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Google Unveils Self-Driving Car With No Steering Wheel
cartechboy writes: "We've already discussed and maybe even come to terms with the fact that autonomous cars are coming. In fact, many automakers including Mercedes-Benz and Tesla have committed to self-driving cars by 2017. Apparently that's not ambitious enough. Google has just unveiled an in-house-designed, self-driving car prototype with no steering wheel or pedals. In fact, it doesn't have any traditional controls, not even a stereo. The as-yet-nameless car is a testbed for Google's vision of the computerized future of transportation. Currently the prototype does little more than programmed parking lot rides at a maximum of 25 mph, but Google plans to build about 100 prototypes, with the first examples receiving manual controls (human-operated). Google then plans to roll out the pilot program in California in the next several years. So the technology is now there, but is there really a market for a car that drives you without your input other than the destination?"
I totally recall when taxi drivers were homicidal psychopaths with mohawk hair cuts. Thankfully we will now have fleets of mannequins named "Johnny Cab" to cheerfully take us around.
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
what kind of hells is that???
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
A quick call to google's helpdesk is all that's needed to stop the car in an emergency.
A car which automatically takes me places I don't want to go, based on my browsing history.
Worst. Signature. Ever.
You don't suppose, do you, that the "Stop button" you mentioned might not be a way to tell the car to, well, "stop moving at any point", do you?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"