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Ford disguised a man as a car seat to research self-driving

techcrunch.com

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Re: Ford disguised a man as a car seat to research self-driving

#61

Post by usaphp »

london888 wrote: post #60
ATsch wrote: post #59

It's interesting, everybody is thinking about how this was used for pranks and films, but I immediately thought of the much more sinister attempts to flee east Germany. I was unable to find a photo, but I remember seeing a car that was modified so a person could be sewn into the seat in a Berlin Museum.

Yes - it happened, also on the Mexico/US border, this has a guy as a car seat but leads with woman in a dashboard: http://www.snopes.com/photos/automobiles/dashboard.asp

I wonder how is it possible to find someone hidden in a dashboard? Were it dogs that found her?

Re: Ford disguised a man as a car seat to research self-driving

#62

Post by Fricken »

jvolkman wrote: post #15
josefresco wrote: post #5

"they just needed people to believe wholeheartedly they were using one." Don't they mean "seeing one" instead of "using one"? Or am I missing something? "fill in gaps where we currently communicate via subtle gestures, eye contact and other less obvious mechanisms." This also struck me as odd - do pedestrians and other drivers really make "eye contact" with drivers to gauge their intention? I guess it's possible, but…

Pedestrians often do. For example, I'd want to make eye contact with a driver of a car attempting to make an unprotected left turn (and not looking in my direction) prior to crossing in front of it.

Drive.ai, (recently in the news for partnering with Lyft), has large LCD screens for signalling to pedestrians and other things. Probably a good idea.

Re: Ford disguised a man as a car seat to research self-driving

#66

Post by nobodyorother »

usaphp wrote: post #61
london888 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes - it happened, also on the Mexico/US border, this has a guy as a car seat but leads with woman in a dashboard: http://www.snopes.com/photos/automobiles/dashboard.asp

I wonder how is it possible to find someone hidden in a dashboard? Were it dogs that found her?

I'm paraphrasing the news report because it's been a few years, but:

The border patrol agent became suspicious when the driver opened the glove box to retrieve his registration and a hand reached out from within the box to give it to him.

Re: Ford disguised a man as a car seat to research self-driving

#67

Post by 5ilv3r »

mgbmtl wrote: post #50
saalweachter wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An electric car with an empty driver seat sitting at an intersection would be especially bad; when cross the street I would interpret that as a parked car, especially if it was by the curb (for either left or a right on a one-way street). Hopefully the car would be smart enough not to hit me but I don't want to have to start staring deeply at every parked car, trying to intuit if it is a robot about to pull away.

Do like in Canada: all cars must have their headlights on when driving (the lights automatically turn on). edit: also, I feel like if we add new light signals for acceleration, for example, it would be nice to add that to all cars.

16 year olds would wire them to be on all the time.

Re: Ford disguised a man as a car seat to research self-driving

#68

Post by Fricken »

martey wrote: post #55
bitwize wrote: post #11

This isn't even the most elaborate market-research stunt I've seen. Some of you older folk may remember an 80s sitcom called Small Wonder, which was a typical American suburbia family sitcom, except the youngest daughter, Vicki, was a robot. What I found unusual about the show was its copyright message: "©1987 The Small Wonder Joint Venture". In later years I found out that the show was produced in part for market re…

The unusual name ("The Small Wonder Joint Venture") is because the television show was the first product of a "joint venture" between 5 television stations [1], not because it was made by some secret home robotics manufacturer or marketing firm. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Program_Group

Also, Booger produced 'wonder joints' to liven things up during the party scene in 1984's 'Revenge Of The Nerds'

https://youtu.be/WEp0fte3B8o

Re: Ford disguised a man as a car seat to research self-driving

#69

Post by gizmo385 »

daveguy wrote: post #17
michaelbuckbee wrote: post #8

It sounds goofy, but this strikes me as really clever. Compared to almost anything else with self driving cars adding a few indicators to outwardly show what it's going to do next (for pedestrians and other drivers) is a huge win. There is a fair amount of waving for someone else to go first at a turn, seeing if a driver is distracted (on their phone) at a stop, making eye contact while using a cross walk etc that ge…

Or this drive thru prank a year earlier: https://youtu.be/xVrJ8DxECbg I'm sure it had probably been done before that too. :) Even better when you "put a robot in the driver's seat": https://youtu.be/CdggQr05LAA

Thank you so much for this. Because of you I'm laughing uncontrollably in my cube at work now.

Re: Ford disguised a man as a car seat to research self-driving

#70

Post by stcredzero »

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #8

It sounds goofy, but this strikes me as really clever. Compared to almost anything else with self driving cars adding a few indicators to outwardly show what it's going to do next (for pedestrians and other drivers) is a huge win. There is a fair amount of waving for someone else to go first at a turn, seeing if a driver is distracted (on their phone) at a stop, making eye contact while using a cross walk etc that ge…

It sounds goofy, but this strikes me as really clever.

Didn't the Top Gear / Grand Tour guys jokingly propose to do this?

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