iPods

Lots of stories this past week that are linked but we are getting into the realms of fantasy - I hope.

As a Brit, I find this Fox News story quite embarrassing.  It is about a fleet of driverless pods called LUTZ Pathfinders that will be ferrying people around Milton Keynes this year.  They look awful:

But fear not, "In the event that something does go wrong, the body panels are made from a flexible material to absorb much of the impact."  Oh dear.

Glad nobody ever goes to Milton Keynes.

Since this is nothing to do with Apple, it wouldn't be called an iPod.

However, most of the motoring press (and a fair bit of the non-motoring press) have been getting excited about Apple's foray into the car business.  Here is Car+Driver's take on it. I guess it won't be called the iCar though because that could upset the Information Centre about Asylum and Refugees or perhaps the International Committee for Animal Recording.

Current speculation is that Apple's car will be electric and driverless.

Ye Gods.

Presumably you would speak to it and Siri would then work out where you wanted to go and take you there.

The commenters at the bottom of the Car+Driver story are of a much higher quality than the morons you get at the bottom of Telegraph or Mail stories.  My favourite comment with which I 100% agree is "As for self-driving cars, aside from the disabled, elderly, and inebriated, it's an absurdly complex solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Engineering wankery, I say."  I wonder if that commenter is British - wankery is a very un-US term of disaffection.

But, if today's BBC story has any mileage, these self-driving cars could evolve into self-owning, self-procreating cars.  This is the prospect put forward by Mike Hearn, a software developer who is "both an ex-Google engineer and one of the leading Bitcoin software developers."  He envisages taxis that could run their own taxi-businesses getting their jobs via phone apps and being paid using, wait for it, Bitcoins!  Presumably they would need to be pre-programmed with mild-racism and a dislike of going "South of the river".

He also suggests these taxis could migrate to other cities if there wasn't enough work for them where they are.

Would we end up with UKIP complaining about UK streets being full of these?

That's a Romanian Taxi in case you were wondering.