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December 20, 2007
Halting State's Driverless-Taxi Not Pure SciFi
We just finished reading Charles Stroll's novel Halting State, a trip into the near future where MMORGs have influenced the design of IT systems. The Scottish police force, for example, view the world through CopSpace-coded glasses. What is more, quantum computers are used by the bad guys to crack crypto keys, blacknets are the new black markets, and self-driving taxis cruise the streets of Edinburgh.
It's a fun read where the author has taken emerging tech trends into the fictional future.
We thought the driverless-taxi thing was pure imagination, but a little research yesterday revealed that in fact London's Heathrow Airport is to pilot such a system at the new Terminal 5. It is not remotely controlled by call-center attendants located offshore (as in the novel), rather it runs on a normal road equipped with a sensor-controlled tracking system.
It is supplied by Advanced Transport Systems (ATS), which is privately owned and backed by private investors -- it sold 25% of equity to strategic investor BAA in 2005.
A photo of the first ATS "taxi" delivered fresh from the assembly line of manufacturer ARRK in Basildon Essex
The story of ATS and its founder's quest to turn his vision into a reality makes for some good reading too. We found an article on its corporate finance advisor's website.
Posted on December 20, 2007 02:39 PM | Posted to Being European | Permalink
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