Google has unveiled a two-seater autonomous car, based on its own experiments covered recently in RIoT. It is the latest such breakthrough to be demonstrated, and is a dramatic addition to an R&D portfolio which also includes Ara, the Project Tango environment-imaging tablets, Google Glass, new Chrome-driven designs, and the increasingly sophisticated AI engine which delivers data to all these products.
Co-founder Sergey Brin unveiled the car and said his firm would follow the same pattern in this segment as it had with Android and the Nexus devices ‘ creating initial designs to showcase what could be done, but then working with a variety of partners for actual commercial releases. “We’ve worked with partners to build these prototypes and we expect to work with partners in the future,” he said at the Re/code event. One potential partner he mentioned by name as taxi hiring service Uber, whose data is now integrated with Google Maps, and into which Google Ventures plowed $250m last year.
The concept cars do not have a steering wheel, brake pedal, accelerator pedal or other physical features because software and sensors do all the work, said Google, which has built about 100 prototypes. Chris Urmson, director of the self-driving car project, said: ‘The vehicles will be very basic ‘ we want to learn from them and adapt them as quickly as possible ‘ but they will take you where you want to go at the push of a button.’ The cars will not be hitting the market in the near future, but Google will run pilot programs in Silicon Valley within two years, it said.
Intel, too, needs to drive next generation devices and so ensure that its technologies remain essential. Just after Google showed off its concept car, Intel announced hardware and software which will support better automotive safety and infotainment today, and move towards driverless vehicles in future.
The new family of In-Vehicle Solutions products aim to help carmakers and their supply chains to “quickly and easily deliver in-vehicle experiences,” said Intel, by providing a complete platform, with processors, operating system and development kits. This pre-integrated, pre-tested and application-ready approach, so powerful in low cost handsets, will also reduce time to market for auto infotainment systems by over a year, claims the chip giant, and reduce cost by up to 50%.
The first available products focus on in-vehicle information (IVI) and entertainment systems, along with advanced driver assistance capabilities. Future additions will center on advanced driving experiences and self-driving cars.
“We are combining our breadth of experience in consumer electronics and enterprise IT with a holistic automotive investment across product development, industry partnerships, and groundbreaking research efforts,” said Doug Davis, corporate VP of Intel’s internet of things group, in a statement. “Our goal is to fuel the evolution from convenience features available in the car today to enhanced safety features of tomorrow and eventually self-driving capabilities.”