Toyota enter the driverless car race

As some of you will know Google are leading the way in the new generation of cars that will change the world... the driverless car. However, other firms are doing their bit also and the latest to throw their hats into the ring are Japanese giants and soon to be number 1 car maker in the world (again)... Toyota.

Toyota has given a taste of self-drive car safety technology ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas next week. The car maker revealed a video clip of a Lexus fitted with safety features designed to minimise car crashes.

The technology includes on-board radar and video cameras to monitor the road, the surroundings, and the driver. The car can also communicate with other vehicles, according to a Toyota spokesman.

The full BBC article is here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20910769

The uses of driverless cars!

What would the world of the driverless car look like?

Safer roads as cars should have less accidents if driven by computers.

A more productive commute
Fewer traffic jams
End of school run
Impact on taxis and buses?

ICT in Business - Rio Tinto Driverless Trucks

The mining giant aims to save around $100,000 per year per truck by using a fleet of some 140 automatic mining trucks which will operate in the Western Australian desert.

What will the impact be on safety and indeed on the future of truck drivers with the firm?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Col_MPuELfA

ICT in Business - Cars without a driver heading for California!

Oh how it seemed like the future... a car with no driver. That was the premise behind Knight Rider, the old TV show which had KITT the car that could drive itself. Now however, fact looks like following fiction.

A new bill to bring driverless cars to roads in California has been signed. State governor Jerry Brown backed legislation on Tuesday, and said: "Today we're looking at science-fiction becoming tomorrow's reality".

The bill was signed at the headquarters of Google, which has been testing a fleet of 12 autonomous computer-controlled vehicles for several years, which some may have seen on Stephen Hawking's New World TV show.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin said self-driving cars would be "far safer" than those driven by humans.

Other major car manufacturers, including Audi, Ford and Volvo also have their own driverless car programmes!

How quickly they will become a mass market product and reach UK shores, who knows? But a driverless car that perhaps in future could be electric or run on solar power would transform the world as we know it.