Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Robotaxi By Cruise Premieres in Austin, Texas
Although other companies have made use of the "robotaxi" idea label (see Elon Musk: Production Of Robotaxis In 2024 and Tesla Robotaxis Will Automatically Recharge Themselves), Cruise is actively offering their service.
Last night, @cruise launched their self-driving (NO humans in the car!) taxi service in downtown Austin, TX 🤠
Sahil Chaturvedi (@SahilC0) December 22, 2022
I was lucky to be able to try it out! Here's my first impression.
Watch me giggle like a maniac around 4:01 🤣 👇 https://t.co/239E4E4RsI pic.twitter.com/RGNwFvcOfX
Developing an urban fleet of fully autonomous vehicles is an incredible challenge. To be successful, we needed to build both the AV tech thats out on the road and the ecosystem of tools our engineers use internally.
(Cruise)In creating this cycle, we thought carefully about how to best empower our engineers. Home-grown technology chains like this can get unwieldy quickly the last thing you want as an engineer is to fight the disparate tools you are using or jump across too many of them to get your daily work done. Google Cloud has been a useful tool for us as we worked to streamline and support this development cycle, adapt our cloud-first infrastructure strategy, and seamlessly scale our systems. The frameworks we use in the vehicle, data logging, visualization, data mining, and ML modeling are all built on top of a common foundation that makes going from road to code and from code to road fast and safe.
(Via Cruise.)
As far as I know, the first use of the portmanteau word "robotaxi" occurred in Dugal Was A Spaceman by Joe Gibson, published by Science Fiction Quarterly in 1953:
The trance persisted as he settled back in a robotaxi and the brilliant lights of the streets flashed past.
See variations on this idea in Larry Niven's bubble cars from World out of Time (1976) or the tin cabbie from James Blish's 1957 novel Cities in Flight. A more recent take can be found in Alan Dean Foster's 2006 novel Sagramanda; see the automated taxi. Also, see the automatic automobile from David H. Keller's 1935 story The Living Machine and the aircab from the 1955 novel Time Crime by H. Beam Piper.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 12/23/2022)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Transportation ")
Nifty Folding Electric Bicycles!
'Separate paths were provided for them...' - George Parsons Lathrup, 1897.
Boring Company Drills Asimov's Single Vehicle Tunnels
'It was riddled with holes that were the mouths of tunnels.' - Isaac Asimov, 1951
Boring Company Vegas Loop Like Asimov Said
'There was a wall ahead... It was riddled with holes that were the mouths of tunnels.' Isaac Asimov, 1951.
SpaceX Rocket Shuttle Point-To-Point On Earth
'He came to as the ship went into free flight, arching in a high parabola over the plains...' - Robert Heinlein, 1951.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Health Kiosk Has No Human Doctor
'The electronic body analyzer had been developed...'
Meta's Horizon Studio's Unique Avatars From Text Prompts
'Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set and put together her own...'
VaMEx Biomimetic Mars Robot Inspired By Skink
'Across the ground something small and metallic came, flashing in the dull sunlight of midday.'
NEO Brain Computer Interface (BCI)
'The remains of the lace took on the rough shape of a brain...'
Did Frank Herbert Predict Bistable Displays Like E-Ink?
'A broken circle with arrows pointing to a right-hand flow appeared in the chalf.'
Monolith One Giant Industrial Metal 3D-printer
'The object seemed melted together like wax nothing was distinguishable.'
'Mooncrete' Lunar Regolith Concrete (LRC)
'And here they began to build...'
China's 'Magpie Drone' Ornithopter
'Midges have many capabilities. To the untrained eye, they look like sparrows.'
MAI-Voice-2 Microsoft Text-To-Speech
'I made disks of my own voice to the number of five hundred very carefully chosen words.'
Tumblin' Tumbleweed Rovers To Eplore Mars
'His sensors out and working, and the whirring of the tape that sucked up sight and sound and shape and smell and form...'
Tentacled Robot Captures Space Debris
Preventing annoying space debris build-up.
Prufrock-MB2 Ready In Nashville
'It sounds to me as though you had invented a kind of metal earthworm.'
DIY Robotic Content Farming
'The chief wheeled to the master machine and pressed a button.'
Reflect Orbital Sunlight On Demand
'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors that circulate around the satellite, making it habitable.'
The Amazing Lightfoot Electric Scooter With Solar Assist
'The steel tortoise gave MacKinnon a feeling of Crusoe- like independence.'
Fully Electric, Fully Automated Vegetable‑growing Agribots
'...then back to their work, though little enough it was on these automatic cultivators.'
