Opening Ceremony

Day Events

Introduction

Advances in modern automobile technology have completely changed how we commute. Although we’ve been unable to recreate lightsabers, we’ve built something equally awesome: driverless cars.

How They Work

The way in which driverless cars reason about their surroundings is not very different from us humans. Using radar, lidar, cameras as well as some peripheral technologies, driverless cars are able to sense not only the presence of objects but also their velocity and their size. This raw data is then processed to calculate trajectories and other similar factors. The car responds to this data by turning, speeding up and stopping. This cycle is repeated extremely fast, thousands of times a second, allowing the car to achieve response times much, much faster than humans.

This isn’t very different from how we humans process information. Our senses perceive stimuli, our brain processes them, and we decide how to respond.

The reason why driverless cars are groundbreaking is that they’re autonomous, not automatic. A driverless car doesn’t need the installation of any special equipment on roads, which means we don’t need to spend money on installing additional infrastructure on roads. You just need the car.

* Lidar is a technology similar to radar, where you bounce some sort of wave off the environment and see how the environment responds. In the case of radar, it’s a radio wave, while LIDAR uses a laser.

The Big Players

There are a few big players in the driverless game, but the industry is lead by Tesla Motors and Google.

Tesla rolled out its semi-autonomous Autopilot feature to most of its cars in September 2014. It’s not completely autonomous, i.e. there still needs to be someone behind the wheel to take control of the system during any difficulties. Tesla Motors was one of the first companies to market driverless technologies to ordinary consumers, starting nearly 5 years ago, and remains a leader in the commercial driverless car industry. Unlike most other driverless cars, Tesla automobiles have a consolidated body. External components aren’t required since the sensors are built into the car itself.

Google isn’t a car maker. Its driverless car project is part of a larger effort to aid the transition to electric cars for cleaner energy and its cars have driven nearly 3 million kilometres. There were only a few accidents, and all of them were attributed to human error.

A Driverless World

Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of Tesla Motors has stated that he believes that eventually, human driving will be outlawed because of its dangers.

Although it is difficult to entirely eliminate traffic, traffic is still an area where driverless cars can help. A network of driverless cars could intelligently avoid situations that increase the

chances of having a traffic jam. Driverless cars will also open up a lot of possibilities for refueling, since driverless cars could just go refill their tank / battery themselves, without any human intervention.

Where Do The Jobs Go?

In New York City, a taxi medallion is a license required to pick up people who hail taxis on the street. The cost of a taxi medallion was 1 million dollars a year ago, but with the introduction of ridesharing services like Uber and Lyft, the price has fallen to just half a million dollars. Because of this, taxi drivers are unable to sell their medallions and join Uber or Lyft since they would be making a loss. Driverless cars would be another nail in the coffin of the nearly 42,000 taxi drivers of New York City, driving the costs of taxi medallions further down and leaving taxi drivers stranded.

Driverless cars would poach jobs from taxi drivers, Uber and Lyft drivers, truckers and bus drivers, causing an unemployment crisis. 0.3% of the US GDP comes from these individuals, who earn a mean income of 42,000 dollars and account for 67 billion dollars of income.

We could see a crash reduction rate of up to 90%, leaving 445,000 automobile repair technicians without jobs since people would visit their shops less often.

The Trolley Problem: A Thought Experiment

There is a runaway trolley hurtling down the railway tracks. If the trolley is allowed to move on the tracks unimpeded, it will kill 5 people. You stand near a lever which can divert the trolley to a different track, but you notice that there is a person on the other track as well. Would you divert the trolley, killing one person but having to bear the responsibility for his death, or let the trolley continue on, killing five?

Another variant of the trolley problem is one where you’re standing on a bridge, above the railway track. Rather than pulling a lever to divert the trolley, you may push a fat man off the bridge and onto the path of the trolley in order to stop it. Would you push the man off the bridge or let the trolley continue on and kill the 5 people?

The relevance of the trolley problem in the world of driverless cars is in a situation where the car has to either run over a pedestrian or swerve and cause the death of the car’s occupants. It is a difficult problem and doesn’t really have any solutions. If you want to offer your opinion on dilemmas like the trolley problem, then you can take MIT’s Moral Machine survey at moralmachine.mit.edu. It’s very interesting and pretty thought-provoking and I strongly recommend you take it.

Liability

The trolley problem leads us to an interesting legal problem: if the car hits a pedestrian, is involved in an accident that kills the occupants, or crashes, then who is liable? Is the manufacturer or are the occupants of the car? Pinning liability on the manufacturers is problematic; making manufacturers liable for accidents demotivates them from manufacturing the driverless cars in the first place, and ultimately stifles innovation. On the other hand, it doesn’t make sense for the occupants of a completely autonomous car to be liable for accidents.

Volvo, which hopes to roll out its driverless IntelliSafe Autopilot system by 2020, says that it will take responsibility and pay the damages for accidents caused by its driverless cars. Erik Coelingh, its senior technical leader for safety and driver support technologies, said that the Volvo’s IntelliSafe Autopilot system will eventually include so many redundant and backup systems that a human would never have to intervene, and could not be at fault. It’s hoped that other car makers will follow suit, but liability, in this case, is a complex legal problem and it will take several lawsuits before it is fully understood how responsibility should be attributed in the event of an accident.

Uber’s Driverless Cars: A Case Study

The city of Pittsburgh is home to bridges (446 of them!), tricky intersections, hilly areas, diverse climatic conditions and a large variation in terrain. It’s also home to Carnegie Mellon University, which has one of the most advanced robotics and machine learning programs in the world. This made it a perfect location for Uber to test out its fleet of self-driving cars, which it rolled out in September 2016.

The fleet right now consists of modified Ford Focus cars. The cars have 20 cameras, seven lasers, GPS and radar equipment, and a liquid-cooled computer in the trunk. If you’re ever in Pittsburgh, you can recognize these cars from the spinning lidar unit on the roofs and the Uber logo across their sides.

The cars are requested in the usual way, by ordering an Uber ride from the app. The app randomly pairs you up with a driverless car, and for the time being, rides in these driverless cars are free.

Since the cars are currently in testing and are not completely ready, they still require an Uber technician to be at the wheel and ready to take over at any moment in case of difficulties. There’s usually an Uber engineer sitting next to the technician, noting down any unusual occurrences and ensuring everything is going smoothly.

The cars are currently not able to navigate bridges which is ironic since Pittsburgh is often referred to as ‘the City of Bridges’, in reference to the city’s whopping 446 bridges. Bridges pose a unique challenge since they lack contextual cues like landmarks and buildings.

During a visit to Pittsburgh, I had the unique experience of seeing several of Uber’s driverless cars for myself. They’re easy to spot, and you’ll see several if you’re walking around the city.

What About India?

While European countries and the US are wrapped up in the testing of driverless cars, we have to wonder: what about India? Will India ever be ready for driverless cars? At the moment, driverless cars require well paved roads with clear markings. India lacks the infrastructure for these cars to run, with only 16% of all roads being paved. In a country where roads lack basic traffic signs, a car which reacts by reading these signs and markings would run into problems pretty soon. Sudden obstacles like cows and other animals also pose serious problems.

To shine a bit more light on how an Indian techie would view driverless cars, we were lucky enough to have Rajiv Mangla, the CTO of Snapdeal share his opinion. We asked him about the scope of driverless cars in the future of India. He believes that it will leave many unemployed but will make for well-planned cities. Daily commutes will be much more predictable. However, he feels that India isn’t going to see commercial driverless cars in the near future unless the technology in the cars and the quality of roads is improved.

This doesn’t mean that Indians can’t make driverless cars. A few Bangalore based engineers have already retrofitted a Tata Nano with sensors and cameras to turn it into an autonomous vehicle. Roshy John, the person behind this project, began his work in 2011. Although the team is yet to take the car for a test drive, it means the future for Indian autonomous vehicles may not be too far away.

What The Future Holds

It’s hard to say what the future holds for driverless cars since they face a number of hurdles. Many people are still reluctant to sit in them out of safety concerns. It’s up to companies like Uber, Tesla, and Google to show people that driverless cars are the future, and that the future is now.

Written by Kabir Goel. Section on India written by Sarah Randhawa.

How often do you use the Internet for entertainment purposes and how?
Internet is the preferred medium for entertainment purposes for me. YouTube, Hotstar, Netflix and Spotify are some of the prevalent platforms used by me.

In what ways do you think can we fight torrenting?
Torrenting is a two sided sword. On one side, many people prefer to download open source softwares via torrenting as not everyone has a 24×7 reliable connection in this world but on the other side, it has become a hub of pirating, costing the world billions of dollars annually. The battle to curb piracy is to be done on multiple fronts. While cyber laws and crackdown on pirates is important, encouraging ethical behaviour and work is equally important.

What are your views on cashless transactions through mediums like PayPal?
Cashless transactions are the way to go. Cashless transactions not only make payment easy but also help in reducing pure cash transactions, which means more transparent transactions.

What would you prefer- a DSLR Camera or a Smartphone Camera?

Preference depends on the task at hand. Nowadays, for most of the purposes the Smartphone Camera does serve the purpose well though.

-Shalini Harisukh

1) What are your thoughts on completely digitizing education in India?

Ans- India is one of the fastest growing tech-hubs in the world, companies are flocking to us at a breakneck pace for the brilliant minds we offer for hire. To keep up with these continuously growing demands we have to make education something more than textbooks and notes, we must truly revamp and digitize our education system, ensuring that every man, woman & child can fully take advantage of the myriad of wonders that technology has to offer.

2) How can we increase student’s participation in class with the help of technology?

Ans- I believe that interactive classrooms are the future of education, with students following the teacher on the journey that he/she chooses to lead. An increase in already prevalent technologies and proper adaptation is the key to ensuring that every child unlocks the hidden potential they have.

3)What do you think of ‘computers are the best teachers’?

Ans-Every child in their own best teacher, with an introduction to computers they can find guidance in the comfort of their own homes, with crowd sourced forums and expert opinions, acquiring knowledge goes from a task to something akin to a hobby.

-Sangeeta Rana

With the central government’s efforts to digitise the country in full swing, it is indeed the right time for us to pause and reflect on the pros and cons of the digital revolution that is soon to follow. Digitisation on one hand will be lights of hope to millions of people all across the nation. People in the rural parts of India will have better access to essential information and will be able to escape from misinformation and exploitation due to lack of knowledge. On the downside, it is unexpected to what extent this might lead to a dependency on gadgets all across India making people less hardworking and ‘cellphone addicts’.

We wholeheartedly support the government’s ‘Digital India’ initiative but with precaution that each step should be taken with proper deliberation and thought.

-Shekhar Sharma

How can you prevent misuse of internet at schools and help children utilize the time they spend on the internet?

1. While the internet is a handy tool in teaching, students are misusing the facilities provided to them. Internet access should be password protected in school computers and the internet when allowed by the teacher should be used for facilities such as Google Classroom, and online resources such as W3 schools.

What are your views on ‘Internet of Things’?

1. ‘Internet of Things’ is a very pragmatic tool. For example, it can be used to connect household appliances and systems to create an interface where all things can be centrally controlled from your phone/computer.

What is your favorite programming language and why?

 3) In a programming language, you look for flexibility and versatility of use. C++ provides this basic, broad based usefulness and is versatile. It is a very fundamental and directly applied language and is hence my favorite.

-Nandini Dasgupta

• How are Google apps useful for education?

The most interesting fact about the Google apps is if you can type, you can use, which emphasizes their ease of use. The Apps are designed to provide organisations with a safe platform for data, offering better security and reliability than most schools could achieve on their own. Moreover, the apps include dozens of security features specifically designed to keep data safe, secure and in your control. It has removed the bottlenecks and and now we can spend more time on learning and teaching, making it an ideal environment for learning. Fast and easy collaborations now help students to display their creativity in learning. Google Docs and Google Classroom are the best examples which allow users to access files via mobile phones, even the Apple iPad, and of course from desktop computers and notebooks.

• How can automation (use of robots) affect job opportunities in IT fields?

Present day automation is affecting the job markets in a big way. Many people are of the idea that it will reduce the job opportunities while others are of the view that in the near future the requirement of IT specialists will outnumber the supply. I personally believe that the use of automation in the field of IT will generate more job opportunities for skilled people in all fields, in the years to come.

• What do you feel about virtual reality?

“The world of the computer was something behind the screen, before,” but now VR gives people a way to enter it. The truth is that Virtual Reality is likely to fundamentally change how people communicate and create a social impact as big as the telephone or the internet.

-Mukesh Nagpal

There is a photographer within all of us. However, it depends on the extent to which a person wants to hone this skill. In the earlier days, only those with the resources could afford this ‘elite hobby’. The cameras were themselves very expensive. The photographer would have to wait for that right moment and photographer has to take settings like aperture, shutter speed, ISO, white balance and many more into considerations while preying on the perfect click. Photography, today, has grown over time. The cameras have become smart: they cater to exotic features like instant transfer through wifi, bluetooth sharing, smart settings, and expandable memory. These features have allowed the photographer to focus on the frame rather than on the fine technicalities.

She/ he can take hundreds of photographs without a single thought of using up one of the 16 film reels and eventually select the best that she/ he finds the perfect click.

Technology has taken a step ahead by incorporating cameras within our cell phones. A phone without a camera, well, without two cameras are losing their value in the minds of the general audience. Everyone cares about the camera of the phone. This hypothesis has been proven by Apple and Google’s focus on the optical stabilizing camera, which specifically provides low light photography. Not only these global giants but other companies competing in the mobile phone market have made their concern over the photographic aspect of the phone. This, in turn, empowers the people to click photographs, share, and capture memories without even possessing the luxury of a DSLR camera.

Despite all the amenities provided by the phones, photography enthusiast tend to prefer the DSLR camera since these too have evolved to present an image that is close, if not better, to the image captured by the best camera in the world- the eye.

-Sarika Kaushal

Just Say, Feel, Execute 

Did you ever want searching through Google to be easier?

“OK Google” is a voice command used to activate Google Now voice search on your Android smartphone. It can be accessed by opening your phone’s Google Search app or Google Search widget and either tapping the microphone icon or saying “OK Google”.

You can ask Google Now pretty much anything you like, just as you normally would with Google Search. However, “OK Google” command can as well be used to set alarms, make calls and send texts, schedule meetings and do much more on your Android device. Day by day capabilities of Google Now is increasing and it is expected that in near future it will be one of the best voice-assistants.

Let’s see some Google Now commands for searching and knowing the exact answer instead of a list of webpages which may have the answer.

If you want to have a look at the official list of Google Now commands, you can find them in the link https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2842392?hl=en

With that I am winding up this article. I hope you try and experience a lot more Google Now commands.

– Mohit Dey