Tag: from-the-ground

Waymo trials free self-driving taxi service in Phoenix

Enlarge / One of the earliest self-driving trial families pose with Waymo’s minivan. (credit: Waymo) Waymo—Alphabet’s self-driving car division—is launching a “trial” of a self-driving taxi service in the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area. The Google spinoff’s fleet of self-driving cars is descending on Phoenix and offering free rides to anyone in its “early rider program,” which is currently accepting new members . The taxi service is not totally “self-driving.” Waymo notes that “as part of this early trial, there will be a test driver in each vehicle monitoring the rides at all times.” While the car will handle most of the driving duties, a driver will ensure nothing goes wrong if the car runs into a situation it can’t handle. While the trial will offer free rides to Phoenix residents, it will also serve as a research program for Waymo. The company’s blog post say it wants to “learn things like where people want to go in a self-driving car, how they communicate with our vehicles, and what information and controls they want to see inside.” To handle the load of a city-wide taxi service, Waymo is building 500 more of its self-driving Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans , bring the total minivan fleet to 600. The minivans represent the latest in Waymo’s technology. In a recent talk at the North American International Auto Show, Waymo CEO John Krafcik said the vehicles would be the launch platform for Waymo’s “full-stack approach,” which combined Waymo’s software with a ” fully integrated hardware suite ” that is “all designed and built, from the ground up, by Waymo.” Most self-driving car programs stick to developing software using Velodyne’s LiDAR hardware . Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Waymo trials free self-driving taxi service in Phoenix

‘Donkey Kong 64’ player finds rare collectible 17 years later

The 3D platformer Donkey Kong 64 was lauded for its expansive worlds and multitude of well-hidden collectibles when it launched on the Nintendo 64 in 1999. Like many games of the era, it has enjoyed a peculiar afterlife as speedrunners blitz through it in record time under various conditions, like picking up each of the 976 banana coins found within. Unfortunately, all those completionist runs now seem to be invalid: 17 years after the game came out, streamer Isotarge has found a 977th coin. Turns out the collectible was hidden underground in the game’s fifth level, Fungi Forest, but the telltale patch of dirt indicating buried treasure in the game was hidden by a patch of tall grass. Isotarge was examining save data for that stage and discovered that the information for a particular pickup, rainbow coins, was incomplete. Using analysis tools, they pinpointed its location and unearthed it. While Isotarge is no stranger to using glitches to find out-of-bounds items likely leftover by developers, this particular coin is in fair territory and can be plucked from the ground using an ordinary character move. @Znernicus yes, times have been removed in All Collectables, 949 banana coins (now 974), Fungi coins, DK coins, All Rainbow Coins — Bismuth

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‘Donkey Kong 64’ player finds rare collectible 17 years later