Transportation Future Salon with Brad Templeton and Eric Boyd January 16, 2009

Transportation Future Salon Friday 16th January 2009

Two weeks ago I was getting the hell out of California, too fast for the Highway Patrol, they gave me a big ticket. Now I am even more motivated to get Robocars off the ground ASAP. I think the first step will be that you drive the car to the freeway and it is taking over from there until you have to get off. How sweet would that have been on our 5.5 hour drive to Jacksonville Oregon? Think about it, you can take a nap, play video games, watch a movie, all while your car is fighting traffic up highway 5 for you.

How much more relaxed and without big ticket would you arrive? Come and find out at the Transportation Future Salon on Friday the 16th of January. Please RSVP.

To clue us in what really is in the pipeline regarding robocars we have the following two excellent experts:

BradportBrad Templeton a Future Salon regular and man of many interests has lately focused on Robocars.

Abstract: Thanks to DARPA sponsored contests, robot cars are no longer science fiction; they're coming in 1-2 decades. Their implications are quite remarkable -- and not just for transportation, where they can offer a mere saving of millions of lives, billions of hours and trillions of dollars. Robocars can change how we live and work, change our cities, change manufacturing, housing. Crucially in today's world, they also have the potential to make serious inroads on our energy and emissions problems. The talk will discuss the merits and downsides of robocars, potential paths to get there, roadblocks along the way and what the world of robocars will be like.

You may remember Eric Boyd, also a Future Salon regular. who presented his passion the Automotive X Prize at our Open Mike Future Salon. Having the focus on transportation this months I asked him to give us a half hour update on where we stand from his perspective.

If you search for automotive x prize his blog X Prize Cars is right after the Wikipedia entry, that shows how valued his opinion is around that theme.

Brad Templeton founded and ran ClariNet Communications Corp., the first internet-based content company, then sold it to Newsedge Corporation in 1997. ClariNet publishes an online electronic newspaper delivered for live reading on subscribers machines. He has been active in the computer network community since 1979, participated in the building and growth of USENET from its earliest days and in 1987 he founded and edited rec.humor.funny, the world's most widely read computerized conference on that network, and today the world's longest running blog. He has been a software company founder, and is the author of a dozen packaged microcomputer software products. He is chairman of the board of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the leading civil rights advocacy group for cyberspace. He also sits on the advisory boards for a few internet startups. Currently he is building a new startup to reinvent the phone call. He is also on the board of the Foresight Institute (A Nanotech think-tank) and BitTorrent, Inc.

Eric Boyd is not a car nut. He's an efficiency nut. Trained as a mechanical engineer, steeped in mathematics, and concerned about issues like peak oil, global warming, and the rise and fall of civilizations, Eric hopes that the Automotive X Prize will make a difference in how our society handles the major challenges which confront it.

Future Salons have the following structure: 6-7pm is networking with light refreshments proudly sponsored by SAP; 7-9+pm is the presentation followed by questions and discussion.

SAP Labs North America, Building D, Room Southern Cross or Cafeteria depending on number of RSVPs. SAP is located at 3410 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94304[map]. Free and open to the public. Please spread the word and invite others, but be sure to RSVP so we know how many people to expect.

Official Website: http://www.futuresalon.org/2008/12/transportation-future-salon-friday-16th-january-2009.html#more