What does it take to create a software for a self-driving car!? It seems that, if you can hack into the iPhone (not conducting this test tough), you probably have enough knowledge to create a rudimentary self-driving system. Look at this really carefully. The guy shown here is the man who cracked and hacked the iPhone, but now he has something else to offer. George Hotz, a 26-year old hacker, created a 2016 Acura ILX which can basically run all by itself. That said, he did not create anything unseen before. The massive hardware setup which enables all this to happen is actually the same laser-based LIDAR hardware used by Google on their own cars. This time, however, Hotz created a software to make all of this functional and if we look closely on the 21.5 inches screen in the ILX, the system works through a Linux-based operating system.
As for now, we do not have much information about all the stuff integrated on the car. Aside from the LIDAR system, the only additional feature we know about is the camera set next to the rearview mirror. It is probably a 3D camera which captures a lot more details than any other camera.
The software here learns the driving habits of the guy driving the car (Hotz in this case) and later replicates them in conjunction with the data picked up by the LIDAR and 3D Camera. So, it is extremely smart in the purest sense conceivable.
Basically, life came to a point when AI can be created in a shed. This guy obviously did it and we are going to see more from him in the future.
