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posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday October 07 2015, @02:21PM   Printer-friendly
from the the-future-is-here dept.

A driverless lorry developed by Daimler has been tested on a public road for the first time, in Germany.

At the push of a button, the vehicle's "highway pilot" helped it avoid other road users via a radar and camera sensing system.

The company reiterated the requirement that a human driver be present and focused on the road at all times.

Earlier in the year, Daimler had expressed its desire to carry out such a test by the end of 2015.

"As soon as we are on the highway, we will start the autonomous driving mode," said Daimler executive Wolfgang Bernhard as he steered the Mercedes-Benz Actros truck towards a busy stretch of motorway in Baden-Wurttemberg last week.


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Driverless Taxi Experiment to Start in Japan 14 comments

Japan's cabinet office, Kanagawa prefecture and Robot Taxi Inc. on Thursday said they will start experimenting with unmanned taxi service beginning in 2016. The service will be offered for approximately 50 people in Kanagawa prefecture, just south of Tokyo, with the auto-driving car carrying them from their homes to local grocery stores.

According to the project organizers, the cabs will drive a distance of about three kilometers (two miles), and part of the course will be on major avenues in the city. Crew members will be aboard the car during the experiment in case there is a need to avoid accidents.


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  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @02:36PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @02:36PM (#246452)

    but I know what you did last summer. Don't bother running, you'll just die tired.

    -Scotch_Whisky_Fueled

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @02:51PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @02:51PM (#246458)

    - Teamsters Union

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Wednesday October 07 2015, @03:58PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 07 2015, @03:58PM (#246483)

      There's a teamster sitting right there, hand on the button... at least theoretically.

      The company reiterated the requirement that a human driver be present and focused on the road at all times.

      In the very long term, for say a beer truck, all it means is the guy stocking kegs is not going to need a CDL anymore. In my starving student days I rose up in the ranks at my dumpy little food store and once I was in psuedo-management as the lowest guy on the totem pole I got to do receiving and I assure you independent distributors spend a lot more calories stacking boxes and pulling dollys than they do actually driving their truck. Also I worked there as a teen kid for years and even I was blown away at how much "stuff" in a food store comes from semi-independent distributors. "Corporate" really only sends pallets of stuff for the aisles, and not even all of that. Everything else is a dude with a truck and a pallet jack or dolly and a lot of sweat, making the truck drive itself isn't going to help as much as you'd think.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by TrumpetPower! on Wednesday October 07 2015, @02:58PM

    by TrumpetPower! (590) <ben@trumpetpower.com> on Wednesday October 07 2015, @02:58PM (#246460) Homepage

    Transportation in general, and long-haul trucking in particular, employs as many people as any other industry. And, in the blink of an eye, all those jobs will be automated out of existence -- alongside all the manufacturing and warehouse and other similar jobs we've already lost.

    So, what's a long-haul trucker to do once the robots are driving the trucks? Learn JavaScript and build the new MyFaceGram? He's certainly not going to be getting a job as a taxi driver.

    Very, very soon now we'll have to face the question of just what people are actually supposed to do for a living when there're far more able-bodied people than there are jobs for them to do.

    b&

    --
    All but God can prove this sentence true.
    • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday October 07 2015, @03:16PM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday October 07 2015, @03:16PM (#246466) Journal

      Very, very soon now we'll have to face the question of just what people are actually supposed to do for a living when there're far more able-bodied people than there are jobs for them to do.

      March on Washington/Wall Street?

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
    • (Score: 2) by Kilo110 on Wednesday October 07 2015, @03:46PM

      by Kilo110 (2853) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 07 2015, @03:46PM (#246476)

      what people are actually supposed to do for a living when there're far more able-bodied people than there are jobs for them to do

      http://i.imgur.com/kQyoRXz.jpg [imgur.com]

      We're mostly there already.

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday October 07 2015, @04:14PM

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 07 2015, @04:14PM (#246488)

        The term to google for is "workforce participation rate" and its been collapsing since 1990 or so.

        One short term strategy is all bartenders and receptionists "need" higher education degrees, but that's about tapped out and even the dumbest true believers are beginning to question the higher ed faith.

        A longer term strategy is propaganda; we have a low unemployment rate because states report unemployment and the fed is "letting them" push unemployed off to federally funded long term disability SSDI. Yes shittier food and health care has resulted in more living disabled people, but I'm talking about the last decade or so where the numbers have grown by tens of millions. Its pretty crazy out there.

        Its interesting that when I was a kid at a stereotypical food store, food stamps were rare but not unheard of; Look at recent stats for a shock, pretty soon at current program growth rates having EBT is going to be as normal, if not more normal, than getting a social security retirement check. Like 50M people out of only 300M get food stamps and the numbers are growing by millions per year, for the past decades.

        Eventually the system will collapse when all the blood has been squeezed out of the stones; not yet, apparently. Soon enough.

        There's a bifurcation happening in academia just like in the greater population; there are still $200K/yr tenured professors (med and law school) but 75% of classes are taught by TAs and associates who only get $1K per semester. For "many of us" here on SN with high skills once the real jobs go away, I'll be tutoring calculus students for $3K/year or teaching intro to clojure classes or whatever. It'll be hard living on $3K/year but with food stamps and obamacare and stuff, maybe not so bad.

        Then there's the school-to-prison pipeline for minority youth.

        The general public seems resigned to menial labor at best. Minimum wage for all at walmart; shopkeeper economy selling haircuts and insurance to each other for table scraps of money in perpetuity; can't afford education, health care, cell phone, or food, but the .gov has a program for that and being in enough programs cuts back on motivation for a revolution.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday October 07 2015, @04:14PM

      by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday October 07 2015, @04:14PM (#246487)

      In short, what needs to happen is that time needs to be shifted away from work and towards non-work activities. This would have all sorts of other social benefits: for example, if parents were usually working from something like 8:30 AM to 2:30 PM on a typical weekday, then they could be around their kids on a more regular basis.

      In order to pull this off as a matter of public policy, you have three basic options:
      1. Shorten the full-time work week and increase minimum wages to compensate. So, for example, instead of working 40 hours per week at $16 an hour, you'd be working 30 hours a week at $20 an hour. Employers obviously don't like this plan because it increases their cost per hour of labor, but my general attitude towards those kinds of complaints is "tough luck - you've been getting higher profits in the last 15 years than ever before in human history, don't tell me you can't afford to pay it."

      2. Increase minimum wages to the point where one worker can comfortably support an entire family, allowing the other adult(s) in the family to stay home. This is how the classic 1950's American nuclear family came into existence (dad's paycheck was in many respects a higher standard of living then than dad+mom's paycheck is today), and it would cut back the workforce considerably without any other public policy change. Again, employers don't like this plan because it drastically increases their cost per hour of labor (you might be sensing a theme here).

      3. Universal basic income: In this sort of plan, about 20-25% of all income (both labor and investment) would be taxed away and distributed equally to every man, woman, and (probably at a lower rate) child in the US. Or, in other words, Social Security (and probably Medicaid/Medicare) for everybody with no kind of income exempt from FICA taxes. A lot of people really really don't like this plan because it's *gasp* socialism, and specifically think that nobody would be motivated to work in that kind of world. The thing is, there's decent evidence that's not in fact true, because your universal basic income would leave a single adult living on $12,000 a year and a family of four living on about $30,000 a year, and most adults want more than that. And of course the side effects of completely eliminating poverty would seem potentially valuable. And of course rich people really don't like this plan because that would increase their tax rates on investment income dramatically.

      So there you have it. It's a completely solvable problem, that we aren't solving because rich people would be somewhat less rich if we solved it.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday October 07 2015, @04:28PM

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 07 2015, @04:28PM (#246496)

        specifically think that nobody would be motivated to work in that kind of world

        I believe its tied in with the illegal invasion resulting in the death of the teenager McJob.

        I'm old enough to predate most of the illegal invasion so when I was young most Big Macs were made by teens, most crap on store shelves were stocked there by teens, most landscaping work was done by teens, most trash cans were emptied by teens. Basically anywhere you'd hear "no hablo ingles" today, you had some pimply teenager doing it 30 years ago.

        The relevance to this story is everyone in my generation and older knows from observation, that kids who's mom and dad pay for the basics none the less have no problem sweating for cash to buy walkmans and cassette tapes and bell bottom corduroy pants (corduroy ... holy F there's something from the 70s I don't miss at all).

        Anyway likewise everyone younger than me has never seen a teenager cook a hamburger or put boxes on a shelf or push a lawnmover, thans "Juan 6-packs" job and teens don't do that stuff anymore. Therefore there's some weird monkey see monkey do assumption that if teens could get jobs they would surely never take them because according to the media immigration never causes anyone to lose jobs, therefore the ONLY reason no teens have jobs anymore is because they're given everything so they'll never work for more. Or some nonsense like that.

        I would wager my parents were more generous in the 80s than parents today because everyone was wealthier back then, yet I worked anyway because I could get a job and therefore even more cool Colecovision games, just like all my friends.

        So I suspect that overall outlook will be pushed as an old people vs young people issue where old people know that given the basics people will none the less sweat4cash but dumb young kids think the reverse because they've only experienced massive teen unemployment due to the reconquista.

        • (Score: 3, Disagree) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday October 07 2015, @05:30PM

          by DeathMonkey (1380) on Wednesday October 07 2015, @05:30PM (#246523) Journal

          I'm old enough to predate most of the illegal invasion so when I was young most Big Macs were made by teens...
           
          Just 'cause they're brown doesn't make them illegal. There is no chance in hell that a lawyered up massive corporation like McDonald's is hiring illegal immigrants in any sort of significant capacity.

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Wednesday October 07 2015, @09:39PM

          by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday October 07 2015, @09:39PM (#246618)

          An alternate explanation that has much more support in the data (rather than anecdote):
          1. In the last 50 years, 3 out of 5 manufacturing jobs in the US disappeared. Particularly low-skill manufacturing jobs were all shipped overseas, aided by NAFTA, agreements with China, and now the TPP.
          2. Those adults with a high school education who used to make $15-20 per hour making car parts and such, are now are desperately looking for any job they can get, and McJobs are what's available.
          3. The working age adults who have moved into the McJobs now crowd out the teenagers from getting the McJobs, because all else being equal an employer will prefer an employee with a high school diploma over an employee without a high school diploma.

          Oh, and those illegal immigrants you're upset about? The industries they mostly work in are not retail or fast food, but construction, agriculture, hospitality (i.e. hotel maids), meatpacking, and clothing sweatshops.

          --
          The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Wednesday October 07 2015, @11:26PM

        by isostatic (365) on Wednesday October 07 2015, @11:26PM (#246655) Journal

        The reason you need two jobs is to pay for insane house prices. They're insane because people can afford to pay it. 5 times your joint salary as a mortgage? Having 70% of your combined income going on the interest alone? The rich get richer, money makes money.

        In the UK too the government has taken away and incentive to have a single income family (pooling tax allowance for instance), while simultaneously prompting having your kids brought up at bursary from 3 months.

          Those prices are skins and because everyone has two incomes to spend on it (there's more stuff about return on investment to allow moneyed people to invest in property and make more money then they would in the bank too, driving up prices, which leads to making more money, and spiralling until it goes pop.

        Make it illegal to have two parents working.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @03:23PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @03:23PM (#246467)

    It's phoenix all the way down.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @04:36PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @04:36PM (#246502)

      That's my alma mater, you insensitive clod!

    • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday October 07 2015, @06:21PM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday October 07 2015, @06:21PM (#246539) Journal

      I wanted to see if it could be done :-)

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
  • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @03:34PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @03:34PM (#246475)

    "A human driver be present and focused on the road at all times."

    Wow, such advances!

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday October 07 2015, @04:34PM

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Wednesday October 07 2015, @04:34PM (#246500) Homepage Journal

    One reason I prefer a stickshift is that it helps me focus on the road.

    If the driver has no responsibilities other than to recover in an emergency, how effective will they be when the opportunity arises?

    By now there have been a few accidents in road tests of self-driving cars, surely there must be some unpublicized near misses. Does the presence of a backup driver actually make a difference or is it just for show.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday October 07 2015, @04:52PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 07 2015, @04:52PM (#246512)

      Does the presence of a backup driver actually make a difference or is it just for show.

      Doesn't have to be binary. Someone needs to be the fall guy when there's a software bug then accident, and I assure you it won't be a multinational megacorporation, so its not going to be the car mfgr or the employer, the fall guy is going to be the guy in the drivers seat.

      One interesting software result is I suspect the software will do what it can to prevent accidents in good faith, but once a situation is determined to be unsurvivable under any circumstances, control will be turned over to the human driver and that will be carefully logged and documented that all accidents happen while under the control of the human NOT the computer.

      That'll also result in weird propaganda-mode accident stats like 100% of the time when a legacy human driver tries to drive, someone ends up dead.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @09:42PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @09:42PM (#246619)

        In reality, the correct course of action is for that computer to stop the vehicle as safely as possible.

        In a real emergency, the human can then take over for things like:

        • Spill mitigation
        • Finding a safer place to park
        • Contacting the appropriate authorities
        • Aiding bystanders

          I believe this system is only designed to work on Freeways. So a driver is still needed at the beginning and end of the journey.

    • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Wednesday October 07 2015, @06:55PM

      by darkfeline (1030) on Wednesday October 07 2015, @06:55PM (#246550) Homepage

      I would trust an autonomous vehicle to drive more safely than you both in and out of emergency, despite and/or due to any mental irregularities you may or may not possess.

      Is there anything that might help you focus on putting question marks on your questions?

      --
      Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday October 08 2015, @01:33AM

    by frojack (1554) on Thursday October 08 2015, @01:33AM (#246695) Journal

    Toyota has become the latest car manufacturer to test a driverless vehicle on a public road.
    http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34464450 [bbc.com]

    Apparently they haven't gotten the memo about how bad human driver are:

    Based on these data inputs, it "automatically operates the steering wheel, accelerator and brakes" to drive in much the same way as a person would, said the firm.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 08 2015, @03:20AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 08 2015, @03:20AM (#246717)

      The bolded text was outside the original quote-marks.

      Maybe the journalist did not get the memo.

  • (Score: 2) by Techwolf on Friday October 09 2015, @12:06AM

    by Techwolf (87) on Friday October 09 2015, @12:06AM (#247171)

    As a truck driver in the USA, can't wait for this system to come to the USA. I would love an autocruse(note autocruse, not autodrive) system in my truck. Just think, after getting on the interstate, hit the cruse control and it will drive for you for the most longest part of the route, the interstate. Not worried about the system replacing drivers, we are at least 20 years away from a system that can handle driving in the city(where you often have to cross the marked lines to make turns, directing traffic from the cab so you can make that sharp right hand turn down a narrow street), backing into docks that have little room and was design for straight trucks of 60 years ago.

    This system will also save many lives as the #1 cause of non-fourwheeler accidents, falling asleep at the wheel