driver-less cars – SomeGadgetGuy

May 28, 2014

Google Shows Off Driverless Car Prototype With No Steering Wheel

Til now, Google’s prototype driverless cars have been actual production vehicles, often Toyotas, retrofitted with sensors and cameras.

Well Google is following in Tesla footsteps by building their own vehicle designed from the ground up to be a self driving people mover. It looks like a toy version of a Fiat or Smart, but it carries two people in comfort. It’s basically a rolling couch with seatbelts and some navigation equipment.

As this is very much a prototype, the initial run of vehicles will be capped to 25mph, but they have enough faith in the platform to build out 100 of these little cars to push the driverless program forward. Google is hoping to bring cars like these to market in the next couple years, and it’s no small stretch to think we might see them start filtering into taxi fleets or partnering with services like Uber.

You can see the little prototype in action below.

May 27, 2014

Sign Me Up. I’m Ready For Driverless Cars In California.

The open road. The freedom. The romance of wide open throttle on a long stretch of asphalt.

None of that exists in Los Angeles anymore.

Sure, on a holiday weekend at three in the morning you can let loose a little, but the normal condition for Los Angelinos is a bumper to bumper, stop and go, passive-aggressively, road ragey experience. You can’t live in the state for any length of time without witnessing the most common stories we all share. The jerks who skip the line of cars to merge at the last possible second. The jerks who cut you off while driving ten miles an hour slower than you were going. The INSANE number of people doing anything else instead of focusing on driving, even watching videos on tablets (actual pic from one of my commutes)… Continue reading “Sign Me Up. I’m Ready For Driverless Cars In California.”

April 28, 2014

Google Self-Driving Cars Tackling City Driving

Maybe the biggest hurdle for self-driving cars is the ability to identify and react to sudden obstacles. Someone running out in front of the car, an emergency lane change, etc.

Google released another video detailing their recent efforts in improving car software to react appropriately to these kinds of situations.

Sign me up. There’s any number of things I’d rather be doing than driving my car during a morning commute in LA. You can read the full update below. Continue reading “Google Self-Driving Cars Tackling City Driving”

September 18, 2013

Tesla working towards self-driving cars by 2017

Sign me up. I’m sold. I used to love hitting the open road, but after living in LA for a couple years I’m done. All the wasted time sitting in zombifying traffic I could be spending on ANYTHING ELSE. There’s no more romance for me. The car is no longer a gadget I cherish, but a necessary evil.

Unless of course I no longer had to drive it myself anymore.

The dream of science fiction robot taxis is getting closer and closer to becoming a reality, and geek sweetheart Tesla is getting into the game. Joining companies like Google, CEO Elon Musk is promising “auto-pilot” features on Tesla automobiles in 3-4 years. Color me stoked!

Four years is a tremendously fast time table to get functionality like this tested and refined for general use, but Musk has demonstrated a unique drive in getting ambitious projects off the ground, and we can always hope that at some point, rather than having multiple companies producing competing systems, they might at some point pool their resources to provide true standards to the public.

In addition to freeing me up to utilize my commute more effectively, this could also help to curb the problems we face with distracted driving. It’s a win-win all around.

(via Reuters)