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from the probably-painted-bright-orange dept.
Germany is planning to require "black boxes" in autonomous and semi-autonomous cars:
Germany plans new legislation to require manufacturers of cars equipped with an autopilot function to install a black box to help determine responsibility in the event of an accident, transport ministry sources told Reuters on Monday. The fatal crash of a Tesla Motors Inc Model S car in its Autopilot mode has increased the pressure on industry executives and regulators to ensure that automated driving technology can be deployed safely.
Under the proposal from Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt, drivers will not have to pay attention to traffic or concentrate on steering, but must remain seated at the wheel so they can intervene in the event of an emergency. Manufacturers will also be required to install a black box that records when the autopilot system was active, when the driver drove and when the system requested that the driver take over, according to the proposals. The draft is due to be sent to other ministries for approval this summer, a transport ministry spokesman said.
Look for the kill switch next. Also at Ars Technica.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Gaaark on Wednesday July 20 2016, @03:20AM
By the time the emergency is in progress long enough for the computer to decide it IS an emergency, it's probably too late for the human to see what the emergency is, then successfully react to it.
But, it covers the car companies ass, so. Profit! :)))
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 20 2016, @03:42AM
It will always be recording... Whether it records indefinitely to to the manufacturer's servers or has a more limited storage capacity installed in the chassis remains to be seen. I imagine someday this data will be preserved forever; automatically uploaded to the manufacturer/government. Then it will be sold to insurance companies who will use it to penalize you for every sudden acceleration/braking/swerving. Then it will be sold to everybody else... Fuck self-driving cars.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday July 20 2016, @04:13AM
It will always be recording... Whether it records indefinitely to to the manufacturer's servers or has a more limited storage capacity installed in the chassis remains to be seen.
Look, even Google's servers can't record everything that happens on your smartphone continuously. Much as we suspect they are spying on us, there would be no bandwidth left for the user if smartphones did that.
So I doubt they will record to the manufacturer's servers. Its just not necessary. It will be just like aircraft, a recording loop for some number of minutes, stopped by a crash indication. Maybe with an upload of the last few minutes like Tesla does.
But Continuous uploading for every car on the road seems not in the cards.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday July 20 2016, @07:01AM
There's no need to continuously upload. A MicroSD card has more than enough space to store a life time of sensor data. From time to time, a summary can be sent, and if something looks suspicious, more specific data can be requested online from the black box by the central server. And in case of a crash, all the data can be read directly from the chip, without a need to upload anything.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday July 20 2016, @10:30AM
Which one is the "+1 properly paranoid" mod?