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Grab your tinfoil hats, BMW is developing a navigation system that tracks your habits

 
6 1,941 views Feb 23, 2009

The learning capability of the navigation system is setting off 'big brother' alarm bells everywhere

The learning capability of the navigation system is setting off 'big brother' alarm bells everywhere

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Imagine a future where you don't have to drive yourself to work, the market or even home from a night on the town. Convenient, but to some a nightmare of lost control. Even worse: imagine a future where your car chooses your destination for you.

That's what BMW is working toward with its new learning navigation system - after a fashion. The goal is to develop a system that learns a driver's habits, and then correlates its current location with the next likely stop and anticipates that move by displaying directions to the place the driver will want to go next.

BMW's Andreas Winckler told Germany's Der Spiegel that the system, called ILENA (Intelligent Learning Navigation) is already capable of 80% correct guesses in determining the car's next destination.

Efficiency is also part of the game. By knowing the route and the various situations encountered along it on a daily basis, the computer can do things in advance like minimize the airconditioning's output during a freeway on-ramp merger. That's something that can't effectively be done on-demand, and yet when the concept is taken to every system in the car, can save up between 5-10% in fuel efficiency.

The dilemma becomes obvious, and is a classic one to the field of ethics: is the loss in privacy (a computer tracking your habits) worth the gain in efficiency?

While the question is obvious, the answer is more elusive, and depends heavily on the individual. Given the late stage of development and high degree of success already seen from the ILENA program, expect BMW to continue progressing the technology until it makes its debut in the 7-series sedan sometime in the next five or so years.
Via: The Truth About Cars



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Comments (6)

  1. ma_azlan avatar azlan Posted: 2/23/2009 11:19pm PST

    id rather drive! but for those who are not drivers this could be cool.
     
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  2. ma_Chris avatar Chris Posted: 2/24/2009 1:31am PST

    well you're still driving.. you're still in control of the car... it's just the GPS trying to guess where you're heading to. when you go to your search engine and start typing, its trying to figure out what you are looking for before you even finish typing. at least yahoo does that. don't see people crying for their privacy do you? i mean, the GPS is taking information about where you've gone and on what days at what time to guess what your schedule is, and help you out.

    its not transmitting this data to the government.. and guess what.. the government doesnt give a damn what road you take to get to your crappy job. they already get your T4 or W2 or what ever it is in your country. THEY ALREADY KNOW WHERE YOU ARE. its called taxes.

    another side track... it seems the closer you get to an americanized culture, the greater the fear of this "big brother". its also the same with robots... americans are certain robots will rule the world some day, and fear that. the rest of the west.. a little less so... japan? nah... robots in japan are everyone's friend.

    look... the truth is, you can do 15 over the speed limit all the time, smoke pot in your homes, drink in your car, and rent a hooker every other thursday and beat your kids on friday... the government just wont care. they arent going to set up national computer networks at huge expenses, and try to keep the whole thing secret, just to find out if you're tuning into american idol.

    so bring on the smart GPS. and you can link it to CSIS, CIA, interpol, MI6, KGB,.. who ever. i dont give a rats rear.
     
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  3. ma_gus avatar Gus Chyba Posted: 2/24/2009 7:58am PST

    "the truth is, you can do 15 over the speed limit all the time, smoke pot in your homes, drink in your car, and rent a hooker every other thursday and beat your kids on friday... the government just wont care."

    Oh man, that just made my day, I was laughing so hard! :)

    It's true, this is not intrusive to me, but it also seems relatively useless. Give me a car that can predict where I'm going, and then DRIVE ME THERE if I want it to...
     
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  4. ma_Chris avatar Chris Posted: 2/24/2009 8:07am PST

    :D i figured i havent been posting as much as usual.. wanted to make up for it.

    you want to talk privacy issues.. i just cannot see cars driving themselves without a centralized network to direct them. sure you can argue that a school of fish and a flock of birds manage to do well enough on their own,.. but the truth is your car isnt as smart as a bird, and it will be a long time before it is.
     
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  5. ma_hakmalta avatar hakmalta Posted: 2/24/2009 2:46pm PST

    oh yea. A GPS that records everything i do. wow. Who in the world would want this type of crapy technology. Every single act you do in the car will be recorded and used by the companies governing the technology to control you further. There is obviously more to this than just talking to a GPS device. Now watch how sheeples will buy these types of machines and hand over their private lives to corporations and then theyll look back and start complaining.
     
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  6. ma_NaBUru38 avatar NaBUru38 Posted: 2/26/2009 6:45pm PST

    "Is the loss in privacy worth the gain in efficiency?"

    As long as the information gathered by the sat-nav doesn't leave the car, there's no loss in privacy.
     
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