The Microtransit Challenge.

This is a testament to Moore's law.

Ten years ago this was 100% science fiction.  Five years ago someone could talk about it.  2006 they held it on a lake.

This year its across the Atlantic.

...and it's at hobby prices.

One of the entrants, the Pinta, cost the competitors £2,500.  Umm...you could build it in your garage if you had the programming chops.

Big deal you say, it's just a glorified model sailboat.  Well yes and no.  Yes they look like simple little sailboats but they've got: Solar power, automated sensors, GPS positioning and course navigation software.  They obviously have a much simpler algorithm than the DARPA Grand Challenge cars, but still need to get from point A to point B.

Also this technology will be a boon to climate science.  At £2,500 a pop you can make hundreds and send them out into the oceans and go anywhere and report back anything you can imagine.  A mobile science buoy.

News Article: Pinta the robot sailing boat takes on Atlantic challenge

Nothing really new here but it is interesting that the mainstream press is picking up on this now.

In the Future, Smart People Will Let Cars Take Control

Stanford computer scientist Sebasian Thrun makes this prediction:

In five years he expects a car that could take over simple chores like breezing along an expressway, inching along in stop-and-go traffic, or parking in the lot at a mall or airport after dropping off the driver. In 20 years, Dr. Thrun figures half of new cars sold will offer drivers the option of turning over these chores to a computer

techRivet had a similar article earlier: Autonomous Cars will change urban living

Follow along with my thinking here.

If autonomous cars become a viable technology, which I believe they will.

Then you can expect to be able to have the car "drive" you to work with little or no supervision.

Why then would you need your car to stay downtown or at your work after it drops you off?

You could send it home.

If a car is expected to provide door to door service and then return to its starting point, couldn't it then provide someone else with ridership service, doesn't that imply a few things about our urban centers.

Would we need as many parking lots?  Would we need ANY parking lots?

Do the new autonomous cars replace buses?  bikes? 

Routine Maintenance:
Think about this.  Your car needs routine maintenance.  It messages you on your handheld at work.  Providing suggestions for service locations automatically researched for price and quality.  You choose one and away your car goes. 

You come out after work and you car drives up, beeps its cute little horn, all happy like, you hop in and away you go.

No more School Bus:
You've got a group of families, several kids.  Who needs a school bus.  Hop in the car kids, it'll drop you off at school.  It wouldn't allow them to open the door until they were there.  It'd be safer than YOU driving them to school.

Change:
It becomes a tool, an extension of our reach, an appendage.  It CHANGES the relationship between a person and a car.

When?  I don't know but it is remarkable how far the scientists and researchers and engineers have come in just a few short years.

DARPA held the first Grand Challenge in 2004.  An off-road course to challenge a fully autonomous robotic car.  Not one car finished.  Most failed within the first few miles.

DARPA ran the same challenge a year later.  5 cars finished and most of the rest of the field improved on previous results.

This year DARPA ran a new challenge, the Urban challenge.  Designed to replicate an Urban experience.  It was won by the team from Carnegie Mellon University.

Tether said Tartan's vehicle averaged about 14 miles per hour throughout the course, which covered about 55 miles. Stanford averaged about 13 miles per hour, and Virginia Tech averaged a bit less than that. In response to a question from the press, Tether said that MIT came in fourth place.

Remarkable. Carnegie Takes First in DARPA's Urban Challenge.

I had read about efforts to automate car driving years ago.  Typically it involved very expensive retrofits to our existing roads to provide the guidance to the cars.  That was before the computational power we have now was available and before GPS was so widespread.

The computing power now takes up the entire back of a Passat station wagon.  The sensors are ungainly attachments bolted on the roof.  This will change, this will shrink.  It will become ubiquitous and invisible and accepted and expected.

You will be able to get in your car, type in your location to Google Maps.  turn your seat around and surf the web or perhaps chat with a co-passenger.  Because there won't be a driver anymore.  Why would you want to drive a car?  That's so 2007?