Monday, October 11, 2010

Google testing their driverless cars

Technology has taken us to the moon and back, made a lot of other activities possible and soon technology will make space tourism a reality. And in the offing too are cars that will operate without any need of a driver.

Yes, Google Inc. is road-testing cars that steer, stop and start without a human driver. 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.

According to Google's corporate blog, The cars have traveled a total of 140,000 miles on major California roads without much human intervention.

The cars know speed limits, traffic patterns and road maps using video cameras, radar sensors and lasers to detect other cars. The cars are safer because they react more quickly than humans according to their engineers.

They have been tested navigating San Francisco's curvy Lombard Street, Los Angeles' Hollywood Boulevard and the cliff-hugging Pacific Coast Highway, according to the blog.

13 comments:

  1. wow, this is interesting.. so the car is driving itself, or there's some people monitoring it in the, errr say, control center??

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  2. Huh humanless driving? Driven by non human but programed by human still may have human error haha..Woh driven thru Lombard Street geng lah..When I sat at the top of Lombard St looking down already pengsan and sitting in a humanless driven car aiyoyo cannot imagine the adrenalin level may break the norm record. haha..tQ

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  3. SK, the article says, "..without a human touching the controls at all.." I'm sure there's more info if we care to look further.

    Bananaz, of course, everything has a margin of error. Lombard Street is a work of art.

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  4. I'll be too chicken to take a ride in a driverless car. :D

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  5. Lina, LOL! I suppose when it's the norm, fear is irrelevant.

    Btw, are you aware that the Putraline LRT is also unmanned?

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  6. This is just like the movie irobot. Then google is going to dominate us.

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  7. I read this article on the local papers today.

    Google for life! ^_^

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  8. Wow! Is this real? My dream will come true!! I want a car that runs without me driving! I can sleep inside the car while it drives me to my destination!

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  9. I guess the car is safe provided it does not malfunction! Haha!

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  10. Anonymous11:32 PM

    This would be great here...especially with the horrendous traffic. Would be such a breeze travelling in a car without having to drive one itself.

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  11. Tekkaus, isn't the mind an amazing thing? About Google, isn't it already in certain things?

    Shingo, a Google fan here, eh?

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  12. Foong, exciting prospect, is it not? For the busy person, that commuting time could be used for a lot of other stuff. Making phone-calls would top the list as well as texting, blogging and tweeting.

    When it does become a reality, safety is no longer a concern then.

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  13. Mei Teng, by then, I'm sure every person in every city would welcome the thought of not having to drive oneself to work. That will be the day, eh?!

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