Imagine a car that can drive itself – as in no human intervention – on busy city streets! Google is making this happen. The story is below this video, which I found to be very well done. I am less nervous after watching it:
Google is testing its self-driving cars on the streets of its headquarters’ hometown of Mountain View, Calif. As seen in the video above, the cars can make driving decisions based on what’s happening around them in real time, such as slowing down for jaywalking pedestrians and cars that sneak out of hidden driveways.
“A mile of city driving is much more complex than a mile of freeway driving, with hundreds of different objects moving according to different rules of the road in a small area,” wrote Chris Urmson, director of the self-driving car project. “We’ve improved our software so it can detect hundreds of distinct objects simultaneously — pedestrians, buses, a stop sign held up by a crossing guard, or a cyclist making gestures that indicate a possible turn.
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