Our future may be filled with driverless cars. Here’s a look at some of the ingenious ways we can make riding in a driverless car a more engaging experience.

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 Watch

Link to the original Wired video with full English transcript and subtitles: https://video.wired.com/watch/the-future-of-driverless-cars

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Glossary

• lane – a division of a road marked off with painted lines and intended to separate single lines of traffic according to speed or direction
• augmented reality – a technology that superimposes a computer-generated image on a user’s view of the real world, thus providing a composite view
  
• dome – a rounded vault forming the roof of a building or structure, typically with a circular base
  
• to fire sth up – to start something such as an engine or a machine
  
• to leverage – use (something) to maximum advantage
  
• major – a student’s main/principal subject or course
  
• confined – restricted or limited

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Think about it

Answer the questions below.

• What would increase your level of trust in driverless cars? (00:40)
• What are some potential uses of augmented reality (AR) in driverless cars? (00:52)
• How might the vehicle give the “driver” a sense of control? (01:12)
• What’s the connection between driverless cars and cloud computing? (01:41)
• What types of users might especially benefit from driverless cars? (02:25 )
  

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Practice Makes Perfect

Fill in the blank spaces with the missing words. Use ONE word per blank space.

I think we’re already _____________. Assisted driving, lane assist, to the Tesla vehicle driving itself. These are small steps that we need to take in order to get to the autonomous vehicle. We were exploring, how do you ______ a sense of trust with an autonomous vehicle? They wanted to do something that deals ____ the experience of being in a vehicle, autonomously, versus _______ the car.

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We _______ the vehicle’s fifteen feet long, and like seven feet wide, so that’s a space that you can move the driver ______ to create these sensations of moving faster or moving slower, hugging turns, not hugging turns. So, we gave the driver the control of that rather than the control of the vehicle. So, before getting into the vehicle, you would choose the kind of instrument _____ you want.
When you fire it up, depending __ what kind of vehicle you have set in there, if it’s a Porsche, it’s gonna fire up like a Porsche. Which is very different than from, I don’t know, a Fiat. So, the whole idea of this car is that it’s about ____ sharing. So, you don’t have _________ of your vehicle, but our brand leverages the power of the cloud.

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With autonomous technology, essentially, it becomes almost like this ____ on wheels, where the activities within that space are no ______ confined to just driving. Looking at older adults with neuro-degenerative disorders, I would be so ________ if you could get in a car and go somewhere, and I wouldn’t have to worry about him being in a car.
That’s the most exciting thing about autonomous vehicles, is it’s a big cultural _____. The drive becomes something very, very different.

Answers:

transitioning, enable, with, shaping, figured, within, panel, on, ride, ownership, room, longer, relieved, shift

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Explore it more

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