cars – Page 4 – Impact Lab

Alternative Transportation, Analysis, Science & Technology News

Who is at fault in a driverless car crash?

April 29, 2014

How do you apportion blame between a human driver and a car’s automated systems?

Driverless car research is booming. Millions of dollars are being spent by Google, the major automakers, and government agencies both in the U.S. and abroad to support the development of vehicle-automation technology with the potential to make road travel far safer than it is today. But what will happen when automation is suspected of causing, as opposed to avoiding, an accident?

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Analysis, Brain, Health & Fitness, Latest Trend, New Discoveries, Science & Technology News

Did removing lead from gasoline spark a decline in crime rates?

April 25, 2014

In recent decades, many Western nations have experienced significant declines in crime, but could the removal of lead from gasoline explain that?

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Alternative Transportation, Analysis, Business, Science & Technology News

Driverless cars will change the future of the insurance industry

March 27, 2014

Data and driverless cars will change the insurance business.

Most drivers are paying less for insurance thanks to the ability for insurance companies to use terabytes of data. But according to Glenn Renwick, chairman, president and CEO of Progressive, the rise of the autonomous car could change the industry from one that insures drivers to one that insures the elements of the car. In a conversation at the Rutberg Global Summit Tuesday in Atlanta, Renwick covered Progressive’s 14-year history in trying to use data to set pricing, and the lessons he has learned.

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Alternative Transportation, Analysis, Big Problems, Business, Science & Technology News

‘The car must not become a data monster:’ Volkswagen

March 13, 2014

Cars could become data monsters.

Future cars that can drive themselves—or otherwise make the driving experience safer and more pleasant—is here. But fanfare aside, there’s a far less pleasant issue that needs to be addressed: There is a profound potential for companies to misuse our data.

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Analysis, Business, Robots, Science & Technology News

9 robots that are actually stealing our jobs

March 3, 2014

One day robots will replace humans in certain jobs.

Eric Schmidt, Google chairman, thinks robots have their work cut out for them if they want to replace people. “There’s something about humans that technologists always forget,” he said. “Humans are creative and unpredictable.”

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Alternative Transportation, Business, Internet, Science & Technology News

Google patents ad-powered taxis that offer to transport web shoppers to stores

January 27, 2014

Google to offer free rides in self-driving cars for shoppers.

Self-driving cars have a lot to do with Google’s core business selling ads. Google was just awarded a patent for an ad-powered taxi service. The patent would allow advertisers to offer potential customers a free ride to their place of business.

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Alternative Transportation, Globalism, Great Videos, Science & Technology News

Volvo will introduce fleet of self-driving cars in Sweden by 2017

December 6, 2013

100 lucky customers will be given the opportunity to ride around in a car that does their driving for them.

Sweden has just announced that they will play host to self-driving cars in the next couple of years. England, Japan, Singapore and the U.S. have already announced that they will host fleets of self-driving automobiles, but Sweden’s 100-car strong automotive army will be the first manufactured by Volvo. (Video)

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Alternative Transportation, Business, Robots, Science & Technology News

Google could one day deliver packages with self-driving cars and robots

December 6, 2013

A Google self-driving car.

Amazon and UPS are looking into package delivery via automated flying drones. But, according to the New York Times, Google’s recent interest in robotics lays out an interesting hypothetical situation: imagine a self-driving car pulling up in your driveway, and a robot getting out to deliver your package instead of a living, breathing UPS human bedecked in brown.

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Great Videos, New Inventions, Science & Technology News

RF Safe-Stop can shut down a vehicle’s engine by blasting radio waves

December 6, 2013

Will high-speed car chases become a thing of the past? A company in the U.K. has developed a prototype that could stop cars in their tracks by blasting electromagnetic waves.

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Analysis, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

How cars of the future will make better use of data they collect every time you drive

November 27, 2013

The interior of the Tesla Model S offers a glimpse of the data-rich driving environments of tomorrow.

Cars will be big data collectors in the future. They will continuously monitoring the operation and function of the many moving parts of the vehicle and hopefully giving you a warning well in advance of pending failure.

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Alternative Transportation, Analysis, Great Videos, Robots, Science & Technology News

The benefits and barriers of self-driving cars

October 30, 2013

Some day in the near future, cars will drive themselves.

A study by the ENO center for transportation has been done to see what needs to be done to prepare for a nation where cars will be driving themselves sometime in the near future. (Videos)

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Alternative Transportation, Analysis, bicycle, Latest Trend

Bike sales have outpaced car sales in almost every European country

October 30, 2013

A bicyclist in Pescara, Italy.

Bicycle are outsold new-cars last year in every one of the European countries, except Belgium and Luxembourg. Car sales reached a low point earlier this year. Recent data shows car sales were recovering. The Millennial generation is more interested in bikes than in cars.

Continue reading… “Bike sales have outpaced car sales in almost every European country”