Sebastian Thrun who lead the winning team at Stanford now works for Google, and is heading up the Google self driving car work.
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The self-driving car will making the whole driving experience much more pleasurable, predicted Brad Templeton, the former chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation who has worked extensively with Google on their self-driving car.
The lab has given rise to Google's self-driving car initiative and did the early work on its augmented spectacles.
Then there's the impact of the self-driving car, which has the potential to radically reduce car crashes.
Even grizzled Silicon Valley entrepreneurs like Reputation.com CEO Michael Fertik confessed to being wowed by the self-driving car.
The development of self-driving car technology is being spurred on by several forces.
In Sacramento, Stanford University's self-driving car hit 120 mph in a test drive, and in Ann Arbor, Mich.
Last year, a self-driving car developed by China's National University of Defense Technology traveled 177 miles from Changsha to Wuhan.
But even Stephens is excited by the idea of the self-driving car.
One of these ideas was for a self-driving car, not through a desert, but on the streets of San Francisco and beyond.
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Isn't it telling that one of today's most eagerly anticipated technologies is a self-driving car, now on its way to being rolled out by Google?
The top prize at the fair went to 19-year-old Ionut Budisteanu of Romania, who used "artificial intelligence to create a viable model for a low-cost, self-driving car, " according to an Intel statement.
Similar to how a self-driving car might take the work out of getting us where we need to be, personalization will optimize our interaction with information to make sure that we get what we need when we need it, without the unnecessary effort.
"Listen, I was driving to work the other day and I saw the self-driving Google car buzz by me driving much better than I think I was, " Fertik said.
"We want to improve the quality of driving, " says Anthony Levandowski, the project manager for Google's self-driving-car effort.
Google was awarded an autonomous car patent in 2011, and secured a Nevada driving licence for its self-drive car in May 2012.
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My car company isn't into self-driving cars, but others are: Ford, BMW, Audi.
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But the economics will change dramatically if Google or a car company decides to begin mass-producing self-driving cars.
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Ideally, a car that drives itself can minimize traffic by chaining together with other self-driving vehicles and using highways more efficiently.
He cited PSB data that found while 54% of consumers are intrigued about self-driving cars, 59% of them would not feel comfortable riding in such a car today.
Self-driving cars could drastically improve road safety, according to Prof Paul Newman, who heads an Oxford University autonomous car project project.
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