Yeah, and it is a stupid idea that goes to the philosophy of the NFB and not to future technological developments in terms of autonomous vehicular driving technology. In the VA Tech pharce of an experiment, the NFB is attempting to reproduce the driving experience for blind people. The real developments to watch for an autonomous vehicle is occurring through DARPA sponsorship as well as at the General Motors Tech Center and the Carnegie-Mellon lab. If developments in this area proceed, I would expect autonomous vehicles to be mass-marketed in the next decade or two. The problem with the VA Tech experiment is it relies on too many subsystems and a fallible human interpreting the data and acting accordingly. This would never be allowed as a street-legal device. On the other hand, self-driving vehicles have a real opportunity to address some challenging issues which we face. First, if infrastructure is developed in the traffic grid and between other vehicles, then our roads will be much safer and still be able to bear a larger traffic flow. Second, there will be a reduction in accidents because there will be no distracted drivers or drunken idiots. Much of this technology already exists; we lack infrastructure and a way to coexist with existing driven vehicles. For more info, check http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=ces-notebook-a-victory-la Steve, K8SP ----- Original Message ----- From: "Buddy Brannan" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 12:52 PM Subject: Re: OT, UntilYou Put A Mobile Rig In This Car Of course you can't drive them anywhere yet, it's called a "prototype" for a reason. One has to start somewhere, and this would be the beginning of the project. I'm not sure why you would expect a blind drivable car to spring, like Athena from Zeus's, head, fully formed and usable right now anyway, and, moreover, why the NFB has to be "off its rocker" because it's actually gotten a team of university researchers to tackle a problem and develop a working prototype. Progress has to begin somewhere, and no large development just happens. If you would like to not encourage such progress, or not encourage anyone to make an attempt at doing anything progressive, that's fine, and I reckon you're entitled. I, for one, find the prospect very exciting and am watching these developments with much interest.