Once driverless car technology has sufficiently matured, there will be no need for buses, underground trains, or any other current public transport system. City authorities should be planning for driverless cars (including driverless "taxis" for those who do not own a car) instead of continuing to think about and invest in soon-to-be-obsolete modes of transportation.
In addition to the regularly mentioned benefits of driverless cars, such as reduction in road deaths, and freeing commuters to use travel time more productively, another very important advantage is significantly improved efficiency. Eventually cars will communicate their destination to a central computer, which will coordinate the journey with all other cars. The route and speed will then be determined so that cars traveling in different direction will cross junctions at different times, avoiding the necessity of stop lights and thereby allowing cars to travel at almost constant speed to their destination. Not only is this more time efficient, but avoiding the regular large expenditure of energy on accelerating from a stop will also make cars more energy efficient. Furthermore, the reduction in the need for acceleration means that cars will not require such large engines, and the almost elimination of car crashes means that weight can be greatly reduced by stripping safety features and heavy metal bodies, further improving efficiency. Taking more direct routes to destinations, rather than the circuitous routes often required when using public transportation, also improves efficiency. I am surprised that environmental campaigners are not all urging the rapid implementation of this technology. More efficient road use will also mean that existing road infrastructure can be used more efficiently, which may reduce the need for road expansion projects. City authorities should therefore not only avoid throwing more money into public transport methods whose days are numbered, but they should also be reconsidering road expansion investments. The money should instead be directed to driverless car research, and planning for this coming revolution.
Incorrect. It uses a small strip of wirelessly-controlled LEDs at the bottom of each window. It was not restricted to after midnight. You may have read about one of the earlier attempts in which they did indeed run it late at night.
Send them over to the InfromIT Free Library and get them to learn one of those programming languages (I would suggest C - Sams Teach Yourself C in 21 Days, Fourth Edition is a good one for that). By letting them read the book themselves, they can learn at their own speed and if they forget something, it's easy to go back.
Well, a few people have said it before - but I'll say it again; Dublin, Ireland. Ireland is the second biggest exporter of comuter-based products (after the US ofcourse). Intel has just invested another $2 billion in a plant in Ireland. They have Global Crossing building a trans-atlantic fibre-optic cable to Long Island, NY. It is apparently the most 'connected' country in Europe, and like everyone who has talked about it has said - there are oodles of IT jobs ( Jobfinder and IrishJobs are nice sites to check). House prices are a bit high at the moment, tax is pretty high, you have to pay call charges for the internet (!), but Esat Clear does have a flat-rate IR£20 per month for free off-peak (6pm-1am) internet. If you want broadband access, you can really forget about it for a while, ntl are planning to offer a nice looking cable internet service soon, but right now the only one is CableNet but they actually charge you per minute, and the monthly and installation isn't cheap either. Apart from that, it's a pretty good geek city (I wouldn't say Ireland as a whole is great though - as soon as you go out of the city you find alot of people don't even have a telephone!). Laters
Slashdot Mirror
Once driverless car technology has sufficiently matured, there will be no need for buses, underground trains, or any other current public transport system. City authorities should be planning for driverless cars (including driverless "taxis" for those who do not own a car) instead of continuing to think about and invest in soon-to-be-obsolete modes of transportation.
In addition to the regularly mentioned benefits of driverless cars, such as reduction in road deaths, and freeing commuters to use travel time more productively, another very important advantage is significantly improved efficiency. Eventually cars will communicate their destination to a central computer, which will coordinate the journey with all other cars. The route and speed will then be determined so that cars traveling in different direction will cross junctions at different times, avoiding the necessity of stop lights and thereby allowing cars to travel at almost constant speed to their destination. Not only is this more time efficient, but avoiding the regular large expenditure of energy on accelerating from a stop will also make cars more energy efficient. Furthermore, the reduction in the need for acceleration means that cars will not require such large engines, and the almost elimination of car crashes means that weight can be greatly reduced by stripping safety features and heavy metal bodies, further improving efficiency. Taking more direct routes to destinations, rather than the circuitous routes often required when using public transportation, also improves efficiency. I am surprised that environmental campaigners are not all urging the rapid implementation of this technology. More efficient road use will also mean that existing road infrastructure can be used more efficiently, which may reduce the need for road expansion projects. City authorities should therefore not only avoid throwing more money into public transport methods whose days are numbered, but they should also be reconsidering road expansion investments. The money should instead be directed to driverless car research, and planning for this coming revolution.
Incorrect. It uses a small strip of wirelessly-controlled LEDs at the bottom of each window. It was not restricted to after midnight. You may have read about one of the earlier attempts in which they did indeed run it late at night.
Does anyone know why Purdue's 'Steele' system isn't on the list?
Send them over to the InfromIT Free Library and get them to learn one of those programming languages (I would suggest C - Sams Teach Yourself C in 21 Days, Fourth Edition is a good one for that). By letting them read the book themselves, they can learn at their own speed and if they forget something, it's easy to go back.
Well, a few people have said it before - but I'll say it again; Dublin, Ireland. Ireland is the second biggest exporter of comuter-based products (after the US ofcourse). Intel has just invested another $2 billion in a plant in Ireland. They have Global Crossing building a trans-atlantic fibre-optic cable to Long Island, NY. It is apparently the most 'connected' country in Europe, and like everyone who has talked about it has said - there are oodles of IT jobs ( Jobfinder and IrishJobs are nice sites to check). House prices are a bit high at the moment, tax is pretty high, you have to pay call charges for the internet (!), but Esat Clear does have a flat-rate IR£20 per month for free off-peak (6pm-1am) internet. If you want broadband access, you can really forget about it for a while, ntl are planning to offer a nice looking cable internet service soon, but right now the only one is CableNet but they actually charge you per minute, and the monthly and installation isn't cheap either. Apart from that, it's a pretty good geek city (I wouldn't say Ireland as a whole is great though - as soon as you go out of the city you find alot of people don't even have a telephone!). Laters