GOOGLE SELF DRIVING CAR •

Google is full of surprises! The Google convention, Google IO 2014, will take place on June 25 where many great things will be revealed, such as a new version of Android and maybe even the Google Smartwatch. Until then, Google thought we might get bored so it gave us the Google self-driving car to take a gander at, admire and pine over.

Google Self-Driving Car

In 2010, there were 2.24 million injuries related to car accidents and 35,332 deaths in the United States alone. Texting, eating, speeding and other driver decision errors are largely to blame. Google wants to fix this, so that in the future, the roads and cars will be safer.

The Google self-driving car isn’t Google’s first prototype of a driverless car, but it is the first one to not have a wheel or pedals. This model is the only true driverless car! Humans play a very small role in the operation of this vehicle. There are two buttons: one to start and pullover and one for emergency stop. That’s about it!

The car’s computer uses Google Maps to arrive at the destination. It does so by laser and radar sensors along with a very powerful sensor on top of the car. That sensor has a camera that monitors the surroundings in all four directions. Between the three sensors, blind spots for this vehicle are virtually eliminated.

This Google self-driving car is an electric car built from a foam-like material and has a plastic (thus flexible) windshield. The front of the car has what seems to be eyes, a nose and a mouth, giving it an almost cartoony face. We hope those features don’t stick forever, as we’d like to have a more serious Google self-driving car in our garage.

Although this is just a prototype, it is a very good one that promises to make driving a much safer and pleasurable experience. We have no idea when these cars become commercially available and what their price will be, but we hope that happens soon.

What are your thoughts on the Google self-driving car? Would you want one? Do you think this is the future for cars or do you think driving is a pleasure that people will not want to give up? Share your thoughts with us in the comment section below, we’d love to hear what you think about this new car!

Before the self-cleaning car from Nissan that uses a special paint called the Ultra-Ever Dry paint that protects the car from the usual mud, dust and water marks, there was Google’s self-driving car, the car that, obviously, drives itself.

The recent updates regarding Google’s self-driving car say that the special car can now detect objects on city streets better than it used to. We’re talking about a cyclist or a parked car which the self-driving car can juggle them better than, let’s say, a human driver.

Google said that, “We’ve improved our software so it can detect hundreds of distinct objects simultaneously—pedestrians, buses, a stop sign held up by a crossing guard, or a cyclist making gestures that indicate a possible turn. A self-driving vehicle can pay attention to all of these things in a way that a human physically can’t—and it never gets tired or distracted.”

The search giant released a video of the Google self-driving car in which it shows the viewer what the car “sees” when it’s on the road, driving itself. The objects seen by the car produce red or green grids which signal the car when it’s safe to proceed. Although it might seem chaotic to a normal driver, Google says that these scenarios are “actually fairly predictable to a computer.”

Google has been working on their wonder automobile for some years now and supported the Californian legislation that allowed the new technology. In 2012, Jerry Brown, the California Gov. approved the law that established safety and performance standards for self-driving cars in their state, following Nevada’s similar legislation.

Google’s self-driving car is still in prototype mode and will probably stay like that for a while because it’s still being tested. Google said that “We still have lots of problems to solve, including teaching the car to drive more streets in Mountain View before we tackle another town, but thousands of situations on city streets that would have stumped us two years ago can now be navigated autonomously.”

Google’s Self-Driving Car Updates – we will see them on the road by 2035

According to a report from IHS Automotive, we will probably see semi-autonomous cars on the roads before 2025 and self-driving cars around 2035. The report also predicts that the number of self-driving vehicles will increase from about 230,000 in 2025 to an impressive 11 million by 2035.

What are your thoughts on Google’s self-driving car? Is it a sign of how the future will look? Please comment in the section below.

Google Self-Driving Car – the Future is Now

Google Self-Driving Car

Google’s Self-Driving Car Updates

Google’s Self-Driving Car Updates – we will see them on the road by 2035

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