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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

#271

Post by mandeepj »

falcolas wrote: post #262

Dear Car Companies: If you would really like to advance the state of the art for self driving technology, I invite you come up to the mid-west, especially in the winter months, and make your toys work under those conditions. Working up here will push your technology quite far, with snow, slush, worn away lane markers, cold temperatures, wind, potholes, washboard roads, ice, clogged sensors, blocked GPS, and any numbe…

You catch low hanging fruit first before even you think about palm trees. In other words, take care of most common use cases first before you run out of breadth chasing the extreme and difficult scenarios.

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

#272

Post by notatoad »

falcolas wrote: post #262

Dear Car Companies: If you would really like to advance the state of the art for self driving technology, I invite you come up to the mid-west, especially in the winter months, and make your toys work under those conditions. Working up here will push your technology quite far, with snow, slush, worn away lane markers, cold temperatures, wind, potholes, washboard roads, ice, clogged sensors, blocked GPS, and any numbe…

Do you really think the companies working on self-driving cars are unaware that there are portions of the world where inclement weather and poor road conditions exist? People keep bringing this up in every self-driving car thread as though it's some great insight.

yes, car companies know about snow. and i'm sure they'll solve it when they're ready to. Problems aren't typically tackled by solving every aspect at once, and the fact that nobody is demonstrating anything outside of perfect conditions in southern california should tell you a lot about the state of the technology.

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

#273

Post by hooloovoo_zoo »

doubleplusgood wrote: post #218
hooloovoo_zoo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OTOH Apple has terrible AI. Siri has actually been getting worse in absolute terms.

How do you measure, in absolute terms, the difference between Siri and Google Assistant or Bixby?

By the number of times they try to call someone on my contact list when I ask where the nearest restaurant is.

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

#274

Post by [deleted] »

weaksauce wrote: post #113
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #39

In some markets, it is more about getting it right than getting in at the right time. We've seen many carcasses of products that were ahead of their time, not because they were bad ideas but because they were not formulated for mass adoption. Apple's own Newton is one example. It took the iPhone formulation to make the product features successful in the market. A more recent example is the telepresence robot. Many en…

to be fair, the apple tv remote is fantastic and it's better than any other remote i have used for the common features. (i do wish it had a tv power button though since it can actuate the volume but i guess they wanted to go with the standard that shuts down the tv when you shut off the apple tv if your tv supports it)

[deleted]

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

#275

Post by komali2 »

awalton wrote: post #266
falcolas wrote: post #262

Dear Car Companies: If you would really like to advance the state of the art for self driving technology, I invite you come up to the mid-west, especially in the winter months, and make your toys work under those conditions. Working up here will push your technology quite far, with snow, slush, worn away lane markers, cold temperatures, wind, potholes, washboard roads, ice, clogged sensors, blocked GPS, and any numbe…

Dear falcolas, If you really need to understand why car companies will not take your advice, you should look at their sales numbers. Car companies don't sell many cars in Montana. They sell a lot of cars in urban concrete jungles and suburbs like those that exist in California and basically every major city. Solve one major city (especially one with hills like San Francisco), and you've likely solved most major citie…

Most major cities in the world? All those major cities that don't get snow and icy roads? Major cities like Chicago, new York, Moscow? Any big city in northern Europe? What about Canada?

I think the snow question is a good one.

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

#276

Post by rsync »

Waterluvian wrote: post #263
falcolas wrote: post #262

Dear Car Companies: If you would really like to advance the state of the art for self driving technology, I invite you come up to the mid-west, especially in the winter months, and make your toys work under those conditions. Working up here will push your technology quite far, with snow, slush, worn away lane markers, cold temperatures, wind, potholes, washboard roads, ice, clogged sensors, blocked GPS, and any numbe…

Yes! Come to Canada and try out your tech. California is so soft.

God it is so true.

There's such an amazing cultural comparison to be made between I-70 over Vail pass (in Colorado) and I-80 over Donner pass in California.

Vail pass rarely closes and is open for vehicle traffic in blizzard-like conditions - but you're on your own. You'd better be well prepared and be the competent driver of a well-maintained, capable 4WD vehicle.

And so, in a blizzard, Vail pass will be nearly empty and the occasional driver will be well-equipped for the trip.

In California, they enforce chain control on I-80 for all vehicles. This has the (amazing, stupefying) perverse outcome of allowing everyone to drive over Donner pass in a blizzard. Further, they are emboldened by the chains to drive quite poorly in conditions they have no idea of how to drive in.

The result is, during a full-blown blizzard, I was driving next to some moron in a RWD camaro trying to bob and weave through slower moving traffic. Dense traffic. Dense traffic largely made of other rear wheel drive cars operated by drivers with no snow driving experience.

California.

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

#277

Post by amelius »

CharlesW wrote: post #64
jcfrei wrote: post #38

I doubt Apple will ever launch its own car. However it seems that quite a few large IT firms consider DaaS (Driving as a Service) a viable B2B market. If you can create a superior suite of machine learning tools (including always up-to-date road data) that successfully drives passengers and goods from point A to point B then you can secure big revenue streams from automobile companies for years to come.

> I doubt Apple will ever launch its own car. It's a large consumer market that's changing rapidly and ripe for disruption. Why would you doubt that Apple will enter it?

Because transportation will become a service, rather than a product [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_as_a_Service

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

#278

Post by komali2 »

repsilat wrote: post #254
ghshephard wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My 12th grade computing science instructor (who was admittedly horrible) said that she didn't see much of a future programming computers, because pretty much all of the computer programs that were required had been created, and all that was left was to improve the speed, size of documents allowed, and maybe add a few extra features. This was in Spring, 1987.

And, funnily enough, the word processing tool most often used in my office (Dropbox Paper) is slower, less suited to long documents and has fewer features than the first word processor I used. Still, you can't expect your teacher of 30 years ago to foresee "the future is emojis". People just want different software every few years, because fashion is fickle there's a natural feeling that old stuff is out of date. Sla…

I mean, did the first word processor you use allow collaborative working on documents available anywhere with an internet connection, constantly backed up to Dropbox servers?

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

#279

Post by rdsnsca »

astrodust wrote: post #142
phodo wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "There aren't many really big tech markets left" I've heard this repeatedly over the years. There are ALWAYS new markets. You just have to look in the right places, or wait for new pareto frontiers to open up.

Imagine going back to the early 1980s and seeing people argue that the personal computer market was too crowded, and there was no way anyone was ever going to make any money in it. The whole thing had played out. Big companies owned the software market. Big companies owned the games. Big companies owned the peripherals. What could possibly be left? Wait, what's a laptop? What's a workgroup server? What's email? None…

The computer market was more crowed in the early 1980's that it is now, goto a library and look at an old computer magazine from that period. Dozens of brands with dozens of operating systems.

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

#280

Post by Tepix »

awalton wrote: post #266
falcolas wrote: post #262

Dear Car Companies: If you would really like to advance the state of the art for self driving technology, I invite you come up to the mid-west, especially in the winter months, and make your toys work under those conditions. Working up here will push your technology quite far, with snow, slush, worn away lane markers, cold temperatures, wind, potholes, washboard roads, ice, clogged sensors, blocked GPS, and any numbe…

Dear falcolas, If you really need to understand why car companies will not take your advice, you should look at their sales numbers. Car companies don't sell many cars in Montana. They sell a lot of cars in urban concrete jungles and suburbs like those that exist in California and basically every major city. Solve one major city (especially one with hills like San Francisco), and you've likely solved most major citie…

US cities are easy. Try Naples, Italy.
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