Now! Cars can drive themselves

Bangalore: Google has been quietly building self-driving robotic car technology, based on the work of Google engineer and Stanford Professor Sebastian Thrun, who co-invented Google's Street View mapping service. It has already been testing cars that drive themselves should be met by warm feelings in many of one's more imaginative nerve-endings.

Google is intending that these cars, manned as they are by vast arrays of excellent soft- and hardware, will avoid crashes and allow for fuel savings and more cars on the road. They will also allow drivers to get drunk to skunk levels, given that no self-respecting Google car would actually let the drivers take the wheel, even when they're sober.

While the project is being looked at as an example of just how far outside of its core business Google has been reaching, the prospect of self-driving, computerized cars is compelling because they could make driving more sustainable.