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Self-driving Cars and Time on Your Hands - On-site : Content Impact

Transformation of the automobile from a mode of transportation to a ‘contents consumption platform’

Many domestic and overseas automobile manufacturers have begun on-road testing of level 3 autonomous vehicles, and some companies have announced plans to launch fully autonomous ‘level 4 autonomous vehicles’ within a few years.
A level 3 autonomous vehicle is a vehicle capable of actual autonomous operation in some current road environments. Level 1 and 2 autonomous vehicles are incapable of adapting to road circumstances, and are clearly limited in that they are incapable of road travel without an actual person in charge of operation.
Together with these efforts to accelerate the commercialization of autonomous vehicles, the industry is also working hard to expand the ‘domain’ of automobiles, traditionally considered only as a means of transportation. This is because experts inside and outside the automotive industry predict that future drivers, who will be less involved in the task of driving, will utilize autonomous vehicles as a ‘contents consumption platform’.
The Korea Creative Content Agency is currently engaged in the Autonomous Vehicle X Entertainment project ‘Self-driving cars and time on your hands,’ the fourth in a series of contents impact projects bringing arts & culture and technology together. At the orientation event on September 6th, visitors could get a glimpse of the future of content consumption in autonomous vehicles. Talent Cultivation Team Leader of the Korea Creative Content Agency LEE, Do Hyeong explained “this project aims to bring technology startups and creators together in collaboration to search for answers to this question: 'How can you use the time you have on your hands in an autonomous vehicle in the most creative way possible?’” He went on to explain the objectives of the project : “We have selected four of the numerous startups who expressed an interest in participating, and aim to produce results through a 10-week process of collaboration.”

Future growth drivers to be startups, not large corporations

Philipp Gneiting, general supervisor of ‘Startup Autobahn Global,’ the startup collaboration program of German automotive corporation and owner of the Mercedes Benz brand, Daimler, as well as the head of Daimler's Open Innovation and Corporation Research departments, took to the podium as a special speaker.
The future urban mobility environment that Daimler sees can be summarized into four principal elements: Connected, Autonomous, Shared & Service, and Electric (CASE). In Daimler’s future vision, automotive vehicles with IoT (Internet of Things) technology will roam urban centers carrying people and supplies according to the principles of the sharing economy.
In realizing the ‘CASE’ concept, Daimler is using its ‘Open Innovation’ department to deal with the issues that are difficult to resolve using the company’s internal resources. The principal objective of the Open Innovation department is intelligent collaboration with outside organizations and individuals, such as students, startups and partners.
But why are large corporations like Daimler making it a priority to work with startups? This is because startups, armed with flexibility and creativity, are changing the landscape for industry. But the reality is that ‘star’ startups like Facebook and Uber represent less than 5% of all startups. To find the best of the best startups, large corporations are investing millions of dollars. They are engaged in a veritable ‘war’ to be the first to build partnerships with these leading startups.

The future of autonomous vehicles, designed together by technology and contents

The four startups selected by the KOCCA to participate in the ‘Self-driving cars and time on your hands’ project were given opportunities to pitch their technologies and solutions to Daimler.
First up was Polariant, with original PLS (polarized light sensing) technology that accurately measures the 3-dimensional position and orientation of objects using the polarization of light. This technology is capable of determining the position of a target object indoors to within 5cm. Marrying this technology with autonomous vehicles is expected to prove extremely useful in various indoor environments where GPS signals cannot be received, such as parking garages.
Audio AI (artificial intelligence) startup Cochlear.ai is a research-centered startup that analyzes nonverbal sound data. Bringing this technology into autonomous vehicles will allow for sounds outside the vehicle to be analyzed and saved, then used for acoustic recreation of the location and time of specific moments experienced by the driver.
Genesis LAB introduced an AI analysis technology that combines video and voice data to determine the emotions and state of a driver.
If this technology is introduced into autonomous vehicles, it will become possible to analyze the psychological state of the driver to improve safety, or to read passenger emotions to provide intelligently customized contents. The technology has high potential for both safety and entertainment.
The last startup presenting, Vtouch, has developed ‘virtual touch’ technology which allows for remote control of various equipment. Capitalizing on the fact that our eyes align with the ends of our fingers when we point at an object, a 3D camera is used to analyze a user's motions and identify the object a person is pointing to. While all existing gesture analysis solutions are based on moving a cursor on a screen, Vtouch allows for manipulation of a target even without a screen or a cursor. This means that simple hand motions will be all that is required to control all devices in an automobile, from the navigation system to the sunroof and air conditioning. What did Philipp Gneiting, who has been working with the world’s most promising startups, think of these technologies? He commented: “Actually, to accurately assess their potential, it is necessary to subject them to close review by experts in the relevant technological fields, like we do in the Startup Autobahn Program.” He then added, “But at the current point in time, I am deeply impressed by the originality and degree of advancement of their technologies and solutions; they appear to be highly competitive even when compared to startups from anywhere in the world.”

BANG, Seung Eon