INSIDE
oCtoBer 2017 BCBusiness 71
The Thrill
Is Gone
IllustratIon: Kagan Mcleod
Driverless cars may
deliver many benets,
including fewer trac
accidents. But will
they be any fun?
by Steve Burgess
Find something fishy ... Follow the BC Ale Trail ... Learn the drill ... Win at the races ... + more
O C T O B E R 2 0 17
"I'm an initiator–I like to start
things, transition projects in a positive
way and then pass it on" –p.78
Off lıne
E V E R Y B O D Y ' S TA L K I N '
WATERCOOLER
The January 1958 issue of the Radio Corp. of
America's Electronic Age magazine was hit-
and-miss in its predictions. The widespread
availability of colour television worked out as
forecast. But "Radio via Meteor Trails?" This
was a story claiming scientists were bounc-
ing radio waves o‚ the ionized particles left
behind by meteors entering the atmosphere,
for some odd reason. Either this idea never
bore fruit, or it's still so top secret that sinister
men in dark suits are going to be knocking on
my door and dragging me away within the
next few minutes.
Yet another article in the magazine gushed
that
RCA was building a microwave radio
network for the government of Cuba.
Unfortunately, this fearless forecast of
tomorrow failed to predict the overthrow of
the Cuban government by Fidel Castro's
guerrillas exactly one year later, on January 1,
1959. There's probably a dramatic story yet to
be told of
RCA engineers Œeeing in little boats
overloaded with microwave transmitters.
But one sci- projection in that 1958
magazine may actually be taking shape—the
driverless car. Electronic Age revealed that
RCA
was testing driverless cars on closed tracks
even then, using circuitry embedded in the
pavement and roadside sensors. Elsewhere a
1957 magazine ad from "America's Indepen-
dent Electric Light and Power Companies"
showed a family racing down the highway
