It's about time i can order a black M1 Abrams to get me to the club in style!
U.S. Army, Uber sign research agreement
51–60 of 123 posts
Re: U.S. Army, Uber sign research agreement
#52I wonder if any Uber staff will resign in protest. I wonder if customers and drivers in countries not entire aligned with US imperialism will vote with their feet too.
US imperialism? Go away troll.
Re: U.S. Army, Uber sign research agreement
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Your work may actually kill people when used as intended. Are you intentionally being completely oblivious to the fact that many people believe this consequence to be a good thing for them and humanity as a whole? I don't want to get into the debate about whether this belief is true or not; I'm just curious as to why HN commenters so often pretend that people with different political beliefs don't exist at all, or…
I don't think that's a fair criticism here. The parent didn't say "Don't you know this will kill people!?" they said "This will kill people".
It also implied that this fact carries a certain value judgement, ignoring the reality that said value judgement may just as well be completely the opposite.
Re: U.S. Army, Uber sign research agreement
#54Isn't it ironic whilst Google's engineers are mass protesting against military contracts, Uber already signed a whole bunch without any moral dilemma whatsover. Tells a lot about the company ethics there. On a separate note, could someone enlighten how stacked co-rotoring (moving towards the same direction) may make the aircraft silent and not noisier?
> "Google's engineers are mass protesting" ~12 Google employees resigned. Out of ~4,000 signers to the petition. Out of ~74,000 total employees. A drop in the bucket. Clearly the vast majority of google employees don't care, rationalize away, or excuse the fact that they work for the military industrial complex.
How big is that team doing that contract though? Did half of the team resign? That'd be the numbers I'd be more interested in knowing about, or are these random employees?
Re: U.S. Army, Uber sign research agreement
#55Isn't it ironic whilst Google's engineers are mass protesting against military contracts, Uber already signed a whole bunch without any moral dilemma whatsover. Tells a lot about the company ethics there. On a separate note, could someone enlighten how stacked co-rotoring (moving towards the same direction) may make the aircraft silent and not noisier?
I'd think people with a 'moral dilemma' wouldn't be working for Uber in the first place.
Re: U.S. Army, Uber sign research agreement
#56Isn't it ironic whilst Google's engineers are mass protesting against military contracts, Uber already signed a whole bunch without any moral dilemma whatsover. Tells a lot about the company ethics there. On a separate note, could someone enlighten how stacked co-rotoring (moving towards the same direction) may make the aircraft silent and not noisier?
> "Google's engineers are mass protesting" ~12 Google employees resigned. Out of ~4,000 signers to the petition. Out of ~74,000 total employees. A drop in the bucket. Clearly the vast majority of google employees don't care, rationalize away, or excuse the fact that they work for the military industrial complex.
Some employees raising concerns is something, compared to noone raising concerns I'd say. It shows difference in openess and culture between the two organizations.
Re: U.S. Army, Uber sign research agreement
#57Isn't it ironic whilst Google's engineers are mass protesting against military contracts, Uber already signed a whole bunch without any moral dilemma whatsover. Tells a lot about the company ethics there. On a separate note, could someone enlighten how stacked co-rotoring (moving towards the same direction) may make the aircraft silent and not noisier?
I have no clue about the stacked corotating rotors. How do they compensate for the yaw caused by the net torque? Stacked counter rotating rotor systems do exist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coaxial_rotors
Re: U.S. Army, Uber sign research agreement
#58Or would it be time to give up on Uber and finally admit that they're neither a technology company nor anything else "groundbreaking" that Valley thinks they are. "Technology" for the company has been coming up with a mobile app to connect drivers and potential customers - something hardly groundbreaking. Probably the most groundbreaking technological thing coming from these guys has been the multiple evasion softwar…
> "Technology" for the company has been coming up with a mobile app to connect drivers and potential customers - something hardly groundbreaking. > And while their efforts to "disrupt" the taxi economy have been "great" in all honesty they've only created room for their competition to benefit on this - Uber has simply managed to take a business (taxis) and run it to chaos while what would've been the logical step was…
Not to get nitpicky here but the statements are not in contradiction - one is stating what was the "technological breakthrough" of Uber and another is stating that their disruption of the industry they wanted to affect hasn't really gone their (or anyone else's) way. I'm not really sure if that what they created in the industry (taxis) and what their basically core and original product is (app which connects drivers and customers) are in contradiction here.
Good comparisons imo in regards to the disruption if that bothers here would be something like PayPal or even AirBnB which disrupted the industries they work within, and did it in a way that created positive progress and actually both companies are still on route to making that disruption of old wasteful industries better - Uber didn't do this and has long given up on anything except trying to burn as much money as possible (just a personal opinion).
Yes Uber (and Lyft etc) did a disruption in what you mentioned and I fully agree with your points on the issues with taxi traffic previously (and to some extent still, even with these lovely ride sharing companies). However one has to simply wonder if all that would've been possible with just providing product for taxi companies (and individuals) offering the benefits of this disruption - mapped rides with feedback system and pre-determined rates. Also what has to be taken into account here is that some of these features already existed within the industry, while maybe not in US they still existed.
The ride thing, I agree here albeit Uber has been, and still is the most expensive option (in a lot of countries it's even more expensive than those taxis taking the bad routes etc). Mapped routes (aka GPS) isn't Uber invention btw, it's called navigation and has been there since 1995. The rating system works (technically) and gives an incentive for the drivers which I think think all can agree is a good thing. Then again what if someone just came up with app that provides feedback system and price calculations based on the length of the trip and variables in traffic and offered that to the taxi companies and individuals (and why not for everyone with a smart phone), would that cost 2,8 billion as loss annually. Dunno.
The taxi companies are taking a bad fight here admittedly and in no way I think either party's lobbying efforts are really making any progress here with traditional business trying to fight for the "fossils & fuels" so to say and the new players trying to not just enhance but break the existing legal regulations etc. Either party really isn't looking to create anything new nor improve, but more so at the end just fighting for the money, and well guess it's business but I agree here that the traditional taxis really aren't helping their case either.
To say Uber isn't a technology company is a thin red line imo, it's not a technology company as Google nor Stripe, they aren't really doing technological innovations nor products but more so sociological and business related disruptions. Their app might've been the first there and they might've jumped on every single branch of technology from aerospace to AI and food delivery. What I mean with this is that their innovations within the technology space have been rather miniscule (in comparison to other companies that actually work with technology, or Dominos for that matter of working with food delivery and through that in hospitality) when taken into comparison with the massive impact they seem to have in the industry. Or would you consider saying that naming a product which essentially is a standard equipment in cars, albeit it's fancy name of UberKIDS, a child safety seat (and not a fancy high-tech one, just having that in a car) is a technological breakthrough or, well anything technological? I don't know, just tossing my 5 cents in the pool.
Re: U.S. Army, Uber sign research agreement
#59Interesting, military only gave ~$1M for such an ambitious project while Uber is burning billions a year and could easily afford this. My speculation is that this partnership is first and foremost an attempt to provide Uber with a patina of respectability for this attempt and access to military technical expertise. Uber just crashed and burned on self driving, something it desperately needs to quench its towering mon…
"Interesting, military only gave ~$1M for such an ambitious project"
I imagine this is just a test. They are blowing the cash with 99% certainty nothing will come out of it. BUT, if headway is made, it could quickly become hundreds of millions.
Re: U.S. Army, Uber sign research agreement
#60Or would it be time to give up on Uber and finally admit that they're neither a technology company nor anything else "groundbreaking" that Valley thinks they are. "Technology" for the company has been coming up with a mobile app to connect drivers and potential customers - something hardly groundbreaking. Probably the most groundbreaking technological thing coming from these guys has been the multiple evasion softwar…
> The US defense collaboration we can only speculate on Or you could ask. I work for the lab's parent command. The easy answer is that, if you look at the Army's top modernization priorities, future vertical lift (better helicopters) is right near the tippy top. And if you search up "ARL open campus," you'll see what the lab has been up to with respect to partnering. And that's just the lab. We have six research, dev…
Cool, so what is the 1 million contract for? Just co-developing VTOLs so both parties benefit? Sharing information and knowledge?
Or does it have anything to do with US governments license on the partnering programs granting them "nonexclusive, royalty free and worldwide license for government use" for any IP and resource commitment? Which seems to be one of the top selling points of the program, I guess it could say "exclusive" also which wouldn't probably be on the front page of license information.
https://www.arl.army.mil/opencampus/sites/default/files/CM%2...