What Won't They Think Of Next

[cabinetman]

Like its predecessors, the LS460 is the brand’s technology flagship. Most interesting of its many gadgets is the standard Advanced Parking Guidance System, a technically gifted system for those not-so-technically gifted drivers that think that parallel parking “is what the bumpers are for.” To use APGS, all any dimwitted driver needs to do is position the car within the rearview camera’s view and identify the destination parking spot on the dashboard screen. Then, using the rearview camera, parking sensors, and electric power steering, the car parks itself; the driver controls speed with the brake. No word yet on how fast the LS will park itself, and we’ll have to test its ability to negotiate errant shopping carts, careless pedestrians and snow drifts.

Other techno-gadgetry includes radar-based cruise control, optional variable-gear steering and an electronic parking brake that provides freedom from “the chore of pressing a foot-operated pedal.” We assume the next Lexus redesign will address those other two pedals clogging the driver’s footwell, so an ottoman down there can be an option as well.

Article from Car and Driver Oct - 06



"I'M NEVER WRONG - BUT I'M NOT ALWAYS RIGHT"

[Doug Jones]

I work in the auto industry and have seen the future of automobiles(IMO). "Laser guided vehicles". All along roads (posts, center lines, street signs, other cars) will be placed sensor strips that feed information to your vehicle's laser. It will locate where exactly your car is on the road, where all other cars are in respect to your car. Speed, and steering will be done automatically through the senors and lasers.

We already use this system in delivery of parts to the production lines and I must say it is quite impressive. Electric vehicles with chargers built right into the floors, they self sense a low battery and will pull off the given coarse to recharge themselves.

[cabinetman]

Doug

I know they have had the laser sensor braking system for a while, but haven't put it into production. That's the one that senses the distance to other cars and modulates the speed and braking. What about that one?



"I'M NEVER WRONG - BUT I'M NOT ALWAYS RIGHT"

[LinuxRandal]

Quite a few years ago, there was a program called "Beyond 2000", that was on Discovery channel. Some school (I think) had computerized 3 cars and laid some sort of stuff in the asphalt (thinking some kind of sensors). They had the course driven by professional drivers (cars shouldn't be further apart then 2') then the computer. The cars didn't colide or take out any cones when the computer drove them. When the drivers did, they took out between 6 and 10 cones. They then had the reporter drive it (with only the one car) and something like 25 cones were taken out. They said the technology was here, but to do it this way, all roads would have to be relayed. They said in a few years (no estimate), that cars/computers/ and sensors would be such, that they could do it with existing roads.

Still waiting

[crokett]

That will be a very scary day and I for one do not want such a car if I can't turn the system off. I get paid to fix computers and I know how much they break. And yes, I know planes have autopilots, but there is not much up there to hit.

[leehljp]

Parking Machine wonders

Two weeks ago, drove into a parking garage in downtown Nagoya. Some machines automatically give the parking slip as you are directly beside it and stopped. Some have a button to push. This new garage (near the Bullet train station and also my favorite electronic store) - it is a little cheaper than most near by parking lots, so it has the ones with the button that you have to push. "Not fully automatic" so I thought, that is why they are cheaper than the others.

"WRONG",

- But I did not know until a couple of days ago, just how wrong I was. Anyway, two weeks ago after I parked, I dropped my parking ticket on the way out. On the way back 5 hours later, I wanted to pre-pay my ticket on the way in so that I could just drive out. Couldn't find it. I unlocked the door and let my wife in on the passenger side, put in our packages. Couldn't find the ticket anywhere there. Went to the driver's side and the ticket was stuck in the door handle.

"Oh, I must have dropped it by the door when I go out that morning." so I thought - but not necessarily true. "How would anyone know that parking ticket belonged to my vehicle (van)." I thought.

AUTOMATED and OPTICAL READING PHOTOs:
A couple of days ago, I entered the parking garage again and upon taking the ticket and putting it into my shirt pocket, something caught my eye immediately. It had my license tag number on it complete with town registration name.

It takes the picture as you drive up, scans the photo of the license, reads the numbers and letters and prints (not the photo) but the license number on the parking ticket. The whole process from full stop, puch button to receive ticket is less than 10 seconds.

No wonder they knew where to put the lost ticket from two weeks ago!

ANOTHER WONDER - AUTO GATES OPENING AS YOU DRIVE UP TO THE EXIT:
This has been going on for the past several years here at the airports: Take the parking ticket with you; PREPAY at the "walk up" entrance to the garage when returning to your car. Go to your car, get in, drive out; and at the pay gates, the gates open as you drive up. They know that you have prepaid. On some they are so fast that you do not have to stop, just drive up slowly at walking speed and you never have to stop.

The new parking garage that I mentioned above has this also. I do not know if it is an optical license reader or magnetic / radio / frequency reader that triggers all of this. The ticket can be laying on the seat or on the dash, but it knows that you prepayed.