Today in things that Google computers are better at than you, simple human: Driving. An incident involving a Google driverless Prius was originally reported by Jalopnik this morning as the first traffic accident for Google's fleet of robot cars. Which could have been terrible PR for the Google autonomous vehicle program that's been quietly logging hundreds of thousands of miles on the streets of California and Nevada. As it turns out, the incident in which a gPrius rear-ended another Prius near the company's headquarters in Mountain View occurred while the vehicle was in manual mode. So, the robot car wasn't trying to mate with another hybrid vehicle, then? more ›

Marking the fifth Caltrain fatality this year, a man hit and killed near the San Antonio station in Mountain View yesterday. The crash happened at around 5:10 p.m., snarling the evening's commute. No passengers were injured. [via CBS 5] more ›

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Saturday's Great American Food and Music Festival looked like it had win written all over it: Diners, Drive-ins and Dives' Guy Fieri, alpha-male grilling fanboy Bobby Flay! A16's Nate Appleman! Boulevard's Nancy Oakes! LA's Pink’s Hot Dogs!, Tony Luke's Cheesesteaks! Booze! Jazzy tunes! Sun! more ›

College students, when will you ever learn? Never--never!-- try to to do the right thing by organizing a worker's union at your job. This is the quickest way to get wrongfully terminated. Case in point: Mountain View-based Uloop.com, a start-up online company that bills itself as "a marketplace for college students" (see also: Craigslist), fired two of their Cal Poly student workers allegedly for trying to unionize the company. more ›

The Arcade Fire came through Mountain View's Shoreline Amphitheatre last Friday. We have the pictures to prove this. A suddenly-rather-popular independent rock band, it's surprising that this little-group-that-could is suddenly playing arena-size venues. more ›

You know we usually try to hoard up all the crime-type news for the Tuesday and Friday blotters, but there was enough vaguely unsettling news this weekend to warrant a post a little early, we thought. To wit: more ›

-- The Arcade Fire: LCD Soundsystem and Wild Light open for this white-hot -- that's right, white-hot, or so we hear -- Canadian indie-rock band. Music starts tonight at 7 p.m. at Shoreline Amphitheatre, 1 Amphitheatre Pkwy, Mountain View; $19-40. more ›

in Mountain View. Russian food and deli in Campbell. And a vegan wedding! more ›

...And that's not even the curviest part! A car chase that started in Marin County around 3:00 a.m. Monday morning ended abruptly when the driver, speeding at around 75 mph over the Golden Gate Bridge, overshot the turn from Doyle Drive onto Lombard Street and flipped over. A open fifth of Hennessey was found in the car, and the passengers are in SF General with non-fatal injuries. more ›

Andrew Frame was recently named by BusinessWeek as a "top entrepreneur under the age of 30". He's aiming to fulfill that promise with ooma, a company he founded in 2005 that has a whole new take on telephony. It enables unlimited U.S. domestic calls to any wireless or landline phone number . ooma's gotten media play for a couple reasons -- for one thing, much has been made in the press and on the podwaves about the involvement of Ashton Kutcher in the company. more ›

-- All About Eve: Brutal, drunk, rapid-fire dialogue; famous lines ("Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night," etc.); and a backstage story told so, so, so well make this '50s film more than just a camp classic. Starring Bette Davis. Screens tonight at 7 p.m. at the Castro Theatre, Castro & Market Streets; $9.50. more ›

--Turns out rescuers totally missed the car of the missing Alameda County woman and her priest friend, even though they got exact directions from 911. [Chron.] more ›

Kwik-E-Mart, a store normally confined to your television set, is invading 7-Eleven stores across the country; locally, there's one in Mountain View. more ›

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Bay Area pianist Jon Nakamatsu was the last American to win the Van Cliburn prize, the Nobel prize for classical concert pianists. We would have said the Presidential Medal of Freedom for pianists, but Van Cliburn himself actually received that award in 2003 from fellow Texan George W. Bush, even though, unlike other Bush nominees, Van Cliburn did deserve it. Jon won the Van Cliburn gold medal in 1997 and that was the kick-off of a career as a world class soloist and recording artist which took him on every big stage, and with every orchestra, an especially impressive feat since he was until then a German language teacher in a Mountain View high school! Go Lancers! more ›

--Killer squirrels on the attack! A menacing critter stomped into an open classroom in a South San Jose school and bit a first-grader on the finger and two adults in the classroom. They called 911, but when animal control arrived, the squirrel had fled -- or in their words, "He it outta there." Har! The school took pains to say that they don't usually have a problem with vicious rodents, unlike those other attack squirrels in the Mountain View park. more ›

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Can you help identify the man in a coma at SF General? The man, who appears to be in his 20s, was dropped off about a week ago, by someone who said he was a pastor or minister but who left the hospital before they could get any more information. 5'10, 190 pounds, short brown hair and brown eyes, and he has several tattoos (one of which pictured at left, because we couldn't bear to use the picture of the man's face -- you can see that picture here.) If you have any information, call the hospital at (415) 206-8311. more ›

When we go on vacation, we always worry somewhat paranoiacally that our house has burned down, or that the ants have taken over, or that we left all the major appliances running and the iron and the dishwasher are plotting their coup -- but coming home from a two-week vacation and finding a dead body is not a scenario that had occurred to us! The vacationer mentioned that he did have a catsitter coming in periodically while he was gone, but didn't know if that was the dead person because he didn't check the body. Also, the dead body was naked, in handcuffs, and had a plastic bag over its head. Man, we are never going on another vacation ever again. more ›

-Man hit and killed at the Mountain View Caltrain station, delaying the trains for 45 minutes. more ›

>-Steve Jobs might still be in a little bit of trouble. -It may not be as cold as a witch's tit, but it's still pretty damn cold. more ›

From the Starbucks (not really a) bomber in January to the opening of the Daiso in December, it was certainly one heck of a year, wasn't it? more ›

Expect a snarled commute today: three cars and two trucks mixed it up on southbound 101 near 22nd Street at 2:19 p.m.. Only minor injuries, but Officer Cakebread of the CHP (awesome name) says there's no ETA on how long it'll take to clear the highway. That means more time with you and the light hits on KOIT. more ›

Last week's winner, the SF Weekly. Josh Wolf's mom writes a letter, as does transgender activist Chris Daley and an angry rebutter to Hiya Swanhuyser 's article about a rural rock documentary. The Bouncer's article about Huey Lewis and the mentally disabled won an award and is included in the Best Music Writing of 2006 anthology. Congrats, Bouncer! Are you an Apologist for the Blue Angels? If you're SFist Jon, the answer is yes. Skater art in the basement of the Hall of Justice. Cover article: Did a local fisherman get killed in a hit and run boating accident in the Bay? Chris Daly, not the transgender activist, will be at the CELLspace 10th Anniversary party on Saturday. Meredith eats at the Westfield Food Court -- sorry, we meant "Emporium." SFist Ced is so disgusted by this, he refuses to review it. An awesome Shins fan at the Download Music Fest. Lily Allen says some crazy stuff, and Bing Ji Ling picks his favorite ice cream places. And Matt Gonzalez's horoscope: do whatever Rufus Wainwright does. more ›

This morning around 6:45, a pedestrian was killed by a northbound Caltrain near the Mountain View train station. Train service was help up for about an hour afterwards and started up again around 8 and there were 20-30 minute delays afterwards. It's the twelfth death this year involving the trains. There were ten last year and according to the police, about 80% of them were suicides. more ›

--D6 candidate Matt Drake says Chris Daly's never talked about tidal power before because Daly doesn't want to work with Newsom. We thought tidal power was a Matt Gonzalez idea. Besides, District 6 doesn't border the ocean. more ›

We knew we should have saved the dead llama story for just one more day -- it's time for another Animal Roundup! more ›

This week's offerings represent the Bay Area's diversity. If that's too PC for you, go for the ones with a touch of taboo. more ›

We were busy geeking out in the Sierra this weekend. Luckily, you won't find yourself covered with hundreds of tiny leeches after diving into any of these events. more ›