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Queensland wraps up connected vehicle road safety pilot

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by Aimee Chanthadavong from https://www.zdnet.com The Queensland government said during the nine-month pilot drivers were alerted about on-road hazards, including red lights, pedestrians, and cyclists. A pilot involved with testing technology that alerted drivers about upcoming on-road hazards, including red lights, pedestrians, and bike riders in Queensland’s Ipswich has now wrapped up after nine months. As part of the Ipswich Connected Vehicle Pilot (ICVP), 350 participants had their cars retrofitted with cooperative intelligent transport systems (C-ITS) technology, including an antenna mounted on a roof-rack, in-vehicle communications box placed under the driver’s seat, and a display on the dashboard that signalled safety warnings to the driver. The equipment enabled each vehicle’s position, speed, and other data, to be shared, while it also received data from traffic signals and traffic management systems related to traffic lights, speed limits, road works, and road hazards. The pilot covered 300 square kilometres within the Ipswich local government area, and included 30 traffic signals fitted with roadside communication devices. These devices, plus those that were installed in participant vehicles, had access to cloud-based data sharing systems throughout the pilot area. The ICVP was delivered by Queensland’s Department of Transport and Main Roads, in partnership with Motor Accident Insurance Commission of Queensland, Telstra, Queensland University of Technology’s Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety Queensland, iMOVE Australia, Ipswich City Council, and the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Cities and Regional Development. “The connected technology tested allows vehicles to talk with other vehicles, roadside infrastructure, and transport management systems,” Member for Ipswich Jennifer Howard said. “Messages received are combined with the vehicle’s data and used to generate driver warnings such as red lights, road works, road hazards, congestion, and pedestrians.” The pilot was launched under the Queensland government’s broader Cooperative and Automated Vehicle Initiative (CAVI) that aims to reduce […]

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Damon Motorcycles to enter Latin America

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by Otilia Drăgan from https://www.autoevolution.com Latin America Soon to Have Its Own Custom-Built High-Tech Damon Motorcycles https://damon.com/ Latin America is about to get a taste of one of the most tech-loaded electric motorcycles in the world, and even enjoy its own custom versions. After winning the hearts of the younger generations in Canada and North America, Damon Motors is now moving on to Latin America. Canadian-based Damon Motors has just initiated a long-term partnership with Auteco Mobility in Columbia, to develop and manufacture a new line of products for motorcycle riders in Latin America, including Damon’s famous Hypersport as the flagship model. In addition to that, Auteco will license parts of Damon’s CoPilot™ safety technology, for its own Victory motorcycles. This adaptive 360-degree safety warning system is an industry first. The main objective (and a daring one) is to create a purpose-built, Latin America-specific Damon motorcycle, based on the specific needs of riders in this region. But their long-term strategy is even more ambitious, planning a wide regional distribution for what is about to become the quintessential Latin American Damon bike. Auteco has the means to do that, as a leader on the Columbian ICE motorcycles market, as well as a pioneer in terms of electric 2-wheelers, that has created the widest network of exclusive dealers, workshops and spare parts sale points, in South America. With both companies committed to not only a greener future, but also to increased safety for motorcycle riders, the idea of creating a clean and safe bike that also features the latest technologies, specifically for this market, was a slam dunk. Damon was one of the first startups to make waves with an electric motorcycle, when the trend was just taking off. Its first iconic Hypersport model delivered 200 hp and had an impressive 200-mile

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Ride Vision raises $7 million for AI that alerts motorcycle riders to collision threats

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by Kyle Wiggers from https://venturebeat.com Ride Vision, a startup developing “collision aversion” technology for motorcycles, today emerged from stealth with a $7 million round led by investment platform OurCrowd. Ride Vision also unveiled an AI-driven safety alert system called Ride Vision 1 that will go on sale in several European countries in early 2021. A spokesperson said the fresh capital will be used for marketing, distribution, and R&D as the company looks to expand its 20-person team. There are more than 700 million motorcycles on the road globally, according to estimates. And motorcycles currently account for 28% of all fatal road accidents, resulting in the death of roughly 378,000 people a year. That number could tick upward soon, as motorcycle sales have skyrocketed during the pandemic. The company’s Ride Vision 1 package will feature cameras and LEDs designed to alert riders to dangerous situations. Two small wide-angle cameras mounted on the rear and front of motorcycles or scooters transmit footage to an onboard processing unit running an algorithm that detects and notifies riders of collision threats in real time via mirror-mounted LEDs. A mobile app delivers customizable alerts (including at night); records up to two-hour continuous-loop videos; and keeps note of stats like speed, lean angle, distance, location, and time. Ride Vision says it can detect forward collision, blind spot, and distance keeping threats from cars, trucks, buses, motorcycles, and scooters. New alerts for rear collision, forward-left, and forward-right collision threats are scheduled to arrive post-launch. “Ride Vision has built a unique dataset particular to two-wheelers that’s used to train models taking into account different bikes, level of biking experience, locality, different environmental conditions, and synthetic use cases,” a spokesperson told VentureBeat via email. “Ride Vision has the ability to improve upon the skill set of riders should the riders

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AI-Driven Electric Motorcycle Shows Self-Driving Tech Is About More Than Autonomous Driving

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by John Koetsier from https://www.forbes.com/ Damon Motorcycles unveiled its new electric motorcycle today at CES in Las Vegas, calling it “the world’s smartest, safest and most powerful electric motorcycle.” My first thought: it can’t be both the most powerful and the safest. Then I kept reading. And I started believing it might be possible. First off: the power. The Damon Hypersport has “over 200” horsepower, which is a lot for a motorcycle. But even more impressively, it delivers 200nm of torque at zero RPMs … the classic electric vehicle advantage. (Although how RPM means something in an electric motor is a mystery to me.) Thanks to that power, the bike has a top speed of 200 miles/hour. Which, by the way, doesn’t sound very safe. But the safety features are impressive. As you’d expect in a motorcycle, they’re not about crumple zones or air bags. Instead, they’re about intelligence. Specifically, predictive intelligence: what’s around me, where is it going and what do I need to avoid? The Hypersport will track the speed, direction and acceleration of up to 64 moving objects around the bike, Damon says. Damon calls it the “CoPilot 360º advanced warning system.” CoPilot 360 uses cameras, radar and “other sensors” to know what’s around and alert riders to threats, the company says. “We spent the last three years developing an AI-powered, fully connected, e-motorcycle platform that incorporates CoPilot, our proprietary 360º warning system … Damon motorcycles will be the safest, most advanced electric motorcycles on the market.” – Jay Giraud, co-founder and CEO, Damon Motorcycles That’s not just about what’s ahead of you. The system “looks around corners,” although I’m sure it’s not bending any laws of physics, and keeps an “eye” on the rear to see what might be coming from behind. And, it will learn

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China’s Ninebot unveils scooters that drive themselves to charging stations

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Ninebot said Uber and Lyft, the ride-hailing giants that are expanding into scooter-sharing, would be among the customers for the new semi-autonomous vehicles that are expected to hit roads early next year. BEIJING/HONG KONG – Segway-Ninebot Group, a Beijing-based electric scooter maker, on Friday unveiled a scooter that can return itself to charging stations without a driver, a potential boon for the burgeoning scooter-sharing industry. Ninebot said Uber and Lyft, the ride-hailing giants that are expanding into scooter-sharing, would be among the customers for the new semi-autonomous vehicles that are expected to hit roads early next year. Gao Lufeng, Ninebot chairman and chief executive, told Reuters in an interview that AI-driven scooters, controlled remotely from the cloud, could radically improve the economics of scooter-sharing. “The pain point for scooter operators is to better maintain the scooters at a lower cost,” he said. Currently, operators of scooter sharing fleets have to collect the machines manually for re-charging. Formed by the 2015 combination of China’s Ninebot and U.S. transportation pioneer Segway, the company has quietly become the largest supplier for scooter-sharing companies such as Bird and Lime “I believe scooters will replace bicycles as the prime solution for micro-mobility,” Gao said. “It’s human nature to save energy when commuting.” The scooter-sharing fad was triggered two years ago with the launch of Bird in California. Venture-capital investors have since poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the sector, and fleets of electric-powered scooters now operate in cities across the U.S. and Europe. Segway-Ninebot Group has applied to list its shares on the China’s new Nasdaq-style board for homegrown tech firms, the STAR Market. The company sold 1.6 million scooters in 2018, according to a prospectus filed in April. Lyft and Uber did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment. The new scooters

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Chinese driver gets ticket for scratching his face

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A man in eastern China received a fine after a traffic camera using artificial intelligence captured him scratching his face, it’s reported. According to the Jilu Evening Post, the male motorist surnamed Liu was driving on Monday in Jinan, eastern Shandong province, and had raised his hand to scratch his face while passing a traffic camera. The next thing he knew, he’d received a notification instructing him that he had violated the laws of the road for “driving while holding a phone”. A surveillance picture of his “offence” was attached. He was told that he would receive two points on his licence and was also ordered to pay a 50 yuan (£5.70; $7.25) fine. “I often see people online exposed for driving and touching [others’] legs,” he said on the popular Sina Weibo microblog,” “but this morning, for touching my face, I was also snapped ‘breaking the rules’!” He shared the surveillance picture of himself that he had been sent, and said that he was going to go the authorities to try to sort the situation, after “no one would help him” over the phone. The Global Times newspaper says that the city’s traffic authority have now cancelled his ticket, and told him that “the traffic surveillance system automatically identifies a driver’s motion and then takes a photo”, which is why his face-scratching had been mistaken for him taking a phone call. While many online are amused by his case joking that the positioning of his hand signalled he certainly appeared to be on an “invisible” phone, some are also voicing their concerns about the level of surveillance placed on them. “This is quite embarrassing,” says one, “that monitored people have no privacy.” “Chinese people’s privacy – is that not an important issue?” another asks. There are more than 170

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