Google Racing • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Racing

#41

Post by eneveu » Sun, Apr 01, 2012, 5:46 PM UTC

The blog post ( http://googleblog.blogspot.fr/2012/03/bringing-self-driving-... ) was updated:

Update Apr 1, 10:05 a.m.: As you probably guessed—no, Google Racing isn’t real. We were really happy to work with NASCAR on this April Fools' joke. The technological advancements this sport has made in the last decade are impressive and while we won’t be providing self-driving cars to compete in the races, we look forward to working together with NASCAR in the future on projects like their YouTube channel. What better way to drive change?

Re: Google Racing

#42

Post by elfsong » Sun, Apr 01, 2012, 10:45 PM UTC

Surprise! As you might have guessed, Google Racing is an April Fools joke brought to you by Google and NASCAR. And while we won't be providing self-driving cars to compete in the races, we look forward to working with NASCAR on future projects.

Re: Google Racing

#43

Post by InclinedPlane » Mon, Apr 02, 2012, 6:58 PM UTC

ars wrote: post #32

InclinedPlane wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more I think about it, the less likely this is to be real. Normal day to day driving is actually incredibly easy. But racing requires intense and constant concentration and quick reactions.

> But racing requires intense and constant concentration and quick reactions Which is exactly what computer are great at. What they are terrible at is dealing with incomplete information. A computer would actually make a great race car driver.

Above all racing requires situational awareness, which computers are very bad at. For ordinary driving scenarios the bar on situational awareness is fairly low, but that bar goes way up in racing.