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Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Self-driving cars are everywhere at CES

It's happening faster than we thought. Automakers like Volvo, VW, BMW, Audi and Mercedes are going full speed ahead, aiming for autonomous cars on the road by 2025.

Mercedes-Benz' F015 Luxury in Motion, which debuted at CES, was designed without a driver in mind. (Photo: Jim Motavalli)

LAS VEGAS—“In the future,” said Mercedes-Benz CEO Dieter Zetsche before a keynote audience at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), “the car grants access to private space and quality time.” What he meant was that people aren’t going to be driving, they’ll be sitting pretty in the back, playing video games, texting friends and reading the morning paper on their iPads.

A BMW ActiveAssist car, one of several that self-parked at CES. (Photo: Jim Motavalli)

The so-called autonomous car was everywhere in and around CES this year. Here’s a sampling:

This is the Audi A7 that traveled hands-free from Silicon Valley to CES in Vegas. The car in the background traversed the Hockenheim track in Germany at race speeds. (Photo: Jim Motavalli)

Audi ran a specially equipped A7 from Silicon Valley to Vegas, a distance of 550 miles. That’s probably the longest sustained self-driving car trip to date. And it was on public highways, using only sensors on the car.

Volvo is putting 100 auto-pilot “Drive Me” cars on the streets of Gothenburg, Sweden, in 2017. Some 30 miles of roads are being readied for self-driving, in a collaboration that includes Lindhomen Science Park and the Swedish Transportation Administration. Volvo’s Klas Bendrik predicted at the Telematics Update that self-driving cars would lead to 10 to 20 percent improvements in traffic flow and fuel savings.

BMW and Volkswagen demonstrated valet auto pilot — your car drops you off, and then goes off and parks itself. These systems are likely to be the first to market, since parking often takes place on private property and is much easier to manage technically. Valeo’s version is called Valet Park4U, and it even sends you a smartphone notification when the car is safely tucked away (and charging, if it’s an electric car). In a crowded lot, the intrepid autopiloted vehicle will continue circling in search of a parking space until it finds one.

Bosch and Delphi both have autopilot systems, Delphi’s aimed at urban jungle and Bosch’s at the highway traffic jam. Bosch formed its “Automated Driving” project team in 2011 in Palo Alto and Stuttgart, and in 2013 demonstrated its technology on German freeways. “The traffic of the future is electric, automated, and connected,” said Bosch Chairman Volkmar Denner.

During CES, the Boston Consulting Group released a report on autonomous cars with some bold predictions: self-driving cars will represent a roughly $42 billion market by 2025, when full autonomy will hit the road with a system sticker price of about $10,000. “Not cheap,” said Xavier Mosquet, North America leader of BCG’s automotive practice.

VW's Golf parking assistance demonstration. This one was with a driver in place. (Photo: Jim Motavalli)

The company said that partially self-driving cars with highway and traffic jam auto-pilot will be on the road “in large numbers” by 2017, and urban autopilot will hit in 2022. Here's that VW parking demonstration on video:

Facebook knows you better than your friends

New research shows that just clicking the 'like' button reveals more about us than we realize.

Your Facebook likes reveal quite about bit about who you are. (Photo: Bloomua/Shutterstock)

n a moment of life imitating online life (wait, what's the difference again?) moments before I sat down to write this, a friend of mine on Facebook wrote the following as her status update: "I'm finding it a little disturbing that Facebook knows what I am looking up on Google and other sites not associated to FB. For example, hotels. FB knows the exact hotels I'm looking at on Google and other sites as it comes up on the right hand side of my news feed. It's kind of weird." Of course various people said she could erase her cookies and I suggested she could go into "incognito" mode while looking at Facebook (I'm not sure about all browsers, but I use Chrome, and it's an easy click to change modes).

But yeah, it's creepy that Facebook seems to know more about you that you'd like (it may even predict if you'll get divorced) — but can it possibly know you better than your friends do?

New research says yes. A study by scientists at the University of Cambridge and Stanford University looked at people's Facebook likes and compared them to the same group's answers on personality tests as well as tests done about them by their friends. With enough likes (about 300 was all that was needed), the computer program was a better predictor of people's personality than their friends or relatives were. (However, spouses knew the people best, even better than the program — phew!)

“We know people are pretty good at predicting people’s personality traits, because it’s such an important thing in all of our interactions,” Wu Youyou, a PhD student in the Psychometrics Center at the University of Cambridge, told Time. “But we were surprised by how computers were able to do better than most friends by using just a single kind of digital data such as Facebook likes.” One of the reasons computers do such a good job at predictions is that they are unbiased and can base predictions of very large sets of data — people are more limited in the number of people they know well and also tend to remember more recent or emotional aspects of their friends or family (and to weigh those impressions more heavily).

And your avatar is spilling the beans, too

Avatars (those little illustrated selves that are used in video games and on some other sites) are another online area where we are likely communicating more than we think. Another study, in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin looked at the "big five" personality traits: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. Half of those traits (extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism in particular) could accurately be predicted through a person's self-chosen or self-created avatar.

"Our data show that some traits are more easily inferred from avatars than others, avatars can communicate accurate and distinctive information regarding personality, and individuals with certain personality traits create avatars that are more likely to be perceived accurately," the scientists wrote in the study.

It's not so crazy — after all, unlike the faces we are born with, our avatars are something we create (albeit from available options), so it makes sense that they can accurately predict some of who we are, though it's probably not something most avatar-creators are consciously aware of.

If all this sounds disturbing, maybe it's not any more revealing than the way you present yourself in real life; and since "real life" and "online life" have merged, some of these hints about who we are — regardless of the venue — are simply offshoots of being human. It's amazing that we still end up revealing so much about ourselves when we feel so "hidden" behind the screen. Still creeped out? The upshot of us losing some of our privacy online is that in the end, we might learn more about what it means to be human.

Realtors applaud, Amazon decries proposed drone rules

FAA's proposed rules on commercial drone operation gives flexibility to photographers and hobbyists but does not address aerial delivery services.

The FAA's proposed drone guidelines include limiting flights to 500 feet in altitude and line-of-site operation during daylight hours only. (Photo: Shutterstock)

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) released its long-awaited proposal on rules governing commercial drones this week, drawing concern from big companies interested in using aerial vehicles for delivery services and sighs of relief from photographers, hobbyists and other interested parties.

Highlights of the 33 rules include a capped altitude of 500 feet (about 100 feet more than what was expected), line-of-sight at all times on unmanned aircraft, daylight-only operation, maximum airspeed of 100 mph, and a top weight limit of 55 pounds. Operators will also be required to obtain an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) permit and pass a knowledge test every two years. The FAA estimates the total cost to acquire certification to cost no more than $300.

"We have tried to be flexible in writing these rules," said FAA Administrator Michael Huerta in a statement. "We want to maintain today's outstanding level of aviation safety without placing an undue regulatory burden on an emerging industry."

The proposed rules are being well received so far by commercial drone proponents, with CEO Brian Wynne of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) calling them a "good first step."

"This proposed rule is a critical milestone in the UAS integration process, and one that is long overdue," he said. "UAS technology has largely remained grounded while many prospective users wait for the regulatory framework to catch up."

Another industry happy with the FAA's guidelines is the National Association of Realtors, whose members are eager to use drones to market properties throughout the U.S.

"The proposed rules announced today for the commercial use of unmanned aerial vehicles are good news for property owners and realtors who desire to embrace cutting-edge technology to enhance the process of buying and selling real estate with images gathered by unmanned aerial vehicles," President Chris Polychron said in a statement.

Even social media reacted with surprise to the FAA's rules:

While most viewed the terms as "reasonable," companies like Amazon are upset that the FAA is limiting flights to line-of-sight only. The massive retailer has big plans to leverage drones to deliver packages in the future as part of its Prime Air project.

"The FAA needs to begin and expeditiously complete the formal process to address the needs of our business, and ultimately our customers," Paul Misener, Amazon vice-president of gobal public policy, said in a statement to the Guardian. "We are committed to realising our vision for Prime Air and are prepared to deploy where we have the regulatory support we need."

The FAA will now allow a 60-day public comment period, giving disgruntled giants like Amazon and Google a chance to make their case for drone flights beyond an operator's line-of-sight. If all goes according to plan, commercial operators should be able to hit the skies officially in two to three years. An earlier report by the AUVSI estimated the commercial drone industry is worth more than $13.6 billion and accounts for more than 70,000 jobs.

Robots will run Japanese hotel (or why you should be worried about your job)

Opening this summer in Nagasaki, a new hotel will be staffed by multilingual 'actroid' robots who will check in guests, carry bags and even clean rooms.

The check in desk at the Henn-na Hotel is staffed entirely by human-looking robots. (Photo: Huis Ten Bosch)

When guests roll up to the Henn-na Hotel in Nagasaki, Japan, set to open its doors this summer, they will step out and hand their bags over to a bellhop. They'll walk in and check in at the front desk and wander in to find their room. The next morning, their room will be cleaned by hotel staff.

All in all, a normal scene that plays out a billion times all over the world every day. Except in the case of the Henn-na Hotel, guests could very well spend their entire time there without seeing a human being. Most of the functions of the hotel will be performed by advanced robots. Instead of dealing with a living person to check in, guests will interact with this "actroid," capable of conversing in Japanese, Chinese, Korean and English.

An android that will greet visitors to the Henn-na Hotel in Nagasaki, Japan when it opens this summer.

While there will be human staff on hand to smooth over any quirks in the system (and there are sure to be a lot of quirks to work out initially), the president of the company behind the new hotel said his goal is for 90 percent of operations to run by robots.

This is a fun and quirky story, but it also is a very real pointer to what the future holds for human employment. Make no mistake about it — robots are going to take our jobs.

The growth and development curve of technology hangs out somewhere between linear and exponential growth. More advanced technology enables even more advanced technology which enables even more advanced technology. Knowledge begets knowledge. Things are speeding up at a faster rate.

Think about how quickly our idea of what is normal is changing. Twenty years ago the Internet was a novelty; today it is an fundamental driver and enabler of our modern lives and global society. We all walk around with phones in our pockets that have computing capabilities that would have bested million-dollar super computers from the 1960s.

And those phones get better, a lot better, every single year. We get more pixels, more hard drive space, more RAM. We can do more, do it quicker, and do it flashier.

But with every jump in phone specs comes a hidden behind-the-scenes jump in robot specs. Robots are riding the technological advancement curve and the worlds of business and industry are squeezing them for everything they're worth.

It's simple economics — robots are cheaper than humans. They don't have to be faster or better, they just need to be cheaper. Real world robots, and their virtual cousins the software bots, can work all day and night for just a trickle of electricity. They don't get hurt, or need vacation, or clamor to unionize. They are the perfect, obedient worker.

And as the video below lays out, there are not many jobs in the world that are safe from robotic encroachment. Behind the obvious candidates for displacement by robots (like factory workers) are the millions of people involved in the transportation sector, in retail and office work, and even in the law and medical fields. Even my job as a writer is not safe — there is already a service that provides algorithmically-written content for professional news organizations like the Associated Press.

Spend some time and watch this:

This is something that we need to start talking about as a society now. I'm as excited about the idea of the Google self-driving car as the next tech nerd, but the political wonk in me knows we need to plan for how to help the millions of taxi, shuttle and limo drivers who will be out of a job when self-driving cars hit the road in earnest. And the secretaries. And bookkeepers. And lawyers. And doctors. And bloggers. And hotel check-in staff.

How about your job? How safe are you from the robots and bots?