After unveiling a concept model for a new line of autonomous vehicles, Toyota expects to start testing these driverless cars in 2020. Toyota is supposedly combining their Concept-i cars with an AI called “Yui” — the product of spending billions on a venture capital arm meant for AI development. Yui isn’t your typical autonomous driving system. Toyota wants their AI to be able to chat with drivers and get to know them better by using their preferences, emotions, and habits, which Yui builds through deep learning. The company says the Concept-i series is based on its Learn-Protect-Inspire technology that understands people, uses automated driving technology to increase safety and can
Toyota Spain Creates a Scary VR Experience
Can a scary driving experience persuade a potential customer to purchase a vehicle from one brand instead of another? The answer to that question comes from Toyota Spain, which partnered with Antiloop Studio to create an immersive virtual reality experience. Antiloop Studio then created the experience using an Oculus Development Kit and Xsens motion capture suit, in a sizable Motion Capture Studio. The tagline for the experience is: “What would you do if your car stalled in the middle of a drawbridge that was opening? Would you defend your family against a bear if your engine suddenly gave it in front of one? Could you fight off a gang
Goodyear’s Concept Tires Could Charge Electric Vehicles In The Future
Goodyear revealed concept tires that show a way how tires could change change the heat into electricity, powering electric and plugin cars.
Toyota MIRAI, Solar Sprinklers, Animax Café: The Headlines in Tokyo for November 18
Here is the daily roundup from Japanese consumer tech and tech business websites for November 18, 2014.
Toyota Moving Away from Tesla Battery Tech
Toyota has announced that they would be moving away from Tesla’s battery technology, which they were originally one of the first supporters in Tesla’s battery technology and took a 3% share (worth about $690 million) of the company in addition to adopting their battery technology. Keep in mind that currently, Tesla manufactures battery technology for Toyota and Mercedes and is in the process of building a $5 billion gigafab in order to increase their battery capacity. So, while Tesla is looking to expand their battery manufacturing capacity, one of their closest partners is moving away from Tesla’s tech. Toyota is claiming that they are moving towards
Land Rover, Toyota Show Awesome Tech: Gran Turismo 6, Augmented Reality in Cars!
Past two decades saw the automotive industry trying to push advanced electronics onto a very old and slow serial backbone protocol called CAN bus, which resulted in less than satisfactory technology. This is the main reason why pardon us saying, most car electronics of today aren’t integrated and crash worse than Windows 95 on a no-name PoS system made in rural China. With the advancement of MOST15, ethernet-based optical protocol with speeds of up to 150Mbps (CAN is 40-125 Kbps on a good day – yes, slower than what you used to connect to the Internet in 1990s), car manufacturers are finally starting to push the