OK, so I lied. I promised you guys I would update you on my life weeks ago. Things got busy... but what else is new?!
Anyway, I got an e-mail from an Outreach Coordinator at Coupons.org requesting that I share a blog about cars that drive themselves! My first thought - how in the heck would that even work? I don't have an iPhone, but I hear that Siri is an idiot... if we can't trust a phone to answer our questions about who won the big game, how can we trust a car to drive us around? Well just read this article... http://coupons.org/pages/cars... OK, I'm waiting while you read it...
First point - Google is behind this. Yep; their autonomous cars have logged more than 140,000 miles. An engineer for Google, Sebastian Thrun, has devoted his life to this research. His goal is to prevent young adults from being a statistic. The number one killer for young adults in automobile accidents is human error.
Please check out these statistics. These really opened my eyes to the real danger of driving. You can be the safest, most aware driver on the planet, but that's not going to keep you from getting in an accident. You always have to worry about the other guy -- the young girl texting her BFF about the new Twilight movie; the man having a hard day and using alcohol to get through it; the absent-minded engineering student trying to remember KVL and KCL for her Electronics 2 exam. You can control how you act behind the wheel, but unfortunately you can't control what the other drivers are doing.
Great stuff, right? I had never heard of that DARPA competition, but holy cow that is amazing!
This just makes me want to work for Google THAT much more. I was checking out Google jobs today, and found that they are NUMBER ONE on Fortune's Best Companies to Work For - 2012. Definitely my dream job...
But anyway, I hope you guys read the article, LOVED it, and will promise that after seeing those statistics, you'll drive safe. Pinky promise. Now. K Thanks :]
