Driverless taxis now available to Singapore public

Autonomous machines have been a thing of fiction for decades. From flying cars to artificial intelligence taking over the world—we've seen it all in the movies. Well, good news—fiction is finally becoming a reality.

via GIPHY

Robots taking over? Flying cars? …We’re not there yet, unfortunately.

No, I’m talking about DRIVERLESS CARS!

Last week, Singapore became the first country in the world to get driverless taxis.

Although autonomous cars have been around since the 80s, technology start-up, nuTonomy, is the first company in the world to implement a self-driving taxi service for public use.

In collaboration with the Singapore Land Transport Authority, nuTonomy has implanted six cars in the heart of Singapore’s one-north business district as a public trial of the world’s first self-driving car service and ride-hailing app.

These cars are able to sense their environment and navigate without human input. Because the software is still in its testing phase, passengers are limited to designated pick-up and drop-off locations.

At the moment, the service is only available to select Singapore residents.

NuTonomy is hoping to use the data from the trial to improve their software in preparation for the launch of a commercial driverless taxi service in Singapore in 2018. The Singaporean government sees this as a solution to their crowded and overburdened streets.

Uber announced earlier this month that it would be implementing driverless taxis in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the near future.