Part 46 - New news and little bit of a rant

New news on the autonomous front - as it keeps rolling on.

27th February 2018 is when California announced that fully autonomous test vehicles will be allowed on the road without a driver as of April 2nd.
As far as I am aware this is a world first and, barring massive mishaps, will be the first of many cities allowing this as they realise the advantages of being first to get this in place. 

An interesting fact about the above video is that the voice is computer generated. It sound pretty real but there are a few give a ways if you listen carefully.

Meanwhile Ford is beginning to test its autonomous vehicles in Miami as a prelude to automated delivery services which are being tested with Dominos pizza now.

Ford also wants to dominate in the automated control systems and is working on its cloud mobility system which allows cars to talk to infrastructure through an open source platform.
Something that this fledgling industry sorely needs for future growth.

Ford is aggressively pushing the autonomous line and has deep pockets so watch this space...

In an interesting but unrelated activity I, like most other people in the world have been watching the slow motion train wreck of gun violence in the US.
To get a more even view I look at many news sources including NYtimes CNN and Fox news as there are no impartial news outlets in the US that I can see, as everything is polarised along party lines.
Anyway, I digress.
I was looking at fox news and saw an article by an NRA and strong gun ownership supporter who reference the constant comparisons to Australia's successful gun laws.

His article tried to downplay the effects this has had in our country and, most unlike me, I couldn't keep my mouth shut.

I wrote comments about how there has not been a mass shooting in 22 years (since gun laws and buyback) and that the concept of a mass shooting in a school or anywhere else is not even remotely on anyone's radar.
In Australia, at this point at least, it's not an issue in any way shape or form.

Where the surprise came, as this was Fox news, was the number of positive comments and likes I received and no death threats.  Evidently most US citizens support gun laws but politicians don't.

I have done more online resarch and it appears most polls tend to confirm this.

Why don't US people vote on issues like this and vote them out?

Glad I live here where I don't have to worry about guns, we have enough problems.

Till next time.