This week we’ve been thinking a lot about driverless cars and related data-driven innovations in transportation. (We even saw one up close this week at Google Zeitgeist.) We looked at Google’s newest effort to extend life with data in its new company, Calico. We thought about the relationship between science fiction and technological development, and we’re excited about a new crop of literary takes on tech industry.
As always, if you want to keep up with what we’re reading/thinking about on a weekly basis, the best way is to subscribe to the “else” feed, either as an email newsletter or through RSS.
Inside Google’s Quest To Popularize Self-Driving Cars – Popular Science
A long-read look at the current state of Google’s driverless car program.
Tesla’s Elon Musk says self-driving cars will be produced by 2016 – Daily Mail
Will healthy competition drive innovation? Tesla throws down the gauntlet with a tighter timeline to put driverless cars on the road.
A Self-Driving Crash Test – Stanford Center for Internet and Society
Bryant Walker Smith poses an interesting hypothetical for tackling fuzzy questions about liability in driverless car accidents.
California finally legalizes Lyft, SideCar, and other rideshare app firms – Ars Technica
California Public Utilities Commission legitimizes ridesharing, setting standards requiring background checks, driver training, and insurance coverage, so expect to see more pink mustashes on the road.
TIME Talks to Google CEO Larry Page About Its New Venture to Extend Human Life – TIME
Google’s Calico aims to use data to extend human life. John was reminded of the end of The Search on Google and the question of immortality.
Digital Advertising Alliance Exits Do Not Track Group – Adweek
Might this be the end of Do Not Track efforts? Multistakeholderism is at an impasse.
Why Today’s Inventors Need to Read More Science Fiction – The Atlantic
An MIT Media Lab course “Science Fiction to Science Fabrication” aims to connect visions for the near future with the makers and builders realizing our technological future. “Reading science fiction is like an ethics class for inventors.”
Project Hieroglyph – Future Tense
This podcast introduces a center for connecting writers and scientists in an effort to inspire science fiction with a more optimistic take.
The Deepest of Webs – Faz
Evgeny Morozov reviews Thomas Pynchon’s Bleeding Edge, which came out this week. It takes place in the tech scene in New York in the period between the dot com bust and before 9/11.
Dave Eggers’s ‘The Circle’ Takes Vengeance on Google, Facebook – Wall Street Journal
Egger’s new novel tackles the tech giants head on.
Did Dave Eggers ‘Rewrite’ Kate Losse’s Book? – The Atlantic Wire
Truth is stranger than fiction it seems, because Eggers new book sounds a lot like Kate Losse‘s The Boy Kings, based on her experience as employee number 51 at Facebook. Guess we’ll have to read both now.