Friday, June 15, 2007

A chauffer in every garage

First there was the horseless carriage. Will there be a 21st century equivalent? The Stanford University contest of the DARPA autonomous vehicle Urban Challenge is making its way around California suburban streets. The Stanford researchers' goal is to design a car that can drive itself, "the idea of a self-driving car, in my opinion, will change society."

Nothing follows.

2 Comments:

Blogger Cascajun said...

The new car has a total of eight LIDAR systems that emit beams of light and detect reflections to determine the distance of other objects.

LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) is an optical remote sensing technology which measures properties of scattered light to find range and/or other information of a distant target. It has many applications.

6/16/2007 05:48:00 AM  
Blogger Bret said...

Wrong title.

The point is that when cars drive themselves, nobody (or hardly anybody) will own one. When you want a car, you'll punch a few buttons on your cell phone (or future equivalent) and a car will drive up, you'll get in, and it'll take you to your destination, drop you off, and continue on to pick up the next rider. No more having to get gas, dealing with maintenance, providing garage space, or even having to go buy the car in the first place.

6/16/2007 07:51:00 AM  

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