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Model S and Nvidia at 2012 CES

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2012 CES , interview with Tes PR Manager & Nvidia Automotive Mgr (Tesla Model S)

2012 CES

I am wrapping up my 2012 CES coverage, will post more info later. Need to recover from 1 week of guerilla daily photo/video coverage:

JUMPLIVE - Real Time Photo-Video Updates/OffRoad Racing

Collection: 2012 CES

Model S photos at:

2012 CES 1/13 - a set on Flickr

Met CEO of Ford Alan Mulally & higher ups at Mercedes Benz (CEO made a keynote speech..awesome!). Audi & Kia had booths at North Hall. Nvidia had a Model S at their booth, & exhibit outside in Central Plaza (Lamborghini & Audi).

Also met Scott McNeally (Sun co-founder) & Dean Kamen, both have educational initiatives. There is a STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) crisis in America, they are concerned about it & pursuing action. I spent time in the Educational Tech zones, & had coverage of the Carnegie-Mellon QoLT initiative (Quality of Life Technology). The Google Car can be traced to the DARPA Grand Challenge ("robot race in the desert"), which had the Urban Challenge spinoff. Martin Eberhard (robotics) & my UIUC degrees (Computer Vision) are in the area of the triumvirate Robotics/Artificial Intelligence/Computer Vision, the Core Technology for Automobile Autonomous Navigation. BIG interest by US Military (DoD/Dept of Defense), also in UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles). Obama recently announced the "new Warfare" using robots. This will undoubtedly create a mass-consumer spinoff, just like

1) Computer Games
traced to ARPA funded Scientific Visualization in 60's, which led to Computer Graphics research & GPU Development..ATI & Nvidia

2) Internet
traced to ARPA funded ARPANet in 60's (threat of nuclear war)

This means the Automotive + Electronics/Internet integration (what Nvidia is doing with Tesla Model S, with Tegra), is on the fore-front.

SpaceX (privatization of Space) & Tesla Motors (Automotive + Computer/Internet) is part of a dual revolution.

The Elon Musk & Martin Eberhard "DNA" will hopefully be part of the "new Sputnik moment" in Alternative Energy, plus privatization of Space.
 
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I noticed in the Model S CES interview with Danny Shapiro, Director, Nvidia Automotive, he mentioned "Enhanced safety in the car is also one of our goals. The Tegra processor is going to be used in a lot of driver assistance systems in the future". I guess we should look for that in Model S 1.1 or 2.0? Features like dynamic cruise control, blind spot detection, lane-keeping assistance, etc. Looks like Model S got tons of exposure at CES judging from all the gawker traffic behind Shapiro during his interview.
 
Soooo, where are the betas on Feb 1? I'm heading to California on business and want to know!

You may want to come out one day early as they are only in the Menlo Park, San Jose and Fashion Island stores till Jan 31st.
Link :: Events | Tesla Motors

They may be there longer and they haven't updated the site but you could call the three stores to get the latest.
 
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Call me crazy but I think it's stupid to have a giant touch screen.....in a car. There's a point to all the tangible buttons you have on the center column, I don't even have to look at them, I just reach out my hand and know what I'm touching because of the shape of the buttons. And if the road is bumpy, I can still rotate a dial, switch of/on a button. This thing looks so out of place and ugly, cheap, plastic. The exterior of Model S is so beautiful and every little detail is well styled, everything works together. But I look at the interior and think - what the hell happened? It's 5 different styles and design "ideas" into one. I read somewhere (I think it was in the blog comments on Teslas site that it looks like parts where taken from some Dodge van from the 80s.....and I agree. Seriously, what happened to the interior design????

I'm a huge admirer of Tesla Motors, have been following them since the very first version of the site was online, I'm just really disappointed by this interior which for me at least ruins the Tesla S. Even more so because the exterior is just stunning. It's a real shame.

This video shows how tiny the air conditioning controls are (those little up/down arrows at the bottom), imagine how many times you'll click in the wrong place of this super sensitive screen. Click click click, because I missed the area where I am supposed to click, click again because of the hundreds of different buttons and tens of pages, you'll be constantly switching between.......while trying to drive. Try also clicking on a screen control (some of them you'll need to click repeatedly, like the climate controls) if the road you're driving on isn't smooth. Just seeing that huge square screen there makes me thing of some DIY engineer who wants to impress himself and others but has absolutely no sense of design.

This is the Tesla S exterior:

iY2XDHRSBVMbq.jpg


...and this is the interior:

iNHg74P24YejZ.jpg
 
Call me crazy but I think it's stupid to have a giant touch screen.....in a car. There's a point to all the tangible buttons you have on the center column, I don't even have to look at them, I just reach out my hand and know what I'm touching because of the shape of the buttons. And if the road is bumpy, I can still rotate a dial, switch of/on a button. This thing looks so out of place and ugly, cheap, plastic. The exterior of Model S is so beautiful and every little detail is well styled, everything works together. But I look at the interior and think - what the hell happened? It's 5 different styles and design "ideas" into one. I read somewhere (I think it was in the blog comments on Teslas site that it looks like parts where taken from some Dodge van from the 80s.....and I agree. Seriously, what happened to the interior design????

I'm a huge admirer of Tesla Motors, have been following them since the very first version of the site was online, I'm just really disappointed by this interior which for me at least ruins the Tesla S. Even more so because the exterior is just stunning. It's a real shame.

This video shows how tiny the air conditioning controls are (those little up/down arrows at the bottom), imagine how many times you'll click in the wrong place of this super sensitive screen. Click click click, because I missed the area where I am supposed to click, click again because of the hundreds of different buttons and tens of pages, you'll be constantly switching between.......while trying to drive. Try also clicking on a screen control (some of them you'll need to click repeatedly, like the climate controls) if the road you're driving on isn't smooth. Just seeing that huge square screen there makes me thing of some DIY engineer who wants to impress himself and others but has absolutely no sense of design.

This is the Tesla S exterior:

iY2XDHRSBVMbq.jpg


...and this is the interior:

iNHg74P24YejZ.jpg


At one point Tesla claimed that the touch screen would be haptic...not sure if that is the case anymore? I completely agree I prefer the tactile feedback of honest to goodness buttons...Mercedes and to a certain extent BMW have realized that touch screens are dangerous...For functions that I will use often (i.e. Climate Control, Seat Adjustments, Mirror Adjustments, windows, etc) it would be nice to have normal buttons.
 
Buttons can be screwed up, too. My 911 had lots of little tiny buttons, mostly unlabelled. And I've seen many HVAC physical control layouts that were crap. A touchscreen could be a huge improvement - it's all in the execution.

And, on a touchscreen, a smaller initial target (17" is huge, BTW, no target on there will be small) doesn't imply sensitivity. The volume control could, once touched, use the entire screen as a drag area.
 
Buttons can be screwed up, too. My 911 had lots of little tiny buttons, mostly unlabelled. And I've seen many HVAC physical control layouts that were crap. A touchscreen could be a huge improvement - it's all in the execution.

And, on a touchscreen, a smaller initial target (17" is huge, BTW, no target on there will be small) doesn't imply sensitivity. The volume control could, once touched, use the entire screen as a drag area.

I guess the great equalizer could be voice control, I had this on a Mercedes I think they called linguatronic, if Tesla has a voice control system for the basic functions that is relatively accurate I think a lot of the lack of tactile feedback issues could be moot. I think most cars usually have redundant controls for vital systems (I.e. HVAC). You can control it via touch screen or physical buttons. Do you know if the Model S will have haptic feedback built in?
 
If by haptics you mean some vibrating or other sensory feedback, the answer is no. Using the 17" touchscreen felt no different than using an iPad; same pinch and spread/squeeze, same fingers-on-flat-glass. It was a little less sensitive than an iPad, at least in the Santana Row beta, but I have cold fingers and so may not be a particularly representative user.