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Google Cars Drive Themselves in Traffic

Google Car

Google has been secretly building and testing autonomous vehicles that have successfully driven over 1,000 miles without any human intervention. The fleet of robot Priuses has logged 140,000 miles across California with only minimal input from a driver. The vehicles use cameras, radar and lasers to detect other cars, obstacles and pedestrians, and the vast databases of images in Google Maps and Street View to navigate. During the testing, the autonomous cars were involved in only one accident. And, in that case, the Google Carbot was rear-ended by a human driver while stopped at a red light. (Somehow, California law enforcement was aware of the tests, yet managed to keep them secret; consider us impressed.)

The project is the passion of Sebastian Thrun, the director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and creator of Google’s Street View. He has been working on building a self-piloted car since at least 2005, when he led a team of Stanford students and faculty to victory in a DARPA-funded contest for building autonomous vehicles. Proponents of these cars, like Thrun and Larry Page, argue that self-driving cars could make streets safer, reduce fuel consumption, and move more passengers more efficiently. Such technology is years away from being commercially viable, and laws will have to catch up to the technology, but it’s clear that Google wants to be intimately involved in this potentially revolutionary change to how we drive. Or, more accurately, how we don’t.

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Google Cars Drive Themselves in Traffic originally appeared on Switched on Mon, 11 Oct 2010 10:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft announces ten Windows Phone 7 handsets for 30 countries: October 21 in Europe and Asia, 8 November in US (Update: Video!)

It may have “Windows” in the branding, but Windows Phone 7 is not the desktop PC experience shoehorned into a cellphone. Microsoft tried that with Windows Mobile… and we all know how that turned out. Today, eight months after the Windows Phone 7 OS unveiling in Barcelona, we're finally seeing the official launch of the retail hardware: nine new WP7 handsets, some available October 21 in select European and Asian markets and others from early November in the US. The phones will find their way to over 60 cellphone operators in more than 30 countries this year. Microsoft tapped Dell, HTC, LG, and Samsung to deliver the Snapdragon-based handsets with a carrier list that includes AT&T, T-Mobile USA, Vodafone, TELUS, América Móvil, Deutsche Telekom AG, Movistar, O2, Orange, SFR, SingTel, and Telstra. And that's just for the first wave — Microsoft has even more handsets coming in 2011 including the first for Sprint and Verizon in the US. Here's the lineup of 480 x 800 pixel (WVGA) phones announced today:

  • HTC 7 Surround — The 3.8-inch T8788 with slideout speaker for AT&T and Telus
  • HTC HD7 — Schubert comes of age as a 4.3-inch HD2 cousin for T-Mobile and beyond
  • HTC 7 Trophy — the 3.8-inch Spark headed to international carriers
  • HTC 7 Mozart — another heavily leaked int’l player with 3.7-inch display
  • Dell Venue Pro — 4.1-inch portrait QWERTY slider for T-Mobile we broke as Lightning
  • Samsung Focus — AT&T's 4-inch Super AMOLED slate we broke as Cetus
  • Samsung Omnia 7 — the i8700 is a 4-inch Super AMOLED jobbie for Europe
  • LG Optimus 7/7Q — the E900 is the official 3.8-inch global workhorse
  • LG Quantum — AT&T's 3.5-inch landscape slider first seen as the C900
  • HTC 7 Pro — a 3.6-inch QWERTY slider for Sprint (2011)

“Glance and Go,” is the slogan Microsoft is using to differentiate itself from an already crowded smartphone market. Something we’ve already seen alluded to in that leaked AT&T ad. As Ballmer notes, “Microsoft and its partners are delivering a different kind of mobile phone and experience – one that makes everyday tasks faster by getting more done in fewer steps and providing timely information in a ‘glance and go’ format.” He’s referring to WP7’s customizable Live Tiles, of course. Xbox Live integration is another biggie with EA Games just announcing its first Xbox Live-enabled wares coming to Windows Phone 7 in the fall including “Need for Speed Undercover,” “Tetris,” “Monopoly,” and “The Sims 3.” The other big differentiators are the slick Metro UI, integrated support for Zune media and Zune Pass subscriptions, Bing search and maps, Windows Live including the free Find My Phone service, and Microsoft Office Mobile.

Now quit stalling and jump past the break for the full list of handsets per carrier and country.

Update: Added the official WP7 overview videos after the break.

Continue reading Microsoft announces ten Windows Phone 7 handsets for 30 countries: October 21 in Europe and Asia, 8 November in US (Update: Video!)

Microsoft announces ten Windows Phone 7 handsets for 30 countries: October 21 in Europe and Asia, 8 November in US (Update: Video!) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 Oct 2010 09:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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TDK develops 1TB optical disc, leaves other optical storage feeling emasculated

We’ve heard about 1TB-sized optical discs in the past, but TDK has now revealed a 1TB monster of its own at CEATEC. Unlike existing Blu-rays which use four recording layers at most, TDK’s creation features 16 layers on both sides of the disc, each capable of storing up to 32GB apiece. If you’re keeping track of the optical storage arms race, that’s seven more gigabytes per layer than Pioneer’s 400GB and 500GB disc achievements made back in 2008. TDK's prototype also has the potential to leverage existing Blu-ray technologies, since it's made from a material already found in BDs and shares the same beam aperture. On the down side, the current version's recording layers measure 260μm — that's more than twice as thick as its Blu-ray counterpart — and causes aberrations in today's fat-layer-hating optical lenses. Outside of its Biggest Loser qualifications, though, TDK says “its commercialization depends on disc manufacturers.” Considering the company has yet to sell the 10-layer 320GB discs revealed at CEATEC 2009, however, we’re doubtful this 1TB improvement will hit stores anytime soon.

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TDK develops 1TB optical disc, leaves other optical storage feeling emasculated originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 Oct 2010 07:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Goodbye to an old friend: 1-800-GOOG-411

Back in 2007 we launched 1-800-GOOG-411, a voice-powered directory assistance service that connects you quickly to businesses across the U.S. and Canada. On November 12, 2010, we will shut down the service.

GOOG-411 was the first speech recognition service from Google and helped provide a foundation for more ambitious services now available on smartphones, such as:

  • Voice Search – search Google by speaking instead of typing.
  • Voice Input – fill in any text field on Android by speaking instead of typing.
  • Voice Actions – control your Android phone with voice commands. For example, you can call any business quickly and easily just by saying its name.

Our success encouraged us to aim for more innovation. Thus, we’re putting all of our resources into speech-enabling the next generation of Google products and services across a multitude of languages.

If you don’t use a smartphone, and you’re trying to call a business, you can send a text message with the name and location of the business to 466453 (“GOOGLE”) and we’ll text you the information, or on Gmail you can use the new phone-calling features to call any U.S. business free of charge. Also, if you don’t have the free voice search app pre-installed on your phone, you can download it here.

Thanks for all the calls, and keep an eye out for all the innovation to come.

Posted by The GOOG-411 Team

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Dreamworks Eying Halo Movie

While Fox and Universal’s joint attempt to make a Halo movie with Pater Jackson producing and Neill Blomkamp directing may have died a slow death years ago (with Blomkamp going on to become a star anyway as the director of District 9), all is not lost. New York Magazine’s Vulture blog reported yesterday that Dreamworks and Steven Spielberg are looking to get into the Halo movie game. Spielberg in all likelihood would not direct the thing, but would instead be an executive producer, not really having a hand in it at all.

Vulture says they’re aiming to adapt the novels rather than the games so as to avoiding to potentially having to foot the $12 million bill for Universal’s previous development.

Not a bad plan. Save some cash, and you still get exactly the same story, since, for the most part, the books are adaptations of the games. And I like the idea of a Halo movie, and the live-action ads Microsoft runs in advance of each new game, particularly “We Are ODST,” have shown the potential there. Do it, Dreamworks.