Google is making the leap from semi-autonomous to completely autonomous cars. But what exactly does the search company plan to do with them?Not so boring?This month, I stirred up the blogosphere when I wrote that my brief ride in a Google self-driving Lexus with two other reporters was “boring.”There was a lot of breathless coverage of Google’s press event, which culminated with the company’s piling reporters three at a time into the back seat of a sensor-full autonomous vehicle for a five-mile jaunt through traffic in the Silicon Valley community where the company has its headquarters.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/27/the-google-car-takes-a-step-away-from-boring/Also see:Google’s Next Phase in Driverless Cars: No Brakes or Steering Wheel
Humans might be the one problem Google can’t solve.For the past four years, Google has been working on self-driving cars with a mechanism to return control of the steering wheel to the driver in case of emergency. But Google’s brightest minds now say they can’t make that handoff work anytime soon.Their answer? Take the driver completely out of the driving.
www.nytimes.com/2014/05/28/technology/googles-next-phase-in-driverless-cars-no-brakes-or-steering-wheel.html