The online giant has had us all aghast at the innovative and sometimes bizarre creations that have escaped from their headquarters.
However, Google’s most recent (almost) launch is the self-driving car. The test vehicles have covered over two million miles, and in six years they have been partial to 16 collisions.
In total Google have 48 robot cars that are roaming the streets, refining their navigation that does not require human interaction or assistance.
The cars have two employees in them at any one time; one is there to take control should anything go wrong, or if there is a potentially dangerous situation that will require a manual override. The other takes notes of the various situations that the vehicle comes into contact with and anything on the roads that might require further work or testing.
The automated cars work via intelligent use of radars, lasers and 360 angle view cameras. These then identify objects, people, other vehicles, road signs and traffic lights. In one incident it was noted that the Google-bot had stopped to safely avoid a cyclist that had ran a red light, while a traditional driver did not and only narrowly avoided hitting the bike rider.
While we didn’t want to go too far in depth with these self-driving cars until we can have a go for ourselves, we did start to wonder what they could be used for…
The delivery man will never get lost again
There is something terribly distressing about the time when you have ordered your take-away and know that the person on the end of the phone definitely doesn’t know where your address is. Consequently, the driver that is hired on their ‘perfect’ knowledge of the city, takes nearly an hour to find your road and by this point your meal is near cold and the novelty has worn off.
Well, how fantastic would it be if this situation never arose because all the driver had to do would be to input the address, and then step out to hand you the pizza box?
Getting the kids to school
Your mind is anywhere but on the road when you are doing the school run, the kids are arguing and you are also in the process of realising that one of them still has their slippers on. Well, if Google’s cars work out the way we had planned, then there would most certainly be a reduction in the amount of school-run bumps as mums and kids alike battle for road space.
Getting to work and doing the last minute emails en-route
Admittedly, we all know that the time spent in the car getting to work could be better spent if we were able to multi-task. While this is far from ideal when driving, it might not be so dangerous with a self-driven car. Just imagine all the emails that were definitely not meant to have already been sent that you could catch up on. Now allow the mind to wander, but not too far, as Google aren’t planning on rolling these out for another five years, minimum.
So, if for the time being your only relation with Google remains firmly situated within their Google search aspect, why not get in touch with us at i3MEDIA to see if we can help you achieve something more with your SEO campaign.