I trolled some mac zealots back when I was young and stupid (1999ish) and it's been in the shitter ever since. Due to /.'s stupid karma system time does not heal wounds nor is there really a way to make it better but I refuse to give up this account!

I must say besides the whole "crisis response" thing, that is one nice weather map. Certainly better than the radar maps on Weather.gov or Intellicast. Maybe Google should start a weather site. They seem to have the technology down pat.

<quote><p>made up primarily of legal defense teams dedicated to patent exploitation and liability control with tiny development arms tagged on the end.</p></quote>

Think giant T-rex wearing a 3 piece Armani with those little arms of his flailing about erratically because he has the most annoying itch know to reptile-kind on the back of his balls.

I just have to say this AC & the 2 or 3 other AC replies to this must be some kind of anti-google car shill. This did intrigue me so I will answer your questions regardless:
1) The zone will have signs with transmitters...the guy holding the sign doesn't even have to exist anymore. Yay automation! /sarcasm
2) They are already programmed to deal with that. It is kind of a *must have* feature.
3) When people sit around thinking about how robots "see" they often imagine it's the same as watching a TV screen. This is not the case. The CCD sensors in these automatons see a MUCH broader spectrum of light. Things our eyes can't even discern like IR, UV, XRAYS, etc. It can see further, clearer, and faster than you can. It can see mosquitos crossing the street while it is doing 100mph. There are several cameras in existence that can see ice. Detection of ANYTHING is non issue with the available sensor packages of today.
4) Again, sensor packages make this a non issue. It'll see a swerving driver but what to do about it will depend on the rules set forth by the programmers. Since they are humans, which you imply are somehow superior, they can tell it to do exactly what you are talking about- stay 50m away.

That snarky bit about superior humans brings me to my point: EVERYONE thinks they are not the idiot driver in the next lane. Well if you aren't that guy and I'm not that guy then who is? Truth is folks, we ALL are the crazy drivers. As so many others have already pointed out we get distracted over stupid shit-- was that Natalie Portman driving a mint 1981 Delorean covered in hot grits??? No but that is the rear end of a semi trailer, thanks for playing. Computers don't get distracted. They simply malfunction which we are just as easily susceptible to (heart attacks, seizures, intoxication, etc). What they can do to negate this, which we don't do so well at, is redundant hotswappage. Even when we carry backup humans in the vehicle there is no easy method for a passenger to quickly and effectively take over. You have a heart attack and you kill your whole family too. The car can and WILL have several backups to backups. If it takes 15 cameras to make the risk acceptable then dammit they will have 15 cameras. They will have 5 THOUSAND if that's what it takes and the economy will make sure that they can produce enough cameras to make that happen. It always has. I am so certain that way back in the day when automobiles first started cruising the roads with horse drawn carriages that these exact same arguments were brought up. They held no weight back then and they hold no weight today. I mentioned earlier that I felt you thought humans were superior and in this respect we are and all you anti-whatever guys don't see it. If humans see something we want then barring an act of some deity we will have it! There is no possible way we will go backwards in technology unless an apocalyptic event should occur. What you anti-computer/tech & overly religious people need to understand and accept (not just tolerate) is that we have the power to make a whole bunch of awesome stuff happen. It is GOING to happen whether you like it or not. There will be a time that we will be chauffeured around the world in our automated vehicles hangin out with our clones, blown out of our gourds, banging an android prostitute on the way home from work which is being televised on Bawtporn.com because Verizon gave us $5 off our monthly bill (and the whole way the gov knew where you were, what you were doing, and deducted 1.7 millions credits from your bank account for lewd and lascivious behavior). Deal with it. We are humans. Not superior physically but mentally. Somewhere right now on this planet someone is doing something you find reprehensible. Apparently those Google cars were driving around with the general populace for quite some time and you didn't even know! We have the power to clone a human. Some lab somewhere secret is testing it right now. We already have fantastic drugs and make new ones everyday. And you can't possible tell me there isn't someone trying to build a sex droid at this second! We already got the tracking tech and the auto banking. What part of my not-so-hypothetical example above is not possible? This is gonna happen. Get used to it. Will we screw it up? Oh you bet ya. There is gonna be some horrific auto-car wrecks at first but there are still gonna be spectacular human auto wrecks too so it won't matter. We are MAN. We'll work those bugs out. Besides even if it did ultimately fail all we would do is shelve the project until technology stepped up a notch and the we'd revisit. The lab I work at is always retrying old ideas that fell through cause there wasn't a strong enough plastic or a powerful enough laser. Give 'em 20 years and auto-cars will be back on the road with iAI by Applesoft and sponsored by Allstate (complete with smooth talking & strikingly handsome Robot-American spokesdroid). That is the point of what is going on today. Google is testing to see if auto-cars are viable. As far as I can see with the results so far this is happening.

My clone and I for one, welcome our autodriving, sexbot laden, kept in good hands with Allstate overlords! See ya on Bawtporn.com!!!!

I also expect my shit to just work. Put a freakin "check computer" light on the case since you love the car analogies. If SMART senses an I/O error, it can be flagged and the light can be lit. You can also include an in BIOS scanner that could then read said code and tell you what to fix. Now how hard would that be? It would help the grandma's and computer illiterates keep their stuff working and would be a huge boon to the computer repair shops- both issues that are always being argued here on /. (virus spamming bots and outsourced jobs)

As far as which tech is better I think we can both agree that spinning platter memory is outdated but flash just isn't quite there yet. We do in fact need something more advanced and I think we are close.

For some reason guys, I think we should mod this dude up!

Obviously not. I see what he says as having nothing in particular to do with being fat (which is a problem no doubt). When I first read that a dozen posts above, I saw it as saying exactly what he said. Don't eat more than you can grow. As in physically grow in the fields. Don't over-consume your limited resources which is a major problem we have today becoming evident with topsoil erosion and general decline in soil nutrient content, clean usable water sources, etc. It can even be paralleled with all of the people claiming Peak Oil, Peak Copper, Peak Lithium, Peak Whatever. If you only have so much to go around, I see him as saying ration it out and don't waste it. See how all this "interpreting" causes these never ending arguments in science?

Oh drat! That was a four OUNCE bird....I fail....but still they couldn't carry a one pound scimitar regardless of geographical location...

What like between Europe and Africa? Even carrying it on a line, a four pound bird could not....oh never mind.

Ah Texas...well that's all you had to say. I applaud you for being able to leave that very ass backwards place. I withdraw my previous comments about Alaska.

Dude I have been reading alot of your comments on slashdot lately (they seem to get modded up alot) and I just wanna say, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ALASKA?? Seriously guy, your sig suggests we should love Alaska but everything you post makes me wanna run away...quickly...and never look back!

That was a reference to the Dave Chapelle show. You probably knew that and just felt like a being a douche. Congrats. Oh and since you've decided to be a grammar Nazi I will point out that you don't know grammar worth A shit. Pwnd.

and cocaine...don't forget the cocaine. hookers are no fun without cocaine

Do you indeed need someone to get you out of Worcester State Hospital or is that a joke I don't get? You might wanna consider making that clearer if that's the case.

I have been having this problem for weeks now. Whatever you responded to is not shown to me. I have the sliders slid over to show me everything and yet whoever you were talking to is not known to me. Because your post is rated quite high I'd love to see what was said but I can't. Is that new little flag in the corner responsible and if so when did it become OK on /. to censor information? Anyone else having this issue?