nerds. tonight sharks. we are tracking some of the misunderstood crete cite crete cree dry cree creatures in the sea.

we are behind the wheel of the fruitfuture testing out the driveless car. tonight police, science and a computer program may be able to predict crime before it happens. i am an entoe entomologist. that surothat is our team and let's do some science. ♪ hi guys and welcome to techknow. and rita rear going to start with you. your story combines two of the coolest things armed -- around.

you mean robots and sharks. >> robots and sharks. >> ithis is the coolest thing i have done and i was at the call state shark lab. and they are using a new piece of technology that is follow; is thatsharks under water to revolutionize the way we are looking at science. let's take a look at it. this is catalina island. 27 miles off the coast of los angeles. a place known for it's beauty both above and below the ocean that surrounds it. most of the dish that call these waters home go relatively unnoticed. but one spice species is impossible to miss. leopard sharks. hundredses of them. >> if you are the director of the shark lab and you are trying to revolutionize the way sharks had studded studied it's not a bad way to set up shop.

chris lowe is the director of callcal state long beach's shark lab. getting to know him and his work is getting your feet wet. obviously here a day at the office is a differ different attire and a different look at the world. >> it takes a few moments under the water to understand chris' passion for the other ocean and the sharks he study:when : >> when i caught my first shark there was something about it. it looked so different from all of the other fish i caught and it looked so streamline and sleek. it didn't match all of the fish i caught. >> what about it from the sharks threat that interested you in a sciencivic perspective. >> they are at the top of the food chain. they are the canary of the coal

mine and they tell us how healthy the oceans are. the wheel length challenge is hard to study. you want to the want to the sharks to come here and they do and mostly they don't. that is a tricky part. how do we find a way to study them where we don't have to be right there to influence their behavior. >> the answer he believes is this. >> this may look like a tore torpedo but this is a robot they are talking about. chris clark you are the man gee behind it . >> we have a av and we want to collected datacollected data about sharks. it use us sensors and a compass and a doppler velocity log. >> what are the sensors and what are they doing. >> we attach sensors for the that listen for the sharks.

it listens for the tags ateached to the sharks and it will drive around and follow the sharks as they move. what we have here are dummy plugs and these attach to a hydro phone. it's like a mike re microphone but it goes under water. the hydro phones are listening for acoustic category tags and these are things this big that attach to a fish or shark. every two seconds they will ping, ping. >> these robots have been used to shall a for a decade now. they are used to mob monitor temperature and light and all things you want to know to monitor the ocean. we are asking the robots to do one more thing thing. we want them to follow the shark

and characterize the enviroment. so we can build a 3-d map of the animal that we are tracking. and we know where the animal is in that 3 h 3-d space. and when the animal does something different is there anas spentanas anas suspectanaspect of their environment that is changing. you have a fishery that is being over fished but how do you know, just like when i was a boy the fishingfish didn't move away. it's a possibility. our ability to understand that is that managers can better manage fish fisheries . that is one example of knowing where animals go. >> this is all easier said than done which is why the group

comes to canada catalina testing. >> we are trying to find it and get as accurate as position on it as possible. ♪ zblrch the two chris. >> the two chris know when they have hit the mark. what is it like from being a boy the cool part is from being a kid asking those basic questions. i'm still asking those questions

but we have bet err better tools. >> what is the end game here how do you see the nothing changing and marine science. >> i envision a day of when we will have a fleet of these robots and they will enable us to do things that we have never been able to do. measures as spent aspects of behavior that we have never done before. i think this is going to change our field. do they think there is potential for this robot to alter the behavior they are observing? i know if i had a robot tailing me all day i would act a little different. >> that is a good question. i talked to them about that and they are interested in shark mivebehavior. and this is a device that is following them in real-time and keeping a healthy distance away. they feel confident that it's

not impacting behavior. >> we are going from sea sharks to a land shark. you can be stuck in traffic on the 405 ant you can 405 and you can lounge in the back and reeled read pa back. a book. we are going toic at to take an unforgettable ride. >> we want to know what you any of these stores.

♪ >> hello and welcome back. costa you went on a very hand off deprive. drive. tell me about the drive you went on. >> i got to take a test drive in nissan's new car you you no longer have to operate your car.

it drives you to work and driving you home. you -- drives you home. that is what i got to play with the future. >> did you feel safe. >> i felt incredibly safe. it drives me. >> awesome let's take a look. >> the road to a driverless car has been a long one. this is the way general motors envisioned the future in 1967. >> you are now in control. hand off steering. >> nissan's race for the first non-production vehicle is in the hand of the japanese. thesewho had me figure out how it works. >> these are your laser scanners and they have big beams of laser and they figure out the distance and here we have a radar panel that figures out 200 meters ahead and in the back of the

vehicle we have radar panels as well. and they have. >> twenty meters. and all of these little guys are for parking they are sonar. and then you have cameras on every side of the car. yes. it's a normal nissan and it's totally proto. and go if i open this up rnlg this >> this is kind of secrets. don't touch it. >> we are going to put it on you a tonyoua atonomus mode. >> you have no hand. the camera is reading the speed limit sign now. and we are going to watch it slow down. >> yes yes. automatically red light. camera is city detecting it. the car says "signal is red." >> it's not a cool color camera how did it know? >> the position.

>> the system explains what it's doing so the driver is not confused ever. >> how did it know to go to the left instead of the ride roo right. >> it follows the line. >> what happens if a kid comes out chasing a ball? >> oh, my god. oh, my god! we almost killed that guy. it checks to see if is anybody behind us or next to us. it makes the decision to brake or swerve. can we park it now? >> yeah. >> hewe cancel do can do that from the back seat right? >> this is my space. >> it's calling dibs on that spot and now it's parking. i love watching the steering wheel just spin itself. >> what happens if i inter

interresult it? it stops. as car makers head toward that date it may not be the technology but the human factor. at stanford automobile lab they are using a state of the art stimulator to answer the question how fast can a driver react when they are thrust back into control of an an autonomous car. when is the most dangerous time in a car. >> the moment when the car shifts back to the driver. to get what we call situation awareness. where there was none. and that turns out to be in inextraordinary challenge. >> i'm going to be placing the. eeg elect electrodes to your head. we hook up the driver and we have an eye tracker what their

brain is doing and their heart is doing. >> this simulator is built to help us better understand the ways to alert the driver that a ton autonomous mode is being switched after several minutes of texting when the car is driving, watch what happens when i have to take control. the car just asked me to disable auto makes. auto autoautoyou a auto mation. you had sensors on my hand hand and what is that doing. >> it's determining how excited you are and ready for action you are. a good drive is neither too

excited or too calm. >> are we required to be plugged into a car so it knows what it's doing. eventually cars will drive themselves. making the car the designated driver but for steve mayhem who is almost completely blind the cars will completely transform their lives lives. auto driving. google gave steve a look at the future. inviting him to take a seat in the first autonomous vehicle. >> look mom, no hands. >> how did that feel. >> incredibly normal. >> the car was driving did you have any instinct responses. >> we are here at the stop sign. anyone up for a taco. i suggest that we go to taco bell. >> this is

somest best driving i have done. >> do you think you will be able to be driving again in your lifetime? >> absolutely. >> that sounds like lot of fun actually. and i'm feeling petty pretty good with this technology i think an automatic car will drive better. >> there is a lot of discussion about this whether they are safe or not. right now they're doing research that is basically taking a race car driver's skill and putting it inside of the scar. car. so if you hit black ice while you are driving you don't know what to do. imagine if you had the ewife equivalent of a race car driver who could take over for you. >> what is the bottom line here. is this going to happen? are we going to see driverless cars on the freeways. >> nissan has a 2020 date for

having driverless cars on the road. they are talking about making the tess at that testarosa autonomous. >> you went on went a on a ride along that was a different technology. >> we were using a computer model going on the police beat. called predictive policing.

♪ ♪

>> hey guys we're back here at techknow. i'm with crystal. you are about to take us with a little ride. >> i did a ride with two police departmentses. departments and they are using a new predictive policing program. to find the hot spot of crime. >> compute heercomputer program that uses modmodels to pro predict where the crime is going to occur. >> roll call the police department the calm before the storm. >> our crime stats are showing the efforts that you guys are making. >> we are down 12% in overall crime. as the men and women of dayshift lock, load and hit the road. they are armed with a new type of law enforcement weapon. all right, where are we going? >> the ain't ability to predict where crime is going to occur.

we rolled out with them to see how it works. >> so downstairs here is where we house the operations division of the police department. deputy chief steve clark is a 20-year veteran of the santa cruz police department. owe knows the -- he knows the place inside out. he also knows where to go in the future. a knowledge that led him to a interactive predicting policing software. >> we were focusing on vehicle burglaries and we found the model was accurate predicting the timings times and locations of where the crime will occur. >> it sounds like "minority report" the tom cruise movie where they apprehend the criminal based on preknowledge. >> what the computer takes into effect is the what has been reported.

it doesn't know about the demographics in the area or the person, it's all area specific. >> today, it's more than a toy it tinker with. it's the main law enforcement tool in their arsenal. so taking a look now on dayshift. this is a live map of where we think the predictive zones are for a theft for auto theft today. the orange zones are where we have had auto theft. there are no boxes around them. that is what the program does for us. algorithm weighs those and determines if it's a significant things to be look looked at for this shift. >> when you look at police work you think of guys going with their gut and instinct to motivate. what is your response and what

have you learned. >> we are not telling you how to do police work. we are telling you where are the best locations for you to be at any given time in the day. and police what you see. >> police what you see. and as it turns out, when you know what to look for and more importantly where to look for it. you can see a lot. it looks like there is a hot spot in the in the neighbourhood area. so should we check that out. >> let's take a look at seabright and murrayment murray ant ant now we and and now we have an open car door and i have an open gate on this house as well. hi, police department. is that your car sitting out there with the door open? >> we just came home. >> i was just concerned and i saw it sitting there and saw the gate open and i thought i would stop and check. >> thank you. >> we are patrolling your neighborhood. and i'm sure you heard of the

predicting strategy we are using. in the first year they saw you a assaults down nine percent and burglary down 11% and auto theft was up 22% and. we see how can is a santa cruz is pioneering police work and it's already spreading to other areas across the country. for the past three months the seattle pd has been incorporating the new soft wear in theirwear -- software in their patrol. >> any policing agency is tied to culture and we are tied to our past. this is a paradigm shift in how officers have been employss policings. you are successful if you it that ticket or make that arrest. but this if you are out there and your presentation presence alone

persuades a criminal from committing a crime you are successful. >> it's about combining innovation with instinct and ringing up results. >> it's amazing what you will see as you drive-thru a neighborhood. the things that pop out to you and the anomalies that draw that draws your attention. i have my eyes on this guy who has his pants three quarters of the way down and he is walking through the business district. >> how >> hi how have you been doing. how much have you been drinking. >> i don't drink. hands behind your back. i can't have you a little episodic here. >> we are here in the hot spottedsupport spotand your instincts kick in and we stopped and talked to him and that is when you get clues.

>> he is the type of person that we need to be contacting and workings the predicttive policing system and it's instew intuition and gut instinct. >> it's easy to see why it's popular with the santa cruz pd and gaining tracks shun traction with other law enforcement agencies. >> when i see police targeting certain areas the term "profiling" comes to mind. how are they trying to avoid that. this al go alabama go algorithm is no crimes are entered into the data data base. >> there is nothing about there income or ethnicity. not even gender. >> it's not minority report.

>> no people are not coming to your door, don't worry. >> fascinating stuff from all of you guys. >> thank you for sharing these stories. one thing before we go. most people think scientists are a bit nerdy and not that cool. but i think crystal's shoes here beg to differ. take a look at those. >> they are still nerdy. >> go behind the scenes at aljazeera.com/techknow. follow your experts on twitter >> monday. >> visibility was 3 to 5 nautical miles. >> weathering the storm. >> we want to show people how to replace property against the worst mother nature has to offer. >> experts forecast how to stay safe. >> i'm standing in a tropical windstorm. >> in extreme weather. >> oh my god. >> techknow's team of experts show you how the miracles of science... >> this is my selfie, what can you tell me about my future? >> can affect and surprise us.

>> don't try this at home. >> "techknow" where technology meets humanity. monday, 6:30 eastern only on al jazeera america. >> welcome to the news hour live from our headquarters in doha. coming up, a saudi led coalition launches new airstrikes and hooted targets in yemen. >> looking for answers germ police uncover clues that could help understand why germanwings co pilot deliberately crashed a plane into the french alps. >> nigerian army has made a dent in its fight against boko