

Mercedes to introduce Siri in its vehicles - dr_
http://www.psfk.com/2012/02/mercedes-benz-siri.html

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zackzackzack
First reaction upon reading that title: "That's AWESOME!" Seriously, I feel
like I am living in the future. Combine that with the self driving cars in
Nevada:

"Siri. Take me to the nearest donut shop."

"Yes Zack, right away, Sir."

And the car just drives off by itself, taking me to the nearest pastry haven.

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joering2
I'm not trying to bang a wrong tune here, but in reality - what is the
difference between telling Siri "take me to nearest donuts shop" and telling
the same to the taxi driver? In the latter, I most likely will enjoy the
conversation with crazy taxi driver. Or I can drive myself based on my
knowledge or GPS and having pleasure from driving a car. Or again take a cab
if Im drunk or too tired to drive. I just don't find the "awesomeness" here.

Besides; although I am not the type of a "kill internet to safe libraries"
guy, same time we all know where this is going, right? 3.5 million truck-
drivers in US alone [1] plus quarter of million limo/taxi in US (as of 2000)
[2], most likely another 10 million in driving-related jobs, all gone within a
reasonable period of time needed to implement self-driving cars (year, two?).
Hmmm... just wondering - where all this people will go to work?! Thank God, at
least in the US alone we maintain a healthy 1% of unemployment rate... oh no,
wait!

[1] <http://www.truckinfo.net/trucking/stats.htm> [2]
<http://www.schallerconsult.com/taxi/taxidriver.pdf> \- page 3.

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lazerwalker
Everything is give and take. Having self-driving cars would be an absolute
godsend for the environmental impact of automobiles. Automated driving can
easily be made more fuel-efficient than human drivers (especially when/if most
cars are automated and can coordinate traffic plans), and would also open up
much more radical car-sharing plans to minimize the number of cars on the
road. Transportation might not be the biggest producer of CO2 emissions, but
it's a pretty hearty slice, and unless we do something quickly our planet's
pretty screwed.

I agree that creating technology for the sake of technology isn't necessarily
good, especially if there are negative ramifications in other areas (like job
security). But this isn't a black and white "automated cars give us no
tangible benefit other than cool factor" situation.

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joering2
Sure, let me send check to Al Gore.

So far I haven't seen any reliable research that would reasonably explain how
self driving cars navigated by central algorithms would help to unclog the
streets. I for once would be upset if my car decided to put additional 15
miles to get me to work or wherever I want to go just "for a sake of common
good of all other automobiles and streets being unclogged".

Henry Ford II: Walter, how are you going to get those robots to pay your union
dues?

Walter Reuther: Henry, how are you going to get them to buy your cars?

~~~
mryan
Many of the factors affecting traffic jams are a result of human drivers. This
animation demonstrates two causes of traffic jams - 'waves' and zip merging:

<http://trafficwaves.org/tanim.html>

I think it is rather easy to see how a central algorithm would be much better
at a) maintaining a safe distance from the car in front, and b) merging
quickly and fairly.

Route selection is just one of the things an algorithm could do.

Traffic, by Tom Vanderbilt, has many interesting things to say on the subject:
[http://www.amazon.com/Traffic-Drive-What-Says-
About/dp/03072...](http://www.amazon.com/Traffic-Drive-What-Says-
About/dp/0307264785)

~~~
Someone
Also, the 'safe distance from the car in front' could be dramatically
decreased. Reaction times of computers are way lower than those of humans, and
also less variable. A car could signal that it is going to brake to a car
following it with a meter of space between them, and brake a ms later,
trusting the following car to do follow its speed decrease.

Lower inter-car distance on highways will also mean lower air resistance, and
hence, higher mpg.

I doubt that the net effect on fuel consumption will be substantial, though.
Chances are that people will want their driverless cars to drive faster, so
that they can live farther away from work. IMO, the only thing that will help
there is pricing (fuel, road use, etc)

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untog
Good. I'm still not convinced of the utility of Siri to a person walking down
the street- perhaps I'm alone, but I don't want to talk to my phone. I find
typing to be less conspicuous and not significantly more difficult.

In a car, however, things are different. I think Siri would be a great fit in
a hands-free environment.

~~~
13rules
I agree that it is a little strange to be talking to your phone as you walk
down the street, but in other cases it is really useful. Siri's voice
recognition is so good that many times it is faster than the alternative. It's
much easier to say "Remind me to call John at 3pm" and have Siri automatically
create the reminder and alarm than it is to go through the steps to manually
add the item to your calendar.

As this technology becomes more and more prevalent the social acceptance of it
may go up as well. Not sure if that is a good or bad thing though — instead of
having millions of people walking around looking at their phone and typing,
we'd have millions walking around barking orders into it.

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davidu
My older BMW had voice commands and it was terrible.

My new Audi has voice commands that get sent to Google to be parsed back into
commands. It works really well for address book and navigation.

It's not Siri, but it's pretty close. I can't say "remind me in 10 minutes to
do X" but I can say "Online Destination ... [ pause ] ... In and Out Burger"
and it'll find me the directions to the nearest In and Out.

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nopal
Does anyone see the source of information? I assume this article is not
original reporting.

I followed the link to Mercedes' site, and I didn't find "siri" or "apple"
anywhere on the page. I can't watch the video right now, though.

~~~
phreeza
That was my first thought, too. Google News search for Siri and Mercedes turns
up a couple of sites reporting this, and I found the original press release
here:

[http://www.daimler.com/dccom/0-5-658451-1-1464474-1-0-0-0-0-...](http://www.daimler.com/dccom/0-5-658451-1-1464474-1-0-0-0-0-0-9293-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0.html)

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majani
Necessary. Here's the pathetic voice assistant they used to use on the S-Class
: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bateVoomrTY>

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danbee
I've only skimmed the article, but it looks like they're not actually
integrating Siri so much as introducing an easy way to interface an iPhone 4S
with the car.

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paul9290
Using Siri in the car is it's best use case.

I use her daily to send text messages when driving (have iPhone docked on air
conditioning vent). Also to get directions and to phone local businesses.

Though outside of driving I rarely use the function.

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apdinin
I don't mean to flame Siri (or maybe I do?), but am I the only person who
thought, "Uh-oh... get ready for lots of lost Mercedes drivers"?

Listen... I appreciate the concept of Siri, but the implementation still has
much to be desired. The other day my wife and I were driving down the road
searching for somewhere to eat, and I asked Siri for a Chinese Buffet. Her
only response was "Are you looking for Chinese food or a Buffet?" As someone
with a hankering for all-I-could-eat, lukewarm General Tso's Chicken, that
answer was simply unacceptable.

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GBond
Does this mean the Benz's in-car computer will run OS X?

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mryan
I wouldn't be surprised if this was some kind of web service, rather than
running fully within the car.

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13rules
"The program, called the Drive Kit Plus will work in conjunction with
Mercedes-Benz’ Digital DriveStyle App to translate the iPhone’s screen onto
the in-car system screen."

Sounds to me like it is more of a "hook your iPhone into the car" system ...
and that basically they are just making it easier for you to use your phone
with the car's controls, microphone, speakers, etc.

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why-el
This has nothing to do with the car per say. I am surprised the discussion
went to "Oh get me to the shop". This is only an interface to take to iPhone
apps.

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jsdalton
Is there a developer API for Siri? I was not aware that one had been released.

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thatjoshguy
My best guess is that it is using the Siri keyboard speed-to-text feature and
the app just does its own interpretation on the text?

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tomkin
The first thought I have is the echo of Steve Jobs, cursing Google for getting
into the smartphone business. The whole "We did not enter the search business"
quote in particular comes to mind.

We're seeing Android@Home and in the car and I wondered where Apple was going
to slide in. And here it is. Make no mistake – _going to the high-end car and
then slowly make available to the general public_ is a smart, but classic
Apple approach. This is where Apple creeps in without really announcing
anything specific.

I don't know if Apple acknowledged this, but this method is a way to get into
a market (smartcar) without the pitchforks and conversations about who did
what first.

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tomkin
I'm not exactly sure why I was down voted. I am open to criticism, but I don't
see anything overtly negative nor misleading. If you don't agree, please state
why.

