Self-driving Google Cars (Reading)

-

Self-driving Google Cars


Anyone driving the curves between San Francisco and Los Angeles may have recently seen a small car with a curious cylinder on the roof holding video cameras, radar sensors and a laser device to "see" other vehicles. It was harder to notice that the person at the wheel was not actually driving. The car is a project of Google, which has been working in plain view on vehicles that can drive themselves, mimicking the decisions made by a human driver. With someone behind the wheel to take control if something goes wrong, seven test cars have driven 225.000 kilometres with only two human interventions. It drives at the speed limit, which it knows because the limit fro every road is included  in its database, and it stops for lights and stop signs,

Robot cars react faster than humans, have 360-degree perception and do not get distracted, sleepy or intoxicated, which saves lives and avoids injuries, the engineers argue. They also say that this technology could double the capacity of roads by allowing cars to drive more safely while closer together. Because the robot cars would eventually be less likely to crash, they could be built lighter, reducing fuel  consumption. But of course, to be truly safer, the cars must be far more reliable than today's personal computers, which crash occasionally.

The Google research programme, using artificial intelligence to revolutionise the automobile, is proof that the company's ambitions reach beyond the search engine business. Autonomous cars are years from mass production, but teachnologists, who have long dreamed of them, believe that they can transform society as profundly as the Internet has.

1. Are the following statements True or False? Copy the evidence from the text.
  • While testing the google car, humans never had to take control and drive it.
  • Since robot cars can be made to weigh less, they will use less petrol.

2. In your own words and based on the ideas in the text, answer the following questions. Do not copy from the text.
  • According to the text, what does a Google self-driving car look like?


  • Give at least three advantages of robot cars.




3. Find the words in the text that mean:
  • more difficult (paragraph 1)
  • in fact (paragraph 1)
  • decreasing (paragraph 2)
  • evidence (paragraph 3)

4. Complete the following sentences. Use the appropriate form of the word in brackets when given.
  • Last year my neighbour __________________ (buy) a Google car and he ________________ (complain) since then.
  • According to the World Health Organization, more ________________ 1.2 million lives _________________ (lose) in accidents every year.
  • Nowadays, there __________________ many people who would enjoy __________________ (drive) a robot car.
  • The robot car was invented _________________ Sebastian Thrun, _________________ engineer who works for Google.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Alexander Graham Bell (Use of English)

-
Read the text below and choose word from each space. Alexander Graham Bell Alexander Graham Bell 1.___ born in Scotland in 1847. His father, an expert on speech, 2.____  a way of teaching how words 3.___ be pronounced. He translated the 4.___ of words into straight or curvy lines. Alexander 5.___ to be a teacher and, when his mother went deaf, he started to be 6.___ in how deaf people communicate. In 1870, because his children were in poor health, Alexander and his family moved to the United States. He hoped that a warmer 7.___ would be better for the whole family. It was while he was teaching deaf children there 8.___ he invented a new machine. It was very 9.___ to the human ear itself, and Bell discover it could carry human speech 10.___ a wire from one place to another. It was not long before the telephone was a part of 11.___ our lives! 1. A.was   B.is   C.has   D.had 2. A.grew   B.built   C.developed   D.worked 3. A.ought   B.should   C.might   D.would
Read more

Computers (Past Simple vs. Present Perfect Simple)

-
Computers Since computers were first introduced to the public in the early 1980's, technology  has changed  a great deal. The first computers were  simple machines designed for basic tasks. They  did not have  much memory and they  weren't  very powerful. Early computers were often quite expensive and customers often  paid  thousands of dollars for machines which actually  did  very little. Most computers  were  separate, individual machines used mostly as expensive typewriters or for playing games.  Times  have changed . Computers have become  powerful machines with very practical applications. Programmers have created  a large selection of useful programs which do everything from teaching foreign languages to bookkeeping. We are still playing video games, but today's games  have become  faster, more exciting interactive adventures. Many computer users  have also got  on the Internet and have begun  communicating with other computer users around the world. We have start
Read more

How the recycling symbol was created (Reading)

-
Image
Six sentences have been removed from the article. Choose from the sentences A-G the one which fits each gap. How the recycling symbol was created  Gary Anderson designed a symbol which we see everywhere nowadays I studied engineering at the University of Southern California at a time when there was a lot of emphasis in the United States on training young people to be engineers. That said, I eventually switched to architecture. I just couldn't get a grasp on electronics and archircture seemed more concrete to me. It was around that time that I saw a poster advertising a design competition being run by the Container Corporation of America. The idea was to create a symbol to represent recycled paper. One of my college requirements had been a graphic design course so I thhought I'd give it a go. It didn't take me long to come up with my design: only a day or two. 1.___. But I already had arrows and angles in my mind because on my course I'd done a present
Read more