Google’s Prediction API Helps Ford Create Intelligent Cars
The two corporate giants come together to develop cars that know where you're going and the best route to get there, so as to avoid time wasted in traffic.
The two corporate giants come together to develop cars that know where you’re going and the best route to get there, so as to avoid time wasted in traffic. Ford is feeding off of Google’s Prediction API to analyze historic data, predict likely future outcomes and create cars that determine where you’re going by looking at where you’ve been.
In a nutshell, the Prediction API adds pattern-matching capability to existing cloud-based datasets, using it to predict probable outcomes for current events. Using it in an automotive setting would allow our cars to effectively learn from our behavior and adapt to it.
“We take examples from the past and apply machine algorithm learning to find the best model that fits the situation,” Travis Green, Google’s Prediction API product manager, said.
So in theory, if you opt in to using the service, a computer in your car would create an encrypted record of your driving data — where you’ve gone, when you’ve gone there and what route you took — and tailor it to your driving profile. Eventually, your car “remembers” where and how you drive.