Is there any area of our lives that Google don’t want to be a part of?? Not content with dominating the internet search market, Google are now moving ever closer to another goal, the production of self-driving cars.
Google are quoted as saying the following:
“Fully autonomous driving has always been the goal of our project, because we think this could improve road safety and help lots of people who can’t drive.”
“We’re now developing prototypes of vehicles that have been designed from the ground up to drive themselves—just push a button and they’ll take you where you want to go! We’ll use these vehicles to test our software and learn what it will really take to bring this technology into the world.”
Things are now far beyond the planning stage and not only can you see them in action (see below), they have now been given the go ahead for trials in the UK’s roads.
Still Some Way To Go
If the thought of putting your safety in the hands of a driverless car brings you out into a cold sweat, there is no immediate concern due to the fact that the UK Government is predicting 2030 is the very earliest that drivers will begin to become passengers in their own cars.
In the build up to 2030, the technology (which is being developed by a number of different companies) is expected to reach the required level of safety and sophistication which is crucial if drivers are to allow the car to safely drive itself.
Whilst some people have many questions which are still to be answered about this groundbreaking technology, others view the potential opportunity to continue working, talk to friends or entertain themselves on the internet as they are driven around is something that they find very intriguing.
Channel 4 recently explored some of the key questions surrounding this amazing concept.
http://www.channel4.com/news/driverless-cars-autonomous-driving-mobile-robotics-google
What are your views on driverless cars? Good idea, or bad?
