Unlike many of the efforts, however, will not attempt to build cars. Instead, it plans to retrofit commercial fleets for tasks like parcel delivery and taxi services. The company is leaning on a technology called deep learning, a machine-learning technique that has gained wide popularity among Silicon Valley firms. It is used for a variety of tasks, like understanding human speech and improving the ability to recognize objects in computer vision systems. An Israeli firm, Mobileye, is the dominant supplier of vision technology to the automotive industry, but Silicon Valley companies like Nvidia are also starting to compete for that business. The self-driving cars of the future will need to be transparent about what their intentions are, how they make decisions and what they see, said Ms. Reiley, who is a roboticist with a background in designing underwater robotics and medical systems. They will need to communicate clearly both with the world around them as well as with their passengers. the left brain in which a lot of discussion has taken place, what algorithms and what sensors, the logical side,” she said. “A lot of the discussion around self-driving cars has no human component, which is really weird because this is the first time a robotic system is going out in the world and interacting with people.” The Economist Personal transportation Uberworld The world’s most valuable startup is leading the race to transform the future of transport Sep 3rd 2016 | “LET’S Uber.” Few companies something so popular that their name becomes a verb. But that is one of the many achievements of Uber, a company founded in 2009 which is now the world’s most valuable startup, worth around $70 billion. Its app can summon a car in moments in more than 425 cities around the world, to the fury of taxi drivers everywhere. But Uber’s ambitions, and the expectations underpinning its valuation, extend much further: using self-driving vehicles, it wants to make ride-hailing so cheap and convenient that people forgo car ownership altogether. Not satisfied with shaking up the
OPEN Graphic “What we are trying to do is avoid a patchwork of state laws,” Mr. Foxx said. The federal guidelines were welcomed by auto manufacturers. Ford, which is for ride-sharing, said in a statement that the guidance “will help establish the basis for a national framework that enables the safe deployment of autonomous vehicles. We also look forward to collaborating with states on areas that complement this national framework.” Google, Uber and Lyft, through a trade association in which they are members, also hailed the guidelines. “State and local governments also have complementary responsibilities and should work with the federal government to achieve and maintain our status as world leaders in innovation,” said David Strickland, general counsel for the trade group, Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets. Consumer advocates said they were encouraged that the government’s efforts advance safety laws and pressure companies that have operated largely in secret. But the groups also said the guidelines might result in weaker state laws. “What I fear is that there are some really good state regulations that might get tamped down or said John Simpson, a director at Consumer Watchdog, a nonprofit group that has pushed for greater federal enforcement of the industry. Over all, the government’s endorsement will speed up the rollout of autonomous cars, experts said, potentially within the next five years. “It helps companies by providing some cover. If a car crashes, courts may look to these guidelines to help us determine what was reasonable and not,” said Bryant Walker Smith, a professor at the University of South Carolina. automakers in particular have made big strides in the technological development of driverless cars but have been wary of introducing those features too quickly without the backing of federal regulators. “Big companies love certainty and targets that they need to aim for,” said Brad Templeton, a consultant and publisher of Robocars.com. NYT Amended California Would Allow Driverless Cars By THE ASSOCIATED PRESSOCT. 1, 2016 A driverless car being tested in Pittsburgh. Credit Jeff Swensen for The New York Times