Over at Ars Technica I have an article I’m particularly excited about: the second installment of my series on self-driving car technology. In the first installment, I surveyed the current state of technology and addressed some of the technical challenges that stood between us and fully self-driving cars. Today I assume that those technical hurdles can be overcome and speculate about what the world will look like when we get there. Some benefits of self-driving cars are obvious—less time spent behind the wheel and fewer accidents—but the consequences are likely to be much broader than that. Among the most intriguing are much greater use of taxis, more widespread use of smaller, more energy-efficient cars, the virtual elimination of parking lots, and a dramatic transformation of the retail sector. Please check it out.
Meanwhile, over at BloggingHeads, my friend Will Wilkinson interviews my advisor Ed Felten about his work. I haven’t had a chance to watch the whole thing yet, but Will and Ed are two of the smartest and most interesting people I know, so it’s bound to be a great conversation.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.