If the past recent years is anything to go by, then we can only see more technologies that have been featured in Hollywood blockbusters trickle down to us, the consumers!
Goodyear -one of the giants of tyre makers- has released a concept tyre that looks very similar to Will Smith’s tyres in the movie I-Robot.
Meet the tyre of the future
If anything, it looks futuristic and cool. We hope to see more of it!
Unless you are disconnected from the entire earth due to some natural disaster that placed you on the moon itself, you would have heard cars are becoming autonomous, slowly but surely! Autonomous? That just means they can drive themselves in everyday language, nothing sinister.
How do they do this? They use cameras as eyes, sensors as skin to know if an object is near, GPS as direction, and a computer (processor) – that ties all these parts together – as brain. Now this is the tricky part. A car like that needs a computer fast enough to handle all the data it gets from all these different components in realtime, in other to be able to drive safely to its destination: a super computer with artificial intelligence!
As always with new technology nowadays, tech giants are vying doggedly to get a piece of the action, and who is to blame them? Autonomous cars are looking, everyday, more like they are the future even if they don’t stick around for long. So when Nvidia – a computer graphics processor giant- showcased their latest endeavour in Jan 2016, it sent a shock round the information technology world. Meet the Nvidia Drive PX 2!
Why is it news worthy you might say, it’s because of its speed. It can deal with 24 trillion computer instructions in a second. In everyday language, it is 150 times faster than your MACbook Pro or I7 Windows computer! So yeah, it is fast, for now! Not only is it a supercomputer in speed, it also runs on artificial intelligence, meaning it learns!
Even though the Drive PX 2 is not the fastest processor in the world, it is one of those that are solely made for self driving cars, and within a year, we are sure to see faster processors for this very purpose. Another glimpse into our futures!
We thought you would love this in a heartbeat!!
Why? Just because you can!
Literally every electronic “toy” out there is being upgraded with some kind of virtual reality or augmented reality. We are nearly there people! Those Sci-Fi movies that made you marvel with futuristic gadgets are materialising with years of hard work pushing scientific advancement all around us!
Games, movies, phones, TVs, e.t.c. are all being upgraded with headsets that transport you to experience the action as if you were right in the middle of it. It is no surprise cars are also being made smarter. In fact at the time of writing of this article, self driving cars and vehicles are being tested in many countries and is definitely looking more like reality!
Bentley luxury cars – you either want one or own one – has showcased what they call a virtual butler for cars! It not only pops out at your like in the movies, it also takes command on where to drive you to and what to help you with in your luxurious automobile! A thing of beauty!
In no time, this will be the norm, at first in expensive cars, and someday a standard in cars!
Another step closer to the Internet Of Things!
The Consumer Electronics Show 2015 saw almost all big automobile manufacturers showcase their latest innovations and ideas for our future driving. Like you would have guessed from the title of this article, most of the cars have systems that are considered smart.
Now, what can they do? They have a lot of features like, calls and text integration, voice commands, parking assist, self driving, and of course infotainment. By now you must have also guessed the hub for all these features is your phone. Many companies are vying to make the standard operating system in these smart cars including Google and Apple, the latter whom has been whispered to be looking into the arena of smart cars too.
As this is only the beginning of officially smart vehicles, don’t throw away your hard earned driving license yet. Self driving cars are not yet feasible for the next few years as their are safety and legal laws and principles that need to be looked into. However, other helpful features like the internet connected car system that can give you up to date traffic information and of course real-time news are already out for grabs in the newest cars.
See below for more!
We at Computer Potato really do give kudos to these car companies and everyone looking into backing this good idea, as this could mean cars would be much safer when it kicks off and no more DUI worries for those nights when you just had a bit more to drink!
