Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Thursday December 15 2016, @09:05PM   Printer-friendly
from the driverless-cars-are-more-useful-than-carless-drivers dept.

According to c|net, Uber is preparing to launch self-driving cars in San Francisco, as it has done in Pittsburgh:

Uber's self-driving cars, accompanied by a human driver, have been traveling on the streets of San Francisco for the last three to four months. The company has said the cars are being used solely to collect data for maps. Mapping streets is part of readying autonomous vehicles for the open road, so they can identify routes and learn to detect obstacles.

Uber isn't saying when it's going to roll out its self-driving cars to passengers in San Francisco. The company declined to comment for this story. But CNET has learned that Uber will officially launch the program on Wednesday; we also learned that Uber worked in partnership with Volvo to develop the self-driving cars.

As of September, Uber didn't have a permit to run autonomous cars in California. It's unclear if the Department of Motor Vehicles has since given the company a permit. The DMV didn't return requests for comment.

So far, Uber's self-driving cars are available in only one US city -- Pittsburgh. After 18 months of testing, the company launched a small fleet of autonomous vehicles in September in the city. Now when riders hail an Uber there, they have a chance of being picked up in a self-driving car that's accompanied by a "safety driver." Uber said it plans to have 100 self-driving cars in Pittsburgh by the end of the year.

Also at The Verge .


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday December 16 2016, @12:48AM

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Friday December 16 2016, @12:48AM (#441882) Homepage

    Use Lyft. Their drivers are happier and can receive tips, and actually show up within minutes and at 1/2 - 3/4 the rate of the Somali and Eritrean cabbies who show up 2 hours late (if at all) and would rather be shooting dice in some parking lot. Many driver drive for both Uber and Lyft and when asked they'll tell you straight-up that Uber treats their drivers like shit (and, for some reason, Uber passengers also do too) and that Lyft drivers get their priority.

    Source: drunk who needs frequent rides.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Interesting=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by edIII on Friday December 16 2016, @02:19AM

    by edIII (791) on Friday December 16 2016, @02:19AM (#441907)

    Lyft, the choice of discriminating ethnocentrists everywhere!

    The offhand racism in your review not withstanding, none of these companies offers the ability to hire a ride via their website. Only with a smartphone application that also tracks my whereabouts and mines data. That conflicts with my burner phone methodology to Bayesian poison all information about my activities.

    I don't have the money to be running around with a portable system to emulate a full smartphone and control that data. Genymotion and some other apps would allow me to hack the GPS and say I am wherever I want. Which I like a lot, I can create a fake trail of data, but that's only useful to fool websites and why give them a location at all? The carriers always know where the phone is.

    There's no way to use those services without an unacceptable disclosure of information.

    --
    Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.