Now this is some seriously cool shit.

[unixronin]

Volkswagen has built a self-driving VW Golf that can plan its own routes in real time around obstructions and traffic cones, then race through the route at up to 150mph -- no creeping around the test course at 10mph here.  VW claims it can drive a laid-out test course faster and more precisely than their own engineers can drive the car manually.  VW says features of the car will be appearing in production VWs "in a few years".

Now THIS could cut down on traffic fatalities -- and maybe traffic congestion too.

(Thanks to midiamin for the out-of-band pointer.)

Comments

[yndy.livejournal.com]

I love driving... so that thought disturbs me.

Maybe we can convince the fundies that auto-driving cars are possessed by the devil, and they'll keep it from being mandated! :P

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Heh. Let the fundies get into it, and you won't be able to buy one even if you want to. After all, the 93-year-old church secretary who can't see the end of her own cane without her glasses and can't remember for five minutes at a time where she put her glasses has a God-given right to drive, just like anybody else! And that motorcyclist she killed last week because she didn't see him? Oh, well, that's OK because, you know, God called him.