I am getting increasingly angry about GOOGLEs life spanning plans
of putting us all in amicable cocoons, while selling ad space within
them.
No thanks, I am not interested in getting trapped into an automated
“car” that takes me to work, while I am sitting inside surfing the web.
(and watching Google ads)
Why can’t they competerize my loo instead ? I’d happily sell them
some chunk of “ad space” there.
I am so fed up with them that I swore not to use the Google site
anymore. But where is the competition. The yahoo search results
are ridiculous and well, bing is not a nice little startup, either.
???
which search engine?
The worst part with search engines is that I remember them being so much better. Remember Hotbot and altavista? Google’s search engine is completely ad driven now. Unless I’m looking for Ford’s corporate site, I have to prepare myself to drill through hundreds of results to get to genuinely interesting independent sites. Horrible.
The car is neat though. I think it is the future. People don’t want to commute… Having said that, I wish the alternative was well-marketed and available. I only want the robo-car available, if I can buy a Morgan.
Of course I do. Hotbot was the reason I bought Lycos stock back then. Yuck…
But where is the mighty search engine, that is that competent now ? ?
The idea of having an auto pilot to bring you through routes where you do not have the desire to drive is very
compelling. What is unsettling me about it is, that if those autopilots proove to be safer than the human
driver in the long run, there is the possibility of self driving getting banned altogether.
No Morgan more for you. At least not on public roads…
mo-i
Don’t say I am thinking to badly about our politicians.
Doesn’t anybody rennet the old Rush song off the Moving Pictures album?
My uncle has a country place
That no one knows about.
He says it used to be a farm,
Before the Motor Law.
And on Sundays I elude the Eyes,
And hop the Turbine Freight
To far outside the Wire,
Where my white-haired uncle waits.
Jump to the ground
As the Turbo slows to cross the Borderline.
Run like the wind,
As excitement shivers up and down my spine.
Down in his barn,
My uncle preserved for me an old machine,
For fifty-odd years.
To keep it as new has been his dearest dream.
I strip away the old debris
That hides a shining car.
A brilliant red Barchetta
From a better, vanished time.
I fire up the willing engine,
Responding with a roar.
Tires spitting gravel,
I commit my weekly crime
Wind-
In my hair-
Shifting and drifting-
Mechanical music-
Adrenalin surge…
Well-weathered leather,
Hot metal and oil,
The scented country air.
Sunlight on chrome,
The blur of the landscape,
Every nerve aware.
Suddenly ahead of me,
Across the mountainside,
A gleaming alloy air-car
Shoots towards me, two lanes wide.
I spin around with shrieking tires,
To run the deadly race,
Go screaming through the valley
As another joins the chase.
Drive like the wind,
Straining the limits of machine and man.
Laughing out loud
With fear and hope, I’ve got a desperate plan.
At the one-lane bridge
I leave the giants stranded at the riverside.
Race back to the farm, to dream with my uncle at the fireside
Safety sells. Always has and always will. While the googles is taking it to an extreme, doncha think that maybe the technology developed for autonomous cars could be used to make “regular” cars safer? You know, exactly like manufacturers use their racing programs to learn how to get more performance from their products. Like it or not, there is a market to prevent a crash while you are applying your makeup or looking at google maps on your smartphone.
Did you get your knickers in a bunch when Mercedes decided to get back into F1? Did you think the idea of having a 1200 bhp open-wheel car getting 3 miles per gallon on public roads was a good idea?
Like it or not, there is a market to prevent a crash while you are applying your makeup or looking at google maps on your smartphone.
The first generations of assistant systems contributing to your “increased safety” scenario
are already there. Until now with unsatisfactory results, as the interaction between driver
and computer leads to a much broader range of possibel missunderstandings than a fully
autmated system would provoque.
*
Let’s see if there will be a majority that likes driving to get substracted from the car
experience.
There’s times when you want driving to get subtracted from the car experience, and there’s times when you don’t. For me, I’d love a chauffeur to drive through the damned 101 traffic to and from work, and for the weekends, I want to explore and take my time and actually drive. First generations of assistant systems are already there, but they’re pretty terrible to use. Many, many car companies are really investing in semi-autonomy now, and Google’s speeding that up by putting their considerable resources into it.
right, I forgot, Volvo is the biggest car company in the world!
Joking. There are lots of “safe distance” and “road watching” features in luxury cars, never hear much about them. Mercedes Benz did a huge safety push over the past couple of years showing off these technologies in commercials, showing interviews with drivers… then they switched back to cars skidding around on wet pavement this year. VW also did a safety advert push two years ago showing inside the car during accidents… didn’t do anything for them.
I do think autonomous driving features can and will be integrated because Americans don’t want to use mass transit. Essentially American Mass transit will be piloting your individual car onto a smart highway and letting auto-piolot take over for safety and fuel efficiency.
What always slows traffic down is starting and stopping, people trying to go too fast, and trying to jockey for the fastest lanes. If you could enter a smart highway that automatically drove everyone at a set speed, and spacing allowing for merges, exits, etc. It could save time on commutes.
Ya man, those are the classics. Moving Pictures was the first or second cassette I ever bought. That live version is a bit rough, here is the original track.
That’s why its called R&D. Let’s see what gen 2 and gen 3 products can be created by google’s research before poo-pooing it before it is even made. It always astonishes me to see and hear designers come down on basic research. Nothing new has been created when the first sentence is “It can’t be done”.
And if you really want a car experience, try driving a 60-year-old car. You get to feel every bump and get a great work out turning the wheel, double-clutching and leaning on the brakes when they fade.
Yo: We have laws in Canada that require us to mention something Canadian every third forum post. Now you went and referenced Rush…I need to think of something else now!
I understand why people feel threatened by the idea of autonomous cars, but I find the Google autonomous car program to be the most inspiring project I’ve seen in my career. I feel that people need to educate themselves better on what is actually being developed, how the technology works, and how it will be employed. There’s this common vision that one day we will all wake up and every car will be this fully autonomous vehicle capable of spiriting us away to wherever we want to go.
The Google cars won’t be cramming ads or search engines down your throat - the technology is simply going to save lives, decrease fuel consumption, improve quality of life, and decrease traffic congestion (these benefits have been proven out by many separate entities and studies). The Google cars are tireless, have no blind spot, have better vision than human drivers and have faster reaction times. And Volvo isn’t far behind.
If you are really interested in beefing up your knowledge of autonomous cars, you can check out these question threads at Quora:
Honestly, I’m extremely disappointing that a company like Apple has not ever put their considerable resources, brainpower, creativity and vision into an idea that could have long lasting social benefit. The respect I have for Google X programs is that Google is not afraid if the programs fail, don’t fit nicely into an overall business strategy or make money - they simply see the possibility of an idea worth pursuing and try to make it work.
That’s why its called R&D. Let’s see what gen 2 and gen 3 products can be created by google’s research before poo-pooing it before it is even made. It always astonishes me to see and hear designers come down on basic research. Nothing new has been created when the first sentence is “It can’t be done”.
Where did I or any one else here say it _couldn’t b_e done. Either you completely missed my point or are trying to
twist what I posted.
And if you really want a car experience, try driving a 60-year-old car. You get to feel every bump and get a great work out turning the wheel, double-clutching and leaning on the brakes when they fade.
This is exactly what I love to do in my spare time. But I haven’t gotten to PreWar cars till now. (60 years would
mean 1951, mind you.)
The respect I have for Google X programs is that Google is not afraid if the programs fail, don’t fit nicely into an overall business strategy or make money - they simply see the possibility of an idea worth pursuing and try to make it work.
The idea that Google is doing those projects as “pro bono” initiatives sounds a little naive, to say the least.
Where is the alternative search engine. Any ideas?
Please do not put words into my mouth if you are going to quote me. I never said that they do not have plans to see a ROI on these projects. In fact, they do. But it could be years into the future or never. That is what makes them different from many other corporations.
Personally, I’d prefer that they set me up with about 5kW per-month-capability of solar panels for the back yard (a plan they are investigating), and leave motoring (electric or otherwise) to humans.
That is what makes them different from many other corporations.
With money they’re knocking down, it’s not like that can’t afford to explore these avenues. And with a long range business plan, they can wait for their return.
