More than ever, car makers and transportation are finding ways to incorporate automated driving into their product offerings. Tech companies like Google, Uber, Lyft as well as car companies like Tesla, Toyota and Hyundai can all cleary see what lies on the road ahead, possibly thanks to LED headlights. Now one more company enters the fray: Drive.ai.
Who will the courts blame when the first driverless car kills someone? That's “when”, not “if”, as deaths from driverless cars are a near certainty, and the logic behind *who the car decides to kill* is a good introduction to the fascinating and terrifying world of our coming robot future.
Even though Google's driverless car only hit public roads last week (and reportedly already had a close call), another tech giant is already angling to pose as a competitor. Uber, the often-sued not-a-taxi app, just acquired 100 engineers and unknown “assets” from Microsoft Bing, Google's mapping competitor, according to TechCrunch.
Britain's first driverless car doesn't look like a car at all. The electric-powered LUTZ Pathfinder launched Wednesday, wandering the sidewalks of London's Greenwich neighborhood, and it's closer in appearance to a runaway cockpit of a small airplane.
Sitting back, chatting with your mates, watching the scenery pass you by - these pastimes are generally enjoyed by the passengers of a vehicle while the driver remains focused on bringing the carload to its destination. But a car designed by researchers from Berlin has successfully completed an 80 kilometre test run around the traffic-filled streets of Germany’s capital - without the driver lifting a finger.
