The previous web-log
highlighted the manner in which a new era of 'neo-capitalism' appears
to be heavily orientated toward the ongoing deployment of
'macro-technologies', enabled by the web.
This achieved by a
coterie of typically Californian IT industrialists running mega-cap
corporations, with immense personal fortunes and close Wall Street
connections; who may today be viewed as the eco-socio-economic
arbiters of the global, inter-connected 21st century.
Technocratic Influence
-
Just as Russian
oligarchs weigh control over global raw material flows at the
low-value end of the industrial supply value chain, so today American
technocrats seemingly orchestrate the high- value end of the chain:
with demand creation and satiation through web related hardware and
software which subtly but powerfully alters the perceptional and
behavioural dynamic of people and generations.
Thus it appears that
the modern world, specifically the professional and leisure
activities of its inhabitants, leads directly back to Palo Alto and
the broader Silicon Valley; through the increasingly immersive
screens of smart-phones, tablets and laptops. The entrenched
“enabling” cyber-brands of Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon,
Facebook et al, could be regarded as contemporary religions given
associated faith and tribalism, with web links to the 'cloud' which
itself resembles the on-highness of the god-head within ancient
religion.
A Much Altered World -
The past 30-40 years
has obviously seen massive socio-economic transformation via IT and
the web, and as its cause and effect snowballed ever onward, so the
pace of change appears to grow exponentially; the observations of
Moore's Law seemingly spreading from the domain of the micro-chip
into everyday life.
The outcome an
increasing absorption of the individual, crowd and mass, as today the
once far-flung reaches of academically prosed 'hyper-reality' morphs
into 'augmented-reality' and so eventually simply experienced as the
world's innate reality.
[NB This suggests that
increased global urbanisation even nature itself (an ever more
'protected' entity) will ultimately become a designed experience for
the masses].
Previous web-logs have
illustrated the manner by which post-modern philosophy has sought to
re-interpret the modern world given the influence of man's constant
remaking of his world, with the topic of “hyper-reality”
upper-most.
Technological
Hyper-Reality -
This pertains to
mankind's ever deeper creation of wholly manufactured perceptional
experiences, especially prevalent from the very early 20th
century onward with the invention of basic cinematic film, thereafter
the sound aligned 'talkies', the arrival of film-studio derived
theme-parks, 3-D film, the spread of home-video and the arrival of
the internet and mobile communication 'streamed' increasingly faster
(2G/3G/4G) so as to provide personal on-demand consumption
satisfaction downloaded from the virtual world and increasingly
providing 'augmented reality'; whether a person be in work, personal
task or leisure modes.
Resulting from the
identification of such increased “hyper-reality” by the late
1960s post-modern theorists arrived at the notion that perceived
reality had itself become so complex that the natural world had been
subsumed by a man-made realm. A realm so detailed and convincing that
it could be viewed as analogous to an (unfoldable) 'map' which had
expanded so much in breadth and detail it meta-physically overlaid
the natural world beneath.
Stated half a century
ago, at a time when the dream of the internet was only embryonic,
this man-manufactured 'overlaid map' has emerged from analogy to
fact, on physical and behavioural levels, satellite, drone and
vehicle technology has allowed Google to compile the physical via
Google Earth / Google Maps, whilst correlated personal, crowd and
mass movement (dynamic maps) has been captured via the self-provision
of personal locational data.
Data Driven Commercial
'Bed-Rock' -
Early coastal located
civilisations saw mankind seek to build dwellings upon local bedrock,
recognising that temporary shifting sands / soils were not
practicable, long-lasting solutions.
Now that the web is
engrained into much of global society - as well recognised by (an
arguably 'Big Brother'-esque) Google - the data gleaned from its web
inhabitants could be said to have formed a new bedrock upon which a
new era of e-commercialisation may be founded.
Hence, a prime topic
over the past decade or so pertains to the opportunities and
challenges of those new and extended business models, imagined and
created far beyond the current conventions of: online communications
(personal, select audience and mass), socialising (personal and
mass), personal ordering/shopping, personal dating, personal banking
etc.
The willingness by
virtually everyone to wholly participate in the web created world has
(at the cost of oft over-looked privacy) been utterly stupendous as
individuals, groups, SME's and large corporations, all seek to either
positively promote themselves or at worst not become left-behind.
This unrivalled level
of participation in the cyber-world, means that the world can be
materially and philosophically re-invented, or at least
cyber-evolved, so as to possibly extend the realm of a necessarily
commerce-centric hyper-reality.
Deploying Corporate
Cash Hoards -
Unquestionably since
the mid 1980s, even with the 1999 bubble, the general 'tech sector'
has been commercially prolific as both society's enabler and for
specific firms recognised as the stars (recipients and benefactors)
of modern capitalism.
The accrued massive
cash reserves sat within tech firms' balance sheets has attracted
increasing activist pressure so as to ideally return said cash to
shareholders, or at least direct cash into rational new growth
opportunities.
As of Q1 2014 these
cash reserves verses debt (so net cash) stood at:
Microsoft: $87.67bn
cash vs $23.48bn debt ($64.19bn net cash)
Apple: $41.4bn vs
$16.96bn ($24.44bn net cash)
Google: $57.28bn vs
$8.4bn ($48.88bn net cash)
Amazon: $8.67bn vs
$3.15 ($5.52bn net cash)
Facebook: $12.63bn vs
$0.39bn ($12.24bn net cash)
As is obvious, these
five info-tech companies alone have an immense spending power of
$155.27bn, with as seen Microsoft leader in absolute terms and
Facebook leader in relative terms. With also as seen these two firms
latterly expanding into newer operational arenas: Microsoft's ongoing
technical integration with Ford Motor Co (as with the Sync system)
and Facebook's acquisitions of Oculus (for virtual reality
interactivity).
Shaping the Future -
In recognition of the
quarter upon quarter cash-accruel trend, and the eventuality of
massive cash hoards, many tech firm founders, shareholders and CEOs
have since well before 2008 been exploring ways in which these
mountainous funds may instead be invested into new products and
service projects.
Projects which promise
to fundamentally change the face of urban life through the subtle and
not so subtle 'soaking-in' of new technologies into the innate
socio-economic fabric of everyday life; now called 'the internet of
things'. Most obvious that of public and private infrastructure under
the broad remit of (sustainable and intelligent) living and
correlated urban planning, with the ultimate ideal of the 'Smart
City' moniker.
[NB This ambition
influenced by the United Nation's Habitation section, with the UCLG
attempting to create international standards].
External Exploration
and Learning -
Given the risk
potential of such an ambition to privately held and publicly listed
enterprise, such technology leaders seek to absorb captured learning
from similar attempts elsewhere. Such attempts typically by cash rich
'far-horizon' governmental policy-makers, such environments viewed as
alternative new 21st century icons instead of building
ever taller sky-scrapers, a 20th century icon.
Experiments of 'smart
cities' have been ongoing for decades, perhaps the first proper that
of Tsukuba Science City in Japan during the 1960s. However post the
Kyoto Protocol effort of 1997 and partial ratification in 2005,
various governments have sought to create such “future towns”.
Ecologically conscious with at their heart - beyond building
pollution constraints - intelligent transport networks. In many
cases, and as an ideal, the town/city itself dedicated to a
high-value, research-led, hi-tech manifesto. (So akin to Tsukuba and
indeed the various remote specific research towns under the old
Soviet Union regime)
In recent years it has
perhaps been Abu Dhabi's Masdar City complex in the United Arab
Emirates, which has offered the best learning. Though its development
and expansion was slowed by the regional fall-out from the 2008
crisis, it has progressed apace, though still under—capacity, and
continues to be utilised for the feasibility assessment, both of its
system parts and its meshed whole.
Masdar was created as
''clean-sheet' planned city under the general direction of Foster and
Partners, who like most blue-chip architectural firms, have long
recognised the policy importance of urban planning across both EM and
AM regions; with aspects of idealised 'clean-sheet' “e-enabled”
new town planning to be retro-fitted as practicable into established
and inevitably slowly decaying old infrastructures.
Masdar's eco-city
credentials demanded that a new 'intelligent' mode of transportation
be adopted. So its piloted a tailored version of a generic PRT system
ideal; utilising automated vehicle 'pods' which are electronically,
self-guided along specific pathways. (The term PRT has a broad
definition in application but its ideology tends to use a primary
non-stop route with secondary sidings for stop-off points).
However, the cost of
the PRT system's extension was deemed uneconomical with instead
supplementary travel within the city's walls provided by
electric-powered small cars and buses.
Given the self-guided
PRT and conventionally driven electric car programmes, it thus
appears probable that the merged result – indeed ambition - at some
future point is that of a self-guided electric car.
The Driverless Vehicle
Ambition -
The concept of a
'driverless vehicle' is hardly new, long part of science fiction and
presented as a research ideal by GM in its 1950s Futurama exhibition.
The 1970s saw initial Japanese effort, but it was not until the 1980s
that Mercedes-Benz's robot-car created from the pan-European EUREKA
Prometheus project (1987-95) achieved major performance milestones in
1994/95
As a new century
successor ambition to Europe's Prometheus effort, in 1994 the US
government through DARPA offered $1m “Grand Challenge”
prize-money for new entrants test efforts in Mojave Desert. This was
part of its own robot vehicle focus. No course completions prompted a
$2m prize for 2005 with various entrants and vehicle types
successfully finishing. Re-run in 2007, but with an altered course to
reflect the title “Urban Challenge”, requiring far more
computational intelligence given the need to obey traffic laws; six
teams completed the course. In 2012 and 2014 DARPA chose to focus on
more specific technology challenges aside from the driverless
ambition.
Thus since 2007, with
the apparent proven ability to create urban-safe driverless vehicle
control systems, research has continued with transition from the
'pure' to the 'applied', across academia, in-house within technology
companies and as joint effort ventures.
The EV as Driverless
Enabler -
Research projects to
date using standard vehicles point to the fact that the complexity
and cost of transforming the base engineering of ICE powered cars
into driverless cars is high if not prohibitive.
Moreover, given the
heavy computing power required, the electrical energy for which in
mobile mode (laptop, smart-phone, tablet) is drawn from a lithium-ion
(L-ion) battery, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs have long sought to
create the ideal mobile battery-pack by way of the EV.
So, since 2003 we have
seen a strategic push by Silicon Valley to reach this ideal 'mobile
battery' product destination by way of the apparently eco-positive
electric vehicle (EV).
Tesla Motors operates
as an unabashed technology disruptor to the conventional internal
combustion engine's undoubted primacy in automotive transport. Its
business model has been planned as multi-faceted and growth
orientated, as with manufacturing the firm using a typical
progressive funding model from initial high price/low volume to
eventual low price/high volume, the expansion of a battering
'super-charging' network, whilst also selling its zero-carbon credits
to external VM corporations, and also seeking to sell or gain
royalties from its e-tech IPR from external parties.
Beginning with the
deployment electric motors within a Lotus sportscar chassis in its
'Roadster', the to the provision of L-ion battery-packs for volume
manufactures' own limited series E production runs, to the creation
and sale of the Model S, the showcasing of Model X and 2017
scheduling of the “Bluestar” higher planned volume model. More
recently stating its intent to offer its electric power-train
technology knowledge to new partners. Thus seeking to operate as both
vehicle manufacturer and presumably licensee of what it sees as very
specific (ie legitimately protectable) e-tech intellectual property
rights. Furthermore, the promise that Tesla owners will be allowed to
use the Tesla super-charging for free forever, appears empty given
commercial realities or eventual possibility of the network's sale to
an external enterprise.
[NB exactly what Tesla
purports as its own IPR is unclear, especially given the long history
of electric cars and the relative simplicity of the power-train and
control systems, which conventional manufacturers have well
understood for decades and deployed in their own hybrid drive
systems].
Lastly, Tesla Motors
has stated that it too has ambitions toward driverless models, which
together with mention of an electric truck type vehicle provides
obvious prompts toward fleets of self-guided delivery trucks in urban
areas.
It is then a
fundamental fact that Google and Tesla have a heavily vested shared
interest – even if not formally stated - in targeting the mass
adoption of small urban “infrastructure intelligent” electric
vehicles.
Internal Exploration
and Learning -
Thus the question set
and topic explored is that of the time-frame and cost required to
achieving true practicability for a self-guided (driverless) EV.
Such new-age travel
ambitions have obviously been ongoing for some years, the epicentre
being the Californian web of firms that wish to continue the e-based
innovation path that has essentially constructed the 21st
century.
As seen, a raft of
innovations from Google Inc demonstrates its intent to inter-connect
ethereal web and physical worlds, indeed at every level of the
physical, across: the Nexus smart-phone, Chrome laptop, Google TV
interface, Nexus Q entertainment module, cyborg-type 'GoogleGlass'
(augmented reality spectacles which prompt privacy concerns), the
healthcare directed Google Contact Lens (as part of the [somewhat
propogandist sounding] “quantifiable self” movement).
With of course the
driverless concept 'GoogleCar' recently promoted as the apparently
realistic future of urban mass mobility, from its 'sci-fi' roots.
This apparent watershed
in automotive mobility was showcased in prototype form on May 18th
2014 with the Driver-less 'Google Car'; the result of years of
internal exploration and learning.
This vehicle stems from
Google's original sponsorship of the research undertaken for the
DARPA Challenge in 2005. That team was formed of Stanford
University's own post-graduate academics (led by Sebastian Thrun, now
at Google) together with Volkswagen of America's own Electronics
Research Laboratory; both located in Northern California.
DARPA 2005 was the
second running of the driverless car 'grand prix' from its
origination the year before, with no successful completion. The
Stanford-VW alliance chose to utilise a VW Toureg given its drive by
wire control features and large internal and external dimensions and
payload, for the carrying and fitment of a heavy five-fold sensing
and analysing system: Gyroscopic / GPS / 'LiDAR' (combined laser and
radar), Wheel Sensors and Video-Camera, plus the much smaller masses
of the physical actuators required for robotic steering and gear
shift. The team took first place.
Having learned much,
the 2007 DARPA (Urban) Challenge was undertaken using a smaller but
still spacious Passat Estate/Wagon. Compared to 2005 the very
different “sophisticated interaction” requirements of a cityscape
environment meant far greater sensing capabilities, with the need for
regulatory 'road-craft' compliance necessitated heightened real-time
analysis in data processing, thus adding greatly to previous
learning. The Stanford-VW team took second place.
Thereafter Sebastian
Thrun moved to Google so as to lead the next phases of development
toward an eventual goal of commercialisation. The more advanced and
yet technically simpler system of a LiDAR and Range Finder operated
by software named 'Google Chauffeur' has been installed into various
other models of test car (Toyota Prius, Lexus RX450h and Audi TT)
which have had two then one passengers to physically intercede if the
system fails. By April 2014 Google claims that such tests have
covered 1.1 million kilometres without problems, stating that one 'at
fault' incident was the result of human driver error, not the system
itself.
But as of May 2014 a
wholly new concept vehicle arrived: the urban friendly small
driverless EV,
the 'Google Car',
cosmetically unlike a standard small car, using a bubble shaped body,
seemingly a colour-in-mould skin finish (like a personal e-device)
and a friendly pet-like 'face' to provide personification and so
immediate emotional attachment.
Vehicular Stepping
Stones -
The Californian
technology leaders seek to create what they see as the natural
evolutionary step to the current use and thinking around urban
personal transport.
That urban journey
starts with the modern Micro-Car seen by French offerings by Aixam
(long since a popular form of urban and suburban travel, especially
amongst older drivers). Then onto 1998 and Daimler's launch of the
modern micro-car, the Smart ForTwo (its platform used for various
off-shoot models such as the Cross-Blade (ltd edition) and sporting
Roadster, aswell as various concept models). The first modern clique
of rudimentary, limited range but functional electric micro-cars
arrived, the most famous/infamous being the G-Wiz, superceded by
Renaults' Twizy.
[NB Polaris Industries
of the USA acquired Aixam in 2013 as part of its own strategic intent
for its own expanded electric vehicle range].
From the late 1990s on,
western society witnessed the large demand and increased supply for
mobility scooters, catering to the better independent mobility care
for the disabled of all ages and (pre-2008) buoyant government social
funding for the ever larger numbers of elderly and obese people.
With such historical
demographic change (already experienced in Japan) plus the rise of
single occupant households, vehicle manufacturers such as Toyota,
Honda, Nissan, GM and Chrysler created motorshow concept 'pods',
either wholly in-house of with parters such as Segway, so as to
provide apparent glimpses of the shape of things to come.
This seeming convergent
trend then towards eco and specifically electric mobility, tied to
the ideal of greater in-travel productiveness - is what underpins the
ideology of the Driverless 'Google Car'.
New Build Process
Opportunities -
For the most part, the
history of the automobile sector was to satisfy the previously ever
growing western 20th century demand for vehicles of all
various types. Accordingly, the associative manufacturing model, and
so general business model was around the generation of high volume
and so low cost encompassed by the 'Budd' pressed steel method; a
system still very much the case for what is now a highly global
market, and wholly effective for the demand expansions across China,
India, Brazil, Russia and EM elsewhere. Capital spend intensive, but
very effective during long phases of GDP development, and indeed
central to such prosperity.
However, for the west
macro-conditions have undoubtedly profoundly altered since the 1960s
heyday, with the dual effects of far greater eco-consciousness –
influenced by California, but technically led by Japan and Germany –,
what is seen as reduced car-demand by incoming generations (a
function of their own disposable income levels) with reaction to
changed transportation perspectives and methods – most obviously
cycling and maintained public transport use within cities; albeit
relative to the general decline of public-purse infrastructure spend
in favour of private-sector spend.
As seen by the success
and impact of Toyota's hybrid powered Prius and now near full hybrid
model range, conventional cars have altered accordingly within the
restrictive envelope that is the reality of the long new product
development timespan. Other corporations include Jaguar Land Rover's
now entrenched use of lighter aluminium structures, whilst Ford has
adopted the same technology for the 2014 F-series large pick-up truck
(a truck ostensibly using sports-car materials). Most manufacturers
now well used to undertaking various non-core, but macro-associative,
research and development projects in hybrids parallel and series),
battery development, electric-drive motors, body structures, chassis
systems and holistic alternative vehicle packaging; with of course
progress determined by technical and funding restrictions. So the
conventional car has itself leaped forward
However, with the
unprecedented macro effects of the Kyoto Protocol and post-2008
western labour surplus, the auto-industry and its investors have also
recognised the very real need to progress what historically has been
called 'niche' engineering and manufacturing. So as to effectively
locally develop, build and supply more targeted types of vehicle,
typically urban specific.
Instead of centrally
locating a huge pressed-steel manufacturing base to serve a single
country, its neighbours and foreign exports, the system itself has
been reverse engineered to 'go back to basics' in serving distinct
geographical locations and user types.
As described in
previous weblogs, this micro-orientated approach became obviously
known as “micro-factory supply”, with the complementary adjunct
of internal sales channels, elongated to “micro-factory-retailing”.
Various companies have
been formed to explore this perspective. At one end of the product
spectrum is Pheonix, Arizona based 'Local Motors', combing the
artisan aspects of the US eulogised local workshop and the trend of
web-enabled open-source design, with apparent philosophical edict of
“global design, local materials and local energy” with
strategically aligned local municipalities; presently located upon
aboriginal land and offering the tubular framed on/off-road Rallye
Fighter (a Baja buggy type car). At the opposite end of the product
spectrum the outcome of the UK's Gordon Murray Design in Surrey, with
creation of the T25 and sibling variants (later called 'Motiv'); a
truly compact city car with a 3-seat, rear engine layout. Critical
was the creation of the 'iStream' build process. The rights to the
project reportedly sold to Japan's Yamaha in late 2013, with expected
launch in 2017. Like the Arizona car, it uses as steel space-frame
with composite outer panels.
The fact is that for
all the communications hyperbole and trendiness, the basis of
'micro-factory-retailing' is simply that of yesteryear niche (limited
edition) vehicle building, specifically that championed by pre-war
Grand Prix cars (Auto Unions etc) and adopted for wider use by
Italy's Carozzeria Touring in its client specials.
The system of largely
hand-built vehicle frames and powertrain, chassis, electrical and
trim installations, provides for the lowest vehicle company start-up
costs possible, especially with (unlike Touring's use of specialist
high-end components of the time) the use of off-the-shelf generic OEM
parts from tier 1 and 2 suppliers.
[NB This same approach
has been deployed for the establishment of local vehicle companies in
'pioneer investment regions', such as that seen in Mombasa, Kenya].
The fact is that the
apparent “reverse engineering” of the modern auto-industry is
little more than fall back onto well established and proven simpler
lower cost and critically “CapEx lite” design and construction
methods.
Nevertheless, it is
this same system which investment-auto-motives believes that as a
notional 'sector disruptor' is being investigated by Google, so that
it can itself fund the home-grown creation of an unconventionally
simple, 'function-first', driver-less town buggy.
Reformatting for a 3rd
Urban Travel-Space -
As regards personal
travel (ie non public transport), historically towns and cities had
effectively two speeds, either by motor vehicle (fast) or walking
(slow), with the intermediate functionality of the bicycle (per speed
and comfort) typically heavily marginalised in most places besides
The Netherlands and pockets of similar elsewhere.
However, climate
control concerns regards vehicle pollution plus the promoted
popularisation of the bicycle as short-hop, healthier, (necessarily
so) low-cost travel solution, has increased provision for cycling
routes in major cities over recent years.
This essentially
created a new, and still growing, dedicated 3rd travel
space. A lane separated either physically or by (blue) colour
demarcations from potentially very dangerous motor vehicles on
standard roads and the risk of danger to pedestrians on
pavements/sidewalks.
Though the lanes have
been to date dedicated as “cycle lanes”, they would prove useful
to other mid-speed apparatus which provide “intermediate speed”
travel (say 10 – 30 km/h). In fact it is often the case that
recognising their danger to pedestrians, where practical, mobility
scooter users seek to use traffic-separated cycle lanes as the best
suited pathway.
Given the impact of
rising cyclist numbers and the now society entrenched use of mobility
scooters, it seems advantageous that cycle lanes be fully utilised as
more broadly defined 'intermediate lanes'.
As has been the case
with inner-city planning policy, this largely achieved by
re-apportioning space from that of roads and paths to cycle lanes.
This 3rd
space then offers a new travel zone for what could be a new mode of
intermediate speed transport, typically named the “mobility pod”.
Small in foot-print and
stature, enclosed, weather-proof and moderate comfort, such concepts
effectively update the era of post WW2 affordable, low powered
bubble-cars which faltered as they were not wholly suited to
conventional road systems. Had a 3rd space been made
available their evolutionary rise and not fall may have been the
case, but the fact was that automobiles and oil production were two
of the pillars of the post-war economic boom, comfort and speed the
two driving factors.
However, today whether
as part of the economic decline of the west, or as part of its
eco-leadership actions, the “intermediate lane” looks to become
an increasingly important aspect of personal, urban,
data-intelligent, transport networks.
This it seems is the
unstated big picture thinking behind the Driverless 'Google Car'.
Conclusion -
It is suggested that
Google's ultimate aim is to create a business model which is able to
sell to today's automotive manufacturers a packaged system of
data-rich, real-time information to enable the apparent dream of the
safer, productivity enhancing driverless car.
This may indeed be the
case.
However, it seems to
investment-auto-motives that the natural path for Google is not to
sell, lease or franchise its eventual driverless car capability, but
instead seek to gain most value from users by operation the system
itself.
To this end it is
expected that Google and others will seek to create the conditions by
which ecologically focused urban planners will naturally lean toward
the advantages provided directly by Google.
To do so Google will be
seen to continue to lobby international governments (presently 5th
biggest lobbyist) with soft-power assistance from Google.org, to
invariably demonstrate how its commercial offering is the most direct
and efficient plan to allay overtly high carbon footprint fears and
the likelihood of not reaching 2050 climate change goals.
Thus it seems almost
inevitable that Google will argue the point for its more or less full
control of a new intra-urban / intra-suburban driverless vehicle
system (at first spanning taxis and short-term rentals) so as to
“ensure the climate change targets are achieved”.
Though the publicised
driverless 'Google Car' was explained as only a rudimentary buggy –
suggesting an evolution toward the package of the conventional car –
the fact is that such a simply manufactured, lightweight and
inexpensive buggy type car (cross-breeding the city-car, mobility
scooter and motorshow 'concept pods') is the perfect vehicle type for
flexible urban passenger movement.
To this end, given the
convincing business case of low cost ((low capex, mid labour) local
manufacture, and the highly profitable potential of leased private
and public “e-cars” (running probably over e-upgraded,
retro-fitted urban roads with per mile or per kilometre tolls), it
would appear a commercial imperative that Google would infact seek to
'own the urban road' into the future. Possibly doing so through an
array of sub-divisional and joint-venture companies, each providing a
specific part of the value chain across the overall whole: from
plug-in charge to travel charge.
From a simplistic
strategic perspective then, for very good commercial reasons, Google
Inc appears to be happily transferring from the information super
highway to 'e-enabled' urban byway.
To this end, the
driverless car will very probably be more network-intelligent, local
parish buggy than conventional car, especially so if Google
effectively re-configures the actual streets of a global-wide yet
also intrinsically local real world 'Monopoly Board' given the
hyper-real, overlaid world-map it has already created.
