IBM's Future Traffic Lights Want to Control Your Car

IBM = Apple = the rest, all are big brother. x.x

We got it bad enough as it is with traffic cams, speed traps, and quota hire cops.

Wireless control of my ignition?
Thanks, I will pass.

How long do you think it would take for someone to hack this...

Added to the fact that the average car is not designed for having the engine turning on and off all the time. I asked my mechanic about this and he said that (at least with my old car) unless you are going to leave it off for around 5 minutes or more, just leave it on. Hybrids are a different beast as they have been designed from the ground up with the ability to have the gas motor turn on and off.

If the sole purpose of this tech is to save fuel, aren't there better solutions out there that should be focused on and developed?
Solutions that don't involve giving up partial control of your car?

Wonderful as it may seem, they'd have to think of the reality. Not all of us have a Toyota Pirus.

I've long predicted that fuel efficiency would be the "winning argument" to getting better traffic automation and vehicle tracking (RFID) systems in place.

IBM already has a networked system somewhere in Texas for local police to track where each car is and provide real time video back to a control center.

One day soon you will buy a car with built in tracking that connects to your city/state run roads. This will be enforced not for their ability to watch you, but for the ability to increase fuel efficiency and reduce your vehicle carbon footprint.

I love the way these nwo corporations being all this tracking and control related technology out for us, lol.

The only thing I wonder is, is technology for the 500 million that they want to remain on earth after there mass murder of 5.5 billion people, or before. because there eugenics plans, will take way to long for them, war is coming.

Let see some reviews of technology inspired bunkers.

I am going to go rev my engine at every stoplight i hit today, take that IBM!

Over my dead body.

Plz take your meds... But Ill keep my AR-15 chip-less just in case.

Not trusting the big corps doesn't mean you can make up crazy conspiracies out of thin air.

WHAT?!

I give it a day and about another week before the hack is out to the public should it ever happen.

I'd rather spend the extra cash on fuel instead. As if everything isn't already controlled by another source already..It's only 2 stop lights to get to my job anyways. How much can one possibly save?

I think this is just patent provisioning for when the whole grid will be computer controller (like in the iRobot movie).

"obiown77" isn't totally crazy; perhaps just a little. IBM did play an active role in the Holocaust by designing a system that allowed the Jews and other "enemies" of Germany to be cataloged, processed and later disposed of in extermination camps. The parameters of the system designed were highly specific, and Thomas Watson and the developers that worked on that system knew exactly what it was being used for. There has been a tremendous amount of documentation that has been uncovered in recent years that go into great detail about exactly what IBM was doing, and how with the prospect of propelling their business into the stratosphere, they were able to look the other way while millions of people were systematically singled out and exterminated.
Of course, this is totally going off topic, but I can easily see why people would not trust IBM.

Great! Now they'll be able to "crack" the stoplights and mess with the cars....
Or "authorities" could arbitrarily "override" the system to stop your vehicle.

You must be new here. IBM makes more money off patent royalties than it does everything else in it's business (this was true even before the Lenovo spinoff). IBM sees these trends coming 10, 15, 20 years in advance, gets the patents, and sits back watching the checks roll in.

Practical adaptation of this technology is more than 20 years away (if ever), and by then then this patent will be expired. So what's the point? IBM -- more (useless) patents than any other corp.

What's not to trust? Did or did not the German trains run on time? Don't make me invoke Agile Hitler in order to explain the intricacies of good software development.

/what, too soon?

In the US alone in 2009, 33,963 people died in traffic accidents. That's the lowest number since 1954 and still that's like ten times 9/11, mostly attributable to human error. I'd feel a lot safer in traffic if it were automated. I want auto cars like in the Minority Report. Then we'll be able to do away with traffic lights. I'd also feel safer with automated flights, that would be even easier to implement.

Awesome, just wait till some high-tech hillbillies rig up a stop light in the middle of nowhere. Shuts your engine off and they make you squeal like a pig.

IBM is willing to pay its employees to come up with innovations that sometimes get patented -- like this one. I am 100% certain that there is no plot, no subtext, etc. There's a lot of thinking about "Smarter Planet" and how innovation might be able to help the environment, people (and, reasonably, I imagine also the bottom line). Even if this invention only gets used for future all Electric Vehicles, say, there may well be some real value to it. Obviously, engineering refinements have to happen, e.g. dealing with a broken signal light. So what?

IBM didn't even make computers then, and sold punched card machines. They weren't programmable to any extent that IBM would have to "design" them for things like this. Like other tools, they could be used for cataloging people, simply because the U.S. Census used them and that's really how IBM indirectly formed anyway (do a search on Hollerith).

So, if you're saying that IBM shouldn't have sold them punched card machines before WW II, because Germany were bad guys, then you should criticize every country that sold everything to Germany. Any iron could be turned into a bullet. Any oil or gas could be used for war or to kill, etc... Why not sue Walter Christie since his suspension was used on German tanks? Why not nail the Wright brothers since Germans used airplanes? Heck, why not sue Great Britain for inventing tanks? The Germans did use them pretty well. It gets to be a can of worms.

By the way, the Germans didn't actually decide on the final solution until 1943, well after we were in the war, and well after IBM in the U.S. had lost contact and control over anything in Germany.

It should also be clear that Germany could have gotten this type of equipment elsewhere - IBM wasn't the only company creating punched card machines.

So, if you want to indict IBM for selling machines that kept and worked with data, because it could be used to kill, but wasn't until long after IBM lost control of the machines, then you'd have to sue virtually every company that did business with Germany. Just about everything can be used the wrong way, but it's not that device that's responsible. It's the person controlling it that must be held accountable. Any other way would make human progress impossible.

A better thing would be to stop people from crossing the red light. It would save hundreds of lives every year. OR maybe inform the ppl coming on green light that there is a speeding vehicle approaching the crossroads with a red light on his direction.

This is a bad ideal for so many reasons. The obvious fact it takes more fuel to stop and regain speed. This ideal should look at the fact no stop lights would save more. Our government takes the cheap way out on many intersections. Better designed roads such as overpass instead of intersections. City's would benefit by savings in fuel, less emissions, and safer cross walks. Cross walks would no longer exist. People would walk under the overpass or up and down steps at the overpass to cross the road. Both time need for travel and road rage should decrease by removing stop lights all together.

Your logic is tremendously flawed.

The difference here is Watson KNEW what IBM's machines were being used for. And yes, while they were not "computers" as we see them today (you are stating the obvious), IBM was aware of all of the parameters, which went far beyond just a simple census.

Everyone knows the "Final Solution" did not start until the last few years of the war, but that hardly excuses millions of people taken from their homes, thrown into cattle cars and literally worked and staved to death.

Of course, IBM was not the only entity to play a role in the Nazi's plan. More things are continuing to come to light about just how much has been covered up. Most of the major governments in the world knew exactly what was going on in those camps long before Germany was invaded.

I think a better use of the technology would be to sense when I am coming and make the light turn green.

I heard that Fanta was made for the Nazis when they couldn't get coca cola anymore. If you drink Fanta, you're supporting Nazi Germany! QED!

It seems like it would be better to manage the cars' speed and position so they don't have to stop at the intersection at all. Just group and position the cars so there aren't conflicts at the intersections. Saves energy, too.

As for the patents, I do hate it when companies are allowed to patent obvious ideas. Hopefully there's more to this than how it reads in the "article". Engine management is just one piece of the much broader automated driving puzzle. I hope this doesn't become yet another area where progress is stifled by patents. It's becoming difficult/illegal to think and invent anymore.

Ah just what we need, another way for the liberal nanny state to control my life.

I dont even know how this has made it as far as it has. It has to be the most retarded idea I have ever heard of.