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Apple receives permit in California to test self-driving cars

uk.reuters.com

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Re: Apple receives permit in California to test self-driving cars

#201

Post by tigershark »

chrismealy wrote: post #116
israrkhan wrote: post #69

self-driving cars are becoming a crowded space. Too many players, with no clear winner in sight. The real problem to solve here is not technical , its regulatory. Tesla and Google have some advantage, but it is still far from reality.

The main problem is totally technical! Robot cars can barely deal with following white lines on the road. How about rain, construction, poorly marked roads, fallen trees, badly parked delivery trucks, emergency vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists, etc? Can cars read roads signs and understand them? We'll have full-on AI before self-driving cars are for real.

Non-sense. Full-on AI is completely another level compared to self driving cars. It is like saying that we'll have full blown image recognition before pong.

Re: Apple receives permit in California to test self-driving cars

#202

Post by true_religion »

snovv_crash wrote: post #190
iancarroll wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Apple may be able to make this distinction as well. You portray them as an incompetent organization based on one defect. And, of course, car manufacturers routinely put out products with life threatening defects (i.e. Takata), so it's not like they're immune from fault either.

I'm not worried about their technical capabilities. I'm worried about a company culture that blames the customer when the product is misused or doesn't meet industry standards in some way. Things they have gotten away with in the phone and computer market will kill people in the automotive market.

Not meeting industry standards, with respect to cars, is illegal.

Mis-using vehicles while operating on the road is illegal.

Cars are far more tightly regulated both for end-users and for manufacturers.

Re: Apple receives permit in California to test self-driving cars

#203

Post by usrusr »

Miserlou57 wrote: post #188
millstone wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The image of "shipping phones off to be built by other people in China" could not be farther from the truth. Not only does Apple plan every build in extreme detail (stations, tests, flow, etc), they send an army of PMs, EPMs, engineers, etc. to oversee each build in person. They have to. Apple's manufacturing and operations expertise is enormous. It's a competitive advantage on the same scale as, say, Google's data c…

this. literally every United SFO HKG upper-deck is loaded with Apple engineers.

Scaling that model from single-PCB consumer electronics to cars might be difficult then.

Re: Apple receives permit in California to test self-driving cars

#204

Post by true_religion »

Animats wrote: post #155
ziikutv wrote: post #59

Heres a question, I know a lot of companies are investing their time/money into working on self-driving cars.. but from what I see, a lot of the cars use the same sensor. LIDAR and cameras being the main sensors. Of course, we have already seen Tesla perform well with these sensors. However, my question: Is/Was this industry only held back by sensing? edit: Restructure paragraph Regards,

For testing purposes, today's clunky rotating LIDAR units are OK. For deployment, something better will be needed. That's coming along well, but due to lack of a market, nobody is producing in volume yet. I'd bet on Continental, the auto parts company, which is using flash LIDAR technology from Advanced Scientific Concepts.[1] That's known to work well, and ASC has been selling it to DoD successfully. Space-X also us…

Their logo is a curious mashup.

Tag-line "the future in motion".

Logo character: a horse.

Really?

It's as if they wanted to present themselves both as an old and respectable company (hence the horse, and name), and yet still modern enough to define the future.

The mashup though is so clumsily done it makes me believe the company is either a very early stage startup, or an utter scam.

Re: Apple receives permit in California to test self-driving cars

#205

Post by true_religion »

marze wrote: post #156
chrismealy wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least we have each other. Honestly, I am completely baffled that people who write software think self-driving cars are just around the corner. At this point I think it's basically a futurist cult.

99% of situations are the "easy" part. It is the last 1% that will take a long time. Snow. Rain. Missing headlight. Etc.

Can't we just accept that the car won't drive itself in the snow or rain or with a missing headlight?

I'd find that totally reasonable, and get back behind the wheel to take my own risks in a snowstorm (or ... you know... stay at home like the advisories always tell you to).

Re: Apple receives permit in California to test self-driving cars

#206

Post by adamlett »

jes5199 wrote: post #136

Tesla has such a head start on car production, I don't see how Apple can catch up.

Are you kidding me? Tesla? Tesla owns one factory, which they bought used from Toyota. They have yet to demonstrate the ability to manufacture at anything approaching the scale of other, more affordable car brands. Catching up to Tesla's ability to produce cars will not be the problem if Apple decides to enter that market.

Re: Apple receives permit in California to test self-driving cars

#207

Post by [deleted] »

konradb wrote: post #117
gregpilling wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, also why would it need oil changes since it would most likely be electric? Scheduled maintenance is a very occasional thing in electric vehicles.

I don't know much about engines nor cars but I am guessing that even with electric motors one needs gears? If so then there would be a need for gearbox oil.

[deleted]

Re: Apple receives permit in California to test self-driving cars

#208

Post by nsgi »

petecox wrote: post #74
gregschlom wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may result in the opposite effect though: pedestrians more willing to cross the street in front of you, and other cars trying to mess with you. (A friend of mine was telling me how he tried going really fast then braking hard behind a self driving car in front of him). The car swerved into the bike lane and almost hit a bicyclist before the driver regained manual control of the car)

> pedestrians more willing to cross the street in front of you I'd be more afraid of crossing in front of a driver-less car. An automatic vehicle may have better reaction times than a human but I wouldn't want to be the first road fatality from a software bug.

How is that worse than being a road fatality from a human driver?

Re: Apple receives permit in California to test self-driving cars

#209

Post by saagarjha »

MBCook wrote: post #145
peregrine wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got just the apple support document for you! https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205225 If your TV supports HDMI features you will only ever need one remote.

Sadly there's no way to disable having it power the TV off without also disabling the ability to control the TVs volume.

Funny, at times my Apple TV seems to do just that…though in my case it's probably just a bug.

Re: Apple receives permit in California to test self-driving cars

#210

Post by tim333 »

snovv_crash wrote: post #190
iancarroll wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Apple may be able to make this distinction as well. You portray them as an incompetent organization based on one defect. And, of course, car manufacturers routinely put out products with life threatening defects (i.e. Takata), so it's not like they're immune from fault either.

I'm not worried about their technical capabilities. I'm worried about a company culture that blames the customer when the product is misused or doesn't meet industry standards in some way. Things they have gotten away with in the phone and computer market will kill people in the automotive market.

I had the iPhone in question (the original 4) and it wasn't that bad. It's not like other consumer products have no glitches and always work perfectly however you use them.
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