Assignment 1

The question: What role is the computer is playing in changing the automobile and what applications will likely make an appearance in the years to come.

So after watching this video on youtube.com (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQFEmR50HAk) on DARPA( Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ), I became truly amazed at what how those cars were being run. The fact that there are people across this country and I am sure many others who are able to develop such intricate programs and other devices that are able to make these cars run and drive on urban roads and are also able to obey the traffic laws. As the hours pass, technology is constantly changing from cell phones to PDA's to computers and now cars. Think of the things that just one little cell phone can do, it can give you access to numerous email accounts, allow you to surf the web, and now they can even get you across the country with their integrated GPS systems.

Gas? Who needs gas nowadays when there are these hybrid cars driving about around us that run on electricity and gas. Pretty soon we are not going to need to pay obscene amounts of money just to get us down the road to do the shopping. It will be as simple as maybe plugging in your car to a socket and being ready to go. (http:/www.hybridcars.comtechnology.html). This is just a small sample of what I believe the future holds for us.

Computers are practically running our day to day life from the time we wake up in the morning to the time we go to sleep at night. Most of this can come from our cell phone from setting our alarm that wakes us up to checking the in phone calendar to see what there is planned for the day and what we need to get accomplished. Then we can actually sit down at our desks and use those desktops that we have. In one of my other classes we are using this tool called Google docs. This tool allows us all to consecutively write and change a document in a moment’s notice, all at the same time. How much time does that save one person between emailing back and forth. Now apply this to cars and the computers in them. All the different computers in the car communicating between each other and able to change the speed and direction of the car depending on various factors outside such as wind, rain, snow, ice, bends in the road, detecting children, people or other objects obstructing the road. This is what truly amazed me that was in the video on you tube linked above. All these different computers detecting all kinds of aspects of driving computing simultaneously.

In a few years from, these cars that are run by computers will be much more effective and run smoothly in order to more effectively get from one place to another. GPS is only bound to get more effective in the years to come and I believe that it will be a staple in every car that will come off the line. I also think that computers that may increase gas mileage by incorporating the proper amount of electricity will be much more commonplace than it is now as we will be able to see some long term effects of the cars and the durability of them as well.