0 Cambridge Company Debuts Self-Driving Taxis

Self Driving taxi from Cambridge start-up

Credit: Boston Globe

They might be driven in Singapore, but a small start-up at 1 Broadway in East Cambridge, nuTonomy Inc., has designed the control software to facilitates self-driving taxi cabs.

From the Boston Globe:

“This is the world’s first public trial of robo-taxi service,” said nuTonomy cofounder and chief executive Karl Iagnemma. “This is the start of what’s going to be a technology revolution.”

NuTonomy is providing the control software guiding the six taxicabs that debuted in Singapore, modified electric cars from French automaker Renault and Japan’s Mitsubishi. Each vehicle uses lasers and cameras to observe its surroundings and steer through Singapore’s business district. An engineer from nuTonomy was in the front seat, ready to take control if necessary, and a researcher in the rear monitored the cars’ computers.

0 Cambridge Innovation Center at 15 Years Old

One Broadway street CIC

Credit: Boston.About.com

Creating a community for innovators to innovate might be one of the most valuable innovations in Boston. Yes, the deals that are brought to market through CIC are what the VC’s are looking for, but without Tom Rowe’s platform — the Cambridge Innovation Center — some of these ideas may have been kept on the shelf and not made it to market.

A Boston Globe article offers some insight on CIC’s direction for the future:

“In April, [founder, Tim Rowe] opened the CIC Boston, a 60,000-square-foot shared office space downtown, and it has been just a few weeks since he opened CIC St. Louis, his first out-of-state venture and the largest startup space that is not on the East or West coast. Rowe was keen to cozy up to the Midwestern city’s startup scene: He saw promise in Washington University’s health care colossus and was tickled when Boeing opened offices in the 120,000-square-foot space — one of its first occupants. Lately, he has been shuttling to and from the Netherlands as he looks to take CIC global.”

Additional details and photos from the CIC’s 15th anniversary, are available on the Globe’s website.