Uber has a talking Patent for Driverless/Autonomous Cars

As part of the ongoing war for autonomous vehicle dominance, Uber has developed a new technology that will enable AV software to talk to pedestrians. This development came as part of the continuing demand for safer and more reliable AV interface with humans.

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The concept is simple; the AV software platform will have a preset number of messages to deliver to pedestrians that were in proximity to the car. All actions that the car intends to perform that are in close proximity to pedestrians will be made known to the pedestrian via a digital sign on the car.

Sean Chin, one of Uber's AV engineers, stated that "While we don't have a final implementation, what we're considering is what is a new language we can create to give people that information."

The idea is that if cyclists, pedestrians, and even other drivers can see what the intentions of the car are before the car performs the action, it will help assure a safer driving process.

The patent is currently being designed, the concept is sound, but the application and how it will look in its final stage are not yet known.

This might work nicely, but have you ever driven in Mumbai…I wouldn’t put an AV there, it wouldn’t drive. By the time anyone bothers to read the message, the car would run out of gas or electricity…most probably stand in the same place for a year before moving, which would be by tow truck.

I don’t want a talking sign, I want a sexy Waze voice telling pedestrians to be aware, or if I can, change it to an angry foghorn staff sarge voice and shout beware at idiots.