self-driving car

Stories 81 - 100 | << Prev   Next >>

Google Patents 'Pedestrian Glue' for Self-Driving Cars

Invention aims to reduce secondary impacts

(Newser) - If you're unlucky enough to be hit by one of Google's self-driving cars, the company wants you to stay glued to the front of it, according to a patent that's dated May 17—not April 1. The patent describes an adhesive layer that "may be a...

Self-Driving Big Rigs Are Here
 Self-Driving Big Rigs Are Here 
May 17, 2016 12:17 AM CDT

Self-Driving Big Rigs Are Here

Google engineer is looking for volunteer truckers

(Newser) - Picture an 18-wheel truck barreling down the highway with 80,000 pounds of cargo and no one but a robot at the wheel. To many, that might seem a frightening idea, even at a time when a few dozen of Google's driverless cars are cruising city streets in California,...

Tesla Owner: My Driverless Car Went 'Rogue'

It hit a parked trailer; company blames human error

(Newser) - The owner of a Tesla Model S says his car went "rogue" while nobody was inside it and drove into a parked trailer. Tesla's response: It was the guy's own fault. Jared Overton of Utah says he parked his Tesla in front of a business, behind a...

Experts to Feds: Slow Down on Self-Driving Cars

It's too late to put the brakes on technology, NHTSA says

(Newser) - Self-driving cars are more likely to hurt than help public safety because of unsolved technical issues, engineers and safety advocates told the government Friday, countering a push by innovators to speed government approval. Even a trade association for automakers cautioned the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration at a public meeting...

Domino's Now Has a Pizza- Delivery Droid

Meet DRU

(Newser) - Self-driving cars seem nice, but an Australian tech startup that usually builds robotic targets for live-fire military training has just announced what we've really been waiting for: a pizza-delivery robot, courtesy of Domino's, reports Engadget . Meet DRU (Domino's Robotic Unit) , an autonomous 3-foot-tall delivery vehicle (currently in...

Google Self-Driving Car Blamed for Crash

Bad judgment caused 2mph collision with bus

(Newser) - After six years and millions of miles of driving, one of Google's self-driving cars has become a self-crashing car. The company has admitted that a self-driving Lexus SUV bears some responsibility for a Feb. 14 crash in Mountain View, Calif., the Verge reports. But no people—or robots—were...

Finally, a Car That Makes Potholes All but Disappear

The tech is available for the first time in midsize non-luxury cars

(Newser) - Potholes aren't just uncomfortable to drive over: The damage caused by them costs America's drivers $3 billion annually, reports the American Automobile Association in a study it released Wednesday. Good thing, then, that Ford's 2017 Fusion V6 Sport sedan should be able to handle them. The American...

'Self-Parking' Office Chair Can Push Itself In

At the sound of a clap

(Newser) - And the strangest tech innovation of the month award goes to the engineers at Nissan for inventing an office chair that puts itself neatly back under a desk at the sound of a clap. It's true: The "Intelligent Parking Chair" has motors and wheels in its circular base...

Google's 'Robot' System Can Now Be Considered Legal Driver

This could be a big step

(Newser) - Up until recently, Google's self-driving cars have been limited to real-world activity only in certain states (i.e., not on the federal level), and only under certain conditions, Quartz notes. But this week the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration posted a Feb. 4 letter saying Google's self-driving system,...

Google Self-Driving Car Stopped for Going Too Slow

But it did avoid a ticket

(Newser) - Apparently Google's self-driving cars have yet to learn how to evade cops. One of its bubble-shaped autonomous vehicles was pulled over during a traffic stop in Mountain View, Calif., on Thursday, though it managed to avoid a ticket, reports NBC News . An officer spotted the vehicle traveling 24mph in...

Tesla's Autopilot Mode Does the Driving for You, Mostly

New system takes care of highway driving, lane changes, even parallel parking

(Newser) - It's not the completely autonomous self-driving system found in Google's cars , but with Tesla's new "Autopilot" mode—included in a software update for its Model S and new Model X cars and available in North America starting Thursday—drivers will be able to "automatically steer...

Details Emerge on Apple's Secret Car Project

But will it be driver-less?

(Newser) - Talk about a product leak: Apple is building its own electric car that's set to ship in 2019, unnamed sources tell the Wall Street Journal . Details are slim, but the project, dubbed Project Titan, will expand its team of 600 people by another 1,200 to get it out...

Google: Distracted Humans Keep Hitting Our Cars

Latest self-driving accident is first to cause injury

(Newser) - It sounds as if Google is getting a bit fed up with the way distracted, flawed humans keep crashing into its self-driving cars. In the latest accident, which the AP reports is the first involving a Google car to cause human injury, a car rear-ended a stationary self-driving car at...

Google: Driverless Cars Not to Blame for 11 Accidents

But Google, California DMV haven't released full accident reports

(Newser) - Google's fleet of 23 self-driving Lexuses has been involved in 11 accidents over the past six years of testing in California—but the company says not one of those incidents was the fault of a Google car, the AP reports. Chris Urmson, director of Google's self-driving initiative, writes...

Self-Driving Semis Roll at Hoover Dam

Freightliner Inspiration is Daimler's entrant to the driverless world

(Newser) - If the idea of driverless cars makes you a little twitchy, get ready to multiply that feeling: Daimler has rolled out the self-driving semis it envisions mass-producing in the not-too-distant future, reports Reuters . The Freightliner was unveiled last night in something of a spectacle at the Hoover Dam, where the...

Tech Expert's Proposal: Self-Driving Cars That Own Themselves

Ex-Google employee describes a new system of transportation

(Newser) - The future, as one ex-Google employee sees it, could involve cars that not only drive themselves but own themselves, too. The idea, Mike Hearn tells the BBC , is to create "the most moral, socially minded capitalist possible." The cars wouldn't actually think, he explains. Instead, in his...

Is Apple Secretly Working on an Electric Car?

Wall Street Journal says several hundred people are on the project

(Newser) - Might a Google self-driving car someday slam into an Apple electric car on the highway? It seems so: The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple has "several hundred" employees working on a secret project to build an electric car. The story makes clear that the so-called "Project Titan"...

Uber Eyes &#39;Robo-Cabs&#39;
 Uber Eyes 'Robo-Cabs' 
Feb 4, 2015 11:40 AM CST

Uber Eyes 'Robo-Cabs'

Partners with Carnegie Mellon robotics hotshots, eyes self-driving cars

(Newser) - Uber looks like it's trying to get in on the self-driving cars business, officially announcing this week that it's partnering with Carnegie Mellon University (home to the Mars Rover) to build the Uber Advanced Technologies Center in Pittsburgh—in other words, "kickstart autonomous taxi fleet development,...

Google's Self-Driving Cars Will Be Able to Speed

Engineers figure it's safer to keep up with traffic

(Newser) - When Google's self-driving cars hit the road, they'll be programmed to bust the speed limit in the name of safety. That nugget got spotted by PC Pro in a first-person account of a test drive by Paul Ingrassia of Reuters . Google engineers explain that it would be unsafe...

Google's New Car Loses the Steering Wheel

Company unveils its own 'gondola with wheels'

(Newser) - Google has turned Toyotas and Lexus SUVs into self-driving vehicles , but its latest car takes the driverless project to the next level. The company built the bug-like contraption from the ground up, and it has no steering wheel, gas pedal, or—perhaps most worryingly for some—brakes (though there is...

Stories 81 - 100 | << Prev   Next >>