Is this a win or a loss for the robots? A new, self-driving shuttle in a test program on the Las Vegas Strip had its first accident in its very first hour of operation, reportedly due to the error of a human delivery truck driver who ran into it.
Driverless shuttle bus involved in a minor crash with a semi-truck less than two hours after making its debut in Las Vegas. https://t.co/Mk1oYNLVmw pic.twitter.com/akItycGCa9
— Good Morning America (@GMA) November 10, 2017
The autonomous Navya Arma shuttle is 15 feet long and traverses a 0.6-mile loop along Fremont Street, between Las Vegas Boulevard and Eighth Street, with three stops and is being limited to speeds of 12 miles per hour for testing purposes, according to Forbes. The shuttle only operates between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., but on its first day of operation, it encountered a delivery truck that was pulling into the street. “The shuttle did what it was supposed to do, in that it’s (sic) sensors registered the truck and the shuttle stopped to avoid the accident,” the city said in a statement reported by the Associated Press. “Unfortunately the delivery truck did not stop and grazed the front fender of the shuttle. Had the truck had the same sensing equipment that the shuttle has the accident would have been avoided.”
Las Vegas unveiled a driverless shuttle bus, and dozens lined up for a ride. Just hours later, it crashed. Story: https://t.co/POCLyxxBuY pic.twitter.com/TEVLXz6SEN
— AP West Region (@APWestRegion) November 9, 2017
The truck driver was cited. After the accident, the shuttle reportedly took two complete loops around its route without further incident — after being patched up with some bandages meant for actual humans, apparently.
With 6 bandages, the autonomous shuttle is back on the road in downtown Las Vegas. @reviewjournal pic.twitter.com/0TNQDj4YVn
— Erik Verduzco (@Erik_Verduzco) November 9, 2017
Elsewhere in the Twitterverse, Sherif Hanna of Qualcomm made light of the potential mega-merger of his company and Broadcom, which was the big chip news of the week:
https://twitter.com/sherifhanna/status/927542900757426176
Oh, not much, really:
If completed, Broadcom's proposed bid for Qualcomm would be the largest technology acquisition ever https://t.co/WMiTfB5hyB pic.twitter.com/3VE7q59tSO
— Bloomberg (@business) November 6, 2017
Tech M&A aside, Qualcomm showed off its gigabit LTE prowess this week, working with T-Mobile US as teh carrier doubles down on LTE-Advanced deployments:
Amazing last demo of #GigabitLTE today at San Jose @Qualcomm @t-mobile proving LTE-A actually improves network performance pic.twitter.com/qckRa2Z6uX
— Wayne Lam (@waynesworld) November 9, 2017
Proud to announce that @TMobile has 920+ markets with LTE Advanced and 430 of them with trifecta of Carrier Agg, 4X4 MIMO AND 256 QAM.
LTE-A can up to double download speed & the trifecta can up to double it AGAIN. https://t.co/WXpKOQPUZ4
— Neville (@NevilleRay) November 9, 2017
Also of note — the T-Mo/Sprint merger may have fallen through, but that only makes Softbank’s increased investment in Sprint more interesting, as observed by analyst Walt Piecyk:
SoftBank bought 6.5m Sprint shares for $38m in last 2 days. $S $SFTBYhttps://t.co/v74wtLtzpB
— Walter Piecyk (@WaltLightShed) November 8, 2017
Sprint Chairman Masa Son says Sprint's annual network investment to rise to $5-$6 billion per year, up from $3.5-$4.0 billion. $S
— Walter Piecyk (@WaltLightShed) November 6, 2017
And for your Friday fun, there’s nothing like a little dance-off between the Avengers and the Justice League. It’s worth it, I promise.
I don’t know what I just watched but it deserves all the awards https://t.co/IRCm6MRNAl
— Alicia Marie (@KC_Goddess29) November 9, 2017
