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Ford Patent Would Make Mobile Game Out of Controlling Autonomous Cars

By Laura Tucker
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You’d be hard-pressed to find a big company that has anything to do with technology that isn’t working on an autonomous car. This includes Ford Motor Company. They have filed a patent that could turn controlling your self-driving car into a mobile game of sorts as you control your car with your phone.

Ford’s Patent

The plan is that when your car is under its own control, but you desire to take over that control for whatever reason, that you could take out your phone and use that to control the car.

The Ford patent was filed recently and would allow for two separate driving modes for a self-driving car, with one of those modes being to control it via a smartphone.

It’s being reported that the autonomous mode would be similar to the tilt-to-steer mechanics used in driving games The accelerometer and gyroscope on your phone would be used to drive the front wheels, and the other would would involve you turning the wheel via your smartphone.

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But the car would retain some of the control in both situations, including acceleration and/or braking. So the only thing you could ever be in control of is steering, such as to force the car to change lanes.

It’s not necessarily indicative of a product that Ford is envisioning at the moment, as there are many other things that need to come into play first, such as addressing security and performance issues.

Is This What We Want?

But is this really what customers are wanting – to never have complete control? Many people already have an issue with self-driving cars, as they don’t like the thought of not being in control of your car, not knowing what is ever coming up on the drive.

And this would be adding another fear into that. People already have a fear of security when using their phones or other devices. And now you’d just be adding to them. Would this make it easier for someone to carjack you? They would only need to hack into your phone. How would Ford prevent that?

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The fear of not being in control of your vehicle yourself would now join the fear of losing control of your phone through being hacked. Double the fear, but not double the fun.

Additionally, what are drivers going to do while they aren’t driving? How will they spend their time? Most likely they’ll want to spend it on their phone: playing games, catching up on work or social media, or calling friends and family to chat. Would the phone be able to handle multitasking like this?

There are obviously many, many things for Ford to work out before their patent would ever become a reality.

What do you think about Ford’s patent of controlling self-driving cars with a smartphone? Do you have grave concerns about controlling your car with your phone? Does never having complete control of your car worry you? Or would you look forward to leaving all the stress of driving behind?

Let us know what you think about Ford’s patent to control autonomous cars via smartphone in the comments section below.

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Laura Tucker Avatar
Laura Tucker
Laura has spent more than 20 years writing news, reviews, and op-eds, with the majority of those years as an editor as well. She has exclusively used Apple products for the past 35 years. In addition to writing and editing at MTE, she also runs the site’s sponsored review program.

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