The World’s First Autonomous Taxis Just Started Driving in Singapore

[ScienceRocks]

The World’s First Autonomous Taxis Just Started Driving in Singapore

IN BRIEF
Taxi startup NuTonomy has unveiled the start of its autonomous taxi service, offering rides for the Singaporean public. The vehicles are only available to those who've been granted access to the app, and are only able to travel within a small campus-like business section of the city.


NuTonomy, an autonomous taxi startup, has been working with the Singapore government in developing self-driving technology for quite some time now. They have been rather silent about progress, up until they broke it with a big reveal.
Beating competitors like Uber and Google, NuTonomy has been able to place self-driving taxis on Singaporean roads for the public, revealing the service earlier today.
But don’t hop on to a plane for Singapore just yet.
The public trials are starting small—six vehicles for now, with up to a dozen by year’s end. The cars, mostly Renault Zoe and Mitsubishi i-MiEV electric cars, are debuting in the (primarily tech) business district area, one-north. The cars will be loading and unloading at specific points in the district, and the rides are “invite-only”—for now. All rides are free during the trial run.
The startup beat competitors to the punch—especially Uber, which is debuting its own driverless cars in Pittsburgh in a few weeks, but with a much larger roll-out. Also, NuTonomy is not the only player in Singapore, with the government working with auto supplier Delphi Corp. on developing autonomous vehicles.

way cool! Hopefully soon in the united states. Imagine getting into your car, telling your car that you want to go to work and then enjoying the trip without driving?

 

[The Great Goose]

It'd be awesome. It's disgusting how little of technology we use.

 

[HaShev]

Because of computer freeze ups, computer crashes, program hicups, power problems etc, I really don't want them on the road even the partial self driving ones people assume they are still on auto pilot only to find out they nudged off it, to late to react with a late and breakfast sandwich in their hands.
TERRORIST are probably salivating at the ability to hack or even time control a bug in some manufacturing system and causing huge fatalities on the hwys.
Robbers can use a simple app to steal your car by having it drive to pick them up to steal it, *L* Then from a distance turn off your convenient automated phone access house alarm& unlock your house, turn the thermostat on a comfy temperature, turn on your coffee maker, turn on your slow cooker and have a nice cozy meal waiting for them when they go rob your automated house.
In short: technology advances without morality, ethics, & social behavior advances = disaster.

 

[Blackrook]

Kiss your job goodbye taxi drivers.