[nabs-l] [stylist] Google tests cars that can steer without drivers

Tue Oct 12 03:19:02 UTC 2010

If Ray Kurzweil can promise fixing disease, and improving the human being with ingections of computer parts into our bloodstream, if such unimaginable feats of science can ever come to reality some day, then automated driving can't be that far off.

Thanks Joe,

Antonio
On Oct 11, 2010, at 10:12 P
M, Danielle Montour wrote:

> Hey this is cool! Thanks! I'm in the same boat as you on the car without steering thing.  That would be interesting if this experiment yielded good results.
> 
> Danielle
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Joe Orozco" <jsorozco at gmail.com
> To: "'National Association of Blind Students mailing list'"<nabs-l at nfbnet.org>, "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org
> Date sent: Mon, 11 Oct 2010 21:51:42 -0400
> Subject: [stylist] Google tests cars that can steer without drivers
> 
> Ah, look at this?  For all the nay-sayers like myself who think cars that
> drive themselves are a thing of pipe dreams.  Maybe a reconsideration is in
> order, but only just maybe.--Joe
> 
> Google tests cars that can steer without drivers
> 
> Video
> 
> Logitech's De Luca Says Google `Not Replacing' Cable TV: Video
> Oct.  7 (Bloomberg) -- Guerrino De Luca, chairman of Logitech International
> SA, talks about the outlook for Google Inc.'s TV service, which will debut
> this month on Sony Corp.  and Logitech devices.  De Luca talks with Matt
> Miller and Carol Massar on Bloomberg Television's "Street Smart." (Source:
> Bloomberg)
> LAUNCH VIDEO PLAYER
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> By DANIEL WAGNER
> The Associated Press
> Sunday, October 10, 2010; 6:23 PM
> 
> WASHINGTON -- Google Inc.  is road-testing cars that steer, stop and start
> without a human driver, the company says.
> 
> This Story
> Google tests cars that can steer without drivers
> Munster Says Google, Apple in `First Inning' of TV Clash: Video
> Logitech's De Luca Says Google `Not Replacing' Cable TV: Video
> The goal is to "help prevent traffic accidents, free up people's time and
> reduce carbon emissions" through ride sharing and "the new 'highway trains
> of tomorrow,'" project leader Sebastian Thrun wrote Saturday on Google's
> corporate blog.
> 
> The cars are never unmanned, Thrun wrote.  He said a backup driver is always
> behind the wheel to monitor the software.
> 
> It's not the first signal that Google wants to change how people get from
> place to place.  In a speech Sept.  29 at the TechCrunch "Disrupt" conference,
> Google CEO Eric Schmidt said "your car should drive itself.  It just makes
> sense."
> 
> "It's a bug that cars were invented before computers," Schmidt said.
> 
> The cars have traveled a total of 140,000 miles on major California roads
> without much human intervention, according to Google's corporate blog.
> 
> The Mountain View, Calif.-based technology giant has sent seven test cars a
> total of 1,000 miles without a human touching the controls at all, the New
> York Times reported.  The newspaper published a report on the cars earlier
> Sunday.
> 
> The cars know speed limits, traffic patterns and road maps, Thrun's posting
> says.  They use video cameras, radar sensors and lasers to detect other cars.
> 
> 
> Driving between Northern California and Southern California, the cars have
> navigated San Francisco's curvy Lombard Street, Los Angeles' Hollywood
> Boulevard and the cliff-hugging Pacific Coast Highway, the blog says.
> 
> Engineers consider the cars safer because they react more quickly than
> humans, the New York Times said.  It said Google has not revealed how it
> hopes to profit from the research.
> 
> The company is flush with cash, though, and pushing numerous projects such
> as the cars that are unrelated to its core business, said Rob Enderle,
> principal analyst with the Enderle Group in San Jose, Calif.
> 
> "The word 'focus' is a word Google has never learned," Enderle said,
> pointing to projects involving electricity distribution, vehicle design and
> artificial intelligence.  He said cars that can drive themselves would allow
> commuters more time to surf the web, something Google would encourage.
> 
> Still, Enderle said, industry leaders such as Volkswagen and Intel Corp.  are
> working on similar technology.  He said "driverless" vehicles will make
> computers more like the robots imagined in the 1920s, rather than the
> tabletop data processors we use today.
> 
> The blog says the technology is being developed by scientists who were
> involved in an earlier set of unmanned car races organized by the
> government's Defense Advance Research Projects Agency.
> 
> ----
> 
> AP Technology Writer Michael Liedtke in San Francisco contributed to this
> report.
> 
> 
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