Catch a ride?

Have you ever seen a car driving by you and notice something weird about it? Maybe there was no driver in the driver’s seat. Now while that is quite a sight to see don’t worry you’re most likely taking a look at Uber’s self driving vehicle. Since 2016 certain Uber driver’s in Pittsburgh were able to take a ride without a driver. This technology was tested out in Arizona, San Fransisco and Pittsburgh who recently have fallen out of love with the self driving vehicle.
Now how do we maneuver these self driving vehicles? First there are over 20 camera equipped with the car that are able to view pedestrians crossing the street, pedestrians and other obstacles that might get in your way. To see street lights the car has a colored camera to see traffic light changes. Don’t worry about overworking, the car has a cooling system that keeps it from overheating. With Antennas on the roof the car has exact GPS location on it at all times.
Uber is not the only company moving forward with self driving cars, companies such as Google has also tested themselves out with their Waymo vehicle technology. People in Arizona, Washington, California and Texas have all had the ability to test out the self driving car technology. Waymo’s technology build is almost the same as Uber’s self driving car, except for some details such as the 8 camera in and around the car that help it sense things like weather, fog, and objects in it’s way. According to Business Insider, the sensors can detect a football helmet from 2 football fields away, (talk about a good eye).
Just last week Lyft, one of the biggest competitors to Uber, partnered up with Waymo to use their cars. There will be pilot rides involving Waymo technology through Lyft, so next time you call a Lyft in an eligible state don’t be surprised if you don’t have a driver. This could be a strong way for Lyft to close the gap between them and Uber in regards to actual sales. Waymo believes they are past the testing point for their vehicles and believe their cars are ready to it the road sooner rather than later.
Not all aspects of these self driving vehicles have been great though, Uber has seen its fare share of trouble involving their technology. One of their first test runs in 2016 ended with a car running a red light, which Uber said was a human error but the New York Times reported that  the internal logs showed the system failed to recognize the traffic light, a significant technological issue to say the least. Also in 2016 the DMV of California revoked Uber’s licenses to drive after they refused to obtain the $150 license needed to operate. In Pittsburgh the most recent city that had test runs from Uber it has also gone south, the company which promised that these self driven rides would be free have began to charge for the rides. The problems are beginning to stack and up and we can’t help but wonder will these cars ever make it countrywide?

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Justin Kushnir is a tech blogger at CPS Central who researches highly enticing tech topics and puts out blog posts every Monday. His post range from Music to gaming to sports and everything in between! Make sure to visit our website every Monday for more posts by Justin.