While self-driving technology should one day help to eliminate most kinds of collisions, there will still be instances where the sudden coming together of car and object will be unavoidable. For example, when someone rushes into the road from a spot unseen by the vehicle's sensors, the autonomous car may have too little distance in which to stop to avoid a collision. In such a case, the technology needs to decide if it's safe to swerve out of the way or simply apply the brakes and brace for impact. Google spinoff Waymo has been thinking a lot about how best to deal with such situations. As it continues to improve its sensor technology to help its vehicle understand its surroundings and respond quickly and safely to unfolding events, it's also been considering how to deal with unavoidable collisions, whether it's with a "soft" human that could easily sustain an injury, or a harder object like another vehicle.

The regulator said: "We agree with Google its [self-driving car] will not have a'driver' in the traditional sense that vehicles have had drivers during the last more than one hundred years." Google's self-driving car just got a boost from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. SAN FRANCISCO - Google's pioneering effort to develop a self-driving vehicle devoid of steering wheel and pedals just got a boost from the feds. In a Feb. 4 letter to Google Car project director Chris Urmson that was first reported by Reuters, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration noted it "will interpret'driver' in the context of Google's described motor vehicle design as referring to the (self-driving system), and not to any of the vehicle occupants," adding that "we agree with Google its (self-driving car) will not have a'driver' in the traditional sense that vehicles have had drivers during the last more than one hundred years." Google's seven-year-old program has evolved from a fleet of radar- and laser-packed Lexus SUVs to now include a small two-passenger vehicle whose ultimate design will not allow passengers to drive the car.

A self-driving Lexus SUV owned by Google's parent company Alphabet struck a bus February 14 while it was testing on the streets of Mountain View, Calif. SAN FRANCISCO -- The FBI-Apple encryption battle is just the beginning of an important debate this country needs to have about what to do when U.S. innovation outpaces American law. The FBI's failure to get data it wanted from an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino terrorists -- despite significant help from Apple -- shows that time has arrived once again. As with the coming of the telephone, the car, the radio and TV, the spread of the mobile Internet has gotten ahead of case law. In this case, with hand-held smartphones now ubiquitous, a consumer technology has outstripped the ability of the government to complete an important terrorist investigation.

Google plans to begin testing its new prototype of a self-driving car -- which, unlike earlier models, the company hopes to operate without a backup driver -- at NASA's Ames Research Center on the grounds of Moffett Field, just a few miles from the tech company's headquarters, space agency officials said this week. Because Moffett is federal property, Google cars can drive the network of streets that crisscross the sprawling, 2,000-acre research facility without worrying about California regulations that say a human operator must be able to take control of self-driving vehicles during testing on public roads. Testing of cars without drivers could begin at Moffett early next year, according to a statement from Ames Associate Director Deborah Feng. NASA is working with Google on the project and hopes to gain useful information for its own efforts to develop unmanned drones and air traffic management systems. The Google cars are one of several projects run by the company's secretive X division, overseen by co-founder Sergey Brin. He and Google CEO Larry Page have said computer-driven cars may someday eliminate countless traffic injuries and deaths caused by human error, while also saving time, money and land devoted to parking, since they could drop off passengers and return later to pick them up.

'The best is the enemy of the good," said Voltaire. It's a maxim that has a particular resonance for tech designers, because it highlights the intrinsic tension between ambition and pragmatism that haunts them. Many perfectly viable products have never made it beyond the prototype stage because their designers felt they fell too far short of the ideals they had set for themselves. One of the reasons why Steve Jobs was so remarkable as a company boss is that he was the exception that proved Voltaire's rule. He was a perfectionist for whom the good was the enemy of the best.

Google has just posted an update on its self-driving car program, which we've been watching closely for the past several years. The cars have surpassed 700,000 autonomous accident-free miles (around 1.13 million kilometers), and they're learning how to safely navigate through the complex urban jungle of city streets. Soon enough, they'll be better at it than we are. We've improved our software so it can detect hundreds of distinct objects simultaneously--pedestrians, buses, a stop sign held up by a crossing guard, or a cyclist making gestures that indicate a possible turn. A self-driving vehicle can pay attention to all of these things in a way that a human physically can't--and it never gets tired or distracted.

The concept of autonomous vehicles is driving dynamism and innovation in the components industry. Sensors, power converters, GPS systems, wireless modules, control and communications technologies, and HMI products are all being developed with the autonomous vehicle in mind. In the meantime, Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) are already producing revenue for the component makers. Here's a peek at some of the most interesting developments announced in the last few months. The first generation of self-driving cars used LIDAR systems to recognize terrain and obstacles.

Being able to commute back and forth to work while sleeping, eating, playing Trivia Crack or catching up on your favorite blogs in Feedly is a concept that is equally appealing and seemingly far-off and too futuristic to actually happen. When Google announced their autonomous car project in 2008, visions of Minority Report began to swirl in our heads while we wondered about the possibilities of a car that really had no need for us to do anything other than turn it on. This same car wouldn't have to worry about accidents, distraction, or driving under the influence while it made thousands – or even millions – of split-second calculations in order to keep your safe. You see, as it turns out, humans are remarkably bad at driving. "People are not great at driving -- 30,000 people die in car accidents each year (in the United States). Machines can be much better than humans when it comes to driving; they don't drink or text and can think faster."

The face of the Google self-driving car effort has left the project at a crucial juncture as the company tries to transition its driverless-car technology into a commercial product. Chris Urmson, the project's chief technology officer and former director, said in a blog post Friday that he was leaving Google parent Alphabet Inc. and was "ready for a fresh challenge." He gave no clear reason for his departure nor hint of his destination. A company spokesman said in an email that when Google's self-driving car project began seven years ago, "the idea that a car could drive itself wasn't much more than an idea. Chris has been a vital force for the project, helping the team move from a research phase to a point where this life-saving technology will soon become a reality. He departs with our warmest wishes."

When a cyclist signals, its hand motion is registered and the system is able to make an educated guess as to its intended direction. Bicyclists require special on-road considerations that other cars do not, and those considerations aren't limited to humans. Google's own self-driving cars, in fact, have a whole set of unique operations devoted solely to identifying and accommodating our two-wheeled compatriots. Google's monthly self-driving car report focuses on bikes this month. It explains how Big G's cars are able to work alongside cyclists.