Posts by Ilya

'Big Brother' - the price of self-driving cars

No benefits at all, only privacy loss

I've been in one accident in my 9 years of driving. A crazy woman gassed it in a parking lot, lost control and smashed into me. No amount of beeping of flashing would have helped. Perhaps making turns onto main streets in low visibility might benefit from some sort of alerts, but useful alerts that could come from automatic detection systems would have to be mostly preemptive and I don't want a dashboard full of potential warning lights.

The technology for self-driving cars is possible, I'm sure, but is extremely far from being even remotely possible at this point. Even it were possible, there would be entirely too many issues. The country where this would be implemented would have to go through massive social restructuring. The legal system would have to require little to no liability for these automated systems. The millions of car enthusiasts out there would have to willingly accept their cars becoming toasters, mere appliances.

Canadian boffins develop mindreader headband

Forgive my ignorance, but...

"After a few dummy runs to learn how each individual's brain responded to a given situation..."

isn't that training? Maybe it isn't extensive training, but it's training nonetheless.

World's smallest working fuel cell developed

@ Tom Chiverton

It could consume the raw materials required for its internal reactions to occur until it ceases to generate power, all without consuming any external power. I believe that's what the sentence is saying. I don't see a reason to look at it any other way.