Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

Post by nolta » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 1:14 AM UTC

slackoverflower wrote: post #11

mozumder wrote: post #5

Why does the tech industry focus on self-driving cars so much? It's absolutely never going to happen, ever. The world would be much better off if we converted our roads to a rail/streetcar system and drop the personal car concept entirely. The hype around this is worse than VR.

Is it that you don't want self driving cars to happen or you don't THINK it will happen? I, for one, am super excited for self driving personal vehicles and will be glad to see the eradication of mass public transportation like trains and buses.

Post by JBReefer » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 1:14 AM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #54

mozumder wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And streetcars are great at moving people that last mile. Take that road in front of your office, and just put rails in it. If your local government can pay for a road in front of your house, it can pay for a streetcar. This applies to dense areas as well as rural areas. Rail lines actually cost less to maintain than roads, and they cost YOU less because you don't have to buy and pay for a car. And you don't have to…

But would a streetcar go past my house? How far do I have to walk to get from my house to a bus stop or train station? Because I own 19 acres and my nearest neighbor is three miles from my house. The nearest town is 20 minutes by car. How would public transport deal with that kind of remoteness? My office is one end of the equation, my home (and the homes of my coworkers) are the other end. It's surprisingly common w…

Post by traek » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 1:17 AM UTC

ctdonath wrote: post #58

plicense wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely wouldn't call AWS, Echo from Amazon occasional. I think companies come in all shapes and sizes - some focus 90% on their core, some try to spend more time and diverge out to other business segments. Its upto Apple to figure out what to do and what would make it successful.

AWS is an offshoot of building the massive system needed to process the "we sell absolutely everything" goal. Methinks they just got so good at it, cloud services just kinda took on a life of its own and grew from there - but still feeds the retailing monster. Echo is a consequence of exploring digital appliances as marketing tools. If you're going to build a device which can voice-interface someone ordering 6 bottle…

Post by Tiktaalik » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 1:18 AM UTC

slackoverflower wrote: post #11

mozumder wrote: post #5

Why does the tech industry focus on self-driving cars so much? It's absolutely never going to happen, ever. The world would be much better off if we converted our roads to a rail/streetcar system and drop the personal car concept entirely. The hype around this is worse than VR.

Is it that you don't want self driving cars to happen or you don't THINK it will happen? I, for one, am super excited for self driving personal vehicles and will be glad to see the eradication of mass public transportation like trains and buses.

Post by traek » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 1:20 AM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #61

plicense wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely wouldn't call AWS, Echo from Amazon occasional. I think companies come in all shapes and sizes - some focus 90% on their core, some try to spend more time and diverge out to other business segments. Its upto Apple to figure out what to do and what would make it successful.

I think it's more that most don't see Amazon's actual core competence. Amazon is a logistics business, both information and physical. They do logistics for themselves for various front-ends (amazon.com, echo, video, kindle, etc.) but you can view all of those as accessories to their AWS, warehousing, and shipping business which they provide both for their own front ends and for sale to anyone.