Remember "Kitt", the car in the t.v. series Knight Rider that could talk and drive itself? Well, researchers at Stanford University in California have developed a vehicle they call Stanley that uses sensors, cameras, lasers and on-board computers to navigate a 132-mile course through the Nevada desert. Stanley, however, is old news.
Now they are creating Junior, a modified VW Passat that can steer itself through a busy city. A lot of the technology for Junior is already in place because modern cars are stuffed full of robot-like gadgets to help deal with modern driving -- GPS, blind-sport sensors, cruise control, lane-departure warnings, and cameras to help you parallel park are common.
"By 2030 we should be able to deploy this technology on the open highway, and reliability will exceed that of humans by orders of magnitude," said Professor Sebastien Thrun.
This is way cool, but lets hopes the whiz kids at Stanford can get cars to the point where they drive themselves a lot sooner than 2030. Why? Think about it ... if cars can drive themselves then that makes having sex on the road safe! Just set the old cruise control and leave the drivin' to whoever built your car while you and your partner take care of more -- much more -- ... ahem ... "important things".
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