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(Continued from page 4) use them, and that information is often ac-
cessed wirelessly. While older cars are still
These tests may be entertaining and can pro- safe from this, about 3 in 4 of the cars sold by
vide useful, though perhaps vague, infor- 2020 will be online. This information may be
mation on your ancestry and genetic health. able to help track your car servicing more eas-
There are some concerns about privacy and ily, update safety systems and provide emer-
accuracy, however, and you may learn things gency services, but it also could be sold to in-
you might have wished you didn’t know. One surance companies eager to study your driv-
company’s test reportedly failed to identify that ing habits or provided to law enforcement to
a submitted sample was actually from a Labra- determine where you have been or when you
dor retriever. Some have learned from these have been speeding.
tests that their parentage is not as they were Self-driving cars have
led to believe, or that they had half siblings un- seemed to be on the verge
known to their families. Submitting your sam- of introduction to the con-
ple puts your DNA information in the test com- sumer for a few years now;
pany’s genetic database, which could be used perhaps 2019 will finally see a service gener-
for things you didn’t intend. One example is in ally available. Many companies have been
identification of suspects in law enforcement testing autonomous vehicles for years, mostly
investigations. These genetic testing compa- with human back-up drivers. Autonomous
nies could also share or sell genetic infor- trucks, taxis and cars could be revolutionary
mation to insurance or pharmaceutical compa- forces in our society, economy and labor mar-
nies.
ket. These technologies could reduce trans-
Loss of privacy seems to be a common risk portation costs greatly and help provide great-
with a lot of the new technology we have er freedom for the disabled, and likely would
adopted in the last decade or two. In the best reduce vehicle accident rates.
case, our personal information, preferences Technology appears to be finally allowing
and habits (such as for travel and consuming) humans to once again make real progress to-
have become a commodity that companies we wards space travel. Christmas Eve 2018
deal with can use, buy and sell, with advertis- marked the 50th anniversary of the first flight
ers looking to improve their sales to us, the to the moon, where Apollo 8 orbited the moon
consumers. In the worst case, criminals are and took the first photo of Earth as a distant
trying to gain, through tricks or theft, our per- object. Following the final Apollo moon land-
sonal information, especially that dealing with ing, however, human space flight never left
our identity and account passwords, in order low Earth orbit. Now that many commercial
to steal from us, or sell to others that will. companies are competing with NASA to fly
Somewhere in the middle is the threat posed cargo and ultimately peo-
to the individual by a police state that has ac- ple to the International
cumulated detailed information on its citizens, Space Station and beyond,
with the goal of tracking and controlling them.
progress in space is accel-
In addition to the information that we provide erating. Several compa-
online with our computers, or in using our nies, including Elon Musk’s
smart phones, we now have to worry about SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, have
the data collected by our connected cars. Au- successfully demonstrated the recovery
tomakers are collecting ever more information (Continued on page 6)
about how our cars are running and how we
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