A lot of the extra or tertiary type stuff Google does is often justified by saying what improves the Internet and gets more people using it more often is good for Google.
It only takes a couple moments of reflection to realize that if Google’s vision of self-driving cars takes off, people would have a lot more time to surf and play on the web! Think of the billions of man-hours spent behind the wheel. If computers could automate all this, wouldn’t it be the ultimate robotics application?
http://www.smartplanet.com/technology/blog/thinking-tech/googles-self-driving-car/5445/
Anyway, this wasn’t exactly a “Connected Car” post, but it was recent news that got a lot of headlines.