Google's self-driving cars are on the up and up. Google revealed today that its dozen of self-driving cars have collectively driven over 300,000 miles without any accidents, paving the way the towards a safer future on the road.
Posted on Google's Official Blog:
They've covered a wide range of traffic conditions, and there hasn't been a single accident under computer control.
We're encouraged by this progress, but there's still a long road ahead. To provide the best experience we can, we'll need to master snow-covered roadways, interpret temporary construction signals and handle other tricky situations that many drivers encounter.
To help further Google's advancements and test new terrain is the addition of the Lexus RX450h SUV. Google says ultimately, it wants these self-driving cars to allow us to be more productive in our cars. Sounds like a sketchy way of saying "we want you to work in your car during your commute." Oh god! With Nevada being the only state that has approved self-driving cars on limited roads, there really is a very long way to go before we can sit back and cruise while we're chauffeured around. Baby steps, baby steps...
We filter through a ton of futuristic technologies every day here at DVICE, but one advancement that keeps getting overlooked is the self-driving car by Google. When can we let our cars take the wheel, KITT-style? Google's chairman Eric Schmidt, thinks driving cars will be the norm in our lifetime. Speaking at Allen and Co.'s Sun Valley conference, Schmidt let it slip that Google had discussed its self-driving car plans with all major auto-makers. "Self-driving cars should become the predominant mode of transportation in our lifetime, said Schmidt. Citing challenges in getting state approvals — Nevada being the only one to approve of the autonomous car — Schmidt said that "The current biggest problem is that it runs at the speed limit and nobody drives at the speed limit."
Google's test raced its self-driving cars against human-driven cars and the self-driven ones would win. He further elaborated that getting to a destination in a self-driving car would be as simple as inputting an address into the car's internal maps navigation system and letting the car drive you via the quickest route.Naturally, concerns about the car turning against the passenger were raised and Schmidt reassured everybody that "The deal here is that there's a person in the driver's seat, and a really big red button that says 'Off.'" Self-driving cars wouldn't be just a boon for the lazy, but it'd also save lives. Schmidt believes that the faster we get self-driving cars, the more lives we'll save from car accidents.
What do you think? Will we really have self-driving cars in our lifetime? Remember, back in the 1950s, people were saying flying cars would become the norm in their lifetime, and look how that didn't happen.
See the world, think Terminator
One of the most recognizable visual tropes of science fiction is Terminator vision, a red-tinted, data overlay view that is meant to illustrate what the killer robot is seeing as its hunts its human prey. Now one of Silicon Valley's leading techies has posted what could be considered the visual equivalent for Google's much talked about self-driving cars.
Gross, the long-time head of technology incubator Idealab, the organization behind a wide range of tech companies, posted the visual to his Twitter account earlier today. Accompanying the visual, Gross wrote, "Google's Self-Driving Car gathers almost 1GB per SECOND. Here's what it 'sees' making a left turn…"
Gross doesn't explain where this recent visual comes from, but in the video below you can see an animated version of the graphic via a presentation made a couple of years ago by Chris Urmson, one of the project's early developers. As expected, Google's self-driving cars use a ton of sensors including lasers and radars to carefully react to pedestrians and streets accurately and safely.
*Google's self-driving cars (via wiki)
The Google driverless car is a project by Google that involves developing technology for driverless cars. The project is currently being led by Google engineer Sebastian Thrun, director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and co-inventor of Google Street View. Thrun's team at Stanford created the robotic vehicle Stanley which won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge and its US$2 million prize from the United States Department of Defense. The team developing the system consisted of 15 engineers working for Google, including Chris Urmson, Mike Montemerlo, and Anthony Levandowski who had worked on the DARPA Grand and Urban Challenges.
The U.S. state of Nevada passed a law on June 29, 2011 permitting the operation of driverless cars in Nevada. Google had been lobbying for driverless car laws. The Nevada law went into effect on March 1, 2012, and the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles issued the first license for a self-driven car in May 2012. The license was issued to a Toyota Prius modified with Google's experimental driverless technology.As of April 2012, Florida became the second state to allow the testing of driverless cars on public roads. California became the third state to legalize the use of self-driven cars for testing purposes as of September 2012 when Governor Jerry Brown signed the bill into law at Google HQ in Mountain View.
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