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April 3, 2015

Strange But True!

Q. When riding “spellbound” in the back seat of a Lexus one July day in 2014, MIT roboticist John Leonard said, “I felt like I was at the launch at Kitty Hawk, as the Wright brothers ushered in the age of air travel 111 years ago.” What was going on here?

A. No one was in the driver's seat of this “self-driving car,” reports Douglas Fox in Discover magazine. This was the same year that Google added 100 more prototypes to the mix, all lacking steering wheels. “A Google car senses its surroundings through radar, cameras and range-finding lasers spinning atop the vehicle to create a 360-degree view of pedestrians, vehicles and intersections.” Meanwhile, Audi and BMW unveiled their own versions.


 
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