Hollande is aimed at robots, driverless cars to the revival of the French industry

PARIS, 12 September Reuters) - François hollande on Thursday to the French industry by promoting new technologies to the creation of jobs with the revival created a 10-year timetable, but offered little public money from stretched state coffers.

Socialist President, whose 2014 vowed State budget that next month to focus expenditure restraint, to turn, as he called it, a "lost decade" of conservative rule in which domestic industries fled roughly 700,000 jobs back.

But instructs the system to private investment and the Government Act as a coordinator to bolster growth in 34 areas of driverless cars on electric machines and a new generation of high-speed trains.

"France is a nation of inventors, engineers and producers," said hollande, citing France's role in past centuries and decades in the development of technologies from the steam engine to the hot-air balloons and rechargeable batteries.

"We have to remain duty," he added, however, that the plan no return to a State-directed industrial policy "has turned statist" was the 1960s and 1970s years with so-called.

France new public investment bank on the one hand to provide credit for innovation – no amount has been specified - but representatives declared that they invested with 10 euros from private investors increases accordingly hoped every euro of public funds.

State-appointed "industrial officers" will collaborate with companies and French projects the past successor to develop, as the supersonic Concorde or high-speed TGV urge train - both fruits of the funded research projects.

Stuck with about 10 percent unemployment and the Government forced this week its 2014 lower growth forecast hollande is struggling to raise his poll numbers about 30 percent. He hopes that such purposeful display optimism helps raise hopes for the future among the French.

While officials say 475,000 jobs created or, if your roadmap can be followed by more than 10 years, current data the Statistics Office INSEE remains but grim, with 49.600 industrial jobs lost in the year to August, after.

DRIVERLESS CARS, ELECTRICAL MACHINES

Presented the most new designs hollande on the trade fair car parts Valeo or air built by industrial giants such as car manufacturer Renault,- and vast EADS Group.

Flanked by industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg, showed robot technology, models for an electrical machine, hollande built by EADS, driverless car by Renault-Nissan and an ultra-efficient vehicle Peugeot laboratories, developed in that retail would tested with 15,000 euros ($20,000).

Currently both Peugeot and Renault production in France because of high labour costs continue to struggle and adapt employment laws, to make difficult personnel strength.

Montebourg it lacked no ideas for the promotion of industry, production costs in France for example, create an online tool to help companies that have relocated abroad to recalculate.

But clear successes are deceptive, despite his statement after 10 months of work, that his mediation with vulnerable companies saved some 60,000 threatened industrial jobs.

More jobs to come still France as home. Figures from the March showed that businesses 44, production, since 2009 was returned, had outsourced activities 267, after France according to the Observatoire de l' Investissement. ($1 = 0,7518 Euro)

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Nevada first state to authorize driverless cars

The Nevada becomes the first state to adopt self-driving car road rules. Msnbc's Alex Witt reports.

By Paul A. Eisenstein, The Detroit Bureau

The Jetsons would feel right at home in Nevada -- which this month became the first state in the nation to formally approve legislation authorizing the use of autonomous vehicles on its roadways.

The once far-fetched idea is becoming more and more grounded every day as manufacturers work to develop technology that could permit a motorist to plug in a destination and let the vehicle drive there automatically. Indeed, Google has become a leader in autonomous technology, with several prototypes already logging over 160,000 miles in test runs.

While most experts contend the technology is still years away from widespread application, Nevada lawmakers apparently couldn’t wait.  Last summer, lawmakers there ordered state regulators to establish rules covering the use of autonomous vehicles.

The regulations have now been finalized -- and the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles will now have to formalize licensing procedures for companies that want to test their vehicles in the state.

“Nevada is the first state to embrace what is surely the future of automobiles,” said Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles Director Bruce Breslow in a press release. “These regulations establish requirements companies must meet to test their vehicles on Nevada’s public roadways as well as requirements for residents to legally operate them in the future.”

The decision to act was apparently driven, at least in part, by Google, which has wanted to ensure that its autonomous vehicle test program wasn’t operating in a legal limbo.  Google formally launched its research and development program in 2010 and has so far recorded not a single collision.

While such vehicles will effectively handle the serious driving chores they will also require someone to be in the position of “operator,” ready to take over just in case of a technical glitch.  That’s likely one reason why Nevada maintained one key restriction in the new rules.

“There is no exemption for drinking and driving,” cautioned Breslow, meaning the bartender or bouncer won’t be able to toss you in the back seat, hit the Start button and send you speeding home.

On the other hand, regulators did give the operator permission to text and use a handheld cellphone.

The operator, at least for now, will need to have a special license.  And the vehicles will be required to use an airline-style “black box” to track its operation, with data to be turned over to the state.

Manufacturers will be required to post bonds of between $1 million and $3 million, meanwhile, and they will have to advise the state as to when and where they’ll be testing their vehicles.

Google is just one of the players in the rapidly expanding field.  General Motors has run several tests, including one that required the installation of special sensors in a stretch of Interstate highway north of San Diego.  It has also been working with Pittsburgh’s Carnegie-Mellon University on a self-driving Chevrolet Tahoe SUV, dubbed The Boss.

BMW, meanwhile, has a number of test vehicles in operation, including one that it recently took to the treacherous Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca near Monterey, California.

And Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval was given a personal demonstration of what the new law might cover when he was chauffeured in an autonomous Toyota Prius that used radar and other sensors to help guide it to its destination.

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