Planning for a driverless car future – Univ. of Michigan @ Ann Arbor ramps up infrastructure for testing driverless cars

December 30, 2013 at 5:07 pm

University of Michigan is building/billing itself as the “go-to” place for testing autonomous vehicles (i.e., driverless cars). .. Check it out.

Heads Up! Google’s latest patent filing shows integration of gesture-based car controls

October 8, 2013 at 10:50 pm

via Autoblog

Google has filed a patent that would see drivers use gestures to control a vehicle, according to a report from Engadget. The system, if it ever arrives in the automobile, would use a depth camera mounted on the roof of the car and a laser scanner. Looks like automotive technology will be taking a giant leap in the days ahead when Google gets it in their driverless cars. One thing that is not noted in the Autoblog article is Google’s recent acquisition of Flutter, a startup that makes a desktop app of the same name that allows users to control other applications using hand gestures.  Information Week offers a few more details: Flutter works by capturing the user’s hand gesture on a computer’s webcam and then translating the gesture, using image processing techniques, into a specific command in supported applications. It can be used, for example, to play and pause songs playing in iTunes on a Mac or Windows computer with just a wave of the hand.

Click here to read more here.

Image courtesy: United States Patent and Trademark Office via Autoblog