Self-driving trouble?

8

September

2016

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Google recently released that their self-driving cars were involved in 11 minor crashes over the past six years. Besides that, the first deadly accidents already occurred with the self-driving cars of Tesla being on the road these days. Which has raised questions about when such autonomous vehicles will be ready for the real world. “If you want to get to the level where you could put the elementary school kid into the car and it would take the kid to school with no parent there, or the one that’s going to take a blind person to their medical appointment, that’s many decades away,” Shladover told Live Science. Agree? Beneath a couple of concerns I think have to be taking into account before putting those cars on the roads. Maybe you already have a solution in mind?

Let’s start with something you would not think of right away: pot holes; from a dark patch in the road to an oil spot. All the radars these self-driving cars could scan almost everything happening on the surface, but not (yet) discover these nasty holes which lie below the road surface and could be dangerous.

The second problem could be the digital mapping. The self-driving cars are driving on roads that all have highly detailed (3d) maps and combine these with the readings of their sensors to find their way. We have to keep in mind that only a few roads in the world are mapped like these and what about constructions or detours?

And what to think about unpredictable humans? Something technology nowadays can’t control. Vehicles would have to deal with them while passing cars where it is not allowed or driving the wrong direction on a one-way street.

Something else that is quite unpredictable: the weather. Falling snow or rain can make it difficult for driverless cars to stay in their lane when there is a coating of snow. It could also make it difficult for sensors to identify important obstacles.

Last but not least: ethics. This is one of the biggest issues that companies face working with these self-driving cars. How do you decide with algorithms which live is worth the most in a split second?

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How important is our privacy?

8

September

2016

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The reason for this blog is that I read in an article about Eric Schmidt and Marc Zuckerberg declaring that privacy was dead. I didn’t choose my future kids to see everything about my life, that wasn’t meant for them, but hey, I can’t delete it anymore.

While big companies are fighting about whose system is truly private, another issue is actually popping up right now: how important is privacy nowadays? Facebook search engines gives totally strangers a look at our private data and other internet based companies got all our passwords. But do we care?

An announcement from Facebook allowing third-party developers to get access to private information of their users came out of the blue. This is not in line with an important rule made by Facebook itself: protecting their users. For me this is a step to far; from promising to protect their users to a sudden openness for strangers to view your private data. I even think it will put users at a certain risk. Anyone with Internet could, via this way, obtain personal information and with this information he or she could have all the data he or she would need to apply for a loan in the name of any user.

I think these are important topics, important in everyday decision making in the middle of new technologies or applications popping up every second. So we all get excited as we published our day to day activities on the web, but strangers can grab this data. Because this is part of our lives right now I think we forget about the natural component about how important privacy is even when we’re social and to be spied upon is not a thing anybody wants. Is it normal to be private and to be social? It’s important in our communities and relationships. We’re social yet private in our own homes. Luckily there is no camera in our living room, oh wait; Samsung is coming up with a TV about to change that as well.

What do you guys think about privacy nowadays? Dead or alive?

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