The Promise of Self-Driving Cars Starts with Better 'Eye-Sight'

As reported by Engadget: San Francisco's Pier 35 usually hosts cruise ship guests boarding and unboarding their giant floating hotels. It's a cavernous building hundreds of meters long which actually makes it the perfect indoor facility for demoing what 22 year-old Luminar CEO Austin Russell hopes is the future of LiDAR. The company has developed a higher-quality laser sensor that just might make it the darling of the autonomous car world.

Laser-based LiDAR -- along with cameras and radar -- is one of the main components on most semi-autonomous vehicles. It creates a real-time three dimensional map of the area it's scanning and relays that information back to the car's self-driving system. The technology is so important that Alphabet's Waymo is suing Uber because it believes the ride-hailing company is using some of its circuit board designs. So it's a big deal to the future of driverless cars and Luminar thinks it can do better than what's already on the market.

Inside the giant building, Luminar CTO Jason Eichenholz demos on a screen what current LiDAR systems see. The walls and columns are visible and when someone rides by on a bike, a few moving pixels track the movement. Then he turns on Luminar's system and the difference is impressive. But it's not just the quality of the items being scanned that's important, it's how far out the sensor sees. Luminar placed a black panel 200 meters away from the system, and it was clearly visible on the display. Typical systems see about 30 meters away and when a car is barreling down the highway at 70 miles per hour, the further a sensor can see, the better.

Luminar's big jump in quality and distance took Russell five years and if you're keeping score, that means he started the company at age 17. "I looked really deeply into the LiDAR space and saw there was a severe lack of innovation -- for even the past decade -- in terms of advancing the performance to any significant extent with any new architecture," Russell said. So he built his own from the chip-level up.

Russell says his LiDAR has 50 times greater resolution and 10 times longer range than legacy systems and in the process he noted Luminar had to find "2,000 ways not to make this LiDAR." After a closed demo in the giant building, Luminar drove me down San Francisco's Embarcadero. The parade of cars, bikes and pedestrians were not just visible, but the detail of those people and machines was higher than I've seen on competing systems. It was a rainbow colored world of lines and shadows that when translated by a computer is the difference between an autonomous vehicle seeing a box and recognizing that mass of pixels in the distance as a small dog.

But is Luminar's technology enough to overtake Velodyne, the established leader in the space? Unless an automaker has their own proprietary system, there's a good chance the sensor on the top of that car is from Velodyne. Even Uber is using Velodyne while it's building its own LiDAR system (the one that triggered the Waymo lawsuit). But unlike the five years it took Luminar to get its LiDAR just right, the company is moving quickly to get the sensor into the market.

While Luminar wouldn't comment on the final price of their laser-based sensor, Russell did say that the company wants to create hardware that's affordable for all makes of vehicles. He told Engadget. "we tried to be able to make this affordable long term for all types of cars, from the Honda Fit all the way up to the Bentley." Meanwhile the high-end Velodyne HDL-64Ecosts about $75,000 with the less-expensive, but also less powerful Puck clocking in at about $8,000.


Luminar says it's been working with 100 partners in the autonomous driving space (but won't name any of them) and those companies will be receiving units very soon. Those partners will essentially beta test the system and share data and thoughts with Luminar. The company says it will then build and ship an additional 10,000 units from its Orlando facility by the end of the year. That's incredibly aggressive. But if it can pull it off, it'll be almost as impressive as the hardware they demoed on the streets of San Francisco.

Boeing Uses First FAA-Approved 3D-Printed Parts for the 787

As reported by Engadget: Boeing expects to shave $2 to $3 million off each 787 Dreamliner's manufacturing costs by 2018, thanks to 3D-printed titanium. The company has teamed up with Norwegian company Norsk Titanium to create the first printed structural titanium components for a plane. As Reuters notes, General Electric already prints fuel nozzles for aircraft engines. However, this is the first time a company is using 3D-printed components for parts of a plane that bear the stress of an airframe during a flight.

Boeing turned to 3D printing for the 787, because it requires more metal than its other models. Plus, traditionally manufactured titanium alloy can be very expensive, especially since the company makes 144 Dreamliners a year. The aerospace corporation's partnership is a resounding recommendation for printed metals in the aviation industry and is proof that companies are starting to trust the manufacturing process and its resulting materials.

From early 2016 to February 2017, Boeing worked with Norsk to be able to pass the Federal Aviation Administration's rigorous testing program for the components. The partners expect to get additional FAA approval for the material's properties and manufacturing process later this year. That will allow the Norwegian firm to make more 3D-printed titanium parts without having to get each of them approved, leading to even more savings per plane.

Unintended Consequences: Self-Driving and Electric Cars Are Going to Have Tons of Strange Effects on Society

As reported by MIT Technology Review: Electric cars will be good for the planet and autonomous vehicles will reduce the number of road accidents. That much we know. But what other impacts will the coming automobile revolution provide?

What's less certain is how they'll change the world. Benedict Evans, a partner at the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and no stranger to tech trends analysis, has published some thoughts on what he calls second- and third-order effects of the disruption that’s going to play out on our highways. And his insights describe a future made fundamentally different by the technologies.First, a bit of managing expectations: without regulatory incentives, America’s electric car adoption looks like it will be slow to grow, and the first wave of autonomous cars might prove to be rather underwhelming. And while automakers and technology firms are indeed racing to reboot our cars—making these technologies seemingly inevitable—they are likely to take a while to get here.

Consider electrification. We know that losing the internal combustion engine will be good for the planet. But, as Evans points out, a lot will change when the supporting infrastructure for gas guzzlers disappears: many repair shops will be out of a job, because most car maintenance is focused around the motor. And gas stations no longer have a purpose, so what happens to the convenience stores that they contain—and the half of America’s tobacco sales that gas stations account for?

As for self-driving cars, every company involved in the nascent industry is keen to point out that autonomous vehicles will crash less frequently than those driven by humans. But the benefits of a car that can drive itself aren't limited to moving folks from A to B: it can also go park itself somewhere usually considered too inconvenient for human passengers, ready to be beckoned when needed. That means that huge swaths of land in the hearts of cities, currently used as parking lots, could be repurposed—potentially upending the real estate market.

These are just a couple of the examples Evans provides, and there are far more to consider. He also traces out large-scale ramifications for the electricity industry, as home solar storage systems for car charging help solve the problem of peak demand; increased commute distances made possible by autonomous cars that drive faster and fender-to-fender; and huge shifts in the public transit sector as on-demand autonomous vehicles break down boundaries between cars, taxis, and buses.

But it's the combination of these outcomes that's really interesting. In an America without gas stations and inner-city parking lots, where on-demand transport rivals public transit, and car crashes are nonexistent, the urban landscape is redefined. In Europe, most cities predate cars by centuries, and were always built to be walkable. They could easily revert to type. American cities, on the other hand, have been designed around the car. That means that the way they’re used could change altogether.

Ultimately, then, if some of Evans's scenarios actually play out, the automotive technology revolution might not just transform the cars we sit in—but our very environment, as well.

Homemade 'Iron Man' Suit Requires a Special Kind of Crazy

As reported by Engadget: Remember the, insane record-shattering flight of a jet-powered hoverboard? UK inventor Richard Browning thought that riding on top of a jet pack wasn't crazy enough, so he strapped six kerosene-powered microjets to his arms. That transformed him into a bargain store Iron Man, helping him get off the ground in what looks like the most dangerous way ever.

Each motor produces about 22kg (46 pounds) of force, so six are more than enough to heft Browning aloft. The device cost him £40,000 ($50,000) to build, but some of that cost was offset thanks to investors and partners like Red Bull.

"I can just strap this on and go flying at a moment's notice," Browning told Techcrunch, adding that a mountain bike was more dangerous. Judging by the footage of his early trials, however, his rig "Daedelus" looks insane on multiple levels. Powered by kerosene jet fuel, it looks like the fiery explosion would kill you if the crash or fall didn't, judging by the videos detailing his training (below).

However, Browning downplayed the danger, saying it's designed to go low and slow (walking speed and no more than 6-10 feet above ground), and uses a dead-man's switch that stops everything when not pressed. As for the kerosene, he says it's really not explosive or flammable in the relatively small quantities he uses. "If I fell in some unimaginably bad way and somehow burst my robust fuel system, I would just leak it very slowly on the floor," he says. There are also at least two people on hand with fire extinguishers during each test flight, and he wears a fire-proof suit.

After trying the suit with the rockets on both his legs and arms, he switched to an arms-only approach. That works well for him as an ex-Royal Marine and fitness enthusiast, but it would probably tire the average person's arms rather quickly.

In comparison with Franky Zapata's Guiness World Record-setting mile-and-a-half flight, the video flights (below) are pretty disappointing. Browning does eventually fly near the ground in a warehouse, as shown in the Red Bull video below. He controls the flight just by pointing his arms, in a process he equates to riding a bike. "If you let go, your brain does the rest."

Browning recently added a Sony-built heads-up display that can show fuel levels. Prior to that, he had to ask family members to feel the back-mounted tank "and judge by their facial expression" how much was left, he told Wired. The aim is to eventually build a device that could be used by rescue or military personnel, but for now Browning is just doing exhibitions, perfecting the device and hopefully staying in one piece while doing so.

Browning's even building a miniature, drone-powered model for his kids, too. As such, he really should rethink the name of his jet-powered craft -- Daedelus is the mythic Greek father of the original flying man and famous crash-and-burn victim, Icarus.

Falcon 9 first stage has landed on Of Course I Still Love You — world’s first reflight of an orbital class rocket.

Falcon 9 first stage has landed on Of Course I Still Love You — world’s first reflight of an orbital class rocket.

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 30, 2017

Tesla Releases 8.1 Software Update and Improves Autopilot 2.0 Features: Autosteer at 80MPH and Summon

As reported by Electrek: Last week, Elon Musk said that Tesla’s highly anticipated 8.1 update was coming March 28-29 and he delivered this time. We reviewed reports of the update 8.1 (17.11.3) being rolled out to Tesla owners with Autopilot 2.0 hardware.

The 8.1 software update was also supposed to bring some UI improvements, but so far the release notes focus on bringing the Autopilot 2.0 system to parity with the first generation.

It increases the speed limit of the Autosteer feature to 80 mph (128 km/h) – up from 55 mph.

Tesla warns that the cameras will need calibration before Autosteer can be used at that kind of speed:

“Model S requires calibration before you can use Autosteer at driving speeds greater than 55 mph. Until the vehicle has finished calibrating, which takes place automatically over several days of driving on well-marked highways.”

Drivers can still use the system up to 55 mph in the meantime.

The Summon feature, which allows Tesla owners to move their vehicle in and out of parking spaces without anyone in the car, was until now only available with the first generation Autopilot. It is being introduced as a “beta” feature under the new hardware suite using ‘Tesla Vision’, the automaker’s own image processing system.

Tesla is also releasing ‘Auto Lane Change’, which is the last main feature of Autopilot 1.0 and allows for the driver to initiate a lane change simply by using the turn signal when Autosteer is activated.

Depending on the efficiency of those new features on the new hardware, Tesla could be close to feature parity with the first generation Autopilot.

Here are pictures of the release notes for 8.1 (17.11.3) via DCoulson on Reddit:

There’s currently no sign of the Linux kernel update and the new browser, which were expected with 8.1, but it’s still early in the rollout.  Only a few Tesla owners with AP2 cars are reporting having received the update overnight.

We will report back when we have more information about the rollout and how the update will hopefully affect not only cars with new Autopilot hardware, but also pre-October 2016 Tesla vehicles.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX on the Brink of a `Wright Brothers moment’ with Reused Rocket

As reported by The Seattle Times: If the rocket that Elon Musk’s SpaceX expects to launch this week looks familiar, that’s because it is. 

The Falcon 9 rocket scheduled to take off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, has flown before, marking the first time Space Exploration Technologies will reuse one of the 14-story-tall boosters it recovered from past missions. The reused rocket will ferry a communications satellite into orbit for Luxembourg-based SES, SpaceX’s first commercial customer, and signals a leap forward in Musk’s 15-year-quest to drive down launch costs and eventually create a human colony on Mars.

“This is a Wright Brothers moment for space,” said Phil Larson, a former space-policy adviser to President Barack Obama who worked for SpaceX and is now at the University of Colorado. “It’s as important as the first plane taking off and landing and taking off again.”

The rocket originally flew in April 2016 before landing successfully on an unmanned drone ship bobbing in the Atlantic Ocean. SpaceX has now recovered eight rockets in total: three by land and five by sea. The first rocket that was recovered is a huge source of pride and is now installed in front of the company’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California.

“The satellite industry needs more launch vehicles, and we need more access to space,” SES’s Chief Technology Officer Martin Halliwell said in an interview. “Rockets that can be flown, recovered and relaunched again help enormously. This is a hugely important milestone.”

Once derided as a crazy idea, rocket reusability is now seen as key to making space travel affordable.

Blue Origin, the space-exploration company founded by Amazon Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos, is working on New Glenn, a rocket with a reusable first stage that’s targeting its first flight in 2020. Parts of the Space Shuttle boosters were refurbishable, but no company has pulled off the “rapid reusability” that SpaceX is targeting to lower launch costs, said Larson, the former Obama adviser.

Recovering and refurbishing the used rocket booster that’s scheduled to fly again on Wednesday took SpaceX roughly four months, President Gwynne Shotwell said on a panel at an industry conference in Washington, D.C., earlier this month. Eventually, that turnaround time will drop to a single day as the company aims to reuse rockets much in the way airplanes operate today.

“I think Elon’s given us 24 hours, maybe, to get done what we need to get done, and it’s not a million people around a rocket scurrying like a beehive or an anthill,” said Shotwell. “That vehicle needs to be designed to be reflown right away.”

The cost of a Falcon 9 launch is roughly $62 million, according to SpaceX’s website, with modest discounts available for contractually committed, multilaunch purchases. SES, which has flown with SpaceX twice before, was the first commercial satellite operator to launch with the company back in 2013.

The SES satellite taking flight this week will enhance coverage for Latin America. The company has contracted with SpaceX for four additional missions, according to Halliwell.

“We won’t discuss the exact price, but we got a certain discount for being the first in line,” he said.

SpaceX, founded by CEO Musk in 2002, builds the Falcon 9 as well as the rocket’s Merlin engines in-house, taking a Silicon Valley approach to constant improvements and a tight collaboration between design and manufacturing. Musk has brought in executives from other industries to promote innovation. Andy Lambert, SpaceX’s vice president of production, previously spent more than a decade at BMW.

SpaceX has a $1.6 billion contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to resupply the International Space Station and a second pact valued at as much as $2.6 billion to transport crews to the orbiting lab. The company was recently awarded its second contract to fly missions for the U.S. Air Force and plans to send two private citizens on a trip around the moon late next year.

The reused rocket was first flown in April with the CRS-8 mission, a cargo resupply mission to the space station.

If Wednesday’s launch goes off without a hitch — and the rocket booster is once again recovered on the drone ship — SES will get its own piece of spaceflight history as a memento.

“Gwynne has promised us parts of the rocket,” Halliwell said. “We want them for the SES board room.”