Monday Note ". . . is a [weekly] newsletter covering the intersection of media and technology." Its principals are Frederic Filloux and Jean-Louis Gassee (a former senior executive of Apple). Some of their writing is too pedantic for my taste, but their perspectives are usually worthwhile (. . . and it's only a weekly).
This week, they tease out the nuances and complexities of Google's autonomous cars and what a multifaceted effort the project is -- involving geographic information and systems (of course), real-time traffic information, immense data and communications infrastructures, and even "automobile OSes."
March 17, 2013 - 8:48 pm | Edited by Frédéric Filloux
Autonomous vehicles — fully or partially — will rely on a large variety of data types. And guess who is best positioned to take advantage of this enormous new business? Yep, Google is.
The Google driveless car is an extraordinary technical achievement. To grasp the its scope, watch this video featuring a near-blind man sitting behind the wheel of an autonomous Prius as the car does the driving. Or, to get an idea of the complexity of the system, see this presentation by Sebastian Thrun (one of the main architects of Google’s self-driving car project) going through the multiple systems running inside the car.
Spectacular as it is, this public demonstration is merely the tip of the iceberg. For Google, the economics of self-driving cars lie in a vast web of data that will become a must to operate partially or fully self-driving vehicles on a massive scale. This network of data will require immense computational and storage capabilities. Consider the following needs in the context of Google’s current position in related fields.
See the link for full story.