
My friend Omar shared this with me. Not sure if I need to be amazed or scared.
random thoughts on brands, culture and technology



"The AIDA project (Affective, Intelligent Driving Agent), a collaboration between Volkswagen of America and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (SENSEable City Lab and Personal Robots Group of Media Lab), is a platform comprising of a personal robot and an intelligent navigation system that aims to bring an innovative driving experience. We envision a navigation system that mimics the friendly expertise of a driving companion who is familiar with both the driver and the city. Instead of focusing solely on determining routes to a specified waypoint, our system utilizes analysis of driver behavior in order to identify the set of goals the driver would like to achieve. Furthermore, AIDA involves an understanding of the city beyond what can be seen through the windshield, incorporating information such as business and shopping districts, tourist and residential areas, as well as real-time event information and environmental conditions.
Functionalities that gather information about driver preferences additionally help AIDA to behave more intelligently. One mandatory task for AIDA is to predict the destination of the driver as well as the most likely route that he/she will follow. This will in turn allow for useful reactions from AIDA such as proposing route alternatives when something unexpected happens in the predicted route, or providing the right information at the right time (e.g. a fuel warning before passing by a gas station) or even helping save energy."

"Our networks will deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today, over 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections. We'll offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people.
From now until March 26th, we're asking interested municipalities to provide us with information about their communities through a Request for information (RFI), which we'll use to determine where to build our network."
This imaginative bit was a student’s final project for an art course. The flipbook, made entirely out of biro pens, was created with 2100 pages of drawings and took about 3 weeks to develop. Needless to say, the student got an A.