AI has been around for 100 years - Well Sorta

Did you know autonomous driving has been around for 100 years?

Although it has only recently taken the world by storm

With Elon Musk and self-driving Tesla’s

Waymo raising 3 billion only for people to smash their cars

Self Driving cars have actually been around for almost a century

But today, we will be talking about the recent hustle and bustle that is going on with Waymo, the controversial, yet slightly magnificent autonomous taxi

(And might I say oddly looking)

Todays Business Bloopers:

• 🇺🇸 The American Wonder

• 🏗️100 Years In The Making

• ❓Where is Waymo Now?

• 💭 Quote Of The Week

• 🐦 That’s a wrap

Read Time: 4 min 21 sec

The American Wonder - Where It All Started

It was 1925 when Houdini radio control revealed their radio-controlled car.

The car’s technology featured a transmitting antenna that received signals from a control handled by someone outside of the car.

The car could start its own engine, change the gears and even toot its own horn

Unfortunately, this car lost control not once but twice leading to a crash

This marked the end of the Radio Controlled Automobile (‘sad face’)

The Radio-Controlled Automobile lived a total of roughly 1 year

Fast forward to 2024, Waymo has started to take the world by storm

100 Years In The Making

Saying their drivers (AI behind the car) are the most experienced drivers in the world with over 20 million miles travelled, Waymo has recently started to take self-driving AI to the next level

Waymo; What started as a secretive Google X lab undertaking is now on the verge of being a commercial business

Founded in 2009 and launched by a man under the name of Sebastian Thrun the project of Waymo was named the Google Self-Driving Car Project.

2 years prior to the launch of Waymo, Thrun and his team of engineers were hired by Google to help develop their street view technology

In a nutshell,

This team went on to develop accurate road maps using satellite and street view technology.

This was done to lay out the groundwork for the first ever commercial self driving program

The First Ever Waymo Car

Was made with an old Toyota Prius using lidar technology (they named the car PRIBOT) and became the first self-driving car used on public roads.

Google initially coined these Toyota’s as “Pizza delivery vehicles” and they needed to be driven with police escorts!

After years of undetected road testing by using the alias “Project Chauffeur” Google (Waymo) finally developed their first prototype named Firefly in 2014.

Originally, these cars were designed for experimentation and learning not mass production.

But this all started to change as Google’s technology started to advance

At the time in 2014, Google’s car (the car above 👆) had just 2 seats and no steering wheel with a top speed of only 25 mph or 40 kmph. This made it not ready to be released on major roadways and small towns and cities

A year later however in 2015, it came time for Google to test a completely driverless operation on public roads using Firefly - and it was a huge success, a milestone was recognized at this time because their vehicles had also collected 1 million miles of data gathered

In 2016, they rebranded to Waymo as a new start-up company

Waymo’s mission was simple —> “A new way forward in mobility”

Waymo began deploying their autonomous vans in Chandler Arizona in late 2017.

Around this time Waymo even developed their own version of lidar technology that drastically reduced the costs of their hardware and self-driving technology

The vehicles were changed to Chrysler Pacifica Minivans due to the larger interior space. Being a practical family car

These vans had plenty of space for folks travelling out of town, going to the airport and for larger families with 2 or more kids.

The Technology behind their AI

Over the last decade, Waymo has been developing a device within their cars with built-in sensors designed to work together to provide the Waymo driver (the AI) a complete view of the world around it.

Depending on the time of day and distance of objects the AI system is designed to see what is happening at all time

They combine Radar (or radio waves), Cameras, and Lidar technology around their vehicles to accomplish self-driving.

Waymor officials say that the cars are able to detect objects that are still or in motion for up to 300 meters away

Where is Waymo now?

Today Waymo operates in over 13 States across the U.S.

They have driven through thousands of crash avoidance tests

Waymo plans to launch commercially in Austin, its fourth city, and has recently begun test-driving vehicles in the winter weather of Buffalo, New York.

Waymo's chief product officer, Saswat Panigrahi, said that the self-driving car unit hasn't seen a change in tone from regulators or a shift in the company's public perception.

Meanwhile, Waymo's rival, GM's Cruise, has paused all public road operations and laid off contractors after a pedestrian collision.

What does this mean?

Waymo is full speed ahead

💭 Quote of the Week 

❝ 

Building the Worlds most experienced driver

^{John Krafcik}

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