Google Self-Driving Car Event, Austin Thinkery Children's Museum
A promotional event for Google's self-driving cars took place at the Thinkery children's museum in Austin, Texas. Attendees observed the "bean-shaped" prototype vehicles and interacted with Google staff members who indicated that "Phase One" of the rollout—where drivers are trained to take over manually from software—is projected for 2020. The event was characterized as lacking clear marketing direction or public engagement despite the presence of live music and refreshments.
google· self-driving car· austin· thinkery· autonomous vehicles· phase one
00:00 Swallowing. Adam Curry, John C. Dvorak. It's Sunday August 30th 2015 time once again for your Gitmo Nation media assassination episode 752! This is no agenda Protecting migrants all across Gitmo Nation and broadcasting live from the capital of the drone star state here in FEMA Region 6. In the morning everybody! I'm Adam Curry, and from Northern Silicon Valley where i have a lot to complain about...I am John C. DeVore. It's Crackpot & Buzzkill! Alright.... Good grumpy John! We like Grumpy John or you're not grumpy? Grumpy not grumpy just complaining. I went to a spectacular event last night John
00:45 I went to a garden party. Uh, no...I went to Google self-driving car event. Oh! An event? Here in Austin at the Thinkery Yeah they're trying to get there They were doing it awesome because they're trying to get legislation along with things to be let on the road Well they didn't do a very good job No? No this was the stupidest thing i've ever been too But I was happy I was there of course Because they had free booze Snacks snacks yeah, so thinkery is a pretty cool children's museum here in Austin where they can do all kinds of hands-on stuff It's it's actually one of the not so lame children museums Okay And you know but it's also it has technology stuff and you know some high tech stuff So I've made sense for them to do this. So we head on over there go check it out and In walking around and I'm like well What is the point of this event?
01:45 And no one could really tell me. They had the self-driving car inside, or outside right outside kind of like a red carpet deal. So you were... A little bean looking cars? No the bean was inside Okay With a video playing kind of explaining what it does But the ones that are currently driving around in Austin were outside so inside there was nothing going on except for food and drink which is nice nobody could tell me anything I found a pass You know, a laminated pass just on the ground. It said staff self-driving car Google Staffs so I put that on and So like I got to talk to some other people who were very confused that I was wearing a staff badge yet asking them questions But the whole thing seemed to be you walk up on the red carpet you stand in front of the self driving car They take a picture you can tweet it out
02:34 That was what it was that was the whole event But I but I did talk to two Googlers who were actually on the self-driving car team in Austin They're here. You know they live in San Francisco, but they're here for extended amount of time and Get their cards no Thanks No, I should have you right stupid yeah well because I had the past you know they thought I was one of them It doesn't make any difference still exchange cards by anyway so I pressed a lot about how it was going and said, well you know we're the phase one will be training people when to take over manually from the automatic mode. That's a little disappointing! Why would they ever have to take over? Because this because it's software and it's fucking dangerous that's why
03:28 And then I said, well okay so when do you think phase one will start which is this where you'd be sitting in the car and the car drives itself but you are trained when to take over. He said, When do you think? Well probably 2020. Sounds right! Yeah Phase 1. Phase One. That's a major change in societal change coming up now. Well I don't see this happening for another 10 years at least That'd be 2025. Yeah, I just push it off to 2030 just to make it all fit. Anyway that was a bust! It got a little hammered but that was fun. You know its interesting you think Google...I don't get the impression Google can do
04:17 Customer support, customer care, PR proper marketing. No! Well they have no PR They have an office with a bunch of people in it that answer questions by email They don't even get out there much In fact one the problems they have or I guess they see it as a benefit is that they do stuff and then never account for because they won't answer questions And so that kind of lack of communications with the public would also mean dull events. But there was no one, no one spoke? There was no stand-up thing like we're so happy to be... None of that! Just a bunch of people with a band who had the toughest gig ever because no one's paying attention. You know I hate to be in that band
05:01 They're playing some kind of crazy banjo country music. I can just see the meeting in At Google headquarters, San Francisco it's Texas let's get a banjo Yeah, thanks morons show Really that's the way came across bands with the banjos For those dumb hicks and text access rat stupidly do we should be having some sponsored Paula dent maybe get Paula dent Paula Dent So I paid a lot of attention to Euroland over the past couple of days. Oh, by the way! I'm back in the condo downtown Austin... so i think we had a reasonably successful test of the Airstream that meaning that I didn't- oh hey I'm able to keep it cool enough in 95 degree heat without the air conditioner on We did encounter a glitch
