Month: March 2018

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy deserves a special place in the geek pantheon. It’s the story of hapless BBC radio editor Arthur Dent, his best friend Ford Prefect, and the adventures that result when Prefect saves Dent when the Earth is unexpectedly destroyed to make way for a galactic bypass. Written by the late, great Douglas Adams, HHGTTG first appeared as a radio series in the UK back in 1978. On Thursday—exactly 40 years to the day from that first broadcast—it made its return home with the start of Hexagonal Phase, a radio dramatization of the sixth and final book of an increasingly misnamed trilogy.

Adams’ original radio series went on to spawn a universe of works. From that initial six-part series came the novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, then a re-recorded LP, a second novel (The Restaurant at the End of the Universe), a second radio series, a TV series, another two books (Life, the Universe, and Everything; So Long and Thanks for All the Fish), a computer game, a short story (Young Zaphod Plays it Safe), and then a fifth book (Mostly Harmless). And the ideas Adams wrote about were visionary: what else is your smartphone if not a real-life version of the Guide?

Although Adams died suddenly and unexpectedly in 2001, the universe he gave birth to lived on. Beginning in 2004, the original radio cast was reunited to dramatize the third, fourth, and fifth books. In 2005, a film adaptation was released, and then in 2009 came a final novel in the “trilogy,” And Another Thing…, written by the novelist Eoin Colfer. It’s this story that the BBC is now dramatizing, again using many of the original cast, along with newcomers like Jim Broadbent, Lenny Henry, and Stephen Hawking. Yes, that Stephen Hawking.

(OK, hardcore Hitchhiker’s fans will want to point out that BBC Radio 4 broadcast an audio adaptation of And Another Thing…, read by Stephen Mangan (who went on to play Dirk Gently in its first TV adaptation) and Peter Serafinowicz, back in 2009. Consider that done.)

Adams’ work in all its various forms has always meant a lot to me. It’s the first novel I can remember reading, although I can’t tell you if that was before or just after I saw the excellent BBC TV series back in 1981. It even taught me to accept “canon shock,” which is when the same general story appears differently in different formats; there are significant differences in the plots of the first two radio series compared to the books (compared to the TV series and compared to the film). And it’s hard not to feel a shiver when I hear the twanging banjo of its opening theme “Journey of the Sorcerer.”

So I’m happy to report that this latest installment doesn’t disappoint. And even better, unlike the BBC’s TV content, it’s not geoblocked or behind any kind of paywall. So go on, what are you waiting for—the coming of the Great Prophet Zarquon?

Waymo, Google’s self-driving car company, is moving beyond driverless taxis. The company announced on Friday that its self-driving trucks have begun hauling real cargo in the Atlanta area. A safety driver in the truck will take over if anything goes wrong.

“Over the past year, we’ve been conducting road tests of Waymo’s self-driving trucks in California and Arizona,” Waymo wrote in a blog post. Now the trucks are going to haul loads to Google’s data centers in the state of Georgia.

Waymo already announced in January that it was expanding testing of its self-driving taxi service to the Atlanta area.

Waymo’s trucks will have plenty of competition. Earlier this week, Uber announced that its driverless trucks would begin hauling freight in Arizona—also with a safety driver in the truck.

Meanwhile, a startup called Starsky Robotics announced an initial test this week of its technology for remotely driven trucks. Another startup called Embark has been hauling real cargo with autonomous trucks (and a safety driver behind the wheel) since last fall.

Waymo hasn’t provided much detail about its driverless truck tech, but there’s reason to believe it may be more advanced than what its competitors have developed so far. The other three companies we’ve mentioned—Uber, Starsky, and Embark—have all focused on freeway driving, which is generally considered the easiest type of driving to automate.

Uber uses a “transfer hub” model, where a human driver takes a trailer through busy city streets at the beginning and end of a trip, while a self-driving truck drives a long-haul, freeway-only route in between. Starsky envisions trucks driving autonomously on the freeway, but having a human driver driving the truck remotely at the beginning and end of the trip.

“Embark is also focusing on handling freeway driving, with a human driver on board who navigates city streets,” TechCrunch wrote last summer.

Initially, Waymo will have a safety driver behind the wheel just like these other companies. But Waymo’s ambition has long been to develop “level 4” vehicles that can handle complex traffic conditions on city streets. Last November the company was confident enough in its driverless minivans to take the safety driver out of the driver’s seat.

Waymo says it uses the same technology for its trucks, so it’s a good guess that the company is aiming to achieve the same level of autonomy for its trucking fleet. That would mean a truck that can drive itself all the way from one loading dock to another—no safety driver, transfer hub, or remote operator needed.

“Things like braking, turning, and blind spots are different with a fully-loaded truck and trailer,” Waymo writes. The company still has work to do, but starting with the industry-leading software in its minivans gives Waymo a significant head start.