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Vans Drive Themselves Across the World
bossanovalithium writes "Four driverless electric vans successfully ended a 13,000-kilometer test drive from Italy to China which mirrored the journey carried out by Marco Polo in the Middle Ages. The four vans, packed with navigation gear and other computer software, drove themselves across eastern Europe, Russia, Kazakhstan and the Gobi Desert without getting lost. They had been equipped with four solar-powered laser scanners and seven video cameras that work together to detect and avoid obstacles."
Who do you know that drives more like an idiot because their car has safety features? I drove like an idiot even when my car didn't have ABS, and these days even though all cars I drive have ABS, I drive like less of an idiot.
Traction control is no use for driving like an idiot. I switch it off when I want to have some fun.
which is totally what she said
Stop wasting your time and build a personalised rail network when I can get into a "pod" or something, enter my destination and it would take me there on good, solid, metal rails and a bit of signalling.
Indeed. A packet-switched transport system. Broadcast your destination via Bluetooth, "routers" can receive that and direct you the best way. The pods would be unpowered, but pushed/blown along - possibly compressed air?
If you had a system of tubes under the ground, and some sort of decent bearings, you could make it work. You could also have large "trunk"/"backbone" roads, which smaller roads joined. Basically, model it on the Internet. But without the packet loss, or routing loops. Or collisions.
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