The Yandex self-driving taxi gave some very smooth and very convincing rides to tech journalists at CES in Las Vegas. Although the route was pre-mapped by the company, check out the smooth driving and visualization starting around 3:15.
"Prior to CES 2019, the Yandex team acquired a local car and outfitted it with the right hardware and sensors for self-driving operation. The total process, from obtaining the local car to mapping a route, took roughly 30 days to complete.
Once the car was ready, the team used Yandex’s mapping tech to build a personalized HD map of the area around the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. The proprietary self-driving software stack was then optimized to adapt to the city’s driving conditions. This test route had the self-driving car handle busy traffic, unprotected left-hand turns, and pedestrians while driving up to 45 mph."
Fans of Arthur C. Clarke are ecstatic, having read his Imperial Earth about forty years ago:
As the beautiful old car cruised in almost perfect silence under the guidance of it's automatic controls, Duncan tried to see something of the terrain through which she was passing. The spaceport was 50 km from the city - no one had yet invented a noiseless rocket - and the four-lane highway bore a surprising amount of traffic...
The big car was slowing down, it's computer brain sensing an exit ahead. Presently it peeled off from the parkway, then speeded up again along a narrow road..
Orb Nomad Zero-Emission Electric Aircraft
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair or to perch on a flagpole in imitation of a giant bird, even in the windy city of Chicago.' RH Romans, 1929.
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Prairie Madness - And Space Sickness
'Space-sickness is one of the most unpleasant sensations that a human being can experience. Not all are subject to it...'
'Old People Began to Cross The Continent In Their Own Cars'
'It was a relief to enter one of the comfortable autos, whisper a direction down the tube, and just know that you would be taken to your destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest manner.'
Starfall Manufacturing Drugs In Space
'The vast spinning sphere of Factory in the Sky loomed above and ahead of us, gleaming white against the unfathomable jet depths of surrounding space.'
The Solar Oberth Slingshot
'And if it doesn’t work,' inquired Lazarus, 'what does that make us? Sunspots?'
'If Anyone Is Watching Earth...'
'Our study of your race has convinced us that you are not fitted to leave your planet in the present state of your civilization.'