Researchers at Stanford University, winners of the Darpa Grand Challenge in 2005, have decided to make a robotic car that can drive in California traffic! As far as I know, this isn't a challenge, only that Stanford is just doing this, but it sounds pretty cool. The actual vehicle model hasn't been selected yet (they're probably waiting to see what freebies they can get from car manufacturers), but it'll probably be a VW Passat wagon. The car will drive by itself (with a human co-driver like just in case!) at highway speeds from San Francisco City hall to downtown Los Angeles in October 2007. Could we see robotic cars driving commuters to work within the next five to ten years? To quote, they say, "We have no intent to kill anybody." That's nice!

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