By MassPrivateI

Forget backseat drivers; hell, forget annoying front seat passengers, because soon your car will force you to stop at a red light.

BMW’s NextGen cars will be equipped with the industry’s first ever adaptive cruise control system that recognizes traffic lights.

According to BMW’s blog, they tested an M340i on Munich’s city streets, with the cruise control set to 30 km/h. The car was able to recognize a traffic light turning yellow, slow down and come to a complete stop as the light turned red.

BMW claims their “Urban Traffic Light Recognition” will bring a car to a complete stop at speeds of up to 50 MPH.

Big Brother’s appetite to control everyone, everywhere is getting out of hand.

The UK Guardian warns that within three years, every new car sold in Europe and the UK must be equipped with a speed limiter.

All new cars sold in the UK and Europe are to be fitted with devices to automatically stop drivers exceeding the speed limit under sweeping changes to vehicle safety rules that the EU has provisionally agreed.

In the United States, politicians want to put breathalyzers in every new car and give drivers mental health assessments.

Today’s new cars already come with Lane Assist, Automatic or Assisted Braking and Automatic Assisted Emergency Steering features.

credit: BMW NextGen

Last month Motor1, published a disturbing list of Big Brother “safety” features that are being installed on new cars.

AcuraWatch (Acura): Consists of Forward Collision Warning, Automatic Emergency Braking, Adaptive Cruise Control, Lane Keep Assist, Lane Departure Warning, Automatic High-Beam Headlights, and Lane Centering.

Co-Pilot 360 (Ford, Lincoln): Consists of Blind-Spot Monitoring with Rear Cross-Traffic Alert, Lane Departure Warning with Lane-Keep Assist, Forward Collision Warning, Automatic Emergency Braking With Pedestrian Detection, and Automatic High-Beam Headlights.

Honda Sensing (Honda): Consists of Forward Collision Warning, Automatic Emergency Braking, Lane Departure Warning With Lane-Keep Assist, Lane Centering, Adaptive Cruise Control, and Automatic High-Beam Headlights.

Lexus Safety System+ 2.0 (Lexus): Consists of Forward Collision Warning, Automatic Emergency Braking With Pedestrian Detection, Lane Departure Warning, Lane-Keep Assist, Automatic High-Beam Headlights, Adaptive Cruise Control, and Lane Centering.

Safety Shield 360 (Nissan): Consists of Forward Collision Warning, Automatic Emergency Braking With Pedestrian Detection, rear automatic emergency braking, lane departure warning, Blind-Spot Monitoring, Rear Cross-Traffic Alert, and Automatic High-Beam Headlights.

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EyeSight (Subaru): Consists of Forward Collision Warning, Automatic Emergency Braking, Adaptive Cruise Control, Lane-Keeping Assist, and Lane-Departure Warning.

Toyota Safety Sense 2.0 (Toyota): Consists of Forward Collision Warning, Automatic Emergency Braking With Pedestrian Detection, Lane Departure Warning, Lane-Keep Assist, Automatic High-Beam Headlights, Adaptive Cruise Control, and Lane Centering.

If Big Brother has its way, no one will be allowed to get behind the wheel unless they blow into a breathalyzer first. Pretty soon, no one will be allowed to speed, pass another vehicle or even dream of going through a yellow light because the car won’t let you!

Big Brother’s desire to control our every movement is growing and that should scare everyone.

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You can read more at the MassPrivateI blog, where this article first appeared.

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By John Vibes

A Google Maps mishap last weekend resulted in nearly one hundred people driving their cars into the middle of a muddy field, where many of them became stuck. Some of them even caused damage to their cars trying to get through the rough terrain.

It all started on Sunday with an accident on Pena Boulevard in Aurora, Colorado. Hundreds of motorists traveling nearby checked Google Maps for a detour and found an alternative route that would cut their travel time in half.

Connie Monsees was one of the drivers who took the ill-fated detour that day. She was on her way to pick her husband up from Denver International Airport when she ran into the traffic jam and decided to check her phone for a quicker route.

Google Maps asked us to take the Tower exit, so I did because it was supposed to be half the time. It was 47 minutes from Tower Road to the terminal, so I went to the detour, which was supposed to take 23 [minutes],” she told Denver7.

A few minutes down the road, Monsees followed her GPS onto E. 64th Ave. But after a while, the street turned into a dirt road. This made Monsees second-guess the directions, but she decided to follow along the road because everyone else was doing it.

“My thought was, ‘Well there are all these other cars in front of me so it must be OK.’ So I just continued,” she explained.

By the time Monsees noticed that nobody in front of her had any clue what they were doing, it was already too late.

“The question is why did Google send us out there to begin with? There was no turning back once you were out there,” Monsees said.

She said that a good portion of the road was in disrepair and many people caused severe damage to their vehicles.

“I tore up the inside passenger wheel well for my tire, but it’s not that big of a deal compared to some other people who really tore their cars up and got themselves stuck out there,” Monsees said.

Denver7 traffic anchor Jayson Luber said that there were not many options for drivers once they got onto the dirt road.

“There are some back ways to get to and from DIA. However, they are not all perfect. Because that was all open land, there still are some dirt roads out there and not all of them are paved yet,” Luber explained.

Luber said that this is a perfect example of the dangers that can arise from becoming too dependent on smartphones. Luber explained:

You are driving. Google Maps is not driving. Google Maps is not perfect. You need to know where you are going and, if it does not look like that’s where you should be going, turn around and try again. Take a look at the Google map and it’s going to tell you where to go, but you are not a lemming and you don’t need to follow it exactly. It’s better to find your own way and take a look at the map.

There was a sign saying that the road was closed at the entrance of the dirt road, but it was knocked on its side by the time reporters arrived on the scene.

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After the incident, Google issued a statement telling drivers to “use their best judgment” on the road.

“We take many factors into account when determining driving routes, including the size of the road and the directness of the route. While we always work to provide the best directions, issues can arise due to unforeseen circumstances such as weather. We encourage all drivers to follow local laws, stay attentive, and use their best judgment while driving,” the statement read, according to CNN.

By John Vibes | Creative Commons | TheMindUnleashed.com

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Op-Ed by Caitlin Johnstone

Americans are discussing the possibility of a universal basic income (UBI) more seriously than ever before, largely due to the surprisingly popular campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang. Yang has made UBI the central issue of his platform, promising a “Freedom Dividend” paid for by a Value Added Tax on businesses which would give every American over the age of 18 an unconditional $1,000 a month to help offset the looming crisis of automation replacing US jobs.

“In the next 12 years, 1 out of 3 American workers are at risk of losing their jobs to new technologies—and unlike with previous waves of automation, this time new jobs will not appear quickly enough in large enough numbers to make up for it,” Yang’s campaign site argues. “To avoid an unprecedented crisis, we’re going to have to find a new solution, unlike anything we’ve done before. It all begins with the Freedom Dividend, a universal basic income for all American adults, no strings attached – a foundation on which a stable, prosperous, and just society can be built.”

Yang is absolutely correct that automation is going to be replacing the jobs of many people in the very near future, and he is absolutely correct that new solutions unlike anything ever tried before are going to be necessary to help address this problem. But his plan, and indeed all the most publicized plans which involve the implementation of a universal basic income, will necessarily lead to an oppressive oligarchic dystopia unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.

Jeff Bezos is in favor of a universal basic income. https://t.co/ohsW00PNKS

— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) September 24, 2017

Do you know who supports the implementation of a UBI besides Andrew Yang? Billionaires. Lots of billionaires, especially the new money tech billionaires who are positioning themselves to inherit the earth in the transition to a new paradigm dominated by automation and artificial intelligence. Billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Pierre Omidyar, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Bill Gross, Tim Draper, and more moderately Bill Gates have all been seen advocating for a policy that is now being popularized as one which would level the economic playing field and take power away from the billionaire class.

Now why would that be? Why would a group of people who’ve clawed their way up to positions of immense wealth control, enabling them to live as modern-day kings, be so eager to suddenly give away that power? Why would they break with the trend we’ve consistently observed in rulers since the dawn of recorded history and voluntarily relinquish the power they fought to claim without a fight? Are billionaires just naturally good people inherently predisposed to compassionate action and wealth redistribution? Have we been wrong about Jeff Bezos being a real-life supervillain this entire time?

Of course not. This increasingly powerful class of new money tech plutocrats are not pushing to give power away, they’re pushing to secure more. As Jimmy Stewart’s character says in It’s A Wonderful Life, Potter isn’t selling, Potter’s buying.



I am not arguing against the general principle of universal basic income here. If humanity is to learn to collaborate in a healthy way with the ecosystem in which we evolved, a lot more of us are going to have to start doing a lot less. We’re going to have to stop using up energy driving to jobs the world doesn’t need to produce crap you have to propagandize people into believing they want so they’ll spend money on it and then throw it in the landfill. That’s obviously an insane way for an increasingly technologically advanced species to continue to function, and one way or another we are going to have to start doing a lot more nothing quite soon.

But imagine what will happen with a system of the kind Yang and the tech billionaires are proposing. Imagine what will happen in a society where people are no longer necessary and have nothing the powerful need. Imagine what will happen when people become dependent on a subsistence UBI set up by the already plutocrat-controlled government to sustain them when plutocrat-owned technologies render their labor completely moot. Imagine a world where a few increasingly consolidated automation firms produce more and more of the goods and services once provided by human labor and re-collect all taxes they have to pay into the UBI from a public forced by their subsistence wages to buy automation-made products and services.

That would be total oligarchic control. Not what we’re seeing now; what we’re seeing now is not total oligarchic control. Our current predicament pales in comparison to how bad it could get.

Think about what would happen in that situation if people decided they weren’t being treated fairly by the existing system. What recourse would they have? They can’t organize labor strikes if they have no labor. They can’t boycott if everything is made by the same corrupt system. Mass demonstrations and civil disobedience would go unnoticed by a power structure that needs nothing from its populace. Violent revolution would be an unwinnable game as security systems protecting the infrastructure of the powerful would also become automated. People would cease to be active participants in their society, and would instead be merely along for the ride at the whims of the oligarchs, for as long as the oligarchs deemed them not too inconvenient to keep around.

Because our last bargaining chips would have been taken away from us.

Think about how such a paradigm would dance with the current populist movements we’re seeing in the world today as people grow upset with their already oppressive living conditions. The left will be neutered far more definitively than it has been by anything that government agencies have ever been able to engineer; the workers can’t unite if there are no workers. Yellow Vests-type demonstrations would have no effect on a power structure that doesn’t require law and order outside its automation complexes. Attempts to vote the problem away will be laughed off by a political system that is even more oligarch-controlled than it already is.

Now imagine how that would dance if you add in the sort of narrative domination that advanced artificial intelligence programs would allow, as Julian Assange warned shortly before his silencing. We are already seeing such programs being developed by shady government agencies, along with increasingly Orwellian high tech surveillance systems.

That’s what the billionaires are going for. That’s what Potter’s buying.

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The rich and powerful have always feared two things: death and the public. Because both of those things can take away everything they’ve stolen. Our current rulers, the billionaire class, are currently working on unlocking the secret of immortality in a number of creepy ways, and they’re working on addressing the problem of the public in the way I just described. Someday Jeff Bezos and his ilk hope to become the first rulers in history who get to rule without the threat of losing it all to death or to revolution.

The solution, obviously, is to stop this before it happens, because if it’s allowed to happen it will be far too late to do anything about it. People are going to have to wake up out of the propaganda matrix and take power away from the billionaire class, and that must necessarily include taking control of automation technologies. Artificial intelligence and automation are far too consequential for their future to be determined by a few billionaires who are only billionaires because they can think like a machine better than other people can. Humanity’s future must be guided by the collective wisdom of all human beings in the service of humankind, not by binary-minded tech wizards in the service of corporate profit margins.

A universal basic income could work under a very different system, but the one thing all the most popular UBI/automation models being promoted by the billionaire class and by Andrew Yang have in common is that none of them seek to fundamentally change the system which enables plutocrats to shore up more and more power and control for themselves. They all seek to maintain the status quo and plunge it further into oligarch-dominated dystopia. This should be rejected.

This article originally said Yang’s plan is to give $1,000 to every American between 18 and 64, but that’s an older plan of his. Yang’s “Freedom Dividend” would be for every American over 18.

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The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone, or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish or use any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge.

Top image credit: Pixabay

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By Vin Armani

In this video, Vin Armani explains how the EU is giving autonomous robots “electronic personhood” legal status with rights and obligations. The law seems to be straight out of the science fiction novel I, Robot.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdD5X1wcyrI?feature=oembed&w=777&h=437]

Watch the full broadcast here
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Vin Armani is the host of The Vin Armani Show on Activist Post, TV Star of Gigolos on Showtime and Agorist Entrepreneur. Follow Vin on Twitter and subscribe on YouTube. Get the weekly podcast on iTunes or Stitcher.

By Nicholas West

Since the inception of Activist Post, we have been chronicling the transition from traditional military systems toward a future war matrix of fully autonomous weapons.  Many tech luminaries, universities and robotic weapons experts have called for a moratorium on the development of “killer robots,” or even the outright banning of such systems. A debate has been framed within the United Nations but, as of yet, it’s just talking points awaiting full discussion.

Meanwhile, the military industrial complex continues developing, testing and fielding various levels of autonomous systems as though they assume that widespread proliferation is an inevitability.

Based on technology developed in Israel, Duke Robotics recently issued an investment press release that indicates how the industry is proceeding with new weapons that will redefine the role of the soldier on the battlefield and how autonomous drones will be integrated.

The press release discusses some of the features of this system, and interestingly alludes to a new “problem” that the military is experiencing as it executes its drone warfare program – namely, the concept of “danger-close” distances now occurring as U.S. allies on the ground are in close proximity to those who have been identified as terrorists, and also close to civilian populations.

As the LA Times reported, this is an evolution in warfare where drone missions continue to expand:

American drone pilots now routinely launch missiles at what the Pentagon calls “danger-close” distances to U.S.-backed rebel ground forces fighting Islamic State in densely populated cities.

Hundreds of U.S special operations forces are deployed in Syria, and in some cases they direct airstrikes. But the danger-close missions also require approval from Syrian militia commanders because the missile blasts may put their ground troops at risk.

“Ideally you don’t want to accept that level of risk unless you have to,” said Col. Julian C. Cheater, commander at Creech Air Force Base, where most U.S. Predator and Reaper drone pilots are based. “But in an urban fight — like you’re now seeing in Raqqah — options might not be available to you.”

Over the last 20 years, unmanned aircraft were primarily used to collect intelligence or to launch Hellfire missiles at specific terrorist targets after extensive surveillance — enemy strongholds or targeted killings of suspects in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and elsewhere.

But drones are no longer confined to shadowy counter-terrorism missions. Their role has expanded to include more traditional military operations, including an increase in airstrikes during combat and close support for advancing ground troops.

Duke Robotics’ system is called “TIKAD – The Future Soldier” and seems to be tailored for this new reality:

“As a former Special Mission Unit commander, I have been in the battlefield for many years,” said Raziel Atuar, Duke Robotics CEO. “Over the last few years, we have seen how the needs of our troops in our battlefield has changed.”

The classic army versus army confrontation on the battlefield has become increasingly rare, while guerrilla warfare is now commonplace. The use of UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) to fire small arms from the air has not yet been a viable option. Until now.

“When terrorists operate, they operate from within the civilian population – preventing the military from shooting a missile into their targeted area,” said Atuar. “The risk of collateral damage to innocent civilians is often too high. The primary solution you are left with is sending in ground troops – but this shifts the risk to your troops, which often leads to injuries and casualties. But, we thought, ‘what if…what if there was a better way’. So we created the solution — the TIKAD.”

(Source)

TIKAD’s attributes include:

• Remotely operated, user friendly, easily carried into the field


• High-powered drone capable of carrying various weapon payloads


• Proprietary stabilization technology that enables TIKAD to absorb the recoil, pinpoint targeting and shooting accuracy that can protect troops in a variety of dangerous situations


• Reduces the number of deployed ground troops, thereby reducing the number of casualties.

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Also added in the video appears to be a facial recognition capability.

As you’ll see, the drone market continues to be too profitable to slow down any time soon. Duke Robotics estimates it to be a $10 billion pie that these developers are trying to get a piece of.

Can this really “transform the way conflicts are being solved,” as Duke states? Or is it more likely that it will transform how new conflicts will be created.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaTW8uAo_6s?feature=oembed&w=777&h=437]

H/T – Technocracy News

Nicholas West writes for ActivistPost.com. He also writes for Counter Markets agorist newsletter. Follow us at Twitter and Steemit.

This article may be freely republished in part or in full with author attribution and source link.

By Jeff Paul

One of the obstacles preventing vehicles from becoming fully autonomous is the ability to refuel. Imagine if a car or truck can park near an electromagnetic generator for 3-5 minutes and then continue functioning for another 16 hours.

This level of wireless charging is already here according to an article in the latest issue of The Economist called “It is now practical to refuel electric vehicles through thin air.”

The wireless charging technology includes a charging “pad” that expels electromagnetic radiation and a “pickup” in the vehicle which inducts and converts the power to charge the battery.

The Economist article describes the technology in more detail:

In the case of vehicle charging, the first conductor is a length of copper wire. This is coiled around a piece of ferrite (a substance made of oxides of iron and other metals) that amplifies the magnetic field generated. The whole thing is housed in a flat case to create a pad that is easily buried. When a vehicle equipped with a suitable “pickup” coil stops or parks above this device, and alternating current is fed into the pad, a similar current is induced in the pickup. This is then converted into direct current by a rectifier, and is used to top up the vehicle’s battery. The principle is thus pretty simple. But only in recent years has it become practical to use in vehicles.

Wireless charging technology has come a long way very quickly.

Activist Post previously reported about breakthroughs in small-scale electromagnetic induction. A German college student’s science project was a handheld device that harvested electromagnetic frequencies directly from the ether (without a generator) to charge a standard rechargeable battery.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE39pYfszws?feature=oembed&w=777&h=437]

Smartphone makers are coming out with their versions of wireless charging. The University of Maryland and NASA have been working on propulsion powered by electromagnetic waves. As energy storage improves, the potential for this technology is mind boggling.

The Economist article goes on to describe a few different companies that are pursuing slightly different versions of this wireless charging for vehicles.

For wireless charging to work, a car must necessarily be fitted with a pickup. At the moment, this is a do-it-yourself business. Evatran, a Virginian firm, for example, sells kits of pickup and pad for between $2,500 and $4,000, installation included. According to Rebecca Hough, the firm’s boss, about 11% of the input power is lost during wireless charging with Evatran’s equipment. But plugging in a cord charger, she says, involves similar losses. The absence in cord charging of the air gap involved in wireless charging means cord charging requires a special (and power-draining) transformer to protect against surges.

This already seems affordable for a technology that could prove to be priceless to the early fleets of autonomous service vehicles. Wireless charging is particularly promising for trucks and buses.

The article highlights a bus that charges in 2-4 minutes and can operate for 16 hours. And it costs significantly less to run than a diesel bus.

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One place where this is already happening is Milton Keynes, a town north-west of London. The Line 7 route in this town is serviced by electric buses that pause for two to four minutes over charging pads at each end of the line. Both pads have four buried coils, which can transfer power at a rate of 120 kilowatts. (By comparison, Evatran’s latest single-coil charger for cars provides 7.2 kilowatts.) That is enough for the buses to remain in service for 16 hours a day.

The equipment used in Milton Keynes, which is made by IPT Technology, a German firm, costs about £100,000 ($130,000) a pad. But the buses’ operator, eFIS, calculates that one of their vehicles costs 50 cents a kilometre less to run than a diesel one, thanks to savings on fuel and engine repair.

Once autonomous vehicles can refuel themselves, they’ll be able to operate almost entirely without human oversight. They’ll still need to be cleaned and tuned up from time to time, but wireless charging eliminates a major hurdle.

As promising as this technology appears to be in terms of efficiency, there’s no mention in the article about potential negative health effects for humans bathing in more electromagnetic radiation. It looks like we’re going to find out shortly.

Jeff Paul writes for Activist Post and Counter Markets newsletter. Like us on Facebook, subscribe on YouTube, follow on Twitter and at Steemit.

Image source IPT Technology.

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By Vin Armani

In this video, Vin Armani breaks down recent advancements in autonomous vehicles and how they will affect jobs. Millions of people risk losing their jobs in the next 10 years due to autonomous cars, trucks, delivery and passenger drones.

Watch the full broadcast here
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Vin Armani is the host of The Vin Armani Show on Activist Post, TV Star of Gigolos on Showtime, Agorist entrepreneur and co-founder of Counter Markets. Follow Vin on Twitter and subscribe on YouTube. Get the weekly podcast on iTunes or Stitcher. Vin is available for interviews at email Vin (at) VinArmani.com.

By Vin Armani

In this video, Vin Armani talks about the approaching agenda of taxing robots as if they’re the same as labor because they replace jobs. How many jobs did Quickbooks kill? Should business owners still pay payroll taxes as if they still had a bookkeeper? All it does is tax the entrepreneur for deploying tools.

Watch the full broadcast here

Vin Armani is the host of The Vin Armani Show on Activist Post, author of Self Ownership, agorist entrepreneur, and co-founder of Counter Markets. Follow Vin on Twitter and subscribe on YouTube. Get the weekly podcast on iTunes or Stitcher. Vin is available for interviews at email – Vin (at) VinArmani.com.