This Guy...

So, autonomous cars are going to be prevalent in our lives in a matter of a couple years. But, all of the companies that I have reported on are employing very intricate solutions to solve this problem. I just stumbled on another startup, called Comma, which is taking the world of self driving cars by storm with its working prototype of an autonomous car.

Many of you guys haven’t even heard of Comma, partly because this is a one man show. George Hotz, the guy who hacked a PS3 and the only person to hack an iPhone (not including agencies such as the FBI) all on his spare time. His new project is to simplify the whole idea of autonomous cars so that they can actually be available to the masses.

For starters, his company is working to take advantage of Deep Learning tactics so that the machine learns how to be a human driver. Deep Learning involves a machine that analyzes absurdly huge amounts of data so that it can make effective decisions regarding a certain topic. For example, Google ran an experiment where it funneled a program millions of YouTube videos and by analyzing each video, the program was able to accurately identify certain pictures and distinguish the difference between a picture of a cat and a human. Pretty impressive for a non living program.

By accumulating mass amounts of driving data and the various decisions that were made along the drive, George will practically be teaching the car to drive just like any other human.

To employ this strategy, George told reporters that he basically drove down the freeway for two hours with a bunch of sensors and cameras attached to his Acura ILX that fed the computer with information regarding the drive. Then, the machine was able to drive like a human, although the first iteration of the technology would still feature data that is deemed as a bad driving habit (like going 45 in a 40 zone).

To fully launch the product, George is calling on normal drivers to download the CHFRR app so that he can aggregate mass amounts of actual driving data. This is all in the quest to make a simple solution to an idea that is all the rage right now. Plus, you get Comma points which will be redeemable later in the future.

Tesla and other self driving car manufacturers may have beautiful interiors and amenities, but where those cars have hundreds of thousands of lines of code, George’s ILX has just over 2,000 lines. So, Tesla and Google spent countless months and even years while George converted his ILX into a fully working autonomous car in a little over a month!

But, don’t think that this poor man is all alone. He might be a one man machine, but he just secured $3.1 million in a seed round from Andreessen Horowitz.

George will be selling kits that allow cars with at least a GPS to be converted into fully autonomous cars. The base price is rumored to be sub-$1,000 and will feature a big Tesla inspired screen so that users can control the system or even watch a movie! It will be released hopefully by the end of the year and will send shockwaves throughout the main players in the market.