Police are investigating a car crash involving a self-driving vehicle owned by Google’s Waymo.
The Waymo vehicle was hit when a Honda sedan swerved to avoid another car and drove into the opposing traffic lane.
Police in Chandler, Arizona, said the Waymo car was in autonomous mode, although there was an occupant in the driver’s seat.
A video released by Waymo shows how the oncoming sedan swerves across multiple lanes before the crash.
Questions will be raised regarding whether a human driver would have been able to move out of the Honda’s way.
Waymo said: “Our team’s mission is to make our roads safer – it is at the core of everything we do and motivates every member of our team.
“We are concerned about the well-being and safety of our test driver and wish her a full recovery.”
A spokesperson for Chandler Police said that the department did not regard the autonomous vehicle to be at fault for the collision, and neither Waymo nor the car’s driver would be cited.
0:33 Video: Waymo CEO: What we’re putting on the road is safe technology
In March, Waymo announced that it had purchased 20,000 electric Jaguar cars in a deal estimated to have been worth $1.4bn (£990m).
At the time, the company’s chief executive John Krafcik said: “We have been working on this at Google and now as Waymo for over nine years, nearly a decade.
“We do like to consider it the world’s longest ongoing driving test. And we’ve spent so much time focused on making sure this technology is right.”
Mr Krafcik said that the company has conducted five million miles of road testing on top of five billion miles of simulation testing, putting the cars in 20,000 different scenarios to ensure the technology is safe.
The safety of self-driving cars is of concern to many regulators.
Uber suspended testing its autonomous vehicles after one struck and killed a female cyclist in March.
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Investigators said the vehicle was in autonomous mode with an operator behind the wheel when Elaine Herzberg was struck.
The 49-year-old woman, who had been walking her bike when she was hit by the car, died from her injuries in hospital.
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Tech
Mobile technology helping to save lives
By Dan Whitehead, Sky News correspondent
New technology is allowing emergency services to instantly see patients via a smart phone camera before paramedics are able to arrive at the scene.
The feature works by sending a text message to 999 callers which gives doctors access to their phone camera in order to assess a patient and better deploy the appropriate resources.
The service requires no app to be downloaded, and a live picture and map location is transmitted in just seconds.
It is part of the GoodSam platform, which already links up nearby first responders to 999 call outs.
Image: The technology is being used by Kent, Surrey and Sussex Air Ambulance
The technology is being used by Kent, Surrey and Sussex and Great North Air Ambulance with other services in talks to use the facility.
It is hoped the system will cut down on the deployment of expensive trauma ambulances in situations where they end up not being required.
Image: Mark Wilson says the system helps in making clinical decisions
Neurosurgeon Mark Wilson, who co-founded GoodSam said: “The great thing about the world today is that everyone has a mobile phone in their pocket which has the most amazing tech built into it – GPS location, video – and by being able to access that we can see a patient instantly and then not only make appropriate decisions about what resources they need but actually provide care before we get there.”
Another feature, which is still in the trial stage, even allows a patient’s pulse to be taken by using just the video stream and analysis of their face.
Image: Reading a pulse via video stream is being tested
Air Ambulance doctor Richard Lyon for Kent, Surrey and Sussex Air Ambulance Service told Sky News having access to vital stats so early into a 999 call could be life-saving.
“We’re not reliant on waiting for an ambulance crew or a fire crew to arrive on scene and give us a report on what’s happened,” he said.
“Within seconds of that 999 call coming through we’ll be able to hopefully make an assessment of what the nature of the accident is and if we can send the helicopter sooner it means we’re going to get help to our patients much sooner which hopefully is going to save lives.”
Image: Dr Richard Lyon says the system could be life saving
It is not just air ambulance services utilising the service.
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The humanitarian charity First Aid Africa plan to use the function to provide remote advice in rural Africa, where there is no ambulance service.
It is hoped police and fire services may also adopt the technology.
Tech
Is the net still neutral?
The senate will vote next week
There’s still hope for Net Neutrality.
PopSci Staff
The next important date for Net Neutrality: June 12, 2018 (or earlier, depending on an upcoming Senate vote)
On or before June 12, 2018, the U.S. Senate will vote on whether to block the 2017 Restoring Internet Freedom Act, which, despite its name, is the legislation that would effectively repeal the Open Internet Act of 2015. That law established Net Neutrality and its protection over the internet.
The Senate is holding this vote under the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress a 60-day window in which it can nullify the FCC’s decision. Democrats filed the plan within the 60 day window back in February, but the petition filed today will force a vote by June 12.
While Senate approval seems likely (the act only needs a 50-vote majority instead of the normal 51, because of John McCain’s illness-related absence), passage in the House of Representatives will be a much bigger challenge. Republicans have a 236 to 193 member majority, and the act requires a simple majority to move it along. Even if it passes the House, it would still require the president’s signature to block the repeal.
Congressional Republicans and internet companies have already started stating their objections to the repeal. A key piece of their argument suggests that Net Neutrality unfairly targets internet service providers, without regulating big internet companies like Google and Facebook.
State lawsuits
Even if the Congressional effort to stop the Net Neutrality repeal fails (which many believe it will), the changes still won’t immediately go into effect. There is currently a coalition of 23 state attorneys general suing the FCC on the grounds that the repeal is illegal under the Administrative Procedure Act, which prohibits “arbitrary and capricious” changes to policy.
The states included are: New York, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Mexico, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and the District of Columbia.
Unfortunately, former New York attorney general, Eric Schneiderman acted as the head of the coalition. Popular Science has reached out to the coalition to find out who will take the lead after his recent departure.
State Laws
On April 6, 2018, Oregon governor, Kate Brown, announced a state-specific Net Neutrality bill. “HB 4155 mandates that public bodies in Oregon only contract with internet service providers that operate under net neutrality, which requires internet service providers to enable equal access for all web traffic, regardless of the source.”
The FCC claims that states and cities don’t have the right to make this kind of law in the face of federal regulations, and lobbyists that represent ISPs plan to sue the states to get the laws taken off the books.
When will Net Neutrality go away?
The official documents on the Federal Register stated April 23, 2018 as the day on which parts of the repeal would officially go into effect, but that didn’t include the most substantial and contentious issues. like throttling and “internet fast-lanes.” Those sections are the bulk of what concerns Net Neutrality proponents.
Another forthcoming document in the Federal Register will give specific dates for those changes after the US Office of Management and Budget. That is, of course, assuming that Congressional efforts to stop the appeal fail. The legal battles over the original implementation of Net Neutrality went on for more than a year.
What can you do right now?
You can join the fight against the repeal by contacting your local lawmakers and encouraging them to vote to support efforts to block the Restoring Internet Freedom Act. Battle for the Net lets you do it using a simple form.
Tech
NHS restricts Home Office immigrant-tracking deal
By Aubrey Allegretti, Political Reporter
The Home Office will no longer use NHS records to track down illegal immigrants, it has been announced.
An agreement between the two organisations will be significantly narrowed so that health records will only be shared in cases involving “serious criminality”.
The move was revealed by digital minister Margot James in the Commons on Wednesday.
It came in response to an amendment to the Data Protection Bill, proposed by Health Select Committee chair Dr Sarah Wollaston.
Ms James said that ministers had “reflected” on the “concerns” and would change the agreement “with immediate effect”.
The bar for sharing data will now be set “significantly higher”, she added.
Image: The changes to Home Office data collection start with immediate effect
“No longer will the names of overstayers and illegal entrants be sought against health service records to find current address details,” Ms James promised.
The data will now only be used in future to trace someone who is being considered for deportation.
Ms Wollaston said she was “delighted” at the news and thanked her colleagues and other campaigners.
Civil liberties group Liberty welcomed the move but accused the Government of “undermining the confidentiality and trust at the heart of our healthcare system in the name of pursuing their hostile environment”.
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The charity’s advocacy director, Corey Stoughton, said: “We welcome the Government’s agreement to overhaul its practices and immediately curtail some data sharing – but its language is worryingly vague.
“We need a cast-iron commitment that people will no longer have to fear immigration enforcement when seeking urgent medical care.”
Tech
Self-driving cars should earn people’s trust with good communication
If it wasn’t clear, this is a self-driving vehicle.
Drive.ai
Autonomous cars may be capable of driving around on their own, but they still need to be able to communicate their intentions to other people on the road. When there is no driver in the car, a pedestrian crossing in front of it has no one to connect with in a reassuring, hey, don’t hit me human-to-human, eye-contact kind of way.
A company called Drive.ai is working on solving that problem. Its autonomous Nissan vans, part of a forthcoming robo-taxi service in Frisco, Texas, will have dynamic signs—one on the front and back, and one on each side—capable of displaying different messages, like “Waiting for you to cross.”
The car is talking to you.
Drive.ai
Why did the self-driving car cross the road?
Cars today tend to have people driving them. “We are taking that human out,” says Bijit Halder, vice president of product at Drive.ai. “But how do we substitute that same emotional connection and communication and comfort?”
The signs are a way of addressing the no-human-inside problem, and the car’s orange and blue design is meant to be distinctive, so that they stand out and are easily recognizable to other drivers and pedestrians. They’re definitely not sleek.
“We weren’t optimizing for prettiness,” says Andrew Ng, an artificial intelligence expert and part of Drive.ai’s board. Compared to a standard car piloted by a real human, an autonomous vehicle has weaknesses and strengths. “It cannot make eye contact with you to let you know [it’s seen you]; it can’t recognize a construction worker’s hand gestures, waving the car forward,” Ng adds. In short, there’s only so much the AI can do right now. (On the strengths side, it’s not going to get distracted or drive drunk.)
While the Drive.ai team hasn’t finalized the messages that the vans will display, options include notifications like “passengers entering/exiting,” “pulling over” (with an arrow pointing in the right direction on the back and front signs), and “self-driving off,” so others know to actually pay attention to the human behind the wheel.
“I thought it would be really funny to have a ‘why did the chicken cross the road joke,’” says Ng, lightheartedly. “But maybe that would be a misuse of the exterior display panels.”
Don MacKenzie, the head of the sustainable transportation lab at the University of Washington, notes, via email, that “it is certainly important for driverless vehicles to communicate with human drivers and other road users.” But while signs on the vehicle are one way to do this, they might not be a perfect solution. “What happens when the message is obstructed by an object or glare?” he wonders.
The company announced on Monday that it would offer the robo-taxi service, which will be free at first, starting in July in one section of Frisco, Texas. Office workers and others in the area will be able hail a ride using an app. At first, a safety driver will be behind the wheel, and later they’ll move to a passenger seat and function as a “chaperone.” Finally, the cars should become passenger-only, although there will be a remote operators who can help out as needed.
Everything is different in Texas
Drive.ai isn’t the first company to plan a taxi service full of autonomous cars—Waymo has one in the works in the Phoenix, Arizona area, and Cruise, a part of GM, has a service planned for next year using autonomous vehicles that don’t even have steering wheels or pedals—but this is the first service of its kind in the Lone Star State. And then there’s Uber, which had self-driving cars on the roads in multiple places until one of their vehicles killed a pedestrian in March. They put their autonomous program on hold while the accident is investigated.
The signs on the Drive.ai vehicles are about broadcasting to others what they are doing, but the cars need to know how to drive around on their own in the first place. Drive.ai uses an artificial intelligence technique called deep learning to help them teach the system. For example, when a car is near a traffic light, it needs to be able to actually recognize not only that there is a traffic light somewhere in the scene, but also know what color is lit up.
But actually getting their cars driving around Texas presented a new challenge. “We found that the traffic light designs are actually different here in Texas compared to in California,” Ng says. So they had to train their system to recognize the lights by showing it annotated images of the Texan traffic signals.
After they taught the neural network on the new lights, “the system started working very well,” Ng says. Neural networks are a common AI tool that can learn from data; in this case, the Drive.ai team is using a neural network to both recognize where the traffic light is in the image as well as what color it is.
But everything isn’t handled by AI—if the neural network identifies a traffic light as red, the fact that a red light means “don’t go” is simple enough to program into the system as a straightforward rule.
Tech
Global warming ‘led to the start of the human race’
Global warming during a “greenhouse interval” ultimately led to the start of the human race, scientists believe.
New research suggests that sea temperatures of around 25C (77F) and a lack of permanent polar ice sheets fuelled an explosion of species diversity that eventually led to the human race.
Scientists made the discovery while looking for clues in tiny fossil shells in blocks of Shropshire limestone thought to be around 510 million years old.
The timeframe is referred to as the Cambrian explosion, when representatives of all the major animal groups first appeared.
The surge in diversity allowed life to evolve into a multitude of complex forms, including fish, reptiles, birds and mammals.
Scientists previously thought the Cambrian explosion must have been fuelled by warm temperatures, but the evidence has been lacking so far.
Image: Sea temperatures were around 25C during the explosion
This new findings suggest it was a “greenhouse interval” when high levels of carbon dioxide filled the atmosphere and temperatures soared.
Thomas Hearing, from the University of Leicester’s School of Geography, Geology and Environment, said: “Because scientists cannot directly measure sea temperatures from half a billion years ago, they have to use proxy data – these are measurable quantities that respond in a predictable way to changing climate variables like temperature. In this study, we used oxygen isotope ratios, which is a commonly used palaeothermometer.
“We then used acid to extract fossils about 1mm long from blocks of limestone from Shropshire, UK, dated to between 515 to 510 million years old. Careful examination of these tiny fossils revealed that some of them have exceptionally well-preserved shell chemistry which has not changed since they grew on the Cambrian sea floor.”
The isotopes revealed warm sea temperatures of between 20C and 25C.
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Co-author Dr Tom Harvey, also from the University of Leicester, said: “Many marine animals incorporate chemical traces of seawater into their shells as they grow. That chemical signature is often lost over geological time, so it’s remarkable that we can identify it in such ancient fossils.”
The findings appear in the journal Science Advances.
