An aging Hipster Surfer van to return as an electric self drive status symbol
January 23
We have spoken about self drive cars a number of times in the past year. How close are we to having a fully automated self drive car in the wild (tech speak for driving anywhere and everywhere on our streets)? What does this have to do with Hipster Surfer vans? Read on.
I will also examine a new Smart Beer Brewing Platform, have a look at the latest in robotic kitchen help, discover where will find the oxygen to breathe on the moon and investigate a living organism that was designed by a computer algorithm.
When will self drive cars be released into the wild?
The United States Department of Transport uses 5 levels to describe the capability of self drive cars. For example; a Level 1 car requires the driver to maintain full control of the car but there will be a few driver assist features (e.g. automatic braking systems that will not let you hit the car in front of you). A Level 5 car is fully self drive with no human intervention required. This is the goal that billions of dollars are currently being spent on in the race to the first fully Self Drive Cars.
Where are we up to today? The definitions are subjective so classification of features is somewhat susceptible to marketing hype. Most analysts will say that the most advanced self driving capabilities on the market are at Level 3 (Tesla claims higher but not everyone agrees with their assessments). Intense development of Level 4 and 5 cars is underway via an ever growing number of manufacturers and developers. Waymo (owned by Google) is probably the most experienced given the head start they had on the market. Tesla is certainly the leader in terms of cars sold with at least some higher level capabilities.
What will we see in the near future? We are sure to see more and more announcements of improvements in self driving capability. For example VW have recently announced that they will have Level 4 self driving vehicles in limited commercial use in 2022. VW have developed a platform called the ID Buzz. VW is using this as the platform for a small commercial delivery vehicle and also to bring back the Combi. The ultimate aging hipster vehicle is being brought into the 21st century as a self driving electric surfer van.
Imagine if you were smart enough to have kept your original combi from the late 60’s or early 70’s and you retrofitted it with the ID Buzz platform. You would be the coolest boomer on the block.
When will we see Level 5 cars? Some analysts say never, some say 2025 and beyond but most are unsure. When I spoke to Cibby Pulikkaseril the CTO and Founder of Baraja, an Australian LiDAR developer, he said that the gating factor is the AI to control the car in all conditions. AI is trained on real life examples and it can now handle most situations however it also needs to be able to handle the rarer edge cases. The events that rarely happen but that do involve life and death. Just as humans learn, AI will have to learn.
Given all the hype in the last few years and the creeping doubt now entering commentary it appears that we may be past the Peak of Inflated Expectations and slowly entering the Trough of Disillusionment (see last week’s article on the Gartner Hype Cycle) in terms of the expectations of AI development for self drive cars. Time will tell however I am optimistic that we will soon be climbing the slope of enlightenment on the way to full autonomy for cars and trucks.
A Living Machine
A group of scientists have taken skin and heart stem cells from embryos of the African clawed frog and grown them into new organisms that were evolved by algorithms. The result was something that they called a xenobot. The tiny blobs are about a millimeter wide and are made of living tissue. The scientists used a computer model to assemble the cells into bodies.
The result was organisms that can move independently and collectively, can self heal wounds and survive for weeks at a time. The organism is a clump of several hundred cells that can move in pulses generated by the heart cell muscle tissue. There is no remote control or external control, it is an autonomous thing.
Biologists fed a computer constraints for the autonomous xenobots, such as the maximum muscle power of their tissues, and how they might move through a watery environment. Then, the algorithm produced virtual generations of the tiny organisms. The best-performing bots would "reproduce" inside the algorithm. And just as evolution works in the natural world, the least successful forms would be deleted by the computer program.
Eventually the program was able to give the researchers designs that were actually transferable to real cells. The designs were brought to life by piecing stem cells together to form self-powered 3D shapes. Skin cells held the xenobots together and the beating heart tissue propelled the bots for up to weeks at a time. The researchers were able to cut the bots almost in half and the cells automatically zippered its’ body back up.
The research was sponsored by DARPA (the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). You may recall that we explored how DARPA first ignited the self driving car industry in 2004, in an earlier newsletter.
This sort of research no doubt brings up a myriad of ethical issues. Just because we can, doens’t mean we should. The full research article can be found here.
A Smart Keg that will brew beer for you
INTHEKEG has developed a smart brewery platform that can automatically brew up to 10 ‘SMARTKEG’s’ of beer at a time. Each keg holds 18 liters and each keg can be a separate flavor or style of beer. Each SMARTKEG is delivered with all of the ingredients required for brewing. Just put the SMARTKEG into the machine, add water and between 2 to 4 weeks you will have your freshly made beer. The machine will keep the beer at the optimum temperature and after use, the machine will automatically clean itself.
180 liters of beer per month is likely a little much for most of my readers so the machine is more likely to be used in function centers or for catering operations. Currently on sale in Korea, China and India it is likely to be released in the US later this year.
Chef Cobots
Now that you have your beer brewing, you will need to eat. Not all of us are skilled in the kitchen and even those that have skills might like a little help from time to time. This is where Chef Cobots (co-operative robots) come in handy.
Previously we have spoken about Moley, the first fully functioning robotic chef. The consumer version of Moley was due to be released in 2019 however it appears to be still trying to perfect their recipes before release. Samsung entered the race to develop cooking robots and have demonstrated their latest robotic chef at CES in Las Vegas.
The Cobot called “Bot Chef” is more of an assistant than a robot chef. It will help with chopping, whisking, pouring and cleaning. The large array of sensors and planning algorithms, allows the Bot Chef to work alongside a person safely. Users interact with the robotic arms with simple voice commands.
LG has a developed a similar system for commercial use. The initial bots were built to make noodles in VIPS restaurants in Seoul. LG have called their system “Chefbot” to emphasize the different approach that they have taken to Samsung. As robotics advance, more and more kitchen hands will be replaced with robots. Sony is also working with Carnegie Mellon University on similar systems.
Now that the Consumer Electronic Giants have entered this market how long will it be before we see real estate ads touting a “Kitchen Robot” as a feature of houses for sale?
What will we breathe when humans set up bases on the moon?
In recent years there have been various proposals for establishing human colonies on the moon. One open question is how would the people living on the moon breathe? We could transport everything, including oxygen, to the moon however that is expensive and dangerous.
The European Space Agency has developed a solution. Samples of moon dust brought back to earth by previous expeditions show that lunar regolith is made up of 40% to 45% oxygen by weight. This oxygen is bound up chemically as oxides so unavailable for immediate use. Using a process called molten salt electrolysis, the lunar dust is place in a metal basket with molten calcium chloride and heated to 950 degrees Celsius. A current is then passed through and the oxygen is able to be extracted. The process creates usable metal alloys as a by-product.
The ultimate aim of the ESA project is to build a pilot plant (on earth) that could operate sustainably on the moon by the mid 2020’s. An important step towards creating humanity’s first outpost in space.
Paying it Forward
If you have a start-up or know of a start-up that has a product ready for market please let me know. I would be happy to have a look and feature the startup in this newsletter. Also if any startups need introductions please get in touch and I will help where I can.
If you have any questions or comments please email me via my website craigcarlyon.com
I would also appreciate it if you could forward this newsletter to anyone that you think might be interested.
Till next week.