Autonomous cars will be data-consuming monsters
If you think we're hyperconnected today, just wait until autonomous cars are everywhere.
In 2020, we'll all download and upload a lot more data, and so will the objects around us. The average person will soon use 1.5 gigabytes of data daily, while autonomous vehicles will use about 4,000, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said in a presentation at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco Tuesday.
"The average person today generates about 6-to-700 megabits a day. By 2020, the estimate is 1.5 gigabytes a day for the average person," Krzanich said. "We're talking like 3,000 people per car in data."
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A representative for Intel told Mashable that the numbers come from an article on Datafloq. Their estimates assume that the driverless car will generate .75 gigabytes per second, as Google's driverless car prototype reportedly does, and that the average person spends 600 hours a year in their car -- which seems a bit high.
Still, the point remains. There's going to be a ton of information flying around in the near future, and humans aren't going to be the only ones generating it. Your car will send and receive location data, check in on the weather, navigate traffic and so on.
Meanwhile, the smartphone you have today, likely connected to a 4G network, may soon seem like a fossil, and you might look back and wonder "How did we live like that?" (Those early iPhones look slow and awful now.)
As advanced as the world around you seems, it's sort of a half-filled balloon.
Think of it like this: As advanced as the world around you seems, it's sort of a half-filled balloon. We'll soon consume more media on our devices, and advanced technology like self-driving cars will also send and receive information online -- "inflating" the amount of data produced overall. For that to happen, we'll need faster connections, too.
Carriers like AT&T and Verizon are working on 5G wireless networks to handle all of the information. Your phone probably connects to a 4G network right now, which allows you to stream video and browse social media -- but 5G connections will be much faster, meaning you’ll be able to download movies in a flash, stream higher quality video and immerse yourself in streaming virtual reality experiences with people on the other side of the world.
We still have a little waiting to do, though. The first 5G network is slated to launch in 2018 at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Topics Intel Self-Driving Cars Cars
Damon Beres is an Executive Editor at Mashable, overseeing tech and science coverage. Previously, he was Senior Tech Editor at The Huffington Post. His work has appeared in Reader's Digest, Esquire.com, the New York Daily News and other fine outlets.
