More proof Apple is done innovating. This is literally a story about giving up, in the NYT. Can we have SJ back please?
For sure they aren't done innovating on new ways to extract money from their customers ;)
Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car
131–140 of 434 posts
Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
How will it solve anything?
Theoretically you could find someone far away who will drive cheaply. Lot of trust in that individual when they too don’t get killed if the car crashes. Also hope you never have packet loss!!! There’s also that pesky speed of light restrictions on low latency, etc.
I think the key would either have them not be far away (so same city), hauling long distance, or even just driver assistance. I'm fully in the free thinking zone here tho.
It's probably not practical but if it were it might make for decent cubicle work for unskilled labor.
Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
Over the decades I've noticed how businesses need to recognize and focus on their core competencies - if they don't, they die. Everything must feed that core, and undue distractions are lethal. Occasionally there's a need to pivot , which is deliberately stepping from one competency to another, but that is rare and difficult. Apple's core is to build small computers; everything else they do (music, video, cloud servi…
When companies focus on just one thing in a vertical, they're incredibly vulnerable. Samsung does lots of things fairly well, with some hiccups, well beyond just personal electronics and home appliances. It's diversification. EDIT: Samsung does all sorts of things including ship-building, life insurance, construction and advertising. For example, Apple MacBook Pros have become uncool, expensive, unrepairable and impr…
> That business is tettering on failure
They sold over 4 million Macs this past quarter, so I don't know what you're going on about here.
Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car
#134This is news from almost a year ago when they laid-off a few hundred in October 2016.
Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car
#135Can the "mass production self driving cars are just a couple of years away" meme finally die yet? Are we ready to admit that maybe this is a harder thing to invent than we've been trying to make ourselves believe?
Given there are auto manufacturers[1] that already exist with self driving cars, I'm going to go ahead and say its not a meme and more just a technology in the process of being fully realised.
Some times, things just take time. Especially when you're trying to create machines capable of not killing the general public.
Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car
#136“From the beginning, the employees dedicated to Project Titan looked at a wide range of details. That included motorized doors that opened and closed silently. They also studied ways to redesign a car interior without a steering wheel or gas pedals, and they worked on adding virtual or augmented reality into interior displays. The team also worked on a new light and ranging detection sensor, also known as lidar. Lida…
Seems like they were biting off way more than they could chew. If Apple partnered with an existing car company to apply their design principles on top of an existing car platform (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_Mini_platform ) they could see a lot of success if they weren't too ambitious. They wouldn't win if they tried to reinvent the wheel because there would be far too big of a chance of either taking 10…
We have the iPhone because Apple was so ambitious. Imagine if they had just partnered with existing phone manufacturers rather than trying to build a magic touch slate.
Wait, we do know what would have happened - the Motorola ROKR, which everyone should be forgiven for forgetting.
Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car
#137“From the beginning, the employees dedicated to Project Titan looked at a wide range of details. That included motorized doors that opened and closed silently. They also studied ways to redesign a car interior without a steering wheel or gas pedals, and they worked on adding virtual or augmented reality into interior displays. The team also worked on a new light and ranging detection sensor, also known as lidar. Lida…
Seems like they were biting off way more than they could chew. If Apple partnered with an existing car company to apply their design principles on top of an existing car platform (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_Mini_platform ) they could see a lot of success if they weren't too ambitious. They wouldn't win if they tried to reinvent the wheel because there would be far too big of a chance of either taking 10…
Yeah...I suspect a lot of people said something similar when it was rumoured they were going into the phone business.
I know a car is a very different beast to a small touchscreen computer that makes phone calls, but at the time everyone was looking at it from the perspective of a computer and entertainment company making a phone in a cut-throat thin-margin industry. What they did is make an iPod Touch with a cellular component, priced it higher than the flag-ship phone of the day and started with a single and not-very-loved service provider in the United States.
Now look where they are.
Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car
#138[deleted]
Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car
#139So anyone who has been around for even a few years has witnessed probably more than AI hype cycle. This has been going on since probably the 1960s. While there have been (I'm sure) advances over the years, some no doubt substantial, what's clear is that the big thing that was and is needed is a truly massive amount of computing power. Now I believe that self-driving cars will ultimately be transformative for society…
> It will probably soon reach the point where the car will intervene to prevent an accident. I expect even this to be cautiously adopted as there is a massive product liability issue here.
Volvo already have this with auto brake and pedestrian protection:
> Collision Warning with Auto Brake & Pedestrian Detection is an aid to assist the driver when there is a risk of colliding with a pedestrian or vehicle in front that is stationary or moving in the same direction. Collision Warning with Auto Brake & Pedestrian Detection is activated in situations where the driver should have started braking earlier, which is why it cannot help the driver in every situation.Collision Warning with Auto Brake & Pedestrian Detection is designed to be activated as late as possible in order to avoid unnecessary intervention
Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems like they were biting off way more than they could chew. If Apple partnered with an existing car company to apply their design principles on top of an existing car platform (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_Mini_platform ) they could see a lot of success if they weren't too ambitious. They wouldn't win if they tried to reinvent the wheel because there would be far too big of a chance of either taking 10…
Yeah...I suspect a lot of people said something similar when it was rumoured they were going into the phone business. I know a car is a very different beast to a small touchscreen computer that makes phone calls, but at the time everyone was looking at it from the perspective of a computer and entertainment company making a phone in a cut-throat thin-margin industry. What they did is make an iPod Touch with a cellula…
A consumer electronics company changing market segments is different than a consumer electronics company that wants to enter the automotive industry.
Apple was overly ambitious.