The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday released an overview of the federal government's automated vehicles policy, which includes a checklist for makers on various aspects of the cars they are developing, as well as guidelines to states on evolving a common framework for regulating the new technologies. "Automated vehicles have the potential to save tens of thousands of lives each year," wrote Obama in an op-ed in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Monday. That's what harnessing technology for good can look like. But we have to get it right," he added. Obama wrote that the quickest way to slam the brakes on innovation is if the public loses confidence in the safety of the new technology, and the responsibility of both government and industry is to make sure it doesn't happen.

The U.S. government has issued its first rules for automated vehicles. They include a 15-point set of "safety assessment" guidelines for self-driving systems. These cover issues such as cybersecurity, black box recordings to aid crash investigations, and how a car would deal with potential ethical conundrums on the road. The new policy will play a central role in shaping how autonomous vehicles proceed toward commercial use. Many automotive and technology companies are testing self-driving vehicles, and ride-hailing company Uber even lets customers in Pittsburgh order rides in prototypes (see "My Self Driving Uber Needed Human Help").

Even a year ago, the idea of autonomous cars roaming American streets seemed farfetched, and automakers were claiming to be focused on "stepping stone," incremental technology. Carmakers are deploying robots, and federal regulators in charge of how humans drive are finally catching up. Today, US Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx announced guidelines that define a new approach to regulating--and encouraging--self-driving cars. In an op-ed in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, President Obama wrote, "Government sometimes gets it wrong when it comes to rapidly changing technologies. That's why this new policy is flexible and designed to evolve with new advances."

The Obama administration is weighing in on self-driving cars with a new set of rules for car and tech companies that are expected to bring federal regulations up to date with technology. The U.S. Department of Transportation is set to release a new set of guidelines for driverless cars that will dictate how car companies and others build, test and deploy such vehicles. While the full guidelines won't be released until Tuesday, the policy will include a 15-point "safety assessment" that manufacturers and others making self-driving cars must address during their vehicle production. This encompasses testing methods, registration requirements, privacy protections, cybersecurity as well as the complicated ethical considerations of driverless cars. While the bulk of the policy is meant for fully autonomous cars, the department noted that some portions may apply to other assistive technology that is already used by car companies.

President Barack Obama hasn't had to drive himself around for years. And he may not have to after he leaves office either. Obama Monday threw his weight behind self-driving cars -- as long as they're safe. His op-ed in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which will appear in Tuesday's print editions, lauds American innovation and comes just a day after Lyft CEO John Zimmer predicted the end of individual vehicle ownership and a week after Uber began an autonomous vehicle experiment in Pittsburgh. "The progress we've seen in automated vehicles over the past several years shows what our country is capable of when our engineers and entrepreneurs, our scientists and our students – backed by federal and private investment – pour their best work and brightest ideas toward a big, bold goal," Obama said.

A self-driving Ford Fusion Hybrid Uber is displayed last week at the companies' Advanced Technologies Center in Pittsburgh. On Tuesday, the Department of Transportation will announce a set of policy proposals designed to ensure the safety of autonomous and automated vehicles. A self-driving Ford Fusion Hybrid Uber is displayed last week at the companies' Advanced Technologies Center in Pittsburgh. On Tuesday, the Department of Transportation will announce a set of policy proposals designed to ensure the safety of autonomous and automated vehicles. The White House wants you to know that the era of self-driving cars is closer than you might expect.

The Obama administration said companies developing driverless cars should adopt a series of government recommendations to certify their vehicles are ready for U.S. roads, a policy aimed at front-running possible conflicting local rules and potentially reducing traffic fatalities. The U.S. Transportation Department, in guidelines to be rolled out Tuesday, urges that car makers and other developers submit to a 15-point "safety assessment" outlining how driverless cars are tested, safeguards should systems fail and how...

Any doubt that driverless cars, trucks and buses are on a fast track to join their human counterparts on the nation's highways may be knocked aside Tuesday, when the Department of Transportation releases long-awaited guidelines for the development of autonomous cars. The guidelines, which specify safety criteria and promise to eliminate red tape, will help "bring lifesaving technologies to the roads safely while providing innovators the space they need to develop new solutions," said the U.S. Department of Transportation in an early summary released Monday. Automakers and tech companies have been barreling ahead in their race to churn out driverless vehicles, prompting the government to play catch-up when it comes to how to regulate the technology. Under the guidelines, car manufacturers and researchers will be required to submit to a "15-point safety assessment" for driverless cars, including how the vehicles respond to system failure, whether they make data available for crash reconstruction and even whether their artificial intelligence software takes driving ethics into account. The Transportation Department will hasten approval or rejection of special exemptions to regulations for driverless cars, with an upper limit of six months.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Federal regulators, faced with a growing number of self-driving car tests on roads across the U.S., plan to issue a flurry of new guidelines Tuesday aimed at automakers and tech companies. The U.S. Department of Transportation will require any new tech to meet a 15-point safety assessment, consider new powers to allow administrators to limit the deployment of experimental vehicles, and will issue a model for state self-driving car policies aimed at developing a cohesive set of national regulations. Officials will solicit public comments on the topic of self-driving car regulations for the next 60 days on the Transportation Department website and plan to update self-driving car policies annually. "We're laying it out there, what we care about, and inviting the industry to show us how they meet those standards," Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx told reporters during a briefing late Monday. "Some companies haven't dealt with us, but they'll learn quickly we can go really deep on these topics. We want the public to be safe."

The goal of this paper is to show that there exists a simple, yet universal statistical logic of spectral graph analysis by recasting it into a nonparametric function estimation problem. The prescribed viewpoint appears to be good enough to accommodate most of the existing spectral graph techniques as a consequence of just one single formalism and algorithm.