All you need to know about Google's self-driving car

The Google self-driving car, the cute Tata Nano lookalike works on sensors and software, and one can reach their destination by just at the push of a button.

The car comes without a steering wheel, accelerator pedal, or brake pedal, as the car driver won’t need any of it. In the bid to enter the uber-modern era, do we really need a self-driving car? Is this even possible and how safe it would be? If you are as intrigued as we were, here’s what we found out about the Google self-driving cars.

Why do we need a self-driving car?

The first question that would crop up in your mind is why do we need a self-driving tech-based car and is it safe? Ironically, Google’s prime reason to build a driverless car is – Safety. The search giant points out that 1.2 million people lose their lives due to traffic-related incidents, and more than 90 percent of these accidents are due to human error. With the self-driving car, it aims to ‘step up road safety and transform mobility for millions of people’. The self-driving technology is crafted to never get distracted and navigate the car as naturally as possible. It expects the car to be courteous, get defensive and drive as you would expect it. With the new car, drunk and distracted driving will be history, says Google.

Moreover, self driving cars even fizzle out issues related to parking spaces. It explains how driverless vehicles can go park themselves and eventually lessen the pressure to build parking next to every destination and residence. This would free up large amounts of city land. With less space set aside for car parking, more space can be utilized for residential development.

How does it work?

Firstly, the self-driving car needs to know where it is or what’s around it. Google has included several sensors that act as the eyes and ears of the driver. Firstly, for location, the car uses GPS data, but GPS isn’t always accurate and hence the car uses other sensors like laser to help identify the precise location and depth by gauging the environment. The sensors can see far off distance – around two American football fields away– and 360 degrees around. In fact, these sensors interact with one another to cross check the information.

All the information is then processed by Google’s software that plays a vital role in driving. It differentiates between the objects and classifies them using colour coded boxes. For example, cycle will be red, pedestrians in yellow and vehicle in green or pink. The software then needs to classify these objects appropriately by differentiating them depending upon their shape, movement pattern and so on. For instance, it can detect if a cyclist is in the bike lane and so on. It also takes under consideration that humans usually feel a little uncomfortable when next to large vehicles like trucks. So, the software distinctly marks larger vehicles. So, it keeps the car farther from such vehicles, just how a driver would.

The software is also designed to offer utmost safety, states Google. It gauges how close it is to other objects, matches speed with traffic and also anticipates other vehicles cutting in. The software is also capable of detecting and navigating in construction zones, taking naturalistic driving into account. For now, the speed limit has been capped at 25mph.

How does a self-driving car navigate?

It isn’t easy driving on roads, considering several scenarios such as jaywalking pedestrians, cars lurching out of hidden driveways, and double-parked trucks blocking the driver’s view. The Google software has been designed to master self-driving in all environments, claims the company.

It has taken care of some regular situations experienced regularly in California. For instance, the sensors detect if there is a road blockage ahead and inform the software, which then changes the lane safely. It also keeps safe distance from trucks around. The software is also capable of detecting the cyclist holding up his arm. The car knows to keep yielding even if the cyclist changes his mind, multiple times.

What’s it like to be in a driverless car?

The self-driving car functional prototype was tested by some people outside of the Google team. Many were surprised to see the missing steering wheel. “It knows when to stop and knows when to go,’ said one passenger. A passenger said how she can utilize the time to spend with her kids rather than focussing on driving, while an elderly couple shared how the car went really slow before a curve and accelerated only in the curve.

The car has two seats and some space for passengers’ belongings. On the inside, it is designed for learning, not luxury, so it's light on creature comforts, but it has two seats (with seatbelts), a space for passengers’ belongings, buttons to start and stop, and a screen that shows the route—and that’s about it.

Google plans to build a hundred prototypes of the vehicle, and later this summer, the company’s safety drivers will start testing early versions of these vehicles that have manual controls. Google also plans to run a small pilot programme in the next couple of years, provided all goes well. It is still at a nascent stage, but does this mean the conventional car makers are in trouble? If the technology develops, Google may also work with partners to bring this technology into the world safely, under recognised brands.

Super water-proof surface which will make water bounce off

Imagine a smart-phone or a laptop that repels water so strongly that it causes liquid droplets to "bounce off" its surface!

Scientists are working on a new super-hydrophobic surface that is extremely waterproof. Professor Julie Crockett from Brigham Young University in Utah and her colleague Dan Maynes have created a sloped channel that is super-hydrophobic, or a surface that is extremely difficult to wet.

Their study found surfaces with a pattern of microscopic ridges or posts, combined with a hydrophobic coating, produces an even higher level of water resistance - depending on how the water hits the surface. Their work is critical because the growing list of applications for super-hydrophobic surfaces is extremely diverse.

Crockett and Maynes' research is also headed towards cleaner and more efficient energy generation. Many power plants create energy by burning coal or natural gas to create steam that expands and rotates a turbine.

Once that has happened, the steam needs to be condensed back into a liquid state to be cycled back through.

If power plant condensers can be built with optimal super-hydrophobic surfaces, that process can be sped up in significant ways, saving time and lowering costs to generate power, researchers said.

The researchers then add a thin water-resistant film to the surfaces, such as Teflon, and use ultra-high-speed cameras to document the way water interacts when dropped, jetted or boiled on them.

Reference journal : Physics of Fluids

Boeing Black : The self-destructing smartphone

US company Boeing has unveiled a new smartphone, named Boeing Black, that appears to come straight from a James Bond spy movie. The company is said to be developing this device for last three years. This tamper-proof phone is aimed at government agencies and contractors who need to keep communication and data secure, according to Boeing and filings with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission.

In addition to encrypting your communication over the phone, any attempt to open the casing of the Boeing Black smartphone deletes all data and rendering the device inoperable. The secure phone marks an extension of the communications arm of the Chicago-based aerospace and defense contractor, which is best known for jetliners and fighter planes.

Made in the US, the phone runs on Google’s Android. The 5.2-by-2.7-inch (13.2-by-6.9 cm) handset, slightly larger than an iPhone, uses dual SIM cards to enable it to access multiple cell networks instead of a single network like a normal cellphone. It is manufactured as a sealed device both with epoxy around the casing and with screws, the heads of which are covered with tamper proof covering to identify attempted disassembly. Any attempt to break open the casing of the device would trigger functions that would delete the data and software contained within the device and make the device inoperable.

The self-destructing phone contains a rather small 1590mAh battery and is quite chunky looking from the renders Boeing has released. It sports a 4.3-inch 540×960 display of unspecified type and will play nicely with LTE, UMTS, and GSM networks. Customisation is also a major selling point for Boeing Black — the back door can be swapped out for add-on modules such as satellite radio, expanded battery packs, solar chargers, precise GPS receivers, secure discrete radio channels, biometric scanners, etc. The Black also sports a PDMI port that combines USB, audio, power, HDMI, and DisplayPort output in one connection. You will also find a a standard USB port for data and charging, along with a microSD slot.

An unspecified dual-core 1.2Ghz ARM Cortex-A9 processor is ticking within. Due to the phone’s security features, Boeing is releasing few details about the wireless network operators or manufacturer it is working with, and has not provided a price or date by which the phone might be widely available, but said it has begun offering the phone to potential customers. Boeing has not mentioned any specific details about the cameras on the phone, but we can clearly see one on the back. The phone can also be configured to connect with biometric sensors or satellites. Other attachments can extend battery life or use solar power. The phone can operate on the WCDMA, GSM and LTE frequency bands and offers WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity.

Google's Advanced Technology and Projects group

Though Google marked deal to sell Motorola Mobility to Lenovo for $2.9 billion, motorola's best division - Advanced Technology and Projects group was not sold and it was left behind with Google. Since then this group have been working on two major projects - Project Tango & Project Ara.

Project Tango is an Android-based prototype 5-inch phone and developer kit with advanced 3D sensors. With the sensors, the phone is capable of tracking motion, and can build a visual map of rooms using 3D scanning. Google wants to combine these 3D sensors with advanced computer vision techniques that will help fork out newer innovations for indoor navigations, games and so on. Looks like Google wants to build something like the Sony Kinect or Playstation Move, into a small 5-inch phone.

Google is using Movidius’ Myriad 1 vision processor platform for Project Tango. These sensors were considered very expensive and difficult to employ earlier. They are reportedly also known to drain the phone’s battery rapidly. However, the new generation vision processors consume significantly lesser power. This is one of the reasons, why Google finally went ahead with this project.

The Project Tango devices will be available for developers so they can play around and build apps related to “indoor navigation/mapping, single/multiplayer games that use physical space, and new algorithms for processing sensor data.” However, initially, select 200 developers will be able to access these phones. Developers will have to give Google some cool app ideas for the device by March 14, 2014. It should be noted that Google is not looking for simply leap-motion based or gesture-based apps.

On the other hand, Project Ara is a free, open hardware platform for creating highly modular smartphones. It comes with a structural frame that holds smartphone modules of the owner’s choice, such as a display, keyboard or say the battery. The approach allows users to swap out malfunctioning modules or upgrade as new innovations emerge. This also means that the handset can potentially last much longer than normal smartphones do.

Google, the software giant, will also be marking Google’s first hardware launch from its Advanced Technology and Projects group with Project Tango while working side-by-side on Project Ara.