RobotTaxi
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Self-driving taxis will begin trials in Japan next year
Self-driving cars are a few years away from becoming a thing, right? Not in Japan, where the company Robot Taxi has announced that it'll start testing robotic taxis in 2016. A report by the Wall Street Journal reveals that the firm will begin by offering autonomous rides to 50 people in Kanagawa prefecture, just outside Tokyo. The limited trial will ferry the participants from their homes to local stores and back again, all the while with a human operator in the driving seat -- just to make sure that nothing goes wrong.
Masdar City's driverless pods now whisking students around on a limited basis (video)
Oh, sure -- Masdar City's driverless pods may not make nearly as many stops as your average metro, but it essentially matches the usefulness of the subway station in Pyongyang. And with a lot less energy waste, to boot. If you'll recall, these driverless pods were planned years ago, and while the ambitions have been quelled somewhat thanks to the economic crunch, that hasn't stopped students and engineers from using 2GetThere's pods, magnets and a fiber optic system to create a two-stop transfer system at the university. For now, they're whisking students between a pair of drop points that are 800 meters apart, traveling 15 miles per hour and instilling fear into everyone who dares step inside. As for the future? Only The Jetsons truly know, but you can take a glimpse in the video just past the break.
Masdar City's driverless podcars are more shuttle than Johnny Cab
Welcome to the future of urban transportation, a driverless taxi that will get you where you're going without any unpleasant human interaction or labor disputes. This is the PRT (Personal Rapid Transit) podcar from Zagato, a fully electric and fully automated taxi system set to shuttle people around Masdar City, an eco-utopia under development in Abu Dhabi that pledges to have no carbon footprint and no real roads, leaving these to buzz along underground at a leisurely 15 mph. Unlike other prototype autonomous taxis we've seen these will initially only be able to go between set locations, but the hope is that in the not too distant future they'll take you to within 100 meters of any location in the city -- hopefully with the accompaniment of Robert Picardo's unique vocal talents.[Via Switched]
Robotic robuCAB takes you on a slow speed, autonomous ride of doom
We've already seen strikes caused over the introduction of some relatively minor technology in taxis, but that's nothing compared to the brouhaha that could be in store one day in the future, at least if things like the robuCAB are any indication. That seemingly innocuous vehicle pictured above (along with an approximation of a future model) is developed by France's Robosoft, and has apparently proven itself successful in the limited uses it's been put to so far, with it relying a a series of cameras that keep track of the curb and some sensors placed beneath the ground. Needless to say, those requirements should let cabbies rest easy for now but, given other recent developments, it seems pretty likely that the Great Taxi Strike of 2025 is becoming more and more inevitable.
