There was a great documentary by Japanese national broadcaster NHK on TV on Saturday, about the advances made to create self-driving cars. NHK mentioned four levels of sophistication, but I see Wired magazine uses five levels (credit to Wired magazine for the Level 0 to Level 5 pictures). Google is going for the making the software, and will sell it to car makers, much like it is selling Android software to mobile phone makers. Car makers are partnering with technology companies for the hardware and software that is needed for these cars. Other vendor companies to car makers are retooling and scrambling not to be left out, for the day when items such as rear-view mirrors for the driver, will be obsolete. NHK had a rear-view mirror manufacturer on that is rapidly transitioning to mirrors that show an image generated by a camera, instead of just being a mirror (presumably the rear-view mirror’s image is just part of the bigger all-around image that the car ‘sees’). Anyway, check out those levels of self-driving cars. Everyone wants a Level 5 car, of course!
