<story><title>A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-10-30/it-s-been-10-years-since-robots-proved-they-could-drive</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>aresant</author><text>Keeping up with Darpa&amp;#x27;s challenges is a good way to see into the future a couple of their current projects:&lt;p&gt;1) A machine-learning competition to overcome scarcity in the radio frequency which is INSANELY fascinating and, if they pull it off, hugely impactful -&amp;gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;spectrumcollaborationchallenge.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;spectrumcollaborationchallenge.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;2) A program to build technology to drive “swarm sprint” exercises to inform tactics and technologies for large groups of unmanned air and ground robots in urban environments. Yes, like how do we build a collaborative air drone army.&lt;p&gt;And PS they are having a hacker fest in the bay in a couple of weeks, registration is closed but bet you can get in if you email via - &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;darpahackfest.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;darpahackfest.com&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-10-30/it-s-been-10-years-since-robots-proved-they-could-drive</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>cschmidt</author><text>I would argue that the 2004 DARPA challenge was a failure with the best car, Sandstorm, only going 7 miles before getting stuck on a rock. That led to a do-over in 2005 that was really the first success.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;DARPA_Grand_Challenge#2004_Grand_Challenge&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;DARPA_Grand_Challenge#2004_Gra...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>