Firstly I finally got to take a ride on the only automated bus being legally operated on public roads in the world.
Of course this is in my home city of Perth Western Australia, often said to be the remotest city in the world as it's on the west coast of Australia (With a name like that where else would it be?)
The next nearest major city would be Adelaide which is 2,700 kilometres by road (1300 plus miles) so that is a lot of empty space but more on that later in this entry.
Perth is a modern city with nearly 2 million people and lots and lots of white beaches and a climate that California only thinks it has and without the pollution.
So for us to be the first in the world with an automated bus is pretty cool.
This is a joint project between the Royal Automobile Club (RACWA) and the state government to test this technology in a real world environment.
It is attracting interest from around the world with many visitors suprised that it's happening here.
Even Kryten from Red Dwarf fame (otherwise known as Robert Lewelyn) has been on the Intellibus.
His video is far better than mine so I will point to that to save me the embarrassment.
While the Intellibus is on the road it is not running (yet) in full autonomous mode as there are staff on board armed with an Xbox controller that gives them control if needed.
The bus takes off, trundles along, turns corners and gives way to traffic before proceeding.
However it detects obstacles and stops if impeded as the object avoidance is not yet turned on and the Xbox controller comes into its own and allows them to navigate around the obstruction.
This was particularly obvious when a woman opened her car door directly in front of the bus and it braked hard to avoid removing her from the shallow end of the gene pool.
The bin men had been recently as well and the bins on the road also made us stop and take remedial action.
The first thing I noticed when we took off was that I had absolutely no fear of not having a human in total control.
The second thing I noticed was the push bikes overtaking us but after all, it is early days in the testing and you can't really expect the authorities to sign off on full road speeds straight out of the gate.
All in all I found it to be a great experience and very much look forward to this becoming the norm.
All Kudos to the RAC and the government for putting Perth in the forefront, albeit in a limited way, of this amazing new technology.
A couple of weeks ago I had to opportunity to visit a number of remote communities in the far east of Western Australia (WA), close to the Northern Territory (NT) and South Australian (SA) borders.
To give you some context, WA covers a million square miles. There are sheep stations in the far north bigger than many European countries (and US states).
You could plonk Texas in the far north and never miss the space WA would lose, it's that big.
Considering a single state that is 1/3 the size of the whole continental US and has less that 3 million people with 2 million living in Perth, then you can appreciate that there is an awful lot of empty.
The local people here are nomadic tribes that wander through the three states, sometimes spending six months at one site before moving on. These are the Ngaanyatjarra people and one of only two tribes, I believe, who still have their native tongue as a first language.
These communities have local schools with a transitory population and very dedicated staff that do their absolute best for the kids and the community. As with most schools in Western Australia, I.T. is widely used for education and these remote communities are no exception. They have broadband of varying speeds and computers and tablets at the schools.
One of the principals related a story where all the kids disappeared one morning and the whole community went bush for a few hours.
When the boys returned they were in full body paint (ochre).
They all filed back into class like that and it was a testimony to the meeting of cultures when they were sitting there in full paint and googling through Ipads.
The point I am trying to make is that technology is now everywhere and there is no getting away from it.
Even in the middle of nowhere technology still exists and is widely accepted and used, so when people talk about bring back jobs by stopping automation, stopping globalisation and generally acting like a Luddite, think of a kid, sitting in the middle of nowhere looking at a whole shiny new world through a device held in his painted hand.
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