Late last month, a Tesla owner shared shocking dashcam footage of his Model 3 appearing to collide with and drive through a deer at high speeds. The car, which the driver says was engaged in Tesla’s driver-assist Full-Self Driving (FSD) mode, never detected the deer standing in the middle of the road and didn’t hit the brakes or maneuver to avoid it. That case came just a few months after a vehicle from Waymo, a leading self-driving company, reportedly ran over and killed a pet dog in a collision the company says was “unavoidable.” Neither driverless cars, according to reports detailing the incidents, spotted the animals on the road fast enough to avoid them. 

Video is cut right before sensitive things appear on screen. Safe to watch. pic.twitter.com/FaXD6Gr68S

High-profile “edge cases” like these quickly gain attention and play on deep underlying anxieties around autonomous vehicle safety. Less than one in four US adults surveyed by Pew Research in 2022 said they would be very comfortable sharing a road with a driverless car. So far, these examples remain rare but they could become more common as more cities around the country allow self-driving vehicles to fill public roads. As that happens, it’s important to understand what these cars can and can’t “see.” AV manufacturers are improving the detection of potential hazards in several different ways. Currently, most of the industry is mostly coalescing on an approach that blends a diverse array of sensors and cameras with predictive AI models. Together, these systems create 3D maps surrounding vehicles that supporters of the technology say can detect potential hazards with “superhuman” like abilities. These models, while potentially better at detecting hazards than humans, still aren’t perfect. 

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday.

By signing up you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

The terms “driverless” and “self-driving” are often more descriptive than scientific–engineers and researchers in the space prefer the term “autonomous vehicles.” There are multiple levels of autonomy laid out by The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) ranging from 0 to 5. Tesla, which confusingly has “Autopilot” and “Full Self Driving features” that automate some aspects of driving like braking and lane control, still technically requires human drivers to have their hands on the steering wheel and eyes facing the road. University of San Francisco Professor and autonomous vehicle expert William Riggs told Popular Science this falls somewhere between levels 2 and 3 and should really be called “advanced driver assist.” More advanced autonomous systems like those offered by Waymo or Amazon-owned Zoox are really in a different league. Riggs described the gaps between Waymos and Tesla’s as “night and day.” These technical distinctions play a key role in determining what certain vehicles can see and how much they can be trusted.  

Driverless Vehicles need to be able to identify roads and objects in the world around them with a level of accuracy approaching or surpassing that of an ordinary human driver. To do that, most major manufacturers rely on a variety of different sensors, usually cameras, radar, and LiDAR placed around the vehicle working in tandem, a concept Riggs refers to as “sensor fusion.” This smattering of sensors is used to detect everything around the car and straight ahead of it. They are, in other words, the car’s eyes and ears. 

“The sophistication really is in connecting the numerous sensors to the central computer or what is the general processing unit,” Riggs noted. 

For more advanced driverless car systems, this process actually begins long before an AV ever winds down a road without a human behind the wheel. Waymo and Zoox, for example, have human drivers collect real-world data and map out roads where they are planning to deploy driverless vehicles. This process leads to detailed rich 3D digital maps filled with important markers like lane dividers, stop signs, and crosswalks. (If you’ve ever seen a Waymo and Zoox vehicle rifling through neighborhoods with a human behind the wheel, there’s a good chance they are mapping out the area.) The job isn’t ever totally finished. Cars are constantly mapping routes to look for changes that may have occurred due to construction or other environmental factors. 

[ Related: Tesla seeks human ‘remote operators’ to help ‘autonomous’ robotaxi service ]

But mapping only goes so far. Once the vehicles are ready to hit the road, the “eyes” come by way of various RGB cameras spread out around the vehicle. A single Waymo vehicle, for context, has 29 cameras. Combined, all these digital eyes work together to create a 360-degree view of the world around the car. There are downsides. Camera vision can struggle with determining distance, sometimes making objects appear closer or further away than they really are. They can perform poorly in inclement weather. 

That’s where radar comes in. In a nutshell, radar works by sending out pulsating radio waves toward other objects. Once the pulses hit an object they return to the sensors and reveal useful information about the other objects, most notably their speed and distance from the vehicle. Many driverless car systems utilize radar to help vehicles safely judge their distance from and navigate around other cars in motion. Though it can help determine speed and location, the radar isn’t accurate enough to determine whether an object on a road is an old tire or a living animal.

If you’ve ever seen a driverless vehicle with an odd-looking spinning top adorning its roof, those are LiDAR, or Light Detection and Ranging, sensors. LiDAR systems send out millions of laser pulses in all directions around the vehicle and then measure how quickly those lasers bounce back to the vehicle and then use that information to create an impressively accurate 3D map of the car’s surroundings. This digital image of light pulses can detect the presence of pedestrians, cyclists, and other vehicles. It can also detect variations in topography which could be useful for car navigating around potholes or other hazards. All of this happens nearly instantaneously. LiDAR was once prohibitively expensive for some tech companies to implement at scale but those costs have come trended down in recent years.

University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign electrical and computer engineering professor and autonomous safety expert Sayan Mitra told Popular Science AVs then use their assortment of sensors to create a “digital representation” of the environment around them. This software, which Mitra and other engineers call a “perception module” will include the position, orientation, and speed of the car in its own lane as well as the vehicles in surrounding lanes. These modules also use deep neural networks (DNN) to try and identify what exactly any object is, be that a pedestrian or a broken tree, in real time.

This combination of cameras, radar, and LiDAR, though increasingly common, isn’t the only approach being considered. Tesla famously abandoned radar years ago in its FSD stack and now only uses camera vision. CEO Elon Musk has criticized LiDAR as a “crutch” and a “fool’s errand.” Though both Riggs and Mitra said it’s possible Tesla or another automaker could one day figure out a way to reach full autonomy using only camera vision, that approach currently lacks the level of precision achievable by using LiDAR.

“It’s [LiDAR] going to tell you how quickly that object is moving from space,” Riggs said. “And it’s not going to estimate it like a camera would do when a Tesla is using FSD.”  

That’s how all these driverless systems are supposed to work, but in reality, they aren’t perfect. In the recent case of the Tesla plowing through the deer, Mitra says the mistake may have stemmed from the vehicle’s perception module failing to detect the deer reliably in the camera image. The relatively small gray deer lined up against a similarly gray pavement and aligned with lines on the road likely lead to an image that was “feature-poor.” Both Mitra and Riggs said it’s possible Tesla’s deep neural networks (DNN) may not have been adequately trained on images of deer from that angle or position. 

“If the software had never encountered a deer and didn’t know what a deer was, but also didn’t actually know the precise distance or the precise speed that the deer was running in through, then I’m not surprised that [the car] would plow through it,” Riggs said. “It’s a product of the type of information that the system can ingest.” 

Engineers and researchers refer to potentially unexpected or undertrained scenarios like those as “edge cases.” These can range from the rather mundane (Riggs told of a case of a Level Four vehicle failing to recognize a trailer hitched behind a truck) to life-threatening. The latter case occurred last year in San Francisco last year when a pedestrian was struck by a car and flung underneath a Cruise robotaxi operating in the adjacent lane. Several technical errors reportedly occurred resulting in the car failing to see the woman. She was then dragged 20 feet underneath the car. In this case, Riggs said AV makers simply had not thought to put in place cameras or sensors to look for pedestrians underneath the vehicle. 

“There wasn’t a camera underneath the vehicle, the engineers couldn’t see somebody was there,” Riggs said. “It was truly something that no one had ever thought of.”

Seeing and detecting obstacles in the road is only half the battle. Once detected, the vehicle needs to then know how to respond. In most cases, that will mean pressing the brakes or steering out of the way to avoid a collision. But that’s not necessarily always the best course of action. A driverless car likely wouldn’t make it far if it had to stop or make an evasive maneuver every time it detects small branches, brush, or a snowbank in its path. The onboard AI models need to ensure the objects in front of them are indeed branches and not a small dog.

There are other cases where suddenly braking to avoid a collision may also cause greater harm. Mitra provided the example of a small foal cooler falling off a truck on a busy highway with autonomous vehicles behind it and another vehicle tailgating the AV. If the driverless car were to brake hard to avoid the cooler, Mitra noted, then it might be rear-ended by the tailgater causing a potential pile-up.

“This is not just about avoiding obstacles,” Mitra said. “This [sic] type of trade-offs between safety of passengers, safety of others, speed, damage, and comfort come up in many other scenarios.”

Mitra went on to say he believes there’s an “urgent need” for more transparency and public conversations around what driverless cars’ high-level objectives should be. 

In the past, journalists and some researchers have compared these tradeoffs to the famous “trolley problem” in philosophy. That utilitarian thought experiment, first coined in 1967 centers on whether or not a trolley operator should actively choose to kill one person in order to prevent greater harm done to a larger group of people. Though it’s tempting to apply that same line of thinking when understanding how an AV reacts in dangerous situations, Riggs said the comparison misses the mark. AVs, taking in massive amounts of data and reacting on it in real-time, are really working with a “series of probabilistic choice sets.” That’s fundamentally different from a programming decision made by any single engineer. 

[ Related: GM brings hands free driving to rural America ]

“The vehicle isn’t making an ethical decision in any of these cases,” Riggs said. “Self-driving cars are going to be designed and are designed to basically evade collision and do so in a way that’s probabilistically the best pathway for the vehicle.”   

Even with those edge cases in mind, Riggs says he’s still bullish on a future where more driverless cars are on the road. Unlike humans, AVs won’t be tempted to speed, roll through stop signs, or send out text messages while driving. These automated drivers also aren’t distracted and should not violate laws. All of those factors combined, he argues, means AV could be safer than humans. Early research out of the University of Central Florida comparing accident rates between AVs and human drivers appears to show driverless vehicles drove safer during routine circumstances. Mitra said more peer-reviewed research on self-driving software safety will be needed as the technology rolls out more broadly to maintain public trust. 

“The more we can increase things that take humans out of the driving decision, the closer we’re going to get to zero collisions on our road,” Riggs said. “Keeping people from dying is a good thing.”

This story is part of Popular Science’s Ask Us Anything series, where we answer your most outlandish, mind-burning questions, from the ordinary to the off-the-wall. Have something you’ve always wanted to know? Ask us.

The post Why are ‘driverless’ cars still hitting things? Depends on how they ‘see.’ appeared first on Popular Science.

Office conversion projects in the United States are expected to increase by 63 percent in 2024 over 2023, according to real estate services company CBRE.

Writing in Smart Cities Dive, Nish Amarnath notes that 73 adaptive reuse projects are already completed, while 30 more are expected to be finished by the end of the year. “Office-to-multifamily housing projects account for nearly 75% of the conversion pipeline in Q3, up from 63% in the first quarter, per the report.” In some cases, conversion can cost up to 30 percent less than new construction.

The growth comes as the demand for office space continues to lag far below pre-pandemic levels in most cities and the housing crisis rages on. At the same time, cities and states are adjusting regulations to encourage adaptive reuse and make conversions easier and more cost-effective.

The report adds that office-to-multifamily conversion projects have created 28,000 housing units since 2016. “The growing conversion activity is anticipated to reshape business-centric districts into dynamic mixed-use neighborhoods, the firm says.”

While not all office buildings are appropriate for residential conversion, some are also being transformed into life sciences facilities, hotels, and other types of uses.

• Adaptive Reuse
• Office Conversion
• Office Conversions
• Office Buildings
• Housing Supply
• Downtowns
• Central Business Districts
• Zoning
• Zoning Reform

Only during Cyber Week, you get a Microsoft Office lifetime license for Windows at $69.97 (reg. $219.99)—codes may sell out sooner.

• Download Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, OneNote, Publisher, and Access—everything you need for documents, data, and presentations.
• This license is a one-time payment for lifetime access, not a recurring subscription like Microsoft 365.
• You’ll get your download link and activation key via email almost instantly after purchase.
• This version of Office is both parts modern and classic, with a ribbon-based interface, customizable formatting, and no AI integrations to get in your way.

Take advantage of this Microsoft Office Cyber Monday deal before it expires: $69.97 (reg. $219.99) for lifetime access. 

Microsoft Office Professional 2021 for Windows: Lifetime License – $69.97

See Deal

StackSocial prices subject to change.

The post Wow! 68 percent off Microsoft Office during Cyber Week appeared first on Popular Science.

Despite a recent program to containerize garbage, New York City sanitation workers still have to contend with parked cars blocking trash containers, forcing them to continue manually collecting garbage bags from the city’s sidewalks.

As Kevin Duggan explains in Streetsblog NYC, “The agency is equipping some of its roughly 2,000 rear-loaders with tippers to mechanically hoist the newly mandated wheelie bins, but because they're on the sidewalk, these upgrades will run up against the steel wall of the roughly 3 million parking spaces the city provides to motorists largely at no cost.”

The city’s new containerization program is part of the effort to reduce the rampant rat population. Next year, the Sanitation Department will begin installing street-side stationary containers for buildings with 31 or more units, while smaller buildings can choose stationary containers or mobile bins.

In addition to keeping the city’s streets cleaner, containerization can also reduce the physical impact on sanitation workers, who haul “as much as 20 tons per shift in some neighborhoods.” According to Duggan, “The answer to this issue is clawing back space from cars for better uses, advocates said, urging Sanitation officials to work with the Department of Transportation to mark sections of the streetscape to wheel out trash.”

• New York City
• Garbage
• Trash
• sanitation
• Rats
• sanitation workers
• Trash collection
• Garbage Collection
• Waste Management

1. Open Settings on your Apple Watch.


2. Tap Smart Stack.


3. Select Live Activities.


4. Toggle off the switch next to Auto-Launch Live Activities.

• Top 100, 500, 1000 Listeners: Expanding the Top 100 listener insight from previous years, listeners can now also discover whether they've made it in to the Top 500 or Top 1000 listeners of any of their favorite artists or genres.


• Listening Streaks: Now users can learn the longest consecutive number of days they’ve played from Apple Music.


• Replay By Month: Relive your year through the months, with your #1 songs, artists, and albums from each month of 2024.


• Top Artist Streak: Based on their most-played music of each month, users can now discover if they're a loyal fan with the top artist streak - available to users if they've had an artist as their #1 artist of the month for multiple consecutive months.


• Date of First Play: Fans can find out the date they first listened to their top song, artist, and album this year.

It takes a huge amount of energy for human brains to grow to their current large size and be maintained over time. Our early human ancestors evolved to grow bigger brains, but the biological changes they went through to do so have been difficult for scientists to pin down. Now, new research points to our guts. The secret to our big brain may lie in the microbes that help the body break down food and produce energy. The findings are detailed in a study published December 2 in the journal Microbial Genomics.

Since brain tissue is energetically costly to the body, larger-brained animals like humans, elephants, whales, and dolphins need more energy to support the brain’s growth and general upkeep. Earlier studies have explored how different genes and the environment influence primates with larger and smaller brains. However, there is less data on how different primates use energy and how metabolism develops in different primate species. 

“We know the community of microbes living in the large intestine can produce compounds that affect aspects of human biology—for example, causing changes to metabolism that can lead to insulin resistance and weight gain,” study co-author and Northwestern University biological anthropologist Katherine Amato said in a statement. “Variation in the gut microbiota is an unexplored mechanism in which primate metabolism could facilitate different brain-energetic requirements,” Amato said.

[Related: We probably have big brains because we got lucky.]

In a controlled experiment, Amato and a team of scientists implanted the microbes from two large-brain primate species (human and squirrel monkey), and one small-brain primate species (macaque), into laboratory mice. 

After introducing the gut microbes into microbe-free mice, they measured the changes in mouse physiology over time. These changes include weight gain, as well as changes in fat percentage, fasting glucose, liver function, and other traits. The team also measured the differences in the types of microbes and the compounds that the mice were producing.

Initially, the team expected to find that microbes from different primates would lead to differences in the biology of the mice inoculated with them. They also expected to see that the mice with human microbes would have the greatest difference in biology from mice with microbes from the squirrel monkeys or macaques. 

What they actually saw was that the mice with the microbes from the large-brain primate species produced and used more energy. Those with the microbes from the small-brain species stored more of the energy as fat. 

“While we did see that human-inoculated mice had some differences, the strongest pattern was the difference between large-brained primates (humans and squirrel monkeys) and smaller-brained primates (macaques),” said Amato.

The mice that were given microbes from the humans and squirrel monkeys had similar biology, even though these two larger-brained primate species are not close evolutionary relatives. According to the team, this suggests something other than shared ancestry–potentially their shared large brain size–is driving the biological similarities seen in the mice inoculated with their microbes. This data also shows that gut microbes from different animal species shape variations in biology and supports the hypothesis that gut microbes could influence evolution by changing how an animal’s body functions, such as using energy from gut microbes to support brain size vs storing it as fat.

NEWSLETTER SIGN UP

“These findings suggest that when humans and squirrel monkeys both separately evolved larger brains, their microbial communities changed in similar ways to help provide the necessary energy,” said Amato. 

In future studies, the team hopes to run this same experiment using microbes from additional primate species varying in brain size. They would also like to gather more data on the types of compounds that the microbes are producing and the biological traits of the hosts, such as immune function and behavior.

The post Humans may have big brains thanks to our gut appeared first on Popular Science.

The old cliche is that dads love tools as gifts. The reality, however, is that almost everyone loves a good tool gift. Right now, Walmart has this 300-piece mechanics tool kit for just $78 on Cyber Monday until it sells out. The whole kit comes in a great toolbox to keep everything in place (plus, it makes it easy to wrap). It’s not a pro kit, but it’s great for DIY projects or for beginners. Make sure you sign up for Walmart+ for free delivery. It’s just $50 for the first year and comes with extras like access to the Paramount+ streaming service.

Hart

You can never have too many socket sets. This affordable tool kit is a great starting point for someone looking to get into tinkering. It’s also a great way to reset if your old kit is missing pieces or has worn-out sockets. This 300-piece load-out includes full sets of SAE and metric sockets and the tools to go with them. You also get extensions, Allen wrenches, driver bits, and combination wrenches. For $78, you really can’t beat it.

• HART 20V 3-Tool Combo Kit, Drill, 6-1/2″ Circular Saw, and LED Light 1 Each $78 (was $159)
• SKIL 15 Amp 10” Corded Electric Dual Bevel Sliding Miter Saw $199 (was $245)
• EF EcoFlow Portable Power Station DELTA 2 Lite 950Wh LFP Battery Solar Generator $399 (was $899)
• SKIL 15 Amp 10 inch Portable Jobsite Table Saw with Folding Stand, 24 Tooth Blade, Model $249 (was $299)
• Worx WX051 Pegasus Folding Work Table & Sawhorse $89 (was $149)
• HART 20-Volt Cordless 6-Tool Combo Kit (1) 4.0Ah (1) 1.5Ah Lithium-Ion Batteries $198 (was $248)

Cyber Monday has officially overtaken Black Friday as the champion of big, cheap TV deals. Get an 85-inch display for $548.

Posted 18 Hours Ago

The post Last-minute Cyber Monday deal alert: Get this 300-piece mechanics tool kit for just $78 appeared first on Popular Science.

To mark our long partnership with (RED) and continue supporting their mission, we created these custom Beats Solo 4 headphones.

As part of the collaboration, artist and designer @YinkaIlori_ brings his bold and kaleidoscopic approach to exclusive special-edition packaging. pic.twitter.com/dhJnqTNgai

I meant what I said—don’t tell that to my psychiatrist or therapist. I love a little sweet ice cream treat, and developing my own ice cream recipes would be a good practice in curiosity, whimsy, fun, trial, and delicious error. This all sounds like healing my inner child to me, which is what you aim to do in therapy. That means I might take advantage of this Ninja CREAMi deal at Amazon, where the popular ice cream maker is currently 20 percent off.

Ninja

If there’s a liquid in your house, there’s a good chance you can turn it into a yummy dessert using the Ninja Creami. Personally, we love mixing some Fairlife with protein powder (some of our favorite expert-approved protein powders are up to 50 percent off for Cyber Monday) or adding some cookie bits and/or peanut butter and calling it a day. It’s a win-win: Protein is good for gains and an important part of a healthy diet, and adding it to make ice cream means you don’t have to muster through more chicken to make your macros. If you’re looking to save extra, the base model Creami for $149 at Walmart.

This deal includes two 16-ounce pints, so you can always have a backup treat on hand. You can also get a Creami Deluxe machine with two family-sized 24-ounce pints ($219.95, was $249.99) if you live with people whose depression would be cured with a Ninja Creami.

• Ninja Hot & Iced XL Coffee Maker $99.99 (Was $149.99)
• Ninja TB401 Detect Kitchen System Power Blender + Processor Pro $169.99 (Was $229.99)
• Ninja NutriPro Blender $59.99 (Was $99.99)
• Ninja ProChef Wireless Meat Thermometer $69.99 (Was $89.99
• Ninja SS101 Foodi Smoothie Maker & Nutrient Extractor $79.99 (Was $119.99)
• Ninja Woodfire Pro Outdoor Grill and Smoker $249.99 (Was $399.99)
• Ninja Woodfire Pro XL Outdoor Grill & Smoker $299.99 (Was $399.99)
• Ninja K32017 Foodi NeverDull Premium Knife System $229.99 (Was $349.99)

The post Owning a Ninja CREAMi could cure my depression—and 20% off for Cyber Monday makes it an even sweeter treat appeared first on Popular Science.

Bovine burps and flatulence are an environmental menace. The gasses released by cows and bulls produce large amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas that is more than 28 percent more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. However, changing up what livestock eat, may alter what comes out of them–for the better. According to a new study, giving grazing beef cattle a seaweed supplement in pellet form reduced methane emissions by almost 40 percent without impacting the animals’ health or weight. The findings are detailed in a study published December 2 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Feeding and raising livestock accounts for roughly 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Both cow farts and burps produce methane. However, 97 percent of all the methane gas from a cow is actually released by belching rather than farting, according to the United States Dairy Council and NASA. In June, Denmark became the first country to implement an agricultural tax on cow flatulence of 300 kroner ($43) per tonne of methane on emissions from livestock including pigs and cows.

Grazing cattle also tend to generate more methane than feedlot cattle–those raised in fenced areas and fed a high energy diet to increase their weight–or dairy cows because they eat more fiber from grass. 

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday.

By signing up you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

Their high grain and high fiber diets can make bulls and cows particularly gassy. Earlier research found that giving feedlot cattle seaweed cut methane emissions by 82 percent and feeding it to dairy cows reduced it by more than 50 percent. This new study tested seaweed on grazing beef cattle. In the United States alone, there are 9 million dairy cows and over 64 million beef cattle.

“Beef cattle spend only about three months in feedlots and spend most of their lives grazing on pasture and producing methane,” Ermias Kebreab, a study co-author and biologist at the University of California, Davis who specializes in sustainable agriculture, said in a statement. “We need to make this seaweed additive or any feed additive more accessible to grazing cattle to make cattle farming more sustainable while meeting the global demand for meat.”

According to Kebreab, the daily feeding of pasture-based cattle is typically more difficult than feedlot or dairy cows since they graze far from ranches for longer periods of time. However, when grass is scarce or during the winter months, ranchers will often supplement their diets. 

In the new study, researchers used a mix of Angus and Waygu cattle breeds. The team divided 24 young neutered male cattle primarily raised for beef–called beef steers into two groups. One group received the seaweed supplement while the other did not. They conducted this 10-week experiment at a ranch in Dillon, Montana where cattle were grazing. Even though the cattle were grazing, they still ate the seaweed supplement voluntarily. The voluntary eating still resulted in a nearly 40 percent drop in emissions.

Earlier research on reducing methane emissions using feed additives for cattle have taken place in controlled environments with daily supplements. According to Kebreab, fewer than half of those methods are effective for grazing cattle.

“This method paves the way to make a seaweed supplement easily available to grazing animals,” said Kebreab. “Ranchers could even introduce the seaweed through a lick block for their cattle.” 

[Related: Cow poop might make cleaner hydrogen gas a reality.]

Pastoral farming that includes large grazing systems, supports millions of people around the world, often in areas vulnerable to climate change. The authors suggest that using seaweed supplements like the ones in this study could be one way to make cattle grazing better for the environment. Feeding the world’s cattle seaweed is a bit more expensive and bringing it up to scale since seaweed farming still has to be expanded. However, one study from New Hampshire indicates that some dairy farmers are receptive to the extra costs of roughly 64 cents per day. 

The post Feeding seaweed to gassy cattle can reduce methane appeared first on Popular Science.