Google patents

Google, Inc.'s awarded patent for "Transitioning a mixed-mode vehicle to autonomous mode" here.

From a BBC News article here:

"Google believe it is a technology that is here and now and will start appearing in motorcars in the near future," said Professor Alan Woodward from the department of computing at the University of Surrey.

"We already have systems that park your cars for you and automatically brake - the next obvious step is to have cars take over the routine driving.

"Google has funded a lot of this work at universities. Not surprisingly, if they think it is going to be big they want to patent it."

Shin-kansen: Japanese High-Speed Trains!

"The oldest and busiest Shinkansen corridor - Central Japan Railway's 550km Tokaido line, which connects Tokyo with the western city of Osaka - carries 400,000 passengers a day and has run since 1964 without a fatal accident. The average delay last year was 36 seconds, with most of that caused by typhoons."

The Financial Times talks about the Japanese Shin-kansen in "Tokyo bites hte bullet on Shinkansen" here becoming available to the world after close to five decades in use.  Great competition for the likes of Chinese and German train manufacturers.