I'm wondering how much of that is due to how "hard" the tech is (the research had been done by Sebastian Thrun/Carnegie Mellon in the 90s) vs. the maker renaissance spurred by the drastically falling cost of hardware?
Though I suppose "true" fully autonomous self-driving cars that can handle things like rain, human driver non-verbal communication (like eye contact and the finger), and left turns onto oncoming traffic are still at least a decade away, at least according to MIT's John Leonard, the Cruise founder's likely protégé. [1]
It goes without saying that California with its perfect weather and perfect highways is a rather unfair testing ground for autonomous vehicles, as unfortunate as it is the hotspot for a lot of the autonomous driving research. (Maybe that's why the researchers more grounded in reality are the ones in Pittsburgh and MIT/Boston?)
I remember when a LIDAR unit was a $30,000 SICK laser unit, but now you have the same kind of sensor in your $100 Kinect.
Though I suppose "true" fully autonomous self-driving cars that can handle things like rain, human driver non-verbal communication (like eye contact and the finger), and left turns onto oncoming traffic are still at least a decade away, at least according to MIT's John Leonard, the Cruise founder's likely protégé. [1]
It goes without saying that California with its perfect weather and perfect highways is a rather unfair testing ground for autonomous vehicles, as unfortunate as it is the hotspot for a lot of the autonomous driving research. (Maybe that's why the researchers more grounded in reality are the ones in Pittsburgh and MIT/Boston?)
I remember when a LIDAR unit was a $30,000 SICK laser unit, but now you have the same kind of sensor in your $100 Kinect.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5CZmlaMNCs