INSPIRATIONAL: Google’s self-driving car

Sunday, December 1, 2013

http://www.impactlab.net/2013/11/28/burkhard-bilger-on-googles-self-driving-car/

November 28th, 2013 at 9:28 am
Burkhard Bilger on Google’s self-driving car

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The reality was so close that he could envision each step: The first cars coming to market in five to ten years. Their numbers few at first—strange beasts on a new continent—relying on sensors to get the lay of the land, mapping territory street by street. Then spreading, multiplying, sharing maps and road conditions, accident alerts and traffic updates; moving in packs, drafting off one another to save fuel, dropping off passengers and picking them up, just as Brin had imagined. For once it didn’t seem like a fantasy. “If you look at my track record, I usually do something for two years and then I want to leave,” Levandowski said. “I’m a first-mile kind of guy—the guy who rushes the beach at Normandy, then lets other people fortify it. But I want to see this through. What we’ve done so far is cool; it’s scientifically interesting; but it hasn’t changed people’s lives.”

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A long read but well worth the time.

Maybe in my lifetime?

It would be nice to be driven!

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INTERESTING: Pilotless passenger planes?

Saturday, May 18, 2013

http://www.impactlab.net/2013/05/11/pilotless-passenger-planes-ready-for-takeoff/?utm_source=feedly

May 11th, 2013 at 9:30 am
Pilotless passenger planes ready for takeoff
in: Alternative Transportation,Analysis,Robots,Science & Technology News

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While everyone seems confident that the technical challenges of such visions can be overcome, there is perhaps one more significant hurdle to overcome – persuading the general public that a plane without a pilot is safe.

On that point, Professor Cummings says the data is increasingly in favour of unmanned systems. “About three years ago UAVs became safer than general aviation, meaning that more general aviation planes are crashing than UAVs, per 100,000 flight hours,” she says. “So UAVs are actually safer than a weekend pilot, flying a small plane.”

That may not be a huge surprise. But what is perhaps more telling is that last year UAVs became safer than highly trained military fighters and bombers. “I knew that was coming, and it’s one of the reasons I jumped into this field and left commercial piloting and military piloting behind,” says Prof Cummings

Yet data may not be enough, she acknowledges. “The reason that you like a pilot in the plane is because ultimately he or she shares the same fate that you do,” she says. “So if the plane is about to go down, you feel better knowing that there is a human in the front seat doing everything that they can to save their own life.”

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Not for me thanks. Let’s have driverless cars for a while to get a future generation ready for these.

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