One of the world's leading autonomous vehicle researchers has warned that the world is'on a collision course' with self driving vehicles. The new technology threatens millions of jobs and raises a slew of ethical dilemmas--prospects that were on the minds of business chiefs and politicians meeting at the World Economic Forum this week. 'Companies are going to have to start thinking about it, governments are going to have to start thinking about it,' said Missy Cummings, the director of the Humans and Autonomy Lab at Duke University in North Carolina. Waymo's long-range lidar can see a football helmet two football fields away and uses a single integrated system'The reality is we can't just keep our head in the sand like an ostrich,' she told AFP in Davos, singling out the coming impact on employment. In the United States alone, an estimated four million people work as truckers, taxi drivers and in other jobs that are under threat when the driverless vehicles come into widespread use--a matter of years, experts predict.

When Steve Mahan was a kid in the 1960s, his mother would sometimes wake him in the early hours of the morning to watch the hours of television coverage preceding the launch of the Mercury space missions. "We would hear about all of the preparations, all of the technology, everything that led up to these moments," Mahan says. "And then we would count down'till you finally got to zero and ignition, and one of those rockets begins bellowing fire and smoke, and slowly begins to creep away from the grapples. Now 63 and having lost his sight, Mahan has become one of those capsule-bound explorers. In October 2015, he became the first member of the public to ride in Google's self-driving pod-like prototype, alone and on public roads.

The blind man that convinced Google to launch a self driving car firm: Steve Mahan revealed as first person to ride without a Google engineer on board (and he says it was'like driving with a very good driver') Firm says its cars have now driven three million miles on public roads Legally blind Steve Mahan was the person person allowed to drive solo Mahan said it was'like driving we a very good driver' Google today launched its car firm, to be called Waymo Mahan said it was'like driving we a very good driver' Steve Mahan, former director of the Santa Clara Valley Blind Center used one of Google's cars on his own in Austin in October 2015 - convincing the firm to spin out its project as car firm Waymo. Your left hand really DOES know what your right hand is... The'internet of the road': Government proposals call for... AirPods are FINALLY here after months of delays: Apple's... Your left hand really DOES know what your right hand is... The'internet of the road': Government proposals call for... AirPods are FINALLY here after months of delays: Apple's... The car Mahan rode in had a back up computers and multiple systems go control it.