STILL conneXXt Nr. 01 English

10 AUTOMATIC MOBILITY Mobility is one aspect of human-machine interaction which affects us all. It represents a key necessity for us to be able to take part in everyday social life. The ever increasing extent of networking between vehicles, infrastructure and humans is making it possible to open up and develop entirely new services and products within this sector. Car sharing, whereby we activate our cars for use with our smartphones or a smart card, is just the tip of the digital iceberg in this respect. Due to the fact that 90% of all road traffic accidents can be attributed in some way to human error, the development of partially automated, or even fully autonomous, vehicles is currently underway at full speed. The assistance systems on the market today are able to keep track of the distance to the vehicle driving in front, control the speed, keep a vehicle in its lane and intervene if the driver unintentionally departs from the lane it was in. Self-parking cars are now also a mass-produced reality. MY CHAUFFEUR, THE COMPUTER Whilst the decision-making authority in partially automated vehicles remains with humans, the vision of achieving completely autonomous mobility, where humans are mere passengers, is inching ever closer to the realms of reality. One such example of this is Google’s remark- able success in developing its own autonomous car. Their self-driving car is even roaming the streets of California to carry out tests. According to the documentation provided by Google, there were just 69 incidents over the 680,000 kilometres driven as part of the tests where a human had to actively intervene because the built-in technology failed to assess a traffic situation correctly. In February of this year, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said that computers will count as drivers. MY HOUSE IS SMARTER THAN YOURS! The massive impact that human-machine interaction is also having on our private lives is highlighted by the rapid development in what are known as smart homes.Whilst it has been possible to control lighting, heating systems and private security technology using apps and voice commands for some time now, current research projects are taking this to yet another level.Such projects have brought to life creations like “Jibo”, a social robot for the home, which communicates with the family in an authentic, human and charming manner thanks to facial expression, tone and speech recognition technology. Jibo doesn’t look much like a human (it doesn’t have any arms or legs) and actually rather resembles a desktop lamp as a rotating sphere with a screen is mounted on a cylinder with a stand. In a sense, the screen is Jibo’s face. Jibo uses its integrated camera to determine which family member it is communicating with and adjusts its behaviour accordingly. During video calls, the camera will follow the person speaking who is then free to move around as they wish whilst still remaining in view of the camera. And if that isn’t enough, Jibo can also read stories to your children, remind you about events and take family photos.This robot for the home, financed by crowdfunding, is due to hit the markets later this year. Cynthia Breazeal invented social house robot “Jibo” and raised more than half a million dollars via crowdfunding to finance the project. Photo: Jibo, Inc. Google is developing an autonomous car which is currently being tested in the USA and which will turn the driver into a passenger. TITLE STORY

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