Their release was the result of a long process involving contact with the Somali government, the collaboration of the authorities in the semi-autonomous Puntland region, and the work of the Italian intelligence services, he said.

BBC: Pirates free Italian tugboat crew

The focus of autonomous vehicle research is on developing intelligent vehicles, or artificial intelligence for cars in some sense, while the focus of the blind driver challenge vehicle is developing methods to convey a vast amount of information to the driver through nonvisual means, fast enough and accurately enough for safe driving.

CNN: Why we made a car for blind drivers