A few months back, Samsung managed to obtain permission to test its self-driving car technology over on its home-turf, South Korea. Since then, Samsung has branched out a bit, with the company now being given permission to test its self-driving cars in California, alongside the likes of Google, Apple and …
Read More »‘Apple Car’ project lives on, testing permit awarded in California
We all knew that Apple had the hots for cars. First they went after McLaren, then they put 1,000 people working on Project Titan, aka the ‘Apple Car' (but the project had been rumoured to have been shelved due to internal issues at Apple), and now it seems that the …
Read More »U.S. report suggests Tesla autopilot reduces crashes by 40 per cent
A report by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has not only vindicated Tesla with regards to the first person to die while using its Autopilot software, but has backed up its safety claims. It turns out that installing Tesla Autopilot software can reduce your chance of being in …
Read More »Panasonic wants to partner with Tesla on more than batteries
Panasonic has announced its intention to expand its current partnership with electric car marker Tesla, beyond the battery manufacturing deal the two currently have together. CEO at the company, Kazuhiro Tsuga said in an interview that he would like to see the company expand into autonomous driving sensors that could …
Read More »TomTom wants to be leader in autonomous driving development
Satellite navigation device maker TomTom, has purchased an autonomous vehicle developer. The Berlin based startup is aptly named, Autonomous and has previously provided research and development consultancy services for a number of automated vehicle systems around the world. Although TomTom is most well known for its navigational systems, it has …
Read More »Tesla to take on Uber in ride sharing program
Although there are still plenty of car manufacturers pumping out new designs for human controlled, combustion equipped vehicles, many believe the writing is on the wall for the car industry. Along with being electric, our cars are going to drive us around autonomously and we may not even own them …
Read More »Apple may have halted car development because of low margins
Even though a number of car manufacturers around the world are increasing the amount of technology their vehicles utilise, it turns out that the market for tech companies getting into the car game may not be as worthwhile. Rumour has it that Apple's Project Titan has been massively scaled back, …
Read More »Germany wants Tesla to stop using ‘misleading autopilot’ name
While the world and his dog seem to be working on automated car features right now, Tesla was the first to put one out there in the wild. However Germany's federal motoring body has asked it to stop calling its system “autopilot,” because it feels that the term could mislead …
Read More »Musk claims new Tesla autopilot could have prevented death
Tesla's CEO and founder, Elon Musk, has said of the company's latest autopilot software update, that with the on board radar now utilised as a major sensor rather than a complimentary one, it's very possible that the recent in-car fatality of a Tesla customer could have been prevented. The incident …
Read More »First consumer autonomous car trial to begin in Singapore
Cars that drive themselves is something that we're gradually easing towards with trials and tests, but nobody has begun a full commercial roll out of the technology, until now. In Singapore they've signed off on the first official test of autonomous taxis, with MIT spin off, Nutonomy, beating the likes …
Read More »Roomba creators are working on poo detection issues
The Roomba is one of the most recognisable robot helpers out there, having been available in various guises for years and has helped many thousands of people live in automatically vacuumed homes. They do also have one glaring problem though: if they run over animal faeces, they can spread it …
Read More »Tesla Model 3 could have its own self-driving AI
Although the Tesla Model 3 has a lot going for it in terms of pricing, fuel economy and clever engineering, one area where it may really stand out is its ability to operate autonomously. While expected to have some form of Tesla Autopilot, it may be that by the time …
Read More »3D printed ‘Olli’ could be electric, autonomous mini-bus of the future
Although a number of companies are developing autonomous cars for us to not-drive around in, it may be that electric, autonomous public transport is a better solution. While a number of vehicles are being trialled in the UK, a U.S. developer has a new and innovative design, which uses a lot of …
Read More »Alibaba’s internet connected car paves way for autonomy
Chinese online retail giant, Alibaba, has announced a new vehicle created as part of a joint partnership between itself and SAIC Motor Corp, china's largest car manufacturer. Made using the YunOS operating system, the new Roewe RX5 can connect to the internet through your smartphone, with the firms behind it claiming it's …
Read More »BMW may be striking a new autonomous car deal with Intel
Tech firms and automakers have been teaming up for years to co-develop autonomous cars, with Google and Ford doing so in 2015 and Baidu and BMW announcing a partnership before that. But the German car company may be set to make another, as rumours abound that it is set to …
Read More »Google announces Fiat partnership with driverless cars
While Google has spent many years developing autonomous vehicles, many wondered if it would eventually get into car manufacturing itself, or partner with a more traditional company. It looks like the latter may be the most true of those ideas, as it's now announced a partnership with Fiat to help …
Read More »China is gunning hard for driverless cars too
We've heard a lot about western companies like Google, Tesla and various traditional manufacturers working on autonomous vehicle technology, but China is making a big play for it too. Along with Baidu, many Chinese firms have been working on developing self-piloting vehicles, many of which showed off their latest efforts …
Read More »First autonomous ‘truck platoon’ crosses borders, arrives safely
The first ever multi-country, autonomous truck platoon has successfully completed a journey across borders, down highways and roadways – all without the intervention of a single human driver. Using advanced tracking and mapping technologies, the more than dozen heavy goods vehicles from various manufacturers, were able to link up and …
Read More »U.S. road agency declares Google’s autonomous AI a ‘driver’
Google's autonomous vehicle control algorithm has been given the designation of “driver,” by the U.S.' National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA). This is just one more step on the road to vehicles like the Google pod car being allowed to drive around without someone sat behind the wheel. Despite the …
Read More »Robots may replace window cleaners, painters next
More than five million jobs are thought likely to be replaced by robots in the coming decade according to some analysts, and it may be that window cleaning and painting are part of that number. A new drone design from Apellix is conceptualising the idea of a robotic painting system, …
Read More »Forget passenger drones, what about a drone ambulance?
Although drones have promised lots of interesting developments in film making, surveillance and delivery, they are getting powerful enough to transport people, as we saw recently. But forget making travel easy for the rich, transporting injured people between the scene of an accident and a hospital quickly and without disturbance …
Read More »Tesla scales back car automation, for now
Although most analysts believe that full vehicle automation won't be ready until 2020, Tesla recently jumped the gun and introduced its take on the feature back in October last year to mixed praise and concern. In line with the latter response, Tesla has now released an update which restricts where …
Read More »Google Ford partnership could mirror Baidu BMW deal
Google and Ford are said to be in talks to partner over the development of automated vehicles according to sources that are said to have been “briefed on the matter.” Although yet to be officially detailed, the partnership could well be similar to the deal struck between Chinese search giant …
Read More »Uber pledges to buy 500,000 automated Teslas in 2020
Tesla's electric vehicles have become more common place on roads around the world over the past few years, as production has scaled up in line with increasing demand, but selling an entire year's worth of cars in one go would be a massive achievement for the Elon Musk founded company. …
Read More »NASA bringing rover tech to driverless cars
Driverless car technologies are coming on leaps and bounds at the moments, with the world's first motorway-only automated features set to hit commercial cars as soon as 2017. However, whether our automated future will look like the cars of old, or something more akin to Google's Pod Car design remains to …
Read More »Baidu ups stake in driverless cars with BMW deal
If you asked anyone relatively in the know about which company was pushing driverless cars forward the most, it wouldn't be some long standing automaker, but the search giant Google. This might seem bizarre now, but apparently it's not that far fetched a transition, since Chinese search giant Baidu is …
Read More »UK could lead the way on driverless cars
We're on the cusp of fully automated vehicles, with manufacturers pushing ever more advanced features like lane-assist and automatic braking and Google showing off fully working, entirely autonomous prototypes to the world, but there's one thing holding them back from the next stage of adoption: legislation. While the US has …
Read More »Google set to build its own self-driving cars
Google has ditched any thoughts of twinning its self-drive technology with another more traditional manufacturer and has instead begun the steps to start its own line of vehicles. They're set to be built with a start/stop button, no controls and a look that's designed to make people see automated vehicle …
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