Bluetooth Celebrates Its 10th Anniversary

Defying some incredible odds, upstart wireless technology Bluetooth has made it to the ripe old age of 10 years old.
Bluetooth began its life with the creation of the Bluetooth SIG (Special Interest Group), which started in 1998 with just five companies looking to create a short-range wireless system for allowing personal items like cell phones, laptops, headsets, and keyboards to talk to one another. By the end of the year, 400 companies were SIG members.

2000 brought the first phone and headset to use Bluetooth to hit the market (those are them, pictured above). Laptops got Bluetooth in 2001, cameras in 2002, MP3 players in 2003. Today, the Bluetooth SIG has 9,000 member companies and has placed 2 billion Bluetooth-enabled products onto the market.

Pretty impressive for a technology that no one originally thought much of (early Bluetooth was buggy, slow, and fairly useless). But my, how things have changed. Bluetooth support is now a major selling point for cell phones; many buyers are now in love with their wireless headsets. Not having Bluetooth is almost unthinkable on all but the very cheapest of cell phones.

Today, Bluetooth's wide support threatens to keep alternatives like Wireless USB from achieving mass acceptance. In fact, Bluetooth 3.0 is slated to include technologies like Ultra Wideband (UWB) as part of its new specification. As well, an ultra-low power version is in the works for medical devices, watches, and other super-small products. When will it end?

Happy birthday, Blue!

Source : http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/65985;_ylt=AjiTisy1_eO9chEnAEmfoVQFLZA5

World's cheapest car unveiled by TATA

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's Tata Motors Ltd unveiled the world's cheapest new car on Thursday, bringing car ownership closer for millions of poorer consumers in emerging markets but raising enviromental concerns.
The 4-seater Nano, with an engine around 625cc, will have a dealer price of 100,000 rupees ($2,500), about half the cost of the cheapest car on today's market, a 25-year old model from Maruti Suzuki Ltd, Tata's great rival.
The Nano will go on sale later this year, the company said.

"Let me assure you and our critics the car we have designed will meet all safety norms and all foreign environmental criteria," Chairman Ratan Tata said as he proudly unveiled what had been dubbed the "People's Car" at the Auto Expo in New Delhi.

"In a way it is a high point for me. There is a sense of achievement and vindication," he told reporters later.
The compact but curvy Nano stands in sharp contrast to the luxury Jaguar and Land Rover brands that Tata is negotiating to acquire from Ford Motor Co.

Hundreds of people crowded into the pavilion to see the long-awaited launch, standing on chairs to get the best view as Tata introduced and then drove the car onto the stage in a media circus more worthy of a pop concert or an Oscar ceremony.

Tata planned the car years ago as a safer and more affordable alternative for the millions who often ferry families of four, plus baggage, on motorbikes and scooters.

"It's a dream come true," Ashok Singh, a constable with the Delhi Police, said at the show. "I look forward to buying that car. My wife will be really happy."

New cars are preferable to buyers in India, where the absence of an organised market for second-hand cars makes buying them a tedious and sometimes risky process.

Environmentalists are not so enthusiastic. They worry millions of the cheap cars will flood on to India's roads, many of which are already heavily congested, sending emissions levels sky high in Asia's third-biggest economy.

WAFER-THIN MARGINS
The car arrives at a time when oil has topped $100 a barrel, the move to fuel-efficient "green" cars is gaining momentum, and a wave of nostalgia has spurred sales of brands such as BMW's Mini and the Fiat 500 Cinquecento.
The car has a rear-mounted gasoline engine and travels 20km per litre, with a basic model and two deluxe variants and plans for diesel versions.

"The proof of the pudding will be in driving it, but visually it looks pretty good," said London-based auto analyst Ashvin Chotai, who was at Thursday's unveiling. "The pricing was a bit of a surprise. I thought it would be a bit higher."

Tata said costs were kept low by cutting the "size of the package", which brought about a reduction in material. Innovative processes and systems, for which the firm has filed 33 patents, also helped.

Chotai believed deluxe variants, which will include features such as air-conditioning, would account for bulk of the sales. Tata expects the car to sell well in semi-urban and rural areas as well as India's cities.
"Margins are still going to be very, very thin," he said.

Shares in Tata Motors, which has a market worth of $7.5 billion, fell 2.8 percent to 749 rupees, after having risen more than 4 percent, in a Mumbai market that ended 1.4 percent lower.

Tata Motors' stock trades at nearly 17 times forecast earnings, compared to 20.2 times for top utility vehicle maker Mahindra & Mahindra, whose shares fell 0.6 percent to 803.15 rupees on Thursday.
For additional stories, pictures and video from the Auto Expo go to http://in.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/special

Tata has said it will initially produce about 250,000 Nanos and expects eventual annual demand of 1 million units.
Global car makers -- initially sceptical that Tata could produce such a low-cost car -- are now scurrying to make their own versions to meet the needs of cost-conscious consumers in emerging economies such as China, India and Russia.

Ford this week said it would build a small car in India within two years, and the alliance of Nissan Motor and Renault, which has made a big success of its no-frills Logan sedan, plans a $3,000 car with Bajaj Auto.
Volkswagen, Toyota, Honda Motor and Fiat have also said they are looking at small cars for emerging markets where strong economic growth has made car ownership a reality for millions.

Tata said it would focus on the home market for 2-3 years before considering exporting the Nano to countries in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia.

With just 8 people in 1,000 owning a car in India, there is huge potential to upgrade bike and scooter owners, who bought about 7 million two-wheelers in 2006/07.
"Our challenge is just beginning," Tata said. "We have to deliver now on what we've promised today."

Source : http://in.reuters.com/article/topNews/idINIndia-31331020080110

Bill Gates says goodbye to your mouse

Bill Gates says goodbye to your mouse

Bill Gates, who built his fortune equipping the personal computer, predicts that the keyboard and mouse will soon become relics.

The founder of Microsoft Corp used his swansong to the technology industry on Sunday to spell out a vision of a “digital decade” of telephones, televisions and cars that respond to voice and touch.

“This is the area that people underestimate the most,” he said. Mr Gates, who plans to retire from day-to-day operations at Microsoft in July to oversee his $37 billion (£18 billion) charitable foundation, gave a keynote address to a packed 3,500-seat Las Vegas ballroom at the world’s largest consumer electronics show.

He predicted that high-definition video “will be everywhere” from TV to wall projections to screens built into desks. Users will be able to roam in 3-D through virtual worlds when they shop or interact online with friends. Devices will connect seamlessly so that data is transferred automatically from computer to mobile phone, for instance. “When you take a photo, it will show up where you want it to show up,” he said.

The software billionaire has used the annual Consumer Electronics Show to unveil products such as the Windows operating system and the Xbox 360 game console. But his visionary predictions have not always led to commercial success, as in the case of the touch-screen tablet computer.
In contrast, Apple Inc’s touch-screen iPhone and Nintendo’s Wii motion-sensing video game, which allows players to connect wirelessly to the screen, have won popular acclaim.
Providing a glimpse into the future, Mr Gates demonstrated a device called a Microsoft Surface that embeds a computer in a table top, showing how he could customise a snow-board in a shop. Just by running his fingers over the counter, he designed a snowboard with different colours and patterns. When he was happy with the result, he placed his mobile phone on the surface. The counter-top computer recognised the phone and wirelessly downloaded the design to the web.
Mr Gates’s presentation was met by some scepticism because of Microsoft’s failure to unveil any big new innovations at the show.

“Part of this has to do with Microsoft being tired of announcing new stuff that doesn’t ever materialise or shows up in a form very different than what was shown,” Michael Gartenberg, a Jupiter Research analyst, wrote in a web posting.

Source : http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article3149490.ece

HD-DVD v Blu-Ray, is the battle over?

HD-DVD v Blu-Ray, is the battle over?

With Warner Bros jumping sides to Sony and 75 per cent of upcoming high-definition releases on Blu-Ray, is HD-DVD a thing of the past?
Bernhard Warner

I realise it’s considered gauche to question a gift, particularly one that comes in a big box. But for those of you who received an HD-DVD player this holiday season, it would be completely understandable if you packed it up and marched it back to the buyer and demanded an explanation.

In fairness, the buyer probably had no idea the HD-DVD player would be obsolete by, oh, say, Christmas, 2008. The salesman probably made no hint to your well-meaning girlfriend that there is a winner-takes-all format war going on between HD-DVD (backed by Toshiba and Microsoft) and Blu-Ray (backed by Sony). Or maybe the buyer knew but figured it would be years before one technology proved the victor. After all, the Betamax player hung on for a string of Christmases before being pronounced dead in the late ‘80s. The good money would have suggested that HD-DVD and Blu-Ray could compete side-by-side for years.

Alas, not so. That’s because Warner Bros., the movie studio behind Harry Potter, the sci-fi classic Blade Runner (a collector’s edition is on the new release schedule) and the high-def version of the remarkable BBC series Planet Earth, jumped sides last week to Blu-Ray, saying that from May it will only produce new releases in the Sony-branded format, signalling an early end to HD-DVD.

The Warner Bros. decision “strengthens Blu-Ray’s hand considerably”, says Jim Bottoms, co-managing director of digital media consultancy Understanding & Solutions. If the Toshiba camp is to survive it will need to convince its remaining studio partners to continue supporting HD-DVD and hope to pull back to its side reluctant studios. The chances of this are bleak. As The Times reports, one of the remaining hold-out supporters of HD-DVD, Paramount, is also considering a jump to Sony.

With the about-face, Warner now joins the Sony, Fox, Lionsgate and Disney studios as exclusive adopters of Blu-Ray. In the U.S. market, the world’s biggest, the Warner switch means 75 per cent of all upcoming high-definition releases will be exclusively in the Blu-Ray format, Understanding & Solutions calculate, all but sinking HD-DVD’s chances.
“We should see an end to the format war within the year,” Bottoms declares.
There’s no denying that consumer electronics format wars are a nuisance. The rules of engagement are particularly cruel for the buying public, asking them to make an expensive bet on a technology that could be obsolete in a few years time. They emerge with remarkable frequency: 78 rpm discs verses 45 rpm in the 1940s, 8-track verses cassette in the 70s, Betamax verses VHS in the 80s, digital audio tape verses the compact disc in the 90s. Not to mention, of course, the ongoing QuickTime verses Windows Media verses RealMedia struggle.
The Blu-Ray verses HD-DVD tussle is particularly perverse. While the retail price continues to fall, high-definition players – which pack a sharper picture quality and cinema-like sound – will set you back, at a bare minimum, between £150 and £250 for the most basic machine, and hundreds more for a more kitted-out player. The average price of a high-definition optical disc, meanwhile, is around £25, a healthy premium over DVD prices. An aggressive format war would, in theory, push prices of both discs and players down as both camps try to win over a loyal base.

But if the format war is hastily called off you can forget about a price reprieve. With just one horse in the race you arrive at a scenario that is just as bad as a nasty format war: collusionary pricing. If the studios decide to back just one format – in this case, Blu-Ray – a vital price stimulus will be removed from the market. Studios need to recoup development costs for the new technology and so will price their optical discs much higher than ordinary DVDs until that initial investment begins to pay itself off. In this very likely scenario, expect high-def discs to be priced well above £20 for the near term. Only when consumers begin to protest by defiantly plodding along with the same old DVD players will we see the next generation disc and player prices begin to fall.

But for those of you now staring incredulously at your HD-DVD player, it’s too late. You’ve been drawn into this turf war under false pretences, thinking that on Christmas morning your flashy new player would be able to play all the Hollywood blockbusters on your wall-sized, high-definition flat-screen TV. Take heart: a new technology will emerge in the next few years. You won’t make the same mistake twice. Choose wisely.

Source : http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article3159432.ece?openComment=true

Largest Television

TV Innovations Rule CES 2008

It's the elephant in the living room: Panasonic's 150-inch plasma has all but stolen the show here at CES 2008. When people ask you "What's the coolest thing you've seen at the show so far?" they invariably follow that up with "Except for the 150-inch TV."

And sure enough, the thing is a marvel to behold. It's so big, it's hard to take it in, really. With a viewing area that measures 11 feet by 6 1/4 feet and 8.84 million pixels of resolution, the TV (which has no model number and no date for being commercialized) is regularly thronged by crowds of slack-jawed onlookers, unable to comprehend the thing.

It's so big that all the other flat-panel companies have simply removed signage that might indicate how big (er, small) their sets are in comparison. There are obviously some big sets here from Pioneer, LG, and Sharp, but exactly how big their biggest sets are remains a mystery. Next year I will have to bring a tape measure.

Still don't think it's big? After all, maybe that woman is incredibly short, right? Wrong. Here's a picture of it next to last-year's largest, the 103-inch plasma:
With the war on screen size all but lost for 2008, a more interesting one is shaping up on thickness, with vendors battling to see just how thin they can make their displays. Virtually every vendor is offering a screen (LCD or plasma) less than 2 inches thick. LG's is 1.7 inches thick. Hitachi's plasma is 1.5 inches and its LCD is just 0.75 inch. Sharp also has a 0.8-inch-thick LCD (52 inches diagonally, too). But it's Pioneer's 0.35-inch plasma that takes the weight loss crown, even if it is a prototype.

Other TV trends continue apace: A big one is OLED, which both Sony and Samsung are moving forward impressively. Side by side, Samsung's technology demo of OLED vs. LCD is striking; the difference in color and brightness is astonishing. Meanwhile, Sony was demonstrating a 27-inch OLED set, too. (In related news, you'll finally be able to buy the 11-inch OLED here in the United States, for just $2,500.)

Also emerging: Wireless HD. While I'm not sold on the need for this technology, more and more products keep showing up with it. Will we replace HDMI cables with wireless connections? Your sense of tidiness is probably salivating over the prospect already.

Source : http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/63717

How to Relaunch Your Career in the New Year

How to Relaunch Your Career in the New Year
Caroline Levchuck, Yahoo! HotJobs

Was 2007 a professional bust for you? Was your career stuck in neutral? Never fear, the new year is here, and with it comes endless possibilities for growth, upward mobility, and more.
Deborah Brown-Volkman, a certified professional coach, says, "What's great about the new year is that it's like a do-over. You've completed the last year, and now you can start all over again."
Regain Your Focus

The first step in reviving a stagnant career is to regain your focus. Finding it begins with identifying what you want, according to Brown-Volkman, who's been coaching clients for almost 10 years.

"Ask yourself what you want, what you want to be different this year. Start listening to yourself. Do you want a better relationship with your boss? A leadership role at your company? A new job altogether? You have to get clear on what you want," she counsels.
If identifying what you want is too intimidating or overwhelming, Brown-Volkman suggests figuring out what you don't want as a way of backing into your professional desires. Ultimately, knowing what you want, she says, "will give you focus."

Make an Action Plan
Next, you must formulate an action plan and follow through it. Don't wait for opportunity to knock on your door, warns Brown-Volkman. "People wait for it to come to them, but they have to start moving toward it. Action is what builds momentum."

As you move toward your big picture goals, there are small actions that can help you move forward. "Changing your attitude will make a big difference. If you focus on the bad, it will be bad for you. Focus on the positive and that will give you energy."

Eliminate Clutter

"Clean your desk," she adds. "That's such a big thing in terms of helping folks focus and get clear."
Brown-Volkman also believes professionals can change the way they work. "Stop answering emails one by one -- set up specific times during the day to address them. Also, if you're on a roll, don't answer the phone every time it rings, unless it's your boss. The constant interruptions will derail your focus and make you feel less efficient."
Get the Necessary Support

If your plan for advancement involves your boss, be sure you position it properly to her. Coach Brown-Volkman reveals, "When enlisting your supervisor's support, you have to make sure you focus on what's important to your boss and the company. If it's all about you, it won't work." If you feel isolated in your job or your quest for change, enlist the people around you. "Reach out to your colleagues for support," she says.

Brown-Volkman urges everyone to start the new year with a new plan for their career. "People who are unhappy are people who feel trapped, who haven't created a game plan for what's next. Any time you don't have a bigger picture in mind, the day-to-day gets to you, and your career can come to a standstill."

Source : http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/career-articles-how_to_relaunch_your_career_in_the_new_year-269

Five Secrets of Successful Job Hunters

Five Secrets of Successful Job Hunters
Joe Turner, for Yahoo! HotJobs

Completing a 26-mile marathon race shares some characteristics with a successful job search.
There is one "winner" who crosses the finish line first. There are the many who quit before they've completed the race. Finally, there are the rest of us who don't finish first, but are determined to complete the race nevertheless.
For most of us, half the battle is finishing the race, regardless of where we place among the finishers. The same goes for a job search.

The Five Secrets

1. Visualize. Marathon runners and other goal-directed athletes are great at visualization. They set a goal and see themselves achieving it. The same applies for your job search. Set a goal and see yourself achieving it. No matter how many setbacks you have, hold that vision of the job you want. Continue to hold it.
Focus on the outcome you want, and not on how you're going to achieve it. Picture it in your mind. Be specific. What is your supervisor like? How about your co-workers? What is your workspace like? What hours do you work? Including your right brain in the imagination and visualization process enhances the achievement of your goal.

2. Be Persistent. Just as in running a marathon, nothing worth having is ever easy to achieve. There is a lot of rejection in job search. Sometimes it seems as if you'll never get a "yes." Remember what good sales people already know: that winning a sale, a job, or any other goal is a numbers game. Commission sales people will tell you that every "no" is one step closer to a "yes." When you can see your process from a more objective viewpoint, knowing that you're one more rejection closer to a "yes," you'll be less inclined to take the "no's" personally or get discouraged.

3. Replenish Yourself. The job search process, like a marathon race, can be an endurance test with a lot of disappointments and setbacks. It can also go on for weeks, months, and for some people, even a year or more. If you're going to outlast this process and prevail, you have to take care of yourself. This means taking time to relax to take your mind off the challenges, frustrations and rejections. Work hard on your job search, then take time out to exercise and pursue activities that bring you joy and replenish you.

4. Inoculate Yourself Against Negative Messages. Succeeding at a job search is a mental process, and negative input from anywhere can poison your mental outlook and encourage fear, discouragement, anxiety, anger, and other negative emotions. Associate with positive people and protect yourself from all types of negativity.
A job search can be a big undertaking. You need all of the assets and advantages that you can possibly bring to the party. You can't afford to be exposed to the negativity of others. This includes friends, relatives, and negative articles in newspapers and magazines as well as negative TV shows. Make a point of reading books and articles that motivate, encourage, and inspire you.

5. Meditate. This can be the most important secret, yet it can be very simple. Take some time every day to be still and to get away from the "white noise" of life. Whether you are a spiritual person or not, commit to some quiet time away from the noise of TV, radio, and other distractions. Give yourself the gift of quietness to contemplate, calm down, and center yourself. Even five minutes of quiet time can make a positive difference in your life. It will ground you and make it easier to face and overcome the stresses of your job search journey ahead.
As with successful marathoners, job hunters have some secret tactics that make their success look easy to others. Winning the job search game has a mental component. Developing the above five winning secret tactics will enhance your chances of success, and make the process more pleasant and less stressful.

As a recruiter, Joe Turner has spent the past 15 years finding and placing top candidates in some of the best jobs of their careers. Known on the Internet as "The Job Search Guy", Joe has also authored 'how-to' books on interviewing and job search. Discover more insider job search secrets at his site.

Source : http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/career-articles-five_secrets_of_successful_job_hunters-265

7 technologies that will save the Earth in 2008

7 technologies that will save the Earth in 2008
By Hank Green

EcoGeek is here to keep you informed of the latest technologies that make our lives better while ensuring that we don't spoil the Earth at the same time. Here are 10 technologies that I can't wait for, and that I think we'll see to varying degrees in 2008.

Cellulosic ethanolCorn ethanol really isn't a very good idea, but cellulosic ethanol is looking at a bright future. With huge bursts of funding from federal subsidies and billionaire entrepreneurs like Vinod Khosla, we should expect advances on several fronts in 2008.

Techniques for producing the fuel from waste inexpensively will continue to emerge. And America's first cellulosic production plants will come online, while the benchmarks required by the recent U.S. energy bill will spur investment in a new round of plants that will come online sometime after 2008.

LEDsAmerica's love affair with incandescent lights is over. Especially considering that they will be mostly illegal by 2012. 2008 should be a year where Philips and GE start producing ultra-efficient LED lights in earnest.
Already the technology is more efficient, longer-lasting and more user-friendly than CFLs or incandescents.

The obstacle, it seems, is price. But Americans are getting used to the idea that paying more now will save you money in the long run.

And as LEDs are a bit more approachable than CFLs, I think we'll see a good adoption rate for LED bulbs. They'll start showing up on shelves in Wal-Marts and Home Depots in mid 2008.
No one killed the electric car2008 will be the year the electric vehicle (EV) comes back to life. Tesla will make its first sales, the Chevy Volt production design will be released, and the first GM E-Flex drive trains will be driving around in Chevy Malibu bodies.

Ford will begin marketing (though not selling) it's plug-in Escape and GM will begin selling the plug-in Saturn Vue. Smaller producers like Aptera and Phoenix will sell their EVs as well.
CDs will diePhysical media are on the way out. Everyone realizes that there's no good reason to have a CD instead of an MP3; they're more expensive and less convenient.

And while other media (include books and movies) are going to have a longer road to obsolescence, everyone, including record companies and musicians, agree that CDs have gone the way of the 8 track.

The Kindle will light a very small fireSpeaking of obsolete physical objects, book readers will continue to advance in 2008, led by the Kindle. Though uglier, bulkier, and more expensive than the Sony Reader, the Kindle is better marketed and more convenient than any other ebook reader ever.

Solar really will be cheapWe've been hearing for years that solar is going to be as cheap as coal. And while that prediction won't come true in 2008, solar will become extremely cheap.
Nanolsolar and Heliovolt's printable solar cells will sell like hotcakes to large buyers, leaving you and me on a long waiting list for personal panels.

There will be 30 stories about cars running on waterAnd each and every one of them will be erroneous.
Small cars will winWhile it's great that major car companies are creating cars like the Fit, the Mini and the Aveo, it's my opinion that they are completely underestimating the desire for small vehicles in American driveways. Which is why I think that the Loremo and the Aptera will be widely acclaimed in the U.S.

Honda will continue selling every Fit it can build, but it will take entrants from outside the establishment to show how interested people are in less substantial cars.
Additionally, the Aptera and the Loremo both will establish themselves as early favorites for the automotive X-Prize which will begin in early 2008.

Source : http://green.yahoo.com/blog/ecogeek/232/7-technologies-that-will-save-the-earth-in-2008.html

GM envisions driverless cars on horizon

By TOM KRISHER, AP Auto Writer

Cars that drive themselves — even parking at their destination — could be ready for sale within a decade, General Motors Corp. executives say.

GM, parts suppliers, university engineers and other automakers all are working on vehicles that could revolutionize short- and long-distance travel. And Tuesday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner will devote part of his speech to the driverless vehicles.
"This is not science fiction," Larry Burns, GM's vice president for research and development, said in a recent interview.
The most significant obstacles facing the vehicles could be human rather than technical: government regulation, liability laws, privacy concerns and people's passion for the automobile and the control it gives them.
Much of the technology already exists for vehicles to take the wheel: radar-based cruise control, motion sensors, lane-change warning devices, electronic stability control and satellite-based digital mapping. And automated vehicles could dramatically improve life on the road, reducing crashes and congestion.
If people are interested.
"Now the question is what does society want to do with it?" Burns said. "You're looking at these issues of congestion, safety, energy and emissions. Technically there should be no reason why we can't transfer to a totally different world."
GM plans to use an inexpensive computer chip and an antenna to link vehicles equipped with driverless technologies. The first use likely would be on highways; people would have the option to choose a driverless mode while they still would control the vehicle on local streets, Burns said.
He said the company plans to test driverless car technology by 2015 and have cars on the road around 2018.
Sebastian Thrun, co-leader of the Stanford University team that finished second among six teams completing a 60-mile Pentagon-sponsored race of driverless cars in November, said GM's goal is technically attainable. But he said he wasn't confident cars would appear in showrooms within a decade.
"There's some very fundamental, basic regulations in the way of that vision in many countries," said Thrun, a professor of computer science and electrical engineering.
The Defense Department contest, which initially involved 35 teams, showed the technology isn't ready for prime time. One team was eliminated after its vehicle nearly charged into a building, while another vehicle mysteriously pulled into a house's carport and parked itself.
Thrun said a key benefit of the technology eventually will be safer roads and reducing the roughly 42,000 U.S. traffic deaths that occur annually — 95 percent of which he said are caused by human mistakes.
"We might be able to cut those numbers down by a factor of 50 percent," Thrun said. "Just imagine all the funerals that won't take place."
Other challenges include updating vehicle codes and figuring out who would be liable in a crash and how to cope with blown tires or obstacles in the road. But the systems could be developed to tell motorists about road conditions, warn of crashes or stopped vehicles ahead and prevent collisions in intersections.
Later versions of driverless technology could reduce jams by directing vehicles to space themselves close together, almost as if they were cars in a train, and maximize the use of space on a freeway, he said.
"It will really change society, very much like the transition from a horse to a car," Thrun said.
The U.S. government has pushed technology to help drivers avoid crashes, most notably electronic stability controls that help prevent rollovers. The systems are required on new passenger vehicles starting with the 2012 model year.
Vehicle-to-vehicle communication and technology allowing cars to talk with highway systems could come next.
Still in debate are how to address drivers' privacy, whether current vehicles can be retrofitted and how many vehicles would be need the systems to develop an effective network.
"Where it shakes out remains to be seen but there is no question we see a lot of potential there," said Rae Tyson, a spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
___
Associated Press Writer Ken Thomas in Washington contributed to this report.

Source : http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080107/ap_on_hi_te/gadget_show_driverless_cars

The promise of air-powered cars

By Hank Green Posted Fri Jan 4, 2008 2:12pm PST


More than 10 years ago, a French Formula One expert had an idea: Instead of running cars on the chemical energy of gasoline, why not run them on the physical energy of compressed air?
Now that vision is extremely close to becoming reality.
Prototypes of the "air car" are already on the road, and several companies have licensed the technology. According to a BBC report, the first air-powered cars could roll off the production line later this year, for sale in India and Europe.
The cars are powered by plain old air, which is compressed in ultra-strong tanks. The air is then released through a couple of pistons in the engine, which drive the wheels. Current prototypes get a bit more than 1 horsepower, and can push the cars up to 70 mph for about 120 miles.
It's not in any way comparable to something you might go and buy on a dealer's lot today. But there are some significant advantages.
For one thing, it costs only about $3.00 to fill up the tank.
For another, the car has no emissions. In fact, the air coming out is significantly cleaner than the air in most cities.
Of course, it will take some electricity (from coal power plants, yes) to compress the air, but the carbon savings are still very significant.
The refilling process is simple and quick, assuming your gas station has been retrofitted with ultra-high-pressure air compressors. Several companies, most of them fairly small, have licensed the technology to produce the vehicles. One very large company, Tata Motors (India's largest carmaker), has plans to produce air cars, and has released several designs of upcoming models.
Tata is planning on creating a hybrid version that uses compressed air for driving at low speeds, and then switches over to gasoline if the driver needs a speed (or range) boost.
As for a U.S. release, we're going to have to wait a little longer.
Though the technology has been licensed here, it might be a while before the cars can match up to the safety regulations of the United States - or the voluminous desires of American consumers.
But for the rest of the globe, especially for emerging markets that need cheap transportation, this could be a fantastic alternative that truly makes the world a much cleaner place than it would otherwise be.

Source : http://green.yahoo.com/blog/ecogeek/236/the-promise-of-air-powered-cars.html