contractor Morton Thiokol, had already expressed such concern about the O-rings that he'd refused to sign the launch recommendation for Challenger's mission.

McDonald spoke out in the investigation and was removed from his job by his employers and demoted before eventually being cleared of any wrongdoing, vindicated, and reinstated. But his fate showed the problems involved in dealing with contractors.

SpaceX doesn't have those issues; it's a single company that conceived, designed, built, and flies the Falcon rockets. Finding fault is going to be a lot easier under such circumstances because there's a single data set and everyone knows everyone else.

The company is packed with highly motivated individuals and has a very flat management structure. Mistakes made are owned up to, and when the issue that caused the loss of the Falcon is identified, you can bet it will be dealt with quickly.

The current SpaceX resupply missions are on hold while this process is worked through. But you're not going to see the kind of dithering that left the Space Shuttles grounded for 32 long months. If I were a betting man I'd guess the next Falcon will fly in 32 weeks, and maybe sooner.

Getting into space is a tough business. There are few rocket systems that haven't had a failure at one time or another. While SpaceX is smarting from this first failure to deliver, the company is going to come back with a vengeance.

Megawatt Electric Race Car sets New Record at Pikes Peak International Hill Climb

As reported by Arstechnica: Electric racing cars are in vogue right now. The first Formula E championship just concluded in London (sadly the Ars-sponsored car did not win), and this side of the pond saw an electric vehicle win the prestigious Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in Colorado, setting a new record in the process. Rhys Millen took his Drive eO PP03 to the top of the mountain in 9:07.022, beating rival Nobuhiro "Monster" Tajima by more than 20 seconds.

Ride along with Rhys Millen as he becomes the fastest EV up the side of the mountain. The consequences of getting a corner wrong and going over the side don't bear thinking about.

The annual Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in Colorado is the second-oldest race in the US. It first took place in 1916, and it's a unique challenge for man and machine. Starting at Mile 7 on Pikes Peak Highway, cars race one at a time up the side of Pikes Peak, completing 156 turns in 12.4 miles (20km). It may be familiar to you from Gran Turismo 2, featuring prominently in that game, and indeed Polyphony Digital sponsored this year's race, making us wonder if the iconic event will reappear in GT7, whenever that happens to arrive.

For most of the race's long and storied history, Pikes Peak Highway was covered in gravel, but environmental concerns led to the road being paved all the way to the summit in 2011. Since then, rally cars with supple suspension, good ground clearance, and knobby tires have given way to vehicles more at home on a smooth racetrack than a forest trail.

Electric vehicles (EVs) in particular have done well since the resurfacing. From the starting line at 9,390 feet (2,862m) above sea level, the cars climb another 4,720 feet (1,440m) to the summit, causing even forced induction engines to lose power as oxygen molecules become fewer and farther between. But electric motors don't have the same altitude problem, making just as much power and torque in a vacuum as they do at sea level. Consequently, it's become a place for people to test out new EV technology.

Rhys Millen pilots his Drive eO PP03 electric car up the mountain to victory.

Millen's race car is rather interesting. The Latvian-made Drive eO PP03 uses six electric motors, three stacked in series for each axle. A 50kWh lithium-ion battery feeds those motors, giving the PP03 1,368hp (1,020kW) and 1,593lb-ft (2,160 Nm) at its disposal. Millen's time is the fastest for an EV, but still almost a minute off the outright course record, set in 2013 by nine-times World Rally Champion Sebastian Loeb and his fire-breathing Peugeot 208 T16 Pikes Peak. That car was more than 700 pounds (325kg) lighter than the PP03; maybe with some battery development, an EV will beat Loeb's time.

Rebooting the Automobile

As reported by MIT Technology Review: “Where would you like to go?” Siri asked.

It was a sunny, slightly dreamy morning in the heart of Silicon Valley, and I was sitting in the passenger seat of what seemed like a perfectly ordinary new car. There was something strangely Apple-like about it, though. There was no mistaking the apps arranged across the console screen, nor the deadpan voice of Apple’s virtual assistant, who, as backseat drivers go, was pretty helpful. Summoned via a button on the steering wheel and asked to find sushi nearby, Siri read off the names of a few restaurants in the area, waited for me to pick one, and then showed the way on a map that appeared on the screen.

The vehicle was, in fact, a Hyundai Sonata. The Apple-like interface was coming from an iPhone connected by a cable. Most carmakers have agreed to support software from Apple called CarPlay, as well as a competing product from Google, called Android Auto, in part to address a troubling trend: according to research from the National Safety Council, a nonprofit group, more than 25 percent of road accidents are a result of a driver’s fiddling with a phone. Hyundai’s car, which goes on sale this summer, will be one of the first to support CarPlay, and the carmaker had made the Sonata available so I could see how the software works.

CarPlay certainly seemed more intuitive and less distracting than fiddling with a smartphone behind the wheel. Siri felt like a better way to send texts, place calls, or find directions. The system has obvious limitations: if a phone loses the signal or its battery dies, for example, it will stop working fully. And Siri can’t always be relied upon to hear you correctly. Still, I would’ve gladly used CarPlay in the rental car I’d picked up at the San Francisco airport: a 2013 Volkswagen Jetta. There was little inside besides an air-conditioning unit and a radio. The one technological luxury, ironically, was a 30-pin cable for an outdated iPhone. To use my smartphone for navigation, I needed a suction mount, an adapter for charging through the cigarette lighter, and good eyesight. More than once as I drove around, my iPhone came unstuck from the windshield and bounced under the passenger seat.

Android Auto also seemed like a huge improvement. When a Google product manager, Daniel Holle, took me for a ride in another Hyundai Sonata, he plugged his Nexus smartphone into the car and the touch screen was immediately taken over by Google Now, a kind of super-app that provides recommendations based on your location, your Web searches, your Gmail messages, and so on. In our case it was showing directions to a Starbucks because Holle had searched for coffee just before leaving his office. Had a ticket for an upcoming flight been in his in-box, Holle explained, Google Now would’ve automatically shown directions to the airport. “A big part of why we’re doing it is driver safety,” he said. “But there’s also this huge opportunity for digital experience in the car. This is a smart driving assistant.”

CarPlay and Android Auto not only give Apple and Google a foothold in the automobile but may signal the start of a more significant effort by these companies to reinvent the car. If they could tap into the many different computers that control car systems, they could use their software expertise to reimagine functions such as steering or collision avoidance. They could create operating systems for cars.

Google has already built its own self-driving cars, using a combination of advanced sensors, mapping data, and clever navigation and control software. There are indications that Apple is now working on a car too: though the company won’t comment on what it terms “rumors and speculation,” it is hiring dozens of people with expertise in automotive design, engineering, and strategy. Vans that belong to Apple, fitted with sensors that might be useful for automated driving, have been spotted cruising around California.

After talking to numerous people with knowledge of the car industry, I believe an Apple car is entirely plausible. But it almost doesn’t matter. The much bigger opportunity for Apple and Google will be in developing software that will add new capabilities to any car: not just automated driving but also advanced diagnostics and over-the-air software upgrades and repairs. Already, a button at the bottom of the Android Auto interface is meant for future apps that could show vehicle diagnostics. Google expects these apps to be made by carmakers at first, showing more advanced vehicle data than the mysterious engine light that flashes when something goes wrong. Google would like to make use of such car data too, Holle says. Perhaps if Android Auto knew that your engine was overheating, Google Now could plan a trip to a nearby mechanic for you.

At least for now, though, the Google and Apple services essentially can read only basic vehicle data like whether a car is in drive, park, or reverse. Carmakers won’t let those companies put their software deeper into the brains of the car, and whether that will change is a crucial question. After all, modern cars depend on computers to run just about everything, from the entertainment console to the engine pistons, and whoever supplies the software for these systems will shape automotive innovation. Instead of letting Apple and Google define their future, carmakers are opening or expanding labs in Silicon Valley in an attempt to fend off the competition and more fully embrace the possibilities offered by software.

The car could be on the verge of its biggest reinvention yet—but can carmakers do it themselves? Or will they give up the keys?

Cultural shift
Cars are far more computerized than they might seem. Automakers began using integrated circuits to monitor and control basic engine functions in the late 1970s; computerization accelerated in the 1980s as regulations on fuel efficiency and emissions were put in place, requiring even better engine control. In 1982, for instance, computers began taking full control of the automatic transmission in some models.

New cars now have between 50 and 100 computers and run millions of lines of code. An internal network connects these computers, allowing a mechanic or dealer to assess a car’s health through a diagnostic port just below the steering wheel. Some carmakers diagnose problems with vehicles remotely, through a wireless link, and it’s possible to plug a gadget into your car’s diagnostic port to identify engine problems or track driving habits via a smartphone app.


However, until now we haven’t seen software make significant use of all these computer systems. There is no common operating system. Given that carmakers are preventing CarPlay or Android Auto from playing that role, it’s clear that the auto companies are taking a first crack at it. How successful they are will depend on how ambitious and creative they are. Roughly 10 minutes north of Google’s office, I got to see how one of the oldest car companies is beginning to think about this possibility.Ford opened its research lab in Palo Alto in January. Located one door down from Skype and just around the corner from Hewlett-Packard, it looks like a typical startup space. There are red beanbags, 3-D printers, and rows of empty desks, which the company hopes to fill with more than a hundred engineers. I met a user-interface designer named Casey ­Feldman. He was perched atop a balance board at a standing desk, working on Ford’s latest infotainment system, Sync 3. It runs software Ford has developed, but the automaker is working on ways to hand the screen over to CarPlay or Android Auto if you plug in a smartphone. Feldman was using a box about the size of a mini-fridge, with a touch screen and dashboard controls, to test the software. He showed how Sync 3 displays a simplified interface when the car is traveling at high speed.

Ford’s first touch-screen interface, called MyFord Touch, didn’t go well. Introduced in 2010, it was plagued by bugs, and customers complained that it was overcomplicated. When Ford dropped from 10th to 20th place in Consumer Reports’ annual reliability ratings in 2011, MyFord Touch was cited as a key problem. The company ended up sending out more than 250,000 memory sticks containing software fixes for customers to upload to their cars.

Besides running apps like Spotify and Pandora Radio, Sync 3 can connect to a home Wi-Fi network to receive bug fixes and updates for the console software. Ford clearly hopes that drivers will prefer its system to either CarPlay or Android Auto, and it’s doing its best to make it compelling. “It’s a cultural shift,” says Dragos Maciuca, the lab’s technical director. The lab wants to incorporate “some of the Silicon Valley attitudes, but also processes” into the automotive industry, he says. “That is clearly going to be very challenging, but that’s why we’re here. It doesn’t make sense that you buy a car, and the first thing you do is buy a $5 suction cup for your phone.”

Ford has been ahead of many automakers in its experimentation. It has come out with a module known as Open XC, which lets people download a wide range of sensor data from their cars and develop apps to aid their driving. A Ford engineer used it to create a shift knob for cars with manual transmission so that the stick lights up or buzzes when it’s time to change gears. But Open XC has not taken off widely, and despite Ford’s best efforts, the company’s overall approach still seems somewhat conservative. Maciuca and others said they were wary of alienating Ford’s vast and diverse customer base.

In February, meanwhile, the chip maker Nvidia announced two new products designed to give cars considerably more computing power. One is capable of rendering 3-D graphics on up to three different in-car displays at once. The other can collect and process data from up to 12 cameras around a car, and it features machine-learning software that can help collision-avoidance systems or even automated driving systems recognize certain obstacles on the road. These two systems point to the huge opportunity that advanced automotive sensors and computer systems offer to software makers. “We’re arguing now you need supercomputing in the car,” Danny Shapiro, senior director of automotive at Nvidia, told me.

One of the cars at Stanford’s Dynamic Design Lab.

If anyone could find a great use for a supercomputer on wheels, it’s Chris Gerdes, a professor of mechanical engineering who leads Stanford University’s Dynamic Design Lab. Gerdes originally studied robotics as a graduate student, but while pursuing a PhD at Berkeley, he became interested in cars after rebuilding the engine of an old Chevy Cavalier. He drove me to the lab from his office in an incredibly messy Subaru Legacy.

Inside the lab, students were working away on several projects spread across large open spaces: a lightweight, solar-­powered car; a Ford Fusion covered in sensors; and a hand-built two-person vehicle resembling a dune buggy. Gerdes pointed to the Fusion. After Ford gave his students a custom software interface, they found it relatively easy to get the car to drive itself. Indeed, the ability to manipulate a car through software explains why many cars can already park themselves and automatically stay within a lane and maintain a safe distance from the vehicle ahead. In the coming years, several carmakers will introduce vehicles capable of driving themselves on highways for long periods. “There are so many things you can do now to innovate that don’t necessarily require that you bend sheet metal,” Gerdes said as we walked around. “The car is a platform for all sorts of things, and many of those things can be tried in software.”

The dune-buggy-like car takes programmability to the extreme. Virtually every component is controlled by an actuator connected to a computer. This means that software can configure each wheel to behave in a way that makes an ordinary road feel as if it were covered with ice. Or, using data from sensors fitted to the front of the car, it can be configured to help a novice motorist react like a race-car driver. The idea is to explore how computers could make driving safer and more efficient without taking control away from the driver completely.

In fact, one small carmaker—headquartered in Silicon Valley—shows how transformational an aggressive approach to software innovation could be.

Drive safely
Tesla Motors, based in Palo Alto, has built what’s probably the world’s most computerized consumer car. The Model S, an electric sedan released in 2012, has a 17-inch touch-screen display, a 3G cellular connection, and even a Web browser. The touch screen shows entertainment apps, a map with nearby charging stations, and details about the car’s battery. But it can also be used to customize all sorts of vehicle settings, including those governing the suspension and the acceleration mode (depending on the model, it goes from “normal” to “sport” or from “sport” to “insane”).
Every few months, Tesla owners receive a software update that adds new functions to their vehicle. Since the Model S was released, these have included more detailed maps, better acceleration, a hill-start mode that stops the car from rolling backwards, and a blind-spot warning (providing a car has the right sensors). Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, has said a software patch released this summer would add automated highway driving to suitably equipped models.

These software updates can do more than just add new bells and whistles. Toward the end of 2013, the company faced a safety scare when several Model S cars caught fire after running over debris that ruptured their battery packs. Tesla engineers believed the fires to be rare events, and they knew of a simple fix, but it meant raising the suspension on every Model S on the road. Instead of requiring owners to bring their cars to a mechanic, Tesla released a patch over the airwaves that adjusted the suspension to keep the Model S elevated at higher speeds, greatly reducing the chance of further accidents. (In case customers wanted even more peace of mind, the company also offered a titanium shield that mechanics could install.)

Tesla’s efforts show how making cars more fully programmable can add value well after they roll out of the showroom. But software-defined vehicles could also become a juicy target for troublemakers.


In 2013, at the DEF CON conference in Las Vegas, two computer-security experts, Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek, showed that they could hijack the internal network of a 2010 Toyota Prius and remotely control critical features, including steering and braking. “No one really knows a lot about car security, or what it’s all about, because there hasn’t been a lot of research,” Miller told me. “It’s possible, if you went out and bought a 2013, they’ve done huge improvements—we don’t know. That’s one of the scary things about it.”

A few real-world incidents point to why car security might become a problem. In February 2010, dozens of cars around Texas suddenly refused to start and also, inexplicably, began sounding their horns. The cars had been fitted with devices that let the company that leased them, the Texas Auto Center, track them and then disable and recover them should the driver fail to make payments. Unfortunately, a disgruntled ex-employee with access to the company’s system was using those gadgets to cause havoc.

I asked Gerdes whether concerns over reliability and security could slow the computerization of cars. He said that didn’t have to be the case. “The key question is, ‘How fast can you move safely?’” he says. “The bet that many Silicon Valley companies are making—and that many car companies are making with their Valley offices—is that there are ways to move faster and still be safe.”

Ultimately, the opportunities may well outweigh such concerns. Tesla’s efforts point to how significant software innovation could turn out to be for carmakers. Tesla is even experimenting with connecting the forthcoming autopilot system to the car’s calendar, for example. The car could automatically pull up outside the front door just in time for the owner to drive to an upcoming appointment.
Perhaps this also explains why Apple and Google are now dabbling in vehicle hardware: so they can fully own some people’s driving time even before carmakers decide to open up more aspects of their vehicles. “Clearly Apple and Google would love to be the ones who have the operating system for these future cars,” Gerdes says.

As I drove back to the San Francisco airport, my VW Jetta felt more low-tech than ever. The ride was fairly peaceful, with the Santa Cruz Mountains looming in the distance. Even so, after so much driving, I would’ve been glad had Siri offered to take over.