Microsoft: How smart cities can start from cars? Forget everything you knew about self-driving cars for a moment. In the future, this will only be a small piece of the puzzle. The real money is in data which will come from cars. Imagine millions of connected vehicles feeding rich data to a central server. This data can be used to improve traffic flow, save you time by avoiding traffic, avoid accidents, save fuel, find better navigation routes, and more.
In the next decade (or twenty years) there is the possibility that most of us will have a stand-alone car or even an old one that has added new technology.
What will happen is that cars will have to connect with each other, with the road, the infrastructure, and even beyond it, with the Internet of Things, your office and your home. This is the future that Microsoft envisions, a future that will work in the cloud. Even older cars could connect to the cloud, and not just those with self-driving features. And that could happen sooner than you think.
A major step forward Microsoft has announced Microsoft Connected, an in-vehicle platform that will provide tools and algorithms for automakers to develop new technologies, analyze data, and help drivers.
Doug Seven, program manager for Microsoft Azure, IoT and Microsoft Connected Vehicle Platform, told VB that the platform is like having a set of Lego blocks. The platform can help in electronic payments by car, or traffic reports, or to avoid a collision.
He gave a really good example.
Let's say you are sitting at home wondering when you should leave for work. The digital assistant Cortana by laptop σας, θα σας αναφέρει ότι είναι καλύτερα να φύγετε για τη συνάντησή σας στην πόλη. Η ψηφιακή βοηθός θα το ξέρει γιατί θα γνωρίζει αν υπάρχει καθυστέρηση λόγω της κυκλοφορίας. Μπορείτε να αποφασίσετε να καθυστερήσετε λίγο, και όταν μπείτε στο όχημά σας, η Cortana θα σας γνωστοποιήσει ότι είναι αργά, προσφέροντάς σας παράλληλα να κάνετε μια τηλεδιάσκεψη από το αυτοκίνητό σας. Επειδή η wireless congestion is a problem in your city, Cortana chooses a route that optimizes call quality.
Finish fuel, and Cortana automatically selects a service station that is along the route and you've used it before. You will just drive and the bot will think.
This is different from autonomous driving. It is driven by the data.
Microsoft's Seven gave another example of how this technology could help with security. As you drive, your car can connect to the cloud and look for problems on the road. Since many cars are linked to the cloud, you will know that a ladder fell from a truck located a few miles ahead, from reports that have sent other cars. So you can take a different route, avoiding any driving problems.
One of the benefits is that a computer can go and "see" much farther than the driver can see from the data powered by the cloud. Is there ice on a part of the road? an abandoned car? unexpected weather?
This will lead to smarter cities where – as Seven reports – all data will be fed into a traffic management system, which will have the information of to the drivers. The rich data will help city planners balance load, develop new self-regulating highways, or adjust lights in real time. As Seven reports, this could be the first step towards a smart city that knows about every car on the road, available routes, all traffic incidents, and even optimal speeds.
After that, smart cities according to Microsoft's vision could make parking lots and more. Workers could arrive at about the same time at work, which will already be with the heating or air conditioning work.
