Navigation apps can be helpful for getting around an unfamiliar country… up until you need to ask someone for directions and can’t say a place name. Google thinks it can help. It’s rolling out an update to Google Maps on Android and iOS that can speak place names in the local language. You can point a driver to a Japanese cultural center or a Spanish tapas bar without having to point frantically at the screen. And if you do need more than that translation to get around, there’s a direct link to Google Translate if you have it installed.
The translation features should reach your device sometime in November. It won’t be useful for every language at first — there will be ‘just’ 50 to start. More are on the way, though. So long as it does fit the bill, you’ll hopefully spend less time trying to share your destinations with locals and more time actually visiting them.
Garmin Avionics has developed an Autoland system to get a General Aviation plane back on the ground if its pilot becomes incapacitated.
Garmin/Piper
It’s only currently available in the Piper M600 (previous photo) and the Cirrus Vision, pictured here.
Garmin/Cirrus
If you’re in a Piper M600, you’ll need this button.
Garmin/Piper
For reference, this is a Piper M600.
Garmin/Piper
Don’t touch anything.
Garmin/Piper
The system keeps track of any suitable runways you might have flown past on your way.
Garmin/Piper
If you’ve been around long enough, you’ve probably heard stories of passengers who successfully landed small planes after their pilots fell ill or died. It happened in Australia just a few months ago (Aug. 31) when a student on his first flight lesson in Perth was forced to land a Cessna 150 after his instructor lost consciousness.
The student had never landed anything previously, but it worked. However, it usually doesn’t, and the consequences are disastrous. That’s why electronics/avionics maker Garmin is launching Autoland, an emergency autopilot system that can autonomously land a private aircraft and bring it to a stop on the runway.
Push the red button
Commercial airliners have long had auto-landing systems as well as the ability to fall back on co-pilots if the pilot-in-command becomes incapacitated. Until recently, single-pilot certified general aviation (GA) airplanes haven’t had autonomous landing capability. To be clear, they still don’t. Garmin’s Autoland system is not yet FAA certified, though the company expects certification “soon.”
Autoland is a new feature of Garmin’s G3000 integrated flight deck, which already comes with 3-axis autopilot, auto-throttles, and automatic stability and descent capabilities. It will debut on two single-engine airplanes: Piper’s M600 SLS turboprop and Cirrus Aircraft’s Vision Jet. Priced at $2.9 million and $2.3 million, respectively, they admittedly stretch the definition of general aviation aircraft, but each is largely owner-flown.
If you’re aboard one, and the owner-pilot succumbs to something, here’s what happens:
Upon recognizing the pilot is in distress, a passenger can press the Autoland button. In the Cirrus it’s a big red button on the ceiling between the pilot’s seats and at top-center on the M600 instrument panel. The G3000 also monitors pilot activity/inactivity and cabin pressure and can automatically engage Autoland or Emergency Descent Mode if no activity is detected. (Recall the Payne Stewart hypoxia-induced Lear 35 crash.)
The system audibly announces, “Emergency Autoland Activating.” The airplane then declares an emergency with air traffic control via automated voice radio messages and sets the transponder to squawk 7700 (mayday signal).
Simultaneously, Autoland analyzes terrain, weather, and nearby airports to determine the optimal airport for landing given the specific aircraft’s available fuel and performance characteristics, winds, runway length, and a host of other factors. As the airplane descends, Autoland controls speed, altitude and flight path and manages throttles, flaps, cabin pressurization, and more.
Air traffic controllers are informed of the system’s landing destination choice and clear traffic as they would with a human-flown emergency. On final approach, Autoland lowers the gear, flares the airplane, and brings it to a stop with automatic braking. Audible instructions for exiting the airplane then play.
Throughout the evolution, passengers can be in voice contact with ATC, getting reassurance. And if the pilot comes to, they can override Autoland, turning everything off with another press of that button.
Easy to imagine, hard to do
“A lot of this was us trying to figure out what would make sense in this class of aircraft,” says Garmin’s aviation systems team leader, Ben Patel.
Work on the system accelerated four years ago as technology and the business case came together. Garmin’s own development of its autopilot, auto-throttles, and other automated systems formed the building blocks for Autoland.
“These systems that we’re using to enable it are things that have been in the field for years,” Autoland Program Manager Bailey Scheel adds.
Autoland not only employs a sophisticated autopilot, it leverages special routing and destination-selection algorithms. The system is aware of all airports bypassed on a flight as well as those immediately proximate. It actually scores airports for optimal safe landing based on dynamic physical, environmental, and weighted OEM performance parameters.
Senior Software Engineer Eric Tran adds that Autoland routing borrows from Garmin’s automotive autonomy side. “It can choose the best, safest airport for autonomous landing faster than any human pilot.”
Garmin says that about 70% of airports in the US are suitable Autoland destinations. They simply need a GPS approach with vertical guidance.
On the other hand, Autoland requires an airplane with the latest version of the G3000 flight deck, with auto-throttles, auto-braking, radar altimeter, and more. The population of GA aircraft eligible is very small.
As of this writing, Piper has built about 10 Autoland-enabled M600 SLS. Cirrus has two Autoland-equipped Vision Jets. Fitting the system to your private piston-single or twin could be possible with considerable work but also prohibitively expensive. (Garmin declines to price Autoland.)
That’s why Autoland will roll out exclusively on new aircraft for some time to come. Eventually Garmin will broaden the market. In the process, lives will be saved.
of launching new services only to shut them down a few months or years later. And with the launch of Stadia imminent, one launch game developer has acknowledged the prevalence of concerns about that history among her fellow developers while also downplaying their seriousness in light of Stadia’s potential.
“The biggest complaint most developers have with Stadia is the fear is Google is just going to cancel it,” Gwen Frey, developer of Stadia launch puzzle gameKine,told GamesIndustry.biz in recently published comments. “Nobody ever says, ‘Oh, it’s not going to work.’ or ‘Streaming isn’t the future.’ Everyone accepts that streaming is pretty much inevitable. The biggest concern with Stadia is that it might not exist.”
“Working in tech, you have to be willing to make bold moves and try things that could fail,” Frey continued. “And yeah, Google’s canceled a lot of projects. But I also have a Pixel in my pocket, I’m using Google Maps to get around, I only got here because my Google Calendar told me to get here by giving me a prompt in Gmail. It’s not like Google cancels every fucking thing they make.”
Google itself has made similar arguments in the past. Stadia Director of Product Andrey Doronichev
that Google’s commitment to Stadia is comparable to services like Gmail, Docs, Music, Movies, and Photos. “Nothing in life is certain, but we’re committed to making Stadia a success… Of course, it’s OK to doubt my words. There’s nothing I can say now to make you believe if you don’t. But what we can do is to launch the service and continue investing in it for years to come.”
Worries over Stadia’s continued existence aren’t exactly academic for potential consumers, though, since Google is primarily asking players to pay full price for Stadia games that only exist on Google’s own servers. Anyone who similarly bought games for streaming service OnLive years ago knows what can come of that kind of investment if and when the service goes under.
Slow start, grand potential
Elsewhere in the interview, Frey said she sees Google’s Stadia launch strategy as a limited one that “is pushing Stadia in a direction to compete with consoles.” That means ports of console-style games that don’t take full advantage of the power of Stadia’s cloud data centers, as Google says future Stadia exclusives may do.
It also means a focus on “territories where there are a lot of consoles and where the Internet is very good, so in the short-term I think it won’t reach its potential,” Frey said. “I don’t even think they want to have a super-strong launch. I get the sense that they want to scale slowly and see where this goes.”
In the longer term, though, Frey said she has some undisclosed ideas about how to use Stadia’s cloud power for unique experiences in the future. And she said she’s excited about the impact cloud gaming could have once high-speed mobile Internet access really goes worldwide.
“I’m not sure what implications this has in a place like Africa, where everything’s mobile,” she said. “When 6G drops, is this going to suddenly be a big deal? What does this mean for places where everyone goes to internet cafes, like in Brazil? Who knows?”
