Google is testing Cars that can Drive on their own in San Francisco!

Google is no longer that small little search engine that helps you find anything you want... Google has created a software program that allows technology to drive a car. What?!?! Yes, remember the cool cars in i.Robot and Minority Report that drove themselves? well, that may soon become a reality. Who knows, maybe the idea isn't so new -- considering GM's EN-V concept car is designed to avoid accidents by automatically swerving around other cars by communicating with them.

Ongoing car tests at Google have shown that their software program is working -- but don't get too excited yet -- it won't move along as fast as you would like... according to the New York Times, under current law, a human must be in control of the car at all times, so laws must be changed before robot driven cars will be on the road -- (wait, does that mean the test cars were already in violation? tangent. :D )

Wow, first the Internet and now Robot drivers - we are an advanced civilization for sure!

For more information, read the New York Times article by clicking here.

A cool excerpt from the article:

"Robot drivers react faster than humans, have 360-degree perception and do not get distracted, sleepy or intoxicated, the engineers argue. They speak in terms of lives saved and injuries avoided — more than 37,000 people died in car accidents in the United States in 2008. The engineers say the technology could double the capacity of roads by allowing cars to drive more safely while closer together. Because the robot cars would eventually be less likely to crash, they could be built lighter, reducing fuel consumption. But of course, to be truly safer, the cars must be far more reliable than, say, today’s personal computers, which crash on occasion and are frequently infected."