My first ride in Google’s self-driving car was, all at the same time, thrilling, fascinating and a little disappointing.
The car was in Washington DC where Google (, Fortune 500) representatives met with groups like the AARP and the National Council for the Blind, groups which might have an interest in cars that that could act as chauffeurs for those who, for one reason or another, can’t drive themselves.
I got to ride along on a loop around several DC blocks with two Google engineers in the front seats. Google’s "self-driving cars" must always have someone seated at the controls, whether in Nevada — which recently licensed Google’s cars — or anywhere else.
The drive was thrilling and fascinating because, come on, the car drives itself. In traffic! Disappointing because it’s clearly not going to be ready for public use for years and years.
For now, at least, the car only drives routes it’s been trained to drive. My ride in Washington DC was along a route that Google engineers had driven with the car earlier. Google refused to allow the car to be driven anywhere beyond this well-studied environment, at least not with the media tagging along.
Still, that doesn’t mean it was a cake walk.
No Google engineer taught the car that a bunch of kids on a field trip would march out in front of it at an intersection. It stopped and waited for them on its own. And no-one told it that, right after that, another car would run the four-way stop sign right in front of it. It handled that, too, avoiding a collision all on its own.
At first, those interactions seemed boringly normal to me until I remembered… no-one was driving! The car had done that all itself while the man in the driver’s seat sat passively watching.
All of this is made possible by an array of sensors that would make a spy satellite jealous. The Google car has three GPS antennae, radar systems, cameras to read street signs and traffic lights and it’s topped with fast-spinning laser eye that looks like something out of a cheap ’50s sci-fi movie. That all-seeing eye scans for cars, pedestrians and obstacles.
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Google doesn’t make cars or sensors, though, so the part the California tech company is really interested in is the software that ties all this together to let it make — we hope — safe and rational driving decisions.
Since the Google car only just got its learner’s permit, it drives accordingly faxless cash advances. During our test loop, it stopped a few times for phantom threats, like a parked truck that was just a little wider than the cars around it. Then there was the jerking halt on a side street caused by a car that stopped a little abruptly almost two car lengths ahead.
When it wasn’t sure what to do, the car would hand control back to the driver, announcing it was doing so in a friendly female voice. (The driver can always take control at any time by just by moving the steering wheel or touching the pedals, even slightly.) "Self driving" was resumed by pushing a big green button on the Prius’s center console near the even bigger red "kill switch."
Surprisingly, one thing the car can’t do all on its own is use the turn signals. The driver still has to do that.
"That’s been on our to-do list for a long time now," said the engineer riding shotgun.
Back-seat "driver": I had to ride in the back. A second Google engineer rode in the shotgun seat with a laptop computer. On his screen was a triangle — representing us — surrounded by a vast army of colored boxes, representing cars, people and stationary objects, all sliding across a black screen. It was reminiscent of the old arcade game "Tank Commander," minus the explosions.
Times when the car lost its nerve and let the engineer take over, such as when it encountered an on-coming car on a narrow street and wasn’t sure there was room to get around it, weren’t just useless glitches, I was assured. The data from each situation would be ingested and analyzed so the car could learn what to do in the future. Those lessons could, hopefully, be applied to a broad range of driving conundrums.
Before Google realizes the dream of a truly "driverless car" there are many steps yet to be taken and some of those steps remain far off. The first will be allowing the car to stray from routes that it has been specifically trained to drive. Until then, this is all just baby steps.
But the biggest step will be to create a car that will let me just sit in the back seat with no-one at all in the driver’s seat. That step still seems — to me — many years off. If Google can get there before a major automaker beats them to it, I’ll be really impressed.
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Iranian and European officials expressed confidence in the results of Saturday’s negotiations on Tehran’s disputed nuclear program as it was announced that the two sides will meet again in Baghdad on May 23.
The very fact that there will be another round adds to a growing sense among diplomats that the two sides were making notable progress in talks that have grown increasingly tense as the West has tightened sanctions on Iran and Israel has threatened a pre-emptive military strike on the Islamic republic.
But the challenges in the next round could be far more significant. That’s when the six powers will likely seek further commitments from Tehran to reduce concerns that it could use its uranium enrichment program to make the fissile core of nuclear missiles.
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton called Saturday’s talks in Istanbul constructive and said future talks will be guided by the “principle of a step-by-step approach and reciprocity.”
That indicates the international community is ready to reward Iran if it moves to alleviate fears that it intends to weaponize its nuclear program _ rewards that could include delaying or easing some sanctions.
Iran’s chief negotiator, Saeed Jalili said his team “saw a positive approach (from the other side) and we consider it a step forward.”
Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful, and Ashton said Saturday that Tehran has a right to such a peaceful program. At the same time, she added, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty must be the “key basis” for future talks.
Iran asserts that it has not violated the treaty, and that it has a right under that agreement to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. Asked about the making the treat the basis of the talks, Jalili said, “We expect that we should enjoy our rights in parallel with our obligations.”
Iran is under four sets of U.N. sanctions for refusing to stop uranium enrichment _ which can be used both to make reactor fuel and the fissile core of nuclear warheads _ and the international community continues to demand that Tehran stop the activity.
But the last set of nuclear talks broke up without result more than 14 months ago after the Iranian team had refused to even discuss enrichment.
The six countries negotiating with Iran _ the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany _ came to Saturday’s meeting with modest expectations.
Diplomats said before the meeting began that even general Iranian readiness to accept the need to discuss its enrichment program would be considered enough of a success to warrant a follow-up round.
Earlier Saturday, one of the diplomats, who like the others demanded anonymity because he was sharing confidential information, said the Iranians appeared to be moving toward that readiness, engaging in discussion about the peaceful use of nuclear energy and the nonproliferation treaty.
He said the Iran’s team had mentioned Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s “fatwa,” or edict, prohibiting nuclear weapons for Iran, in the course of the plenary discussions.
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Greece’s international creditors have spelled out the austerity measures promised by Athens that have to be put into practice before it can receive new bailout cash, totaling more than euro2.5 billion ($3.31 billion).
Those budget cuts include:
_ euro1.076 billion ($1.43 billion) to be cut from the country’s pharmaceuticals spending
_ euro300 million ($397 million) in military budget cuts
_ euro270 million ($358 million) to be slashed from regular government expenditure and election-related budgets
_ euro190 million ($251 million) to be trimmed from subsidies to people living in remote areas
_ euro400 million ($530 million) in public investment budget cuts
_ euro300 million ($397 million) in budget subsidies to pension funds
Parties backing Greece’s coalition government will hold a second day of emergency talks Monday on a vital austerity deal with rescue creditors, after an intense weekend of negotiations failed to produce a breakthrough needed to avert bankruptcy in March.
Prime Minister Lucas Papademos will meet with negotiators from the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund in the afternoon and then with the leaders of the three parties backing his coalition.
The parties all publicly oppose steep cuts in private sector pay demanded by the eurozone and IMF, but their backing is needed for the government to reach a deal for the bailout, which must be approved by the Greek Parliament.
The new euro130 billion ($171 billion) bailout deal is vital for Greece to avoid bankruptcy next month as it cannot cover a euro14.5 billion ($19.1 billion) bond repayment due March 20 without the rescue funds.
The debt-crippled country has been kept solvent since May 2010 by payments from a euro110 billion ($145 billion) international rescue loan package. When it became clear the money would not be enough, a second bailout was decided last October.
Its implementation depends on the austerity measures but also on separate talks with banks and other private bondholders to forgive euro100 billion ($131.6 billion) in Greek debt, in exchange for a cash payment and new bonds with more lenient repayment terms.
Over the weekend, Greek officials held a conference call with eurozone finance ministers, as well as more talks in Athens with EU-IMF debt inspectors, senior bank negotiators, and Greek political party leaders, to try and hammer out a deal on the new cutbacks.
Greeks have already been subjected to a spate of austerity measures in return for the rescue loans, suffering significant cuts in pensions and salaries coupled with repeated tax hikes and an increase in retirement ages.
Angry at the prospect of new pain after two years of harsh austerity, Greece’s main GSEE labor union and the ADEDY civil servants’ union called a new general strike for Tuesday.
“Together with the GSEE, we have just decided to hold a 24-hour strike tomorrow, to be accompanied by a protest march in central Athens,” ADEDY secretary-general Ilias Iliopoulos told the AP free instant credit score.
An ADEDY statement said the proposed new cutbacks would “intensify the vicious cycle of recession and drive Greek society to despair.”
Greece is in its fifth year of recession, while unemployment has hit record highs of about 19 percent.
“The current policy of austerity … is turning workers into pariahs, jobless people and pensioners into paupers and deprives our youth of any hope,” the statement said. “This policy has already pushed Greeks beyond their limits and must be stopped at any cost.”
An announcement from Papademos’ office late Sunday said agreement had been reached to cut 2012 spending by 1.5 percent of gross domestic product _ about euro3.3 billion ($4.3 billion) _ improve competitiveness by slashing wages and non-wage costs, and re-capitalize banks without nationalizing them.
But the three coalition backers _ Socialist George Papandreou, Conservative Antonis Samaras and George Karatzaferis of the rightwing populist LAOS party _ differed as to what this would mean in detailed proposals.
Party leaders had undertaken to provide an initial response on the demanded cutbacks before their Monday evening meeting with Papademos, a Socialist party spokesman said. However, the prime minister’s office said there was no formal demand for a response, while the conservatives and LAOS said they were not planning to issue one.
“We are in the middle of a major struggle. Right now, the developments are satisfactory,” said Karatzaferis, adding that EU-IMF negotiators had backed away from a demand to ax annual salary installments given to Greek workers as holiday bonuses.
Rescue lenders are also seeking firings in Greece’s large public sector, a drop in the euro750 ($985) gross minimum monthly wage, and cuts in lump-sum retirement payouts, as part of a long list of cost-cutting demands.
Also Monday, left wing opposition parties are planning two separate protest rallies in central Athens at 6:00 p.m. (1600GMT), against the proposed cuts.
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Portugal has come under heavy pressure in the bond market this week as investors fear the nation could be the next domino to fall in the eurozone debt crisis.
On Thursday, the yield on 10-year government bonds spiked above 15%, the highest level since the euro currency was launched in 1999, while yields on 3-year notes surged to nearly 21%.
Investors have been rattled by the increasingly coercive debt negotiations in Greece, where private sector bondholders are facing losses of up to 70% of their Greek debt holdings. The fear is that Portugal may eventually seek a similar deal to write down some of its €162 billion debt load.
Portugal’s borrowing costs shot up after Standard & Poor’s downgraded the government’s credit rating to speculative grade, or junk, on Jan 13. The ratings agency said investors could lose up to 50% of their holdings if Portugal were to default on its debts.
But investors are also worried about Portugal’s bleak economic prospects and the uncertain outlook for the eurozone in general. The Portuguese economy is expected to shrink 3% this year as austerity measures take their toll and the broader eurozone economy contracts.
"Obviously it is not just the downgrade but the starting debt position, the economic outlook and the possibility that Greece is setting a template for the future that is concerning investors," said Gary Jenkins, a fixed-income analyst at Swordfish Research.
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While the bond market has turned against Portugal, investors have been primarily worried about larger eurozone economies such as Italy and Spain, which are seen as vulnerable to a full-blown debt contagion.
Borrowing costs for Italy and Spain have backed off recent highs amid a flood of liquidity from the European Central Bank, which pumped nearly €500 billion of long-term loans into the banking system and relaxed its collateral requirements.
Meanwhile, Portugal succumbed to the debt crisis long ago. The nation first tapped a €78 billion bailout from the European Union and International Monetary Fund in Apirl 2011.
In December, the IMF released €2.3 billion from Portugal’s bailout and praised the government for the progress it has made on fiscal reforms, saying the program was "broadly on track."
The IMF expects Portugal to return to the public markets in 2013. But fund officials cautioned that the government needs to do a better job at controlling public spending, especially at the local level and in state-owned enterprises.
IMF cuts growth forecast for all but U.S.
Despite the market pressure and economic challenges, analysts say Portugal is not in immediate danger of default.
"Regardless of the future complications, it is unlikely that the government will opt to default in the next few months," said Antonio Barroso, an analyst at Eurasia Group, a political risk research firm.
However, the government may need to seek additional bailout money in the second half of the year, depending on its progress on fiscal reforms and the outcome of the eurozone crisis, Barroso wrote in a note to clients.
Greece, by contrast, has struggled to implement budget cuts and structural reforms that are a condition of its bailout loans.
The nation has yet to seal a deal with private investors over a proposed 50% reduction in the value of Greek government bonds. The agreement is a key condition of a second €130 billion bailout, the terms of which are now being negotiated.
Athens is facing a €14.5 bond redemption in March that it may not be able to pay without additional bailout funds.
Ireland, which passed its latest bailout review with flying colors last week, has been the most successful bailout recipient. The nation’s borrowing costs have eased this year and Dublin announced a debt swap with private investors on Wednesday.
Ecuador received a loan commitment from China last month for at least $1 billion, helping finance a budget deficit that
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President Hugo Chavez defended his close ally Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday and warned of “U.S. warmongering threats” amid tensions over Tehran’s nuclear program and a death sentence against an American man convicted of working for the CIA.
The two leaders met in Caracas on the first leg of a four-nation tour that will also take Ahmadinejad to Nicaragua, Cuba and Ecuador.
“We are very worried,” Chavez said of the pressures being put on Iran by the United States and its allies, which he accused of being a threat to peace.
“They present us as aggressors,” he said during an earlier break in his talks with his Iranian counterpart at the presidential palace.
“Iran hasn’t invaded anyone,” he added. “Who has dropped thousands and thousands of bombs … including atomic bombs?”
Ahmadinejad’s visit comes after the U.S. imposed tougher sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, which Washington believes Tehran is using to develop atomic weapons. Chavez and his allies back Iran in arguing the nuclear program is purely for peaceful purposes.
Adding to the tensions, Iranian state radio reported on Monday that a court in Iran has convicted dual U.S.-Iranian citizen Amir Mirzaei Hekmati of working for the CIA and sentenced him to death.
Both leaders joked that their relationship shouldn’t cause any concern.
Ahmadinejad said if they were together building anything like a bomb, “the fuel of that bomb is love.”
Chavez played on the same theme in his remarks: “We’s going to work a lot for some bombs, for some missiles, to keep the war going. Our war is against poverty, hunger and underdevelopment.”
The Venezuelan leader said in his nationally broadcast speech that Iranians assistance has helped the South American country build 14,000 homes as well as factories that produce food, tractors and vehicles.
“We will always be together,” Ahmadinejad said through an interpreter. Smiling as he put his hand on Chavez’s arm, the Iranian leader called the Venezuelan president “the champion of fighting against imperialism.”
Later during the leaders’ meeting, two memorandums were signed on promoting cooperation between the two nations in industrial matters and in worker training, officials said.
Iran finds itself under increasing pressure in the standoff over its nuclear program, and in response to the latest U.S. sanctions has threatened to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, an important transit route for oil tanker shipments.
Diplomats on Monday confirmed a report that Iran has begun uranium enrichment at an underground bunker, a development that increases fears among U.S. and European officials about Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Two diplomats spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because their information was confidential and based on an inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Chavez’s long-running confrontation with Washington also looks set to grow more antagonistic after the U.S Payday advance. State Department announced, just hours before Ahmadinejad’s arrival, that it was expelling Venezuela’s consul general in Miami, Livia Acosta Noguera, due to allegations that she discussed a possible cyber-attack against the U.S. government.
The expulsion followed an FBI investigation into accusations contained in a documentary aired by the Spanish-language broadcaster Univision last month. According to the documentary, Acosta discussed the possible cyber-attack while she was previously assigned as a diplomat in Mexico. The documentary was based on recordings of conversations with her and other officials, and also alleged that Cuban and Iranian diplomatic missions were involved.
Venezuela’s government had not responded Monday.
Beyond voicing strong criticism of the U.S., Ahmadinejad is also likely to look for ways to use his Latin American alliances to diminish the impact of sanctions on Iran’s oil industry, said Diego Moya-Ocampos, an analyst with consulting firm IHS Global Insight in London.
However, Moya-Ocampos predicted that “Venezuela is going to be very careful not to push its relationship with Iran beyond the U.S. tolerance limits,” so as not to risk being hit with more U.S. sanctions. Last year, the U.S. imposed sanctions on state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA for delivering at least two cargoes of oil products to Iran.
The U.S. government has also repeatedly accused Iran of sponsoring terrorism, and growing Iranian diplomatic ties with some Latin American countries have generated worries in Washington.
In Quito, Ecuador, Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino told reporters that Ecuador’s government “has no reason to stop having relations with Iran” and said his country recognizes Iran’s “right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy.”
Argentina, which has good relations with Venezuela, also has warrants out for the arrests of Iran’s defense minister and other officials suspected of involvement in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization based in Los Angeles, urged Ahmadinejad’s hosts to tell Iran that they support Argentina’s demands for the extradition of those implicated in the attack. The organization also condemned Ahmadinejad for threatening Israel, saying in a statement on Monday that “honoring that trafficker of hatred with impunity involves his hosts as accomplices.”
Chavez accuses the U.S. and its allies of wrongly demonizing Iran. On Sunday, he rebuffed calls by U.S. officials for countries to insist that Iran stop defying international efforts to assess its nuclear program.
“What the empire does is make you laugh, in its desperation to do something they won’t be able to do: dominate this world,” Chavez said on television before Ahmadinejad arrived.
Nobel Prize-winning economist Peter Diamond said U.S. policy makers should focus on fighting long- term unemployment because workers who lose skills present a bigger challenge than the country
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