[LINK] More Earth-Shattering IoT Applications

[Karl Auer]

On Thu, 2018-04-26 at 11:03 +1000, David wrote:
> > But perhaps with smart networked cars parking sensors will be
> > obsolete.  The car would simply tell the car park where it has
> > parked. If that car park fills up, the car could drive itself
> > elsewhere and come back when you are leaving. Self driving cars
> > could make soccer moms (unpaid uber-drivers) obsolete. ;-)
> Maybe!!!!

I just had a vision of an entire city turned into a clogged and slowly
churning cauldron of driverless cars, all waiting to be called back to
their owners, who are shopping, working... and didn't want to bother
with parking.

As soon as parking is a problem that people don't have to worry about,
those who currently provide parking will stop providing parking,
because the space could be used more profitably for other things. The
amount of parking will decrease, all parking spaces will become short-
stay (for loading and unloading) and cars not in active use will be
told to go crawling around the city until needed... or flitting from
short-stay parking spot to short-stay parking spot.

Law of Unintended Consequences.

Interesting thought experiment is to wonder what all those unused cars
could be doing, what possibilities a critical mass of unused cars might
pen up, the possibility of laws forbidding driverless cars from being
driverless without an occupant for longer than X minutes, the possible
rise of "car minder" as an occupation, the rise of dead driverless cars
that ran out of energy, blocking traffic because there was nowhere to
park... whew. Cars that can recognise an oncoming parking inspector and
leave; parking spaces that communicate with cars and negotiate terms;
parking spaces in areas that humans cannot go - deep underground, dark,
airless.

Regards, K.

-- 
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Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer
http://twitter.com/kauer389

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