151–160 of 434 posts
This is a weirdly titled report which implies it just happened. The "Apple scales back" part was already reported first by Bloomberg last year (which seems to be behind a paywall now) [1]. Bob Mansfield was brought on to refocus Project Titan on the fundamentals (being self-driving) rather that producing a car [2]. But both of these reports have the exact same hedging: >Apple Inc. has drastically scaled back its auto…
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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…
Citation required. (other than you refusing to buy one).
> Looking at Lenovo and System76 machines instead.
Please don't do System76, their laptops are pieces of crap. My wife and I have had good experiences with thinkpads though.
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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.
I don’t forgive you for reminding me of that hobbled abomination. Though I guess it serves as an example of unchecked carrier power. Something to point to for today’s net neutrality arguments?
100 songs? It was designed to fail.
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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.
there is a 20+ year history of PDAs before the iPhone. For all intents and purposes my 1998 Windows CE Casio PDA looks and acts like a first gen iPhone. It's home screen has a grid of 3x4 icons of apps and general works very analogous to the iPhone. Apple did an amazing job of polishing the PDA but they made an incremental jump being at the right place at the right time with affordable cellular data and capacitive to…
I assume you also think a Hyundai looks and acts like a Ferrari.
Because that is what you are saying. I owned that PDA as well as the Treo 650 which was far better and the iPhone isn't an incremental jump. It was a complete revolution.
Can 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?
What about this article makes you think this? Do you have some insight that all the major automakers are missing when they say they expect to have autonomous cars on the road in the next 5 years?
http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/self...
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You raise good points, but they're specific to American urban design, and the long-term solution is probably to redesign and rebuild our cities to move away from those designs.
So the solution is to tear down our cities, abandon our homes, and rebuild everything somewhere else. Gotcha. I mean that's probably environmentally friendly, right?
“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…
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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.
That "someone" is exactly a Lyft/Uber driver !
Have another lyft driver drop them off at your car before you leave for work in the morning
So 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 th…
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> a consumer electronics company that wants to enter the automotive industry. I'd argue electric cars paired with automation are as near consumer electronics as they are to the automotive industry. Shedding the engine, transmission, steering column, and pretty much all mechanical systems bar the electric motors and braking systems, why couldn't they design it in California and outsource manufacturing to Hon Hai/Foxco…
> pretty much all mechanical systems bar the electric motors and braking systems ... and the shocks and dampers and steering and servos and diffs and transfer boxes and electronic stability systems and dozens of sensors regularly exposed to harsh conditions and lights and crumple zones and doors and windows and air bags and seat belts and seats and air conditioning and ... Elon Musk said something very true about the…