This must be the best April fool’s joke Google have ever pulled on April fool’s day. We like it because it is closely related to the automotive industry, Racing and Nascar all things that we do here at Car Site. On the 1st of April 2012 Google used their Google frontage to announce their new partnership: “Driving change: get up to speed on our winning new partnership“
Google Self Driving Cars
A while back Google Announced that they have developed software that is used to automate the driving of cars and that they use video cameras, radar sensors and a laser range finder to “see” traffic, as well as detailed maps (which Google collect using manually driven vehicles) to navigate the road ahead. This is all made possible by Google’s data centers, which can process the enormous amounts of information gathered by their cars when mapping their terrain.
“Google Founder Sergey Brin standing infront of the Nascar Self-Driving vehicle”
Larry and Sergey founded Google because they wanted to help solve really big problems using technology. And one of the big problems we’re working on today is car safety and efficiency. Our goal is to help prevent traffic accidents, free up people’s time and reduce carbon emissions by fundamentally changing car use.
All in all, the Google self-driving cars have logged over 140,000 miles and they think this is a first in robotics research.
Google Announced their self driving car in October 9, 2010 at 9:00 PM you can view the official Google Press Release about the Google Self Driving Car on Google Official Blog
Google Self Driving Car and Nascar April Fool’s Day announcement not a prank or joke?
Armed with the information above and the announcement which Google made on their Official Blog the Joke and April Fool’s day prank maybe on the media this year! We all know how concept cars work. You go to a car show and you see a concept car. Usually the car is far-fetched and very advanced for what is on the road at the moment. Then 3 or 4 years later the car is on the road. One such example is the BMW I8 Concept car
from the movie Mission Impossible which already have become reality.
Video of the Google Nascar Partnership
Here is a short video of the Google Nascar Partnership and Car Announcement. Unfortunately if you are in Australia, India, South Africa, Germany or the United Kingdom you may not be able to view the official video on Youtube as the people at Nascar thinks the internet is only in the USA as they have blocked other countries from viewing it!
“Video of the Google Nascar Partnership”
“Instead of relying on human error the Google Announced Nascar Racing car drives itself. In short the car route is plotted into the car, using camera’s, computing power, Google Self-driving software and information from other cars it may just be possible that the Google Nascar April Fool’s Day Prank is not a joke!”
In the next couple of years the “Google Nascar Partnership” may just become a reality and we might see the Google Self-Driving car racing at Nascar.
“Image of the Google Nascar April Fool’s day Prank Autonomous Self Driving Car” – Source Google Blog. (For the Google+ discussion about the Google Nascar April Fool’s day announcement you can visit the Google+ page.)
Gmail were announced on April Fool’s day and it were no Joke!
For some reason the Google and Nascar partnership and self-driving car is just not that far-fetched for us here at Car Site. Gmail were announced on April Fool’s day and many people laughed it off as a joke! I have a suspicion that this is one of those “Best ever April Fool’s Joke and that the Joke is on the Media and not on Google for reporting the Google Nascar April Fool’s day announcement as a Joke!”
The first April Fool’s Day Joke from Google this year were the 8-bit Google Maps system for Nintendo. You can also read about Google’s previous year’s April Fool’s Jokes where we have summarized the best Google April Fool’s Jokes
.