BMBF Project Puts Automated Electric Vehicle on the Road

The German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) funded project UNICARagil aims to rethink vehicles and their development processes. The goal is a disruptive, modular and agile vehicle architecture and the prototypical implementation of four different application cases from automated family taxis to mobile package delivery stations.

As early as 2013 TUM’s Visio.M drove its rounds remotely operated.

Autonomous electric vehicles will be an essential component of future mobility: they will form the basis for sustainable and intelligent road transport, novel mobility and transportation concepts, improvements in traffic safety and a boost in the quality of life in urban environments.

However, requisite vehicle concepts require a significantly more centralized and efficient data processing and transmission in motor vehicles and, consequently, a departure from established architectures and processes.

Read the Science and Technology Research News story - “BMBF Project Puts Automated Electric Vehicle on the Road.”

Trump populist groudswell must be checked to advoid climate change

by Robert McLean

The populist groundswell that has handed Donald Trump Republican presidential candidacy in the November U.S. election is what needs to be checked if catastrophic climate change is to be avoided.

Donald Trump - the Washington Post says
he is a danger to America and the world.

The real estate billionaire (claimed, as no-one has as yet seen his tax returns) appeals to base emotions and although his apparent wealth comes from being shoulder-deep in the neoliberal establishment, he portrays himself as a simple soul, absolutely in touch with those from a wholly different socio-economic stratum.

It is the likes of Donald Trump who must be addressed if the world is to stand any chance of avoiding the worst of climate change.

Trump is a climate denialist and so as you know where he stands, it becomes a little easier to deal with him.

However, he is becoming a powerful and influential fellow with legions of loyal followers and so “dealing with him” is becoming increasingly difficult.

Climate change is a wicked problem for which there is no simplistic answer, but Trump has prized open his popularity with promises of simple solutions to everything, appealing to Americans feeling downtrodden by, confusingly, the very processes that have made Trump rich.

Countering climate change is not going to be easy, but Trump in his “I love you” approach has not for a moment allowed his supporters any sense of challenge or difficulty in “making America great again”.

His promise of making America great again means a strengthening of or a return to the America that was until recently the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gases. It’s now second only to China and with Trump in charge, the U.S. would be back at the top of the list.

There is more to Trump than his disregard for matters about which the world’s climate scientists concern themselves, although that is obviously the most critical, for the “might is right” view is a part of his platform and as the Washington Post says in an editorial he is a danger to both America and the world.

Read the Melbourne Age story -“Washington Post editorial: Donald Trump 'a danger to the nation and the world'.”

Governance stands between a decent life and climate driven catastrophe

Roger Cohen.

Governance at local, national and international levels focussing on the needs of people rather than their wants is all that stands between a decent life and climate change driven catastrophe.

And in reading Roger Cohen’s story in The New York Times - “Australia Does Anxiety” – it seems the neoliberalists of the world prefer chancing catastrophe rather than embracing the altruism that is the essence of a good life.

The resolution of climate change, well, it can’t be resolved in any time frame relevant to those alive today, but if worldwide we shift the emphasis from human wants to what people really need, we begin processes that will soften the extremes.

That change of emphasis hinges almost entirely on the governance of our society and in reading Cohen’s story we are well shy of having any governance to allow that shift in attitude – Robert McLean.