Google Secretly Tested Autonomous Vehicles On The Road
from the feeling-lucky? dept
"I'm feeling lucky," may take on new meanings on the roads someday, following the news that Google has been out testing autonomous vehicles on the roads for quite some time, racking up 140,000 miles of travel time. The cars all do have someone sitting behind the wheel ready to take over, but so far they haven't been needed for the most part (one car was hit from behind... and a driver has needed to intervene "occasionally"). Just a few months ago, we were talking about a test of a similar autonomous car traveling from Italy to China, but the Google effort actually seems a lot more advanced. Of course, it kind of makes you wonder why this research is happening from a search engine company... rather than a car company. In the meantime, what was that people were just saying about how none of these Silicon Valley companies were tackling "big" problems any more?
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Filed Under: autonomous vehicles, driving
Companies: google
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How about the access points?
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It's all about Lovin' Streetview
McDonalds is looking to map out all the places they can expand to.
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Raising The Bar
Good lord. What madman said it was okay to send several entire industry's calls there?
Anyways, If Google can model the mental acuity necessary to drive The Himalayas, I would be uber impressed.
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Re: Raising The Bar
Out of curiosity, where exactly was the road you saw? You do realise that a single road is not representative of an entire country? Unless you think that you can judge traffic in Texas from the state of the roads in Alaska.
"Anyways, If Google can model the mental acuity necessary to drive The Himalayas, I would be uber impressed."
Considering that Bangalore, the city where the majority of the call centres are located, is 1000 miles from the Himalayas, I'll just assume you haven't got a clue what you're talking about.
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I love Windows 7 Phone Edition
Come on, Google! Kick Microsoft's ass in the country their products are from!
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Re: I love Windows 7 Phone Edition
Yes, I can considering it's only the roof of the car that's made like that - unless you have citations that prove otherwise.
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Re: Re: I love Windows 7 Phone Edition
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http://www.history.com/shows/irt-deadliest-roads/videos/irt-deadliest-roads-freefall-fre eway#irt-deadliest-roads-freefall-freeway
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Re:
What exactly does that have to do with anything you're blathering on about?
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Do no evil
In the google view of the future
- would you ask the car to drive you to your friends house but end up at a different person's house because they had a better quality score ?
- would SEO's be paid by the number of driverless cars that arrive at your business address ?
- could you do an image search of someone attractive and get driven straight to a place where he/she or someone algorithmically similar could be found ?
- will robotic cars all run on android ? I always thought modern cars needed more chrome...
- if you drive for a while with the car's security system disabled, will you end up with a trunk full of cookies ?
- does Spam cause your car to keep driving to a penis enlargment clinic when you wanted to go some where else entirely ? Or to Canada when you asked for Walgreens ?
- Will the RIAA be able to impound your car if you drive to a friend's house and listen to his music ?
- If you have no parking where you live, can you store your vehicle in the cloud ?
It's a brave new world.
I'm not looking forward to the Bing equivalent.
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Re: Do no evil
as a side note: Bing would eliminate half the relevant destinations in an effort to give you a more precise arrival point. Google's system would likely take you to the middle of the destination street; ignoring the address and actual location altogether...
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Re: Re: Do no evil
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Re: Do no evil
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Re: Do no evil
Does the different person's house contain a MOTAS that's better?
I see the merging of single's sites and this vehicle as both hysterically funny and disturbing.
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Piling on.
Someone will be shocked to learn how little mental accuity is actually involved in driving.
"Tata, a major manufacturer (and involved in other industries) in India makes cars out of plywood for it's citizens. Can you believe that is considered "road worthy"? "
You got cars made of plastic fiber, with dangerous glass right in front of your eyes and plywood is your concern?
Some airplanes wings are made of silk, what some people should be concerned how the material actually perform.
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Re: Piling on.
Actually the glass in front of your eyes is the exact opposite of dangerous glass. It's safety glass.
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PaulT, See 3:25 into the video link provided.
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Re:
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Re: Plywood
They do state they are made of wood and show an animation of this.
Not only that if you look at the driver views after this while they are in the truck cabs, you can see the support pillars are made of wood.
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Re: Re: Plywood
An *animation*? They couldn't get actual footage for some reason? Excuse me if I'm still sceptical.
"you can see the support pillars are made of wood."
Maybe (no internet at home last night so still couldn't look at the video). But - and here's the main point - is that how they were manufactured? As I said, a search online didn't seem to mention of anything other than the roof of some models being made of wood. The green AC's claim was that cars made of plywood were rolling off Tata's production lines. I just feel we need some proof of that.
Given that some areas of India (including the Himalayan regions, I presume) suffer from extreme levels of poverty, it wouldn't surprise me if people were using wood to repair or replace the damaged body of a car with a usable engine. This is somewhat different from AC's claim that Tata are making plywood cars with the express approval of the Indian authorities.
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Autonomous Vehicle Submarine Patent
Prepare to surface.
Lookouts to their posts.
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Must be rough working for Microsoft where they block flash and your only option is silverlight. While I have you, how's that Adobe merger coming along?
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Re:
Either way, you seem to be putting a lot of stock in a claim made in a TV show, and painting an a entire country based on a few roads (in one of the most inhospitable regions of said country) and a single car manufacturer. I'm just curious as to where the information comes from, since I can't find it online anywhere else.
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Re: Re:
You can get a pair of earphones at your local dollar store for $1.
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Auto Autos
The closer reality gets to scifi (at least the scifi of my early days) the Happier I get!
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so let me get this right
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Re: so let me get this right
>> self-driven cars that have drivers behind the wheel in
>> case some kind of intervention is needed? So where's
>> the news?
There is no news, except that Walker keeps on Walkin...
Here's a story of the man who walked the world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnSIp76CvUI
And here's the behind-the-scenes look of what it took:
http://www.shots.net/article_detail.asp?atype=1&id=9071
So are you walking, driving, or finding a way to get a computer to do it for you?
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This is just another step in Googles plot. Soon we will be overrun by Googles robot army. AND THEY CAN DRIVE CARS! WE ARE DOOMED!
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Who are the founders? They are Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs try new things. Duh!!
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Tie in with GoogleMaps
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Re: Tie in with GoogleMaps
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No, the "big" problem is...
You will *not* anytime soon be reading your Kindle while riding to work with an Autochauffeur. A simple GPS jammer would create spectacular crashes.
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Re: No, the "big" problem is...
If the GPS goes out, the car can either look for a safe place to pull over, or just keep going with data it's already cached.
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Re: No, the "big" problem is...
Also, given that the precision of a consumer-grade GPS is like 5 or 10 meters, the car could already be climbing a tree before it decides it has to make a left turn.
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Re: No, the "big" problem is...
Certainly you could say a little bit more about how GPS is the only sensor being used in this vehicle.
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Follow that GPS
"I shouldn't have to correct the car from making mistakes. Its technology and automagical!"
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Google for good
Anyway the real problem with this technology is liability when something does happen. I'm sure the roads would be a hell of a lot safer though, with cars actually following the rules, not speeding and driving safely.
By the way, if you read a more in depth article about the technology, you would find that it actually does not rely on GPS tracking, but uses detailed maps first created by human drivers collecting all types of information on the roads including all paint on the roads, signs, etc. and using cameras, radar sensors and laser range finders to navigate.
There are so many amazing possibilities for this tech... I can't wait to order a pizza and unmanned car just shows up at my house in 10 minutes.
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Re: Google for good
Ew, I like my pizza baked.
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Re: Re: Google for good
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Re: Re: Re: Google for good
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Re: Re: Re: Google for good
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aoutonomy while driving
www.orbitdirect.net
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It's a Tata 1613, and it has a wooden frame.
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Re:
http://img47.imageshack.us/img47/6647/woodbike9gr.jpg
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Re:
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