By now we should know of George Hotz, formerly known as Geohot, the young man who used to hack iPhones and PlayStation 3s. He's all past that now and doing what hopeful businessmen do on a regular basis. Right now, he's working on an exciting self-driving car technology that could change the game.
Here's the thing: if you want to experience self-driving cars or even autonomous ones, you'll have to purchase a new car. That's expensive for most people. So what should one do then? The idea would be to sit around and wait until these vehicles have come down in price, but that may no longer be the case.
Hotz is saying we can take another route with his self-driving car kit known as Comma One. Hotz made the announcement during TechCrunch Disrupt SF, where he took shots at companies claiming to be working on self-driving tech but lacking the hardware.
Hotz said his system is in working condition, and when it ships this year, it will cost $999. This price tag is designed to be inexpensive, which is key for anyone who would want to turn their old vehicle into a self-driving car.
There's something to note about Comma One, however. The system will only support a small number of cars from launch, but Hotz hopes to add more vehicles as time goes by.
"It is fully functional. It's about on par with Tesla Autopilot," Hotz says. "The key sensors that we're getting back is the cam. We're actually getting back the video, even Tesla isn't doing that. We have all the video data."
It's interesting what Hotz is selling, as he believes Comma One can help a car automatically drive from Mountain View to San Francisco without the driver ever having to touch the wheel or the brake.
Those are some strong claims by Hotz, especially since his system doesn't use sensors. Comma One instead uses a camera to view the road and the area ahead. We're not sure how it uses the camera to make decisions or what type of camera is being used.
What we do know is that Comma One takes advantage off the shelf components, which is one of the reasons why it is so easy to create and cheap to manufacture and sell.
What about MobilEye?
Hotz is not a fan of the company. He told TechCrunch that no one should look to them for self-driving car solutions.
Photo: Travis Wise | Flickr
