Honda shelves ASIMO robot

You don’t have to be overly familiar with Honda to know ASIMO. At the very least, you’ve seen this four-foot-tall humanoid robot. Well, you’re going to have to say goodbye as ASIMO, which stands for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility, is being shelved by the Japanese car manufacturer. The company says it will continue to develop bipedal robots but it will not carry the ASIMO name. Its tech will be adapted for other products though. The company is thinking future robots will be adapted to focus on tasks like nursing care. When ASIMO launched, it was introduced more like a showcase robot that greeted people at events. Honda last updated ASIMO back in 2011 to improve its autonomous decision-making capabilities.

Source: Fortune

Honda and Waze team up to increase driver awareness in school zones

Honda and Waze have partnered to create better awareness for drivers in school zones. Using Waze’s pop-up feature, motorists will receive alerts every time they enter a school zone across Canada, urging them to pay attention and stay focused on the road.

Waze is a turn-by-turn navigation app that uses crowdsourced traffic data to provide drivers with fast, efficient routes. It focuses on real-time updates, alerting users to congestion, accidents and other driving obstacles as they occur. Now, incorporating school zone data, Waze (with Honda’s help) will keep its 1.2 million drivers more aware of and help prevent dangers to Canadian children.

Alphabet’s Waymo in talks with Honda regarding self-driving car tech

After Google recently spun out its self-driving car division into Waymo, it looks like the new Alphabet company is trying to strike a big deal. Honda announced it is entering talks with Waymo on integrating autonomous vehicle tech into its cars. The discussion is still in its very early stages but Honda is proposing to give Waymo modified vehicles to help speed the process along. The new announcement isn’t meant to derail Honda’s own automated driving plans, which it intends to have self-driving cars on the road by 2020, but will be considered a “different technological approach.” If it does push through though, this would help legitimize Waymo further as a viable option for manufacturers who just plan to integrate an established self-driving platform over creating their own version.

Source: Engadget

Honda furthers AI tech development in its cars with SoftBank partnership

Artificial intelligence is at the heart of a new partnership between Honda and internet company SoftBank. The idea is that the AI in vehicles will be able to read and react to the emotions of the drivers as intelligently as it can. “"Imagine if robots, with their super intelligence, devoted themselves to humans,” SoftBank Group Corp.’s Masayoshi Son said during an event in Tokyo announcing the partnership. “And imagine that cars themselves became supercomputers or robots one day. Honda will be the first to adopt this technology.” The team suggests that Honda cars might interact with drivers using the technology used in SoftBank’s Pepper robot. And maybe Pepper could even meet Honda’s own Asimo (Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility) robot.

Honda’s team will be working with SoftBank’s Cocoro SB unit on AI research for cars. This team from SoftBank is currently studying cloud-based AI on their own.  SoftBank recently acquired chipmaker ARM, which is seen as an essential move needed for this partnership to work. Honda previously announced they were establishing a research facility this September dedicated to AI technology.

Source: Reuters | Via: SlashGear