(Lexus.)

Is there anyone not working on developing autonomous cars?

Google, of course, has been the high-profile leader in the field, not just developing the vehicles, but shelling out big lobbying dollars to make self-driving cars street legal in three states. But the search giant isn't alone. Volvo tested self-driving cars in Spain last year, and Ford predicts autonomous vehicles to arrive by 2017.

Now, two more car makers are joining the fray. According to The Wall Street Journal, Toyota and Audi will demo self-driving cars at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week:

An Audi official also said the luxury-car company will be demonstrating autonomous vehicle capabilities at the Las Vegas show, including a feature that allows a car to find a parking space and park itself without a driver behind the wheel.

Toyota's prototype vehicle is a Lexus LS 600h fitted with radar and camera equipment that can detect other vehicles, road lane lines and traffic signals, giving the vehicle the ability to navigate streets without a driver.

We're particularly excited for the Audi feature, which should free up our hands for making lewd, gloating gestures when we our self-driven car beats out some poor sap who still drives himself for a parking spot.

<3 (Photo: Domain Gang)

Craigslist has taken a step back from becoming the Internet asshole, dropping exclusive license to all posts. [EFF]

How your tech story promotion sausage gets made. [New York Times]

Here's a 360 panoramic view of Mars taken by the Curiosity rover. It is riveting. [Wall Street Journal]

No surprise here: self-driving cars are better at driving than actual humans. [The Atlantic]

Oh good, you can now live without breathing. [Gizmodo]

Maybe the Singularity isn't coming, after all. [Cognitive Social Web]

So wry, that Eric Schmidt. (Photo: Twitter)

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt shed some light on Google's self-driving car experiment at the Sun Valley conference yesterday, reports TechCrunch. Mr. Schmidt thinks that it's possible that self-driving cars will be the dominant form of transportation within our lifetimes. I know a lot of commuters with high blood pressure who will be happy to hear that.

Unfortunately, according to Mr. Schmidt, the cars do have one big problem that tech can't solve: They’re programmed never to go over the speed limit.

"The current biggest problem is that it runs at the speed limit and nobody drives at the speed limit,” he said. Ugh, are self-driving cars going to become the new "old people" of the freeway?

Of course, there's also that pesky problem of getting non-tech geeks to adapt to what essentially amounts to a robot with the power to maim and kill you. So does Mr. Schmidt think the luddites among us will be down to put their lives in the hands of a metal robot?

"Depends on how drunk they are," he quipped.