Google demos driverless cars

Post by SoftwareMaven » Fri, Mar 04, 2011, 6:06 AM UTC

joe_the_user wrote: post #34

sorbus wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly enough, a car which simply refuses to drive in hurricanes, hailstorms, white-out snow, and so forth would be rather more than 20% superior to the average driver. So that's easily dealt with - if insufficient sensory data is available, either hand control over to the driver or, if possible, pull to the side of the road. The average driver likely does really horrible in large crashes and pileups, so merel…

car which simply refuses to drive in hurricanes, hailstorms, white-out snow... While admitted these conditions can sometime be anticipated, I think the point is that sometimes these conditions cannot be anticipated. You experience a sudden white-out a minute after a snow storm starts. What do you do? Breaking immediately is not the answer! (thus, the cars will need to drive...)

Post by ghshephard » Fri, Mar 04, 2011, 6:11 AM UTC

joe_the_user wrote: post #34

sorbus wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly enough, a car which simply refuses to drive in hurricanes, hailstorms, white-out snow, and so forth would be rather more than 20% superior to the average driver. So that's easily dealt with - if insufficient sensory data is available, either hand control over to the driver or, if possible, pull to the side of the road. The average driver likely does really horrible in large crashes and pileups, so merel…

car which simply refuses to drive in hurricanes, hailstorms, white-out snow... While admitted these conditions can sometime be anticipated, I think the point is that sometimes these conditions cannot be anticipated. You experience a sudden white-out a minute after a snow storm starts. What do you do? Breaking immediately is not the answer! (thus, the cars will need to drive...)

Post by Jach » Fri, Mar 04, 2011, 6:16 AM UTC

waterlesscloud wrote: post #15

mdonahoe wrote: post #12

Unless all cars are driven by machine, the driverless car won't make a huge difference in our lives. You can already experience the magic of not having to drive by paying someone else to do it for you. The real gains of automation occur when a machine doing the job can do it faster than a human. Computers calculate and communicate faster than people, and factories/robots build stuff faster. A machine driving a car ha…

Rush hour in major cities would be an entirely different experience with automated cars. In my observation, the vast majority of congestion is caused by drivers either overcompensating for changes in conditions (ie slowing down even more than the car in front of you slowed down) or otherwise reacting slowly. I believe highways could handle considerably more traffic if all the traffic were automated. I think it's poss…

Post by vnchr » Fri, Mar 04, 2011, 6:30 AM UTC

bryanh wrote: post #38

Evgeny wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's still a problem to solve though: who's going to accept payments, process credit cards, verify signatures etc.

Just like there needs to be people who do that at Amazon, Zappos, etc... Honestly, a taxi with only a Google maps interface and a credit card swiper would be interesting.

Post by younata » Fri, Mar 04, 2011, 6:41 AM UTC