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I think they have the safety features pretty well established.
We can only see about 30 frames per second, while a computer eye can see thousands per second and react to them just as fast. So as far as outmaneuvering an accident situation, I think the self-driving cars will have a major edge over a human driver, but only in that regard.

Although the ones I've seen in videos can find parking spaces in a parking lot with ease. Drop you off at the door, then pick you up again when you come back out from shopping.
I've not seen how they can find their way from your house to the shopping center without using the very faulty and out of date GPS maps. Nor how they can figure out which lane to get in to keep from ending up in illegal turn lanes and thru lanes which suddenly dead end into a turn.
For them to work, every illegal lane marking would either have to be corrected, which ain't gonna happen, or the mapping companies providing the data will have to keep up with how the paint stripe machines change lanes at will.

As I said, the current GPS maps for our city are always at least six to ten years behind what is. And they do not cover which lane you should be in either. Some of the fancier ones do on major highway exits, but not down off the highways in the cities. The GPS systems ASSUME the road marking follow the laws for same, when like around here, we have more illegal lane markings than legal ones.

As I said, I don't see them becoming viable in my lifetime, until something is done about the illegal lane markings on the roads, and GPS maps having the ability to come up to date and stay that way.

NOW, I CAN SEE the safety features being added to cars, so the computer can take over to maneuver out of an accident situation. This could very well happen within only a few years. If you can afford a super luxury car that is! I'll still be driving my 1997 Blazer, hi hi...

You may find this of interest. The cars've already been trialled in the UK, but because of their cost, it's estimated that only a few private owners'll be ferried around in these things. In a few years time, company cars may all be offered in this manner, but, as the article says, too many folk enjoy driving, so I can't see them taking over big-time for quite a while yet, even if they become more affordable.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/j ... ince-cable

Hi Icey

This was an article from early last year. But still an interesting read.

I did hit a line that was confusing, but perhaps you have different words for things than we do over here on this side of the big pond. FWIW: Over here a "Saloon" is the 1800s version of today's "Tavern."

We have very few 'sports cars' over here anymore, but some of the sub-compact cars are referred to by that name, more as joke than anything else.

In the car line-up we have a 'convertibles' often called 'rag-tops.' Hard-top which is a normal metal roof car, but without a center post or framed windows on the doors. The doors are like as used on a convertible. The most popular car is called a 'sedan.' It has full height doors with a frame around the window and a center post up to the roof. Both hard-tops and sedans come in many different styles, coupe, fast-back, etc.

Here is the line I mentioned above.

"Consumer versions are likely to cost the same as a premium saloon or sports car initially, before they reach a more mass-market cost."

We have Hard-tops, and Sedans, in full-size cars (now rare), compact cars, sub-compact cars (most common now), and several small import cars which I don't what they call them, but they are more like sub-sub-compact cars, hi hi... If there is a sports car dealer still in operation over here, I've not heard of them. Although we have a lot of the sub-sub-compact cars on our streets now, calling them a sports-car would be STRETCHING it quite a bit.

When I bought my 1997 Blazer new, two years later in 1999 I began the search to buy a second one, while I had the money to afford same. After a whole decade of trying to find a new Blazer, any newer model year, with the same features as mine, and was always told none are available, I finally gave up my search.
This is when I decided, no matter the cost, I will keep my '97 maintained as long as possible.
It's a shame we had the severe hailstorm, hit us so hard it broke six roof rafters in our house, so you can imagine what it did to the cars. Mine was parked under a large tree, next to a tall hedge on one side, and the garage on the other side, so didn't get totally destroyed. Still looks like heck now though.
I don't care, I still had a new motor put in it, and have worn parts replaced with new, not rebuilt or junk yard parts.
The only few cars I've found which I would consider to replace my Blazer, cost almost FIVE TIMES what I paid for my house. Or roughly the current fair market value of my renovated home.
There is no reason for a car to cost as much as they do! Other than GREED by the manufacturers.
The only way they can give an eight thousand dollar discount on a car and still double their money is if it was grossly overpriced to start with. But hey, they have to pay (1960's advertising price) $36,000.00 per minute to advertise 24/7 on the Idiot Box. NO OTHER COMPANY can afford the amount of advertising spent, per unit sold, than the automotive industry, because they alone have continued to price gouge the people for so long, everyone expects to pay through the nose for a car.

New vehicles cost more over here than in the US. A basic little Hyundai i10 costs from $12,246.34 to $19,545.13. Then prices shoot right up for something bigger.

Sports models are ones with significant high performance features, like the Peugeot RCZ R. It comes in at $49,398.94 - not a sports car as in a racing version, but for the road. They're not to be confused with luxury cars though, which don't have the sporty features.

Back home, next door to my brothers business is a car restoration company.
The completely rebuild pre-1980s cars, mostly muscle cars, until they are like new again.
Actually, they are better than new, because they use better components, and more modern equipment in the cars.
In other words, they are not restored to historical accuracy, but to present day technology.

I used to own a 1968 Camaro, and they happen to have the exact same model I had.
Now I paid like 3500 bucks for mine new off the showroom floor, and they were getting 26,000 for the fully restored one they had on the showroom floor. All cars they rebuild come with a 3-year full warranty, unusual for used cars.
The differences between my original and the one they were selling was not much, but enough to make them run better.
Instead of the old points and condenser distributor, it used the newer electronic type. All the hoses under the hood were braid coated aircraft type, the radiator fan used a clutch type fan instead of fixed. Four wheel disk brakes instead of drum brakes as the originals had. So they were made better.
Each car came with a complete parts list, of what year, make, and model, each part was designed for, so you could get the parts if you were away from their service center.

Just like they restored cars from the muscle car era, they also built on new car frames, cars which looked like they were from a bygone era. Some of their top selling cars were 1920's replicas, with a price tag cheaper than most new cars.
In some cases, only the exterior of the car was changed, and they used the interior of the existing model car, when it was possible to do it this way. These of course were their cheapest replicars, and they didn't look exactly like their historic counterparts, actually they usually looked better, hi hi...

One of their production cars looked exactly like a 1931 Ford Model A, neat looking car.
All built from new unused 2002 Honda convertibles like the S2000 model I think.
This was back in 2004 when I visited their showroom, so they probably use something newer now.
Apparently, they were able to get these cars for a song and a dance, because the price of their replicars were not much more than you would pay for the original car they were built on or from.
Or weren't back when I visited the place a number of years ago now.
I rarely get back home anymore since only my brother is left in that area now.

We have a few such places down here, but they do historic or custom restorations for really big bucks.

Yes, vehicle restorations can cost a lot of money, but I have to say that the cars're in pristine condition afterwards. We have a lot of classic car shows over here, and the owners're so proud of them that they'll fork out to keep them in perfect condition.

A friend's husband has one, and he's hired it out to TV companies a few times. He only has to run it to a show, and when he gets back, the car's cleaned in detail, then garaged. The engine shines like new, and he's been offered quite a bit for it, but refuses to sell.

I don't blame him for not selling.

One of my first cars was a 1946 Ford Deluxe. I restored it, but not as historical. All the rusty chrome was removed first, the holes for the chrome mounting tabs were dented and filled with body putty, etc.
Had to make a few modifications to the rear wheel panels to fit wider tires.
It really looked sharp when I finally got finished working on it.
Even the frame was sanded, primed and painted, so a lot of work was put into this car.

My cousin cobbed it from me after I got another car, and the fellow he sold it to was a KU college football nut.
He repainted the car blue and yellow to match that teams colors, and had half a dozen of his friends who owned little Volkswagen beetles paint theirs in an identical fashion.

He made local TV news at both ends of the journey from St. Louis to Kansas City.
The '46 Ford followed by six VW beetles, to emulate the KU mascot, looked awesome traveling down the highway.
Don't know what every came of it after that.

Funnily enough, I've spotted 3 customised Beetles recently, all sporting very colourful patterns. I didn't know they were still "fashionable", especially as the computerised Renault Twizy's seem to be the latest toys to be seen in! LOL!

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/arc ... 05212c.jpg

Heck Icey

This all took place back in the late '60s or early '70s, a couple of lifetimes ago for me.

I got this '46 Ford in 1961 or '62, and had it finished when I turned 16 in 1963.
I drove it for a couple of years before getting a '55 Ford.
In other words, the '46 Ford was only like 17 years old when I owned it.
The '55 Ford was only ten years old.
After that I switched to Chevy's, had a 4 year old '62 BelAire, then all the rest after it were bought new.
'66 Impala SS 396, '68 Camaro 350DOC, '69, '70, & '71 Fiat 850 Spyders, '72 New Yorker, '74 Dodge Charger, '76 50th Anniv. Special Edition 455 Trans-Am, '77 Chevy LUV (Isuzu Mikado) six of them for my business. '78 Coupe-de-Ville, '78 Astro Van, heck I've had lots of cars, but quit buying new and buying year old models up until I bought the '97 Blazer new, which I still have. Not found a car I would part with my money for since that time. I do buy used cars for the frau. First a '93 Jimmy, then a 2002 Blazer with a brand new motor. This was after spending four grand on Jimmy and getting it running perfectly, new tranny, new rear end, whole new modern AC system, etc.

Wish I kept most of those cars, but like most, we traded in every year or two.
I didn't mention all the older used cars I bought for specific uses. Like a Corvair I bought to be used as the base for a self-propelled float for the Bicentennial Parade. Or vehicles I bought for use on the farm to haul hay or water. Nor the cars I built for racing purposes.

I was MUCH, Much, much YOUNGER back then too, hi hi...

TTUL
Gary

Oh bless - but look what you can look back on Gary! It must be kind of nice to reminisce about such-and-such a vehicle you owned, and the fun you had with it. Over here, especially if you're a teenager, you can't afford to keep upgrading. I know folk who're driving around in cars which're 10, 12, 15 years or more old, because the ones they're driving around in've depreciated so much and they haven't got the cash to get anything better. Many young people don't own a car at all - often because they can't even afford driving lessons. Our eldest son passed his test recently (second go), but each hourly lesson was about $38. Considering that some need dozens and dozens, it can work out expensive. Parents mostly have to help out.

Nothing is the same in the world anymore, especially when it comes to driving.

Changing back to the topic, Wearable Computers.

We have a large company over here that does nothing but take inventory of your products, usually large retail stores.
Over the years they have gone from using a clipboard and pencil to electronic handheld gizmo's.

Our store which is moving into a larger place hired them to take a closing inventory before the move.
I expected to see them with their calculator sized hand-held devices milling about the store when we stopped for vittles.

But no, they wore on their wrist a device not much bigger than the size of wearing two men's wristwatches on the same wrist. The unit was only about three inches long, maybe almost two inches wide, but not quite that wide.
Sticking up was a rubber rod about an inch tall, probably an antenna.
A small cable ran down to their fingertips and they had two finger cot type sensors on their fingertips.
One was a camera or scanner to read the bar-code, the other was probably a button for them to tap each item in the row to get the count of that item. It made one tone of a beep when it read the bar-code, and another buzzy sound beep when they tapped each box. When they finished an item, they tapped their fingers together and it made a ding.

I watched for a bit, and if they made a mistake, like touched something which caused the buzzy sound when they didn't mean to count whatever they touched, they just clicked to get the ding then tapped again to get the buzzy sound with a beep along with it.

If they had to move a row of stuff over, they tapped the box on their wrist first, moved the stuff, then tapped the box a second time. I guess this turned it on and off or told it not to read. Little green or red LED.
Near the back of the store was a lady sitting on a stool at a laptop size computer. So I guess these little devices were talking to it. I couldn't see the screen because she was up against a wall in a cubbyhole sorta, facing the store aisles.
Had to laugh, she looked like she may have been a sergeant in the army at one point in her life, hi hi...

LOL!

Well as you can see, the Apple watches aren't huge clumsy things, and here're 3 examples of them, along with the pros and cons for owning one. You need an iPhone in order for them to work though.

Now one day, when they come with all the health apps which may save lives, they could be good news to some folk. Everything housed in a small, unobtrusive gadget sounds like a good invention, but for me personally, I don't fancy something like that so close to my skin, and don't see why my every movement should be tracked. This's just the beginning though. I can see the day when everyone's microchipped and their lives won't be their own.

Saw an article about a fellow who had problems with one of his hearing aids.
Have no idea if it is true or not. But he was picking up one side of a conversation from time to time.
It was not always the same person he heard, so ruled out perhaps cell phone interference.
He began jotting down the time and his location each time it happened, and sometimes something unique which may have been said.
After pages of notes, there still was no common denominator to link them together.
It happened at different places, the voices were different, and had pauses just like would happen on a one sided phone call.
He finally figured out if he stayed at the same location for an extended period of time, this would happen about once every fifteen minutes, with a different persons voice, and sometimes, one voice would end and another start.
It was not the cell phones themselves, but a certain frequency on a cell tower his unit was picking up.
The maker of the unit made him a new one, once he could prove it really was happening, even though they claimed it was totally impossible for such to happen.

With the digital hearing aids, I'd thought that would've been quite possible - if annoying!

I used to have a lot of antenna's and guy wires up back home for my Ham Radio Station.
I used this long metal cone when tuning an antenna to take a reading from. While working I would hang it on one of the guy wires nearby out of the way, so I didn't have to bend over and pick it up again off the ground.
One of the guy wires which passed through my tower from a push-pole was a good place to hang this cone, because it couldn't slide past the tower, which was still within reach of where I was making adjustments.

Now to the point, finally. The cone did slide down the guy wire, and if it touched the tower just right, we picked up a local AM radio stations signal, and music, and the cone amplified it enough to hear clearly. Not loud, but clear. You couldn't move the cone up or around in any way or it didn't work. Strange!

Speaking of my antenna's. Twice we had the fire department come roaring up to our house. Some neighbor way down the street called because they saw flames they thought were coming out of our roof.
It took a couple of years before I saw what they saw, and I must have just caught the tail end of it, because it only lasted about 45 seconds before fading away.

Off the tips of a 5-element Yagi antenna, were like a haze of small orange and yellow sparks, dense enough to look sorta like a tongue of fire. I began asking about it around the various radio groups, nobody had a clue. Another year passed and some college professor was driving by on the road above my house and turned around and came back to make sure he thought what he thought he saw. I came down our subdivision street and stopped in front of the house. Was taking pictures up over the top of my house. I went out to see whats up, figuring he may be a city official looking to write me a fine over my antenna's again.

I finally saw what made the gal call the Fire Department. From her angle, it would have looked like my roof was on fire.
There were ten balls of fire, on on each element tip of the Yagi, like badly adjusted kerosene blowtorches. Most Amazing thing to see. The guy introduced himself and said he often wondered what "Saint Elmo's Fire" looked like. Said it happens to sailing ships at sea when all the conditions were just right. He promised to send me some pictures but never did, and I never caught which college he was a professor at either.

At least now I knew the name of the phenomenon, and reported this information to the Fire Department, just in case that lady called again. They said it didn't matter, they still would have to come. They wouldn't give me the name of my neighbor who called, but said they would inform her about what it was she saw.

Oops - sorry my link didn't show the above watches.

Well I'm sure your neighbour was pacified by the explanation which the fire department passed onto her. I can imagine it looked amazing though - and probably a little scary to outsiders.

All the years I was around large and small antenna's, I never saw this affect, until after I knew about it.
Most of the time it is so faint you wouldn't notice it, even in the pitch black of an overcast night.

I've since learned that unexpected hum style static on a radio, indicates the antenna is radiating St. Elmo's Fire, but this does not mean it is visible to the naked eye. If you can feel the antenna mast buzzing, this too is an indicator.

Apparently there are different phenomenon associated with St. Elmo's Fire. A true St. Elmo's Fire, such as precedes a storm is a bluish/green glow from the tips of things like boat masts, tall radio tower antenna's, tops of tall buildings, etc.
The yellow/orange glow observed on lower TV reception antennas, Ham Radio antennas, lighting rods on barns and houses, etc. Although a form of St. Elmo's Fire, is actually fueled by dust particles and pollution in the air burning in the area around the tips of these elements. The effect near ground level is not enough to produce bluish/green glow most noted as St. Elmo's Fire.

This is the only picture of Real St. Elmo's Fire I could find off antenna tips atop a tall tower.

http://www.meteoros.de/blog/pics/elmsfe ... nblick.jpg

I did run across one picture, claimed as a radio antenna on fire which was orange, but it turned out to be a real fire, the coax was burning, hi hi...

Hey - that's impressive. I've not seen anything like that before.

I've seen the whole sky over a building lit up like that, but just assumed it was floodlights on the ground.
Amazing what I found while hunting for a pix to show.
Found a couple of videos but couldn't see the sparks well enough to bother copying it here.

It happens quite often to airplanes, like off the wing tips. But I doubt if you could see it from inside the plane.

Do you think some of these lights are thought of as UFO activity?