Uber Autonomous Vehicle Program

[TheWorldNewsOrg]

⚡️ “Uber suspends autonomous vehicle program after fatal accident” https://t.co/dmbwg4IegN

— Reuters U.S. News (@ReutersUS) March 19, 2018

via .ORG

World News

[TheWorldNewsOrg]

A self-driving Uber vehicle struck and killed a pedestrian in a late-night accident in Tempe, Arizona, police said. Preliminary investigation shows that the vehicle was traveling at approximately 40mph, with no significant signs of slowing down.

MORE: https://t.co/VkFvFDwkNT pic.twitter.com/Q1lUw4qmg0

— NBC News (@NBCNews) March 19, 2018

via .ORG

World News

[Guest]

Arizona Governor just nixed Uber's privileges to operate self driving cars in his state. Oops.

[Jack Ryan]

Uber Restarts Self-Driving Program

The beauty of a Saturday newsletter is when big news drops on Friday, we're here to cover it the very next morning. And Uber made some big news, announcing that it's finally taking its multibillion-dollar self-driving program out of hibernation: it has asked Pennsylvania for permission to resume testing. Remember: Uber powered down its self-driving fleet in March after one of its cars struck and killed a pedestrian in Arizona. The National Transportation Safety Board said the car detected the pedestrian six seconds before impact, but misidentified her and failed to brake in time. Uber says it's learned since then It released a full webpage's worth of PDFs and Medium posts detailing the autonomous vehicle program's past shortcomings and the steps it's taking to get back on the roads. A few notable changes? New testing will have two humans in the front seat, not one. Say hello to "Mission Specialists," a new class of employees with more advanced training in self-driving vehicle operations than was previously required. And on the tech side, engineers have improved the car's ability to "execute safe reactions faster" after detecting an object. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi stressed the need for more cooperation: "At Uber, we believe there is extraordinary value in sharing operational safety approaches and coordinating with others in the industry to develop methods to measure and demonstrate the progress in self-driving development." But that doesn't mean the competition is going away Actually, it's only heating up. The WSJ reported yesterday that Ford (+1.02%) and Volkswagen are hitting the whiteboard for a brainstorming session on how they could team up on a self-driving car venture. Option 1: VW takes as much as a 50% stake in Ford's self-driving car unit. Option 2: The two carmakers join forces to create a separate self-driving company altogether. Zoom out: Everyone's playing catch-up to Alphabet's Waymo, which is planning on launching a commercial robo-taxi service before the year's out.

[Jack Ryan]

Uber learns fast. ?

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

EVERYBODY learns fast when there is "outrageous and obscene profits"  to be made.

I remember when a computer with a 100 MEGABYTE hard drive cost $5,000. and was as big as a sewing machine.

I bought one, a laptop four inches thick ... with a black and white screen.

"Outrageous profits" made it happen  that you can get a TERRABYTE SD card, dirt cheap, etc., etc.