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Google Racing

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74 pointsmaverhick42 comments

Wow, this really looks like it might be another "gmail" in that it's such a ridiculously awesome thing that releasing it on April 1st will keep everyone guessing if its actually real.

That was my thought exactly. Google's April Fools don't often have any link to reality (I still remember the moonplex, that was cool), so in this case because the self-driving car is already successful, it sounds stupid to have such a tiny step as a joke. Of course, the video someone else put in the comments does have some "foolsworthy" comments by drivers especially... We'll know for sure tomorrow!

Unfortunately, looks like it's definitely an April Fools Joke. (The "Interested parties" section under Future Uses seems intentionally creepy.)

The Future Uses section certainly has a joke-y tone, but if it's an April Fool's Day joke, then NASCAR has given them a huge amount of leeway.

Usage of NASCAR trademarks, hosting videos, and even linking to the video on their homepage.

I'm more inclined to believe that it's real. But I've fallen for more Google April Fool's jokes then I'd care to admit.

The video ( http://www.nascar.com/video/none/none/120331/cup-mar-google/ ) the site links to on NASCAR.com is pretty well done. I mention it because I almost missed it.

http://ht.cdn.turner.com/nascar/big/cup/2012/03/31/cup-mar-g...

direct mp4 w/o ads.

The blog post ( http://googleblog.blogspot.fr/2012/03/bringing-self-driving-... ) was updated:

Update Apr 1, 10:05 a.m.: As you probably guessed—no, Google Racing isn’t real. We were really happy to work with NASCAR on this April Fools' joke. The technological advancements this sport has made in the last decade are impressive and while we won’t be providing self-driving cars to compete in the races, we look forward to working together with NASCAR in the future on projects like their YouTube channel. What better way to drive change?

That scene in the video, of the driver looking very confused asking "So... you don't need me?". Got me thinking, that was probably the same scene when some record label executives heard about the internets for the first time.

I can't believe this. I hope it's real, because then it would be clear that Google is very close to being able to market their autonomous car technology. I imagine a move like putting their autonomous car in a NASCAR race is part of a larger plan to familiarize the masses with their technology and serve as great advertising. To get enough people comfortable with computers driving cars Google will need to fight a hard PR battle, even just to get sensible legislation passed.

I realize this is probably an April Fools' prank, but I'm guessing that a race around a fixed track would actually be a great way to test autonomous cars: you don't need to worry about pedestrians, bicyclists, stoplights, pets, traffic laws, etc; all you have to do is focus on driving and turning at high speeds, and on the other cars on the track.

I don't know. How often do you drive a car without having to worry about pedestrians, cyclists, stoplights or traffic laws? If I'm going to test an autonomous car, I'm going to do mimic real-world situations in my test environment.

Agreed. However, being able to isolate a large component of driving seems useful, too. It's like a unit test as opposed to an acceptance test.

We already do test the self-driving cars on a race track. It goes _really_ fast. :-)

The more I think about it, the less likely this is to be real. Normal day to day driving is actually incredibly easy. But racing requires intense and constant concentration and quick reactions.

Would be nice to have a race of self driving cars only. With no human life at stake, the races could get pretty crazy!

> But racing requires intense and constant concentration and quick reactions

Which is exactly what computer are great at. What they are terrible at is dealing with incomplete information.

A computer would actually make a great race car driver.

I don't think it would. Because part of racing is gambling on the other driver to back off when fighting for position. And when I say "gambling", there are a lot of very human factors involved in trying to figure out an opponents likely behavior. It's not like chess.

Computers actually play poker rather well.

And in racing computers have no fear for their life, and they know exactly what their (cars) limits are - I think it could be done.

Above all racing requires situational awareness, which computers are very bad at. For ordinary driving scenarios the bar on situational awareness is fairly low, but that bar goes way up in racing.

Although this happens to be for April Fool's, the funny thing is Stanford already did this with their Pikes Peak Audi TTS race car http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/february1/shelley-pikes-p...

I'm kind of hoping this is real, I'd love to see a robot racer take on the humans at least once.

I'd actually love to see an iea like this come to fruition. It will probably be something more like an autonomous robot fight. But, it brings something tangible and a different dimension to competitions among coders

Who wants to bet that this one isn't a joke?

Likely an April fools, but actually seems like a good idea. The car could be lighter, wouldn't make as many mistakes, and could help get people comfortable with the idea of autonomous vehicles.

I would totally pay to watch this.

Edit: I would totally pay to see autonomous robots race on a track without the limitations of human drivers.

I've actually driven on a track (once) and it's surprisingly different/difficult.

Surprise! As you might have guessed, Google Racing is an April Fools joke brought to you by Google and NASCAR. And while we won't be providing self-driving cars to compete in the races, we look forward to working with NASCAR on future projects.

Larry and Sergey mentioned it on gplus. https://plus.google.com/109813896768294978296/posts

Interesting idea to use an April fools joke to raise awareness about probably one of the lesser known projects.

So now there are 3 April Fool's jokes? This, Chrome multitasking and 8-bit game cartridge Google Maps?

there's a morse code gmail (Gmail Tap) as well.

And Google Lets You Change The Weather Too

the different google teams have always done their own jokes. it's still two hours to go before it's even the 1st in california, i'm sure there'll be more.

There are at least 8 so far: Google Maps in 8-bit, Google Really Advanced Search, Chrome Multitask Mode, Google Racing, Gmail Tap, Google Weather Control, The YouTube Collection, and Google AdWords Click-to-Teleport Extensions.

And the downloadable YouTube Collection: http://www.youtube.com/theyoutubecollection

That link is down for me. But you can read more about it here:

http://youtube-global.blogspot.com

And I thought that the chrome multitasking was too much effort.

I lol'ed at the Android Paint Scheme...

Can we use this to bring ultimate defeat and ruin to Danica Patrick + GoDaddy?

I'm not sure this is another April Fool's Joke. I didn't find anywhere where it said "April Fools" but maybe I'm wrong.

Entering one of their vehicles in real NASCAR seems rather impossible, but perhaps an exhibition race? Still a long shot, but maybe... here's hoping.

I wonder if any existing rule prevents them from entering? I doubt anyone previously saw the need to say "all cars must have drivers".

NASCAR would never go for it. NASCAR is all about the drivers (characters).

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