<html><head></head><body bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><div></div><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; "><strong style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-weight: bold; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; ">The object, vaguely pink,</strong> sits on the shoulder of the freeway, slowly shimmering into view. Is it roadkill? A weird kind of sagebrush? No, wait, it’s … a puffy chunk of foam insulation! “The laser almost certainly got returns off of it,” says Chris Urmson, sitting behind the wheel of the Prius he is not driving. A note is made (FOD: foreign object or debris, lane 1) as we drive past, to help our computerized car understand the curious flotsam it has just seen.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; ">It’s a Monday, midday, and we are heading north on California Highway 85 in a Google autonomous vehicle. In October 2010, when <em style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; ">The New York Times</em>reported that Google had built a fleet of self-driving cars that had already collectively traversed some 140,000 miles of California asphalt, it came as a shock, a terrestrial Sputnik. Now the cars, with their whirling rooftop laser arrays, are as familiar in the Bay Area as the company’s camera-crowned Street View vehicles. Indeed, the two are often confused, which is presumably why the words “self-driving car” have recently been plastered on this one’s driver-side door.</p><div>read the entire article at:</div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://m.wired.com/magazine/2012/01/ff_autonomouscars/">http://m.wired.com/magazine/2012/01/ff_autonomouscars/</a></div><div><br><br><br></div></body></html>