Autonomous cars driving future change

AT THE Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, the roulette wheel of innovation landed on something rather old-fashioned and unexpected: The automobile.

In recent decades, cars have been undergoing a gradual transformation from the kinds of mechanical systems Henry Ford might have imagined into computers on wheels. And that transformation is bringing with it a new wave of digital advances — above all, autonomous driving.

The first autonomous (or self-driving) cars date back to the late 20th century. But recent increases in sophistication and reductions in cost — reflected, for example, in cheap Lidar systems which can “see” a street in 3D in a way similar to that of the human eye — are now bringing driverless cars closer to market.