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Intel's Autonomous, Web-Connected Car Knows When You're Driving Dangerously

by Terrence O'Brien on July 6, 2010 at 04:55 PM

Intel's Internet Connected Car
Not content to rule the PC market, Intel is trying to shoehorn its chips into everything it can find. The latest target of the chip giant is the automobile, which it hopes to make truly "smart" by way of processors, sensors and wireless transmitters. At the company's latest Research Day event, it showed off an electric vehicle equipped with cameras and sensors that stop just short of turning it into a completely self-aware and autonomous form.

The most disturbing (and Big Brother-esque) feature is the car's ability to record speed and information about your steering and braking. When the car detects that you've been in an accident, it sends that data -- along with a video feed of the crash -- to the police and to your insurance company. Suddenly, fault detection is a much easier process. The sensors can also detect imminent danger and poor driving decisions, and can even, scarily enough, take control of the car. That system can even work in conjunction with cameras able to recognize street signs, and can thus effectively stop a motorist from turning the wrong way down a one-way street.

Other abilities are slightly less creepy and more practical. Sensors in the wheels can automatically detect when they've driven over a sizable pothole, and report its location to the proper authorities. The same sensors can detect nearby automobiles, and show their positions on the included navigation unit. Insurance companies will likely be quick to embrace the technology if it comes at a reasonable cost, since having the automobile equivalent of a black box will simplify and speed up the processing of claims. While this could potentially lead to quicker payouts for customers, too, the privacy advocates among us might get the willies from having a car that can, you know, take over when you are deemed 'unfit.' [From: Telegraph, via: Engadget]

Tags: ArtificialIntelligence, automobile, bigbrother, cartech, electriccar, gps, intel, SmartCar, top, travel

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