Bruce Perens is organizing a conference on Open Cars. It will take place Tuesday, November 6th, 2018 in Orlando, Florida, USA. The concept behind Open Cars, is the idea that the hardware as well as the software conform to open standards and that, as an automotive product, it must be sufficiently accessible and modular to enable technology upgrades, aftermarket products, and testing by security researchers. The interfaces must be openly documented and be backed by openly disclosed APIs and hardware interfaces. It would not have to run on open data, but could nonetheless protect data privacy and security as well as or better than proprietary automotive products do today. As the emphasis is on the standards and interfaces, both hardware and software, it would not necessarily require that manufacturers base their vehicles on open source software.
The automobile industry thinks they have a solution: lease rather than sell autonomous cars, lock the hood shut, and maintain them exclusively through their dealers.
That works great for the 1%. But what about the rest of us? The folks who drive a dented, 10-year-old car? We should have the option to drive autonomous cars, and to participate in the same world as the more wealthy folks.
Open Cars will be the solution. These are automobiles sold with standard fittings, plugs and standards, so that an autonomous driving computer can be purchased in the aftermarket, installed and tested by a certified mechanic, and put on the road. Similarly, the on-board computer, communication, navigation, and entertainment system on an Open Car will be pluggable, purchased on the aftermarket, and will fit into well-defined niches in the vehicle.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday July 17 2018, @08:55PM (2 children)
According to Treehugger.com, the future of automobiles is electric bikes. Which means the pizza delivery guys around NYC are already living in the age of Buck Rogers.
I would prefer to ditch ground transportation entirely and live in a zeppelin.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday July 18 2018, @12:16PM (1 child)
Ideally you would work as locally as possible to save on resources and re-engineer society in a local modular resilient way instead of the intentional spaghetti code equivalent of the globalized serfdom system.
So transportation would mean take that lotus seven replica for a ride on the weekend.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday July 18 2018, @05:44PM
I like where you are going with that.
Washington DC delenda est.