Volkswagen announces 'Temporary Auto Pilot' with advanced features

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HAVE-IT (Highly Automated Vehicles for Intelligent Transport)

(PhysOrg.com) -- Volkswagen, as part of the European wide research project HAVEit, has announced the Temporary Auto Pilot (TAP), a set of features added to a car that aids in speed control, lane-assist and crash avoidance.

Much like the highly touted driverless vehicles in the news of late, the new vehicle system from VW works by means of sensors and cameras mounted on various parts of the exterior of a vehicle. Assistance comes via cruise control, automated braking when curves are noted (or to avoid a collision), steering assist to keep the vehicle in the proper lane, passing assistance and assistance in stop and go traffic. Unlike other vehicles in the news however, the TAP is not meant to serve as a driverless vehicle; it’s more of a guardian angel, watching over a driver and instantly correcting mistakes.

The company is quick to point out that the driver is still in control the entire time the TAP system is in use, and thus must continue to actually drive the vehicle; TAP should be thought of as more like driver extensions, they say, not as an autonomous system that can take over the driving when asked.

Critics have already suggested that the new additions might actually make a car less safe to drive, citing the fact that humans as a rule tend to focus less sharply when they don’t have complete control of things. Since its not clear yet just how much control the human will have when the TAP is engaged, these criticisms seem premature. If after all, the person continues to drive the car the entire time the TAP is engaged, and the TAP only makes itself known if and when it performs corrective actions when errors are made by the human driver, it would seem this would require the driver to continue to maintain as much control as has been the case up to now.

In any case, the test vehicle, a modified Passat, marks another giant leapt towards fully automated cars; this because it’s clear that Volkswagen fully intends to put such an equipped vehicle on the market in just the next few years. This stands in stark contrast to other concept cars demonstrated by others such as BMW, and Google, which still have many hurdles to overcome. The difference here is that VW’s system is comprised of off-the-shelf components and the fact that the driver continues to maintain control at all times.

In any case, it seems clear that it won’t be too long before human beings will no longer be trusted to drive themselves around.

More information: Volkswagen press release: http://www.haveit- …

GE announces 500 GB holographic disc writer that runs at Blue-Ray speed

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A prototype holographic drive system designed by GE researchers in the Applied Optics Lab at GE Global Research in Niskayuna, NY.

(PhysOrg.com) -- GE's technology research group has announced the development of an optical disc writer capable of writing 500 GB of data onto a disc the same physical size as a DVD, at roughly the same speed as Blue Ray technology. This comes two years after announcing the holographic technology that was used to first imprint the discs with 25 times as much data as a Blue Ray Disc can hold.

By making an announcement about an advancement in what most see as a dying technology, GE is taking somewhat of a risk, but Peter Lorraine, Manager at GE Global Research, who will be presenting today at the IEEE's Joint International Symposium on Optical Memory & Optical Data Storage meeting is expected to pooh-pooh such notions and instead explain how the new technology could be used for long term storage for data, that the company says, will last for a hundred years (presumably if stored in ideal conditions).

The technology works by initially stamping millions of tiny holographic images into a polycarbonate (a type of thermoplastic polymer) material, then a laser (which uses the same wavelength as Blue Ray technology) is used to erase parts of the holograms to encode data. Write speeds are 4-5 megabytes per second, which is on a par with Blue Ray (4.5 Mbytes/s). With this process the entire surface of the disc can be used, rather than just the four layers on the surface of the disc that Blue Ray is able to use, which is why it can hold so much more.

And while critics point out that at such a rate it would take something like a whole day to fill the disc, GE counters by saying that since its primary purpose would be for archival storage, creating specialized writers that use multiple heads could very well be an option; and If such multiple read/write head drives could be created, it seems plausible to believe that such discs would be capable of carrying not just HD/3-D movies, but something even better, such as movies in a super HD (holographic?) format that hasn’t even been discovered yet.

GE also points out that because the new writer uses the same wavelength as Blue Ray, its conceivable drives could be made for the new technology that would be backwards compatible, minimizing risk for both developers and end users. The company is expected to begin building arrangements with interested parties to license the new technology in just the new few months, so actual products appearing on the market can’t be too far off.

More information: Press release