Another day, another tech giant getting into the self-driving car business: This time it’s Samsung, which has received approval to test autonomous vehicle technology on its home turf.
South Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport granted Samsung approval to test a Hyundai vehicle equipped with the company’s autonomous tech on the country’s highways and byways, reports The Wall Street Journal.
Officials didn’t say where exactly the cars will be able to roam, but it has let other companies test driverless vehicles on most public roads since last fall, as well as in a government facility, notes the WSJ.
State news agency Yonhap notes that the move comes as the ministry has tried to ease self-driving regulations to boost industry growth. To that end, the ministry reduced the number of passengers required in a self-driving car from two to just one.
“Self-driving cars call for the collaboration of various cutting-edge technologies from the automobile, artificial intelligence, and information communication sectors,” the ministry said.
Samsung’s biggest competitor in the personal electronics industry is also one of its many rivals in the autonomous car business, and is another company that likely won’t be making its own vehicle to do so: After getting approval from California to test driverless cars in that state, Apple has reportedly been sending out engineers on public roads in Silicon Valley in Lexus vehicles outfitted with its self-driving tech.
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist
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