Google Car user #0000000001:
The big picture:
Steve Mahan is 95 percent blind. And yet he was able to get into a car and drive apre-programmed route from his California home to a Taco Bell restaurant. Mahan was driving a Google autonomous car. For people like Mahan, who are visually impaired, this technology is liberating in a pretty fundamental way. It gives him the freedom of mobility, and the ability to be independent. While it will take a few more years for these vehicles to be widely available to the public, the video [above] gives us a glimpse of what the future will be like.
Walter Russell Mead uses the breakthrough to bash high-speed rail:
Why drive to a train station, park, pay for a ticket, wait, hop on a train, sit for a while, then hop back in a car or other train when you get close to your destination, when you can just take a nap while your self-driving car carries you safely—and directly—to your destination?
The Dish 