Guestblogger Arthur Goldwag is the author of "Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies: The Straight Scoop on Freemasons, The Illuminati, Skull and Bones, Black Helicopters, The New World Order, and many, many more" and other books.
(CC-licensed photo on Flickr by 911conspiracy)
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I've seen the Pronto4 kit, and it's a VERY nice step up from all the one-off hackery that is usually involved in autonomizing a vehicle.
I think that Troy and his company have scored a big win here.
"almost any car"
Approx. 10% of cars are stick-shift.
90% != "almost any"
Strap-on K.I.T.T. kit?
You're going to scare off a lot of potential clientele if you keep referring to it as a "strap-on."
That's pretty cool. Getting beyond the military uses, there is some pretty interesting potential for autonomous vehicles in the future.
Here's a link to the company's website...
http://www.kairosautonomi.com/
#1 posted by Brainspore:
And attract a lot of other potential clients.
You're going to scare off a lot of potential clientele if you keep referring to it as a "strap-on."
If Sawzall and Dremel can do it, why can't Nissan and Toyota? It would give new meaning to mpg.
#4: Oh, I dunno. Colour me intrigued...
Perhaps combining this with teledildonics would allow for cruising for hookers from the comfort of your own home.
Strap-on, for all those guys that are compensating for something, when Bumper-Nutz and Hitch-Nuts just aren't enough...
Though, on a more serious note, this is pretty neat stuff. Have they entered it as a contender in any of those autonomous car races?
Detachable autonomy.
This fills me with an indescribable sense of wonder, not just for what it is itself, but for the pattern it is part of. It's the standard progression for any technology:
1) Unreliable, broken prototypes (early DARPA Grand Challenge)
2) Mature, reliable prototypes (later DARPA Grand Challenge)
3) First commercial product (Pronto4)
4) Increasing diversity of the commercial market, huge strides in functional streamlining, miniaturization, integration
5) First integrated solutions in other products (pro-grade SUVs and eventually luxury cars with autonomous mode)
Which ultimately leads us to step 7, where it becomes standard. The sci-fi future of driverless cars, made real.
@gollux
Looks like two teams used their system in the DARPA challenge; University of Utah and Team Juggernaut. According to the Team Juggernaut site, Kairosautonomi is their subsidiary.
@Clay:
I'm still not holding my breath for driverless cars on public roads. After all, they still haven't perfected driverless trains. A well-designed robot might be capable of handling 99% of driving situations, but that 1% can be a real bitch.
now there is a strap-on that the entire family can enjoy :)
I'd like this for my car to circle the block when I can't find a parking space and I just need to run into the store for a minute.
OK, one more:
I had a friend who was crushed by one of those strap-on car kits. Official cause of death was listed as "auto-robotic asphyxiation."
@BrainSpore
;^) Good 'un...
Don't get your hopes up. We've still got to send these puppies in to kill at least one nation of brown people before anybody gets their own.
@ neurolux: I think you just named the golden use case for me. If they could do that, I'm sold.
#20: What would be better would be, if every time it saw a traffic warden approach, it lurched forwards 20 feet or so, then did it again. And again.
Two words for this system: You First.
I wanna see it hold the wheel and a cup of coffee while texting.
This doesn't look very autonomous to me, more like high end RC toy car than AI killdozer ( think Ted Sturgeon not the band ), er um KITT for you youngsters.
These fonts hurt my eyes
I looked at some of the other material on their website, and, it looks a little more autonomous in their other demos. Not that I would want to drive near it in traffic though.
From my driving, and pedestrian, experience that 1% can be a bit of a problem for us intelligently designed nonrobots too.