Thats a good idea, make hail illegal. Can they do the same with straightline winds and tornados too?

Restricting who can accept a street hail and requiring licensing is how the taxis protect their business. "Private transport companies", where you call for a ride in advance, are in a different category of business.

and then suddenly the car will see something it can't handle and... stop in the middle of the highway

The issues were in city driving, and they are situations Google knows the car can't handle, so they agreed in advance with the state that a human would pilot the vehicle through these obstacles.

Highway driving tends to be "easier" in terms of fewer obstacles --- but yeah, if there's an unmapped stoplight or road construction site, the vehicle might have difficulties ----- it turns out, that in such areas, usually a lower speed limit is posted and normal highway speeds are not advisable or legal.

Anyone who exchanges one thing of value for another can be considered a customer.

No... exchanging one thing of value for another is called being a trading partner; customer/producer means something more specific, and Google/users' relationship is not customer/vendor.

In this case, the user of the service is a supplier of eyeballs, and the only service Google is selling is ad impressions; which are targeted against users utilizing the free service, and Google doesn't need any contract to print ads in the free service.

Nothing of value is actually being exchanged, and there essentially is no contract --- just some policy terms from Google.

Google can shut off a user's access to the free service, anytime they want with zero recourse.

The relationship is not like a customer/producer relationship. In such relationships, the customer actually provides consideration to receive a service and has a RIGHT to receive the service they paid for.

In this case, what Google gets is intangible.

A DMV committee then met and approved the country’s first self-driving vehicle testing license. On 4 May 2012, the Prius was issued special gold-on-red autonomous license plates, number AU-001. However, Google seems to have done little with its historic license plate. Most of the company’s testing has since been focused on California, and when its Nevada license expired in May 2013, Google failed to renew it for at least eight months.

If the driver is the autopilot, then the engineer taking control should cause the autopilot to automatically fail.

Apparently it was agreed upon before the test:

In communication with the Nevada DMV before the test, Google said its policy was to prohibit autonomous operation at railroad crossings that lack signals and for human drivers to take over. It also noted: “[Roundabouts are] particularly challenging, where many drivers don’t know the proper rules in the first place.” In an e-mail to colleagues at the DMV, Breslow wrote, “We can’t fail an applicant for not being able to navigate a traffic circle if they say that there [sic] vehicle can’t yet do it.”

If you have to be at full driver attentiveness at all times, what the heck is the point? A self-driving car should let you take a nap, read a book, or otherwise tune out from the road.

I don't think you have to be at full attentiveness at all times, but you won't be able to take a nap either. On the other hand, you would be safely able to study a paper map a bit.

So the car sounds an alarm and stops due to this obstacle it doesn't know how to handle, and you then need to pick up the wheel, look around, and navigate the situation safely.... if you're sleeping or stuck in a book, you will be stopped in the middle of the road and inconveniencing other drivers.

If LaneAssist is a useful feature, then this should still be a useful luxury feature as well..... just not as useful as a fully independent self-driving car would be.

Likely tangible safety improvements will still be a good reason for this feature.

Yes, your basic VFR landing - something every student pilot has to do - can give the willies the most seasoned jetliner pilot simply because the skill has rotted away.

I would suggest an annual recertification requirement for commercial pilots with a minimum of 100 hours flying with no automation.

Just because they don't know where to look, doesn't mean it's not there.

Probably, there are a great many genetic factors that could play a direct or indirect role in intelligence, either for the better or for the worse.

Also... let's not discount things such as eating habits, and nurture --- discipline, motivational factors, inspiration, culture, etc.

And the fact that it might be genetic, but 50,000 people might each have totally different genes contributing to their higher intelligence.

It's a X1, not a X20 flare. I do not think we really have much to worry about.

I'm surprised Slashdot is even covering anything less than an X5.

Businesses should be able to have comments that are just ridiculous removed as there are some people you just cannot please, no matter what.

I disagree. "Ridiculous" is too subjective. I think the main issue is small businesses who do not have many reviews to begin with are disproportionately harmed by negative reviews, especially when false negative claims are made by the one or two people who happen to be "savvy" to a particular review site, where the highly pleased majority of customers never visit the review site.

Personally... I think, in this case, the review site should be liable for choosing a selection of reviews to publish which misrepresent customers' views.

Businesses should be able to hold customers accountable for what they claim in a review, if the customer makes any statements which are false, or "potentially libelious statements".

The review site should be liable for soliciting and selecting reviews to be published in an irresponsible manner. A responsible manner would include soliciting reviews from other customers; not publishing or scoring a product or service based on a very small number of reviews received, and providing clear and prominent disclaimers.

It should be a clear enough distinction. Hotel's and restaurants don't get you to sign NDA's.

Some may start adding a non-disclosure clause, that is, if they think it can allow them to legally restrict negative reviews.

This law applies specifically to consumer goods. How many consumer goods require an NDA to purchase?

Many EULAs contain something that is NDA-like.

Some consumer products even forbid you from publishing performance metrics or the results of comparative performance testing.... if I recall correctly, VMware used to be known for this, specifically.

I kind of liked the idea of a "smart steering wheel"

If for any reason, the driver takes either of their hands off the wheel, then their paired phone will automatically lock, and they can't place or answer calls when moving, except by using voice commands and a hands-free device.

Nice. Real nice. We are talking about Satoshi creating an anonymous email here - BTC wasn't invented yet!

I'm just attempting to point out that Satoshi has made it even easier than before.

It was still possible to register a domain anonymously before, so even the registrar wouldn't know the ID of the person..... it just involved a little bit more work and expense.