Things That Go "Bump" On The Road.

Many a road has been made safer by those brilliant "CatsEye" reflectors set along the painted lane markers. They glint back our headlights with a reassuring, helpful glow, and they tattoo a warning beat if our tires cross over the line. But if the British company Astucia gets its way, even the seemingly low-tech CatsEye will be joining the Knowledge Age.

Brought to our attention by the May 11 Mike's List (http://www.mikeslist.com/19.htm) and the May 6 UK Sunday Times (http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2001/05/06/stinwenws02034.html), they describe Astucia's vision of a solar-powered "Intelligent Road Stud" that not only marks the lanes, but also contains a wide-angle camera that keeps track of the goings-on on the roadway!

The individual studs communicate with hubs spaced along the road, and by interpreting the information gathered by the studs, the system can follow traffic flow, alter computerized road signs (changing the speed limit, warning drivers of a stoppage up ahead, etc.). It can even measure vehicle speed, read the license plate, and forward the information to the police over the Internet, or via another communications medium!

Although Astucia doesn't feel that this represents an invasion by Big Brother (after all, many countries are already using "radar cameras" and the like), it might give people pause to know that the lines in the road are peering in, and perhaps recording their activities for posterity.

But even if we don't want these studs to act as surrogate police, tightly-focused traffic control systems could well benefit from the studs' ability to talk among themselves. For example, studs can monitor the visibility around them, and illuminate several LED markers to aid drivers in fog. If a stud senses ice on the road, it might light up a blue LED as a warning. Studs could monitor a car's speed and its distance to the car in front, turning a section of lane red if the car is following too closely. Studs marking a crosswalk could sense a pedestrian, and then flash red to warn oncoming cars. Already, in one Paris tunnel, a series of studs along the side marker line strobe at the 50 kilometer/hour speed limit -- if a driver is "pulling ahead" of the strobe, he or she instantly knows that they're going too fast. (http://www.astucia.co.uk/astnew.htm).

Bottom line? "The ability of studs to talk to each other gives us lots of possibilities," says Astucia's Alan Mole. Kind of like how the world changed when COMPUTERS began talking to one another...

We're driving toward a VERY connected world!

This is an excerpt from the "Rapidly Changing Face of Computing, " a free weekly multimedia technology journal written by Jeffrey R. Harrow, Principal Member of Technical Staff for the Corporate Strategy group at Compaq. A more extensive version of this discussion, as well as others around the innovations and trends of contemporary computing and the technologies that drive them, are available at http://www.compaq.com/rcfoc . Jeff's opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Compaq. The RCFoC is a service of, and Copyright 2000, Compaq Computer Corp."