Driverless cars.

Not to mention the loss of privacy. No wonder Google are so enthusiastic. Once they introduce the cashless society, nothing will be hidden from the snoops. Even Will I am says people don't know what they're giving up for the sake of convenience. It's intriguing why government is so sold on the idea of subjugating their people.

I don't think anyone really enjoys motorway driving and it would be great to do almost anything else other than watching the speedo and other traffic.

Whilst the freedom to do crosswords, Facebook etc. would be nice I suspect that impact of driverless vehicles will much much wider than most of us realise. The impact on employment in the haulage industry will be huge with massive redundancies and I fully expect truck burning protests like the smashing of spinning looms by the Luddites.

It may be of course that lorry drivers will just become security guards as high-jacking a driverless truck could be easy.

Tim

'course, it all requires good mobile internet access, and is all based entirely on SatNav.

Either one of those means nobody's going to be able to use one of 'em to drive to us, and the pair together mean they're totally f'ked.

William who?

No it doesn't.

GPS, lasers and computers do it all. Of course internet access may help but they have to be capable of operating autonomously and coping with new hazards.

Again, you're wrong.

Tim

So how, exactly, does it know where to go and how to get there?

GPS tells it where it is, in terms of Lat & Long, but doesn't tell it what that _means_ in terms of actual surroundings. For that, it needs to use mapping. SatNav, for want of a better term.

Lasers tell it what's immediately around it - in a radius of a few metres

- but not where the road's going in a mile's time or whether there's a junction it needs to take around the next bend.

And - given that Google are one of the main developers currently - what do you think it might be using for that bit? A DVD that might be out of date...? No, me neither...

And quite how it'll be coping when there's an unexpected road closure or diversion which is only signposted by a bored plod or somebody in hivis, gawd alone knows.

You said "based *entirely* on satnav", which it isn't.

The laser lidar works over more than a few meters and it stands to reason that a system that *can't* operate autonomously and deal with the unexpected would be entirely useless.

Apparently driverless cars have clocked up hundreds of thousands of accident-free miles in California and elsewhere on open roads.

The technology to make it work is here already (and has been for some time), it's just been waiting for the legislation to catch up.

Tim

For "Without, it ain't goin' nowhere" values of "based entirely on".

Of course. But it doesn't work around bends, and it doesn't know whether that gap in the kerb over there is a junction or a driveway (mind you, google maps thinks our drive is a road), and it doesn't know whether to turn left or right when it gets to the end of the road.

And it still has no way whatsoever to know that the humanoid-shaped object standing in front of it is trying to tell it that carpark's full and it needs to follow the signs to the overflow, or that there's a removal wagon coming in half an hour so please don't park there, or there's some sheep coming up the line to the farmyard, so if you'd be so kind as to wait there for ten minutes, or there's a tree down around the next bend so go round that way and back in the other end of the village...

That it utilises GPS and detailed maps is a given. It will not be stumped by unexpected obstacles not on any map as it will be constantly mapping the area around it and will be able to compute alternatives and "think for itself".

In that sense it is not "entirely GPS based". Indeed, it MUST be capable of working with no GPS at times to cope with tunnels etc.

It will work based on the knowledge to hand, be that maps, GPS or lidar. You don't know what is around bends either but somehow you manage not to crash on a regular basis.

You can be sure it will have damned good maps and that the Lidar + computer will make fewer mistakes I bet that many folk using satnav.

I've no doubt that for some time to come driver input may be required at times but I'll bet that there's a "loose animals in the road" algorithm buried in the operating system somewhere. ;-)

Tim

Quite. It's one thing a plane or ship having an auto pilot between terminals. Cars are a different matter. They might be able to cruise the motorway - but in town with heavy traffic?

I found the news depressing. When I don't enjoy driving I will give up. Hopefully there will be enough bugs to cause minor accidents, which will push it back.

I don't want to share the roads with them.

The question isn't how it deals with the animals in the road, but how it deals with the human forewarning it to wait here, because there are animals further down the road which can't be seen yet.

You're just being negative! ;-)

In the factory where I worked they laid underfloor tracks and installed driverless transport trucks to shift stuff from stores to work areas. They were declared fool-proof and safe, and I verified this by walking in front of one.

However, when an electrician who had been working on a step ladder just outside our office left the aluminium ladder unattended, I saw an automatic truck pass, and it didn't 'see' the ladder. It shoved the ladder a few feet until it jammed the ladder into a recessed doorway, and came to an abrupt halt.

If the electrician had been at the top of the ladder, the consequences would have been serious.

Bugs never appear until the system is fully implemented.

Assuming that we're talking about passenger cars, I'm sure there will be the equivalent of a "pause" button that can be pressed.

Personally I don't fancy Googles plans for their cars. Strike me as being a great way of putting yourself at risk of highway robbery which will become easy when cars will always stop for an obstacle.

I want a "manual" car with an autopilot option for motorways or other times I don't feel like driving.

Tim

Plenty of you tube clips of them doing that already.

Tim

Gotta be way better than lots of the morons currently on the road. Seriously, these cars have been trialled for years on open roads already and have a very impressive safety record.

Tim

I prefer "realistic".

OK, now what about when that human is saying "You can't go there, you have to turn around, go back half a mile, down that lane, and follow the signs for X"?

Trouble is that the autopilot option has to be able to deal with all circumstances to be of any use at all.

And they travelled at car speeds? ;-)

H&S would have loved that.

Plenty of U tube clips showing foolproof things going wrong too.