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Playstation's secret weapon: a nearly all-automated factory

asia.nikkei.com

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Re: Playstation's secret weapon: a nearly all-automated factory

#261

Post by voltagex_ »

sbierwagen wrote: post #206
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was this little game I played on Linux years ago where you played an AI trying to reach singularity status while evading detection by humans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame:_Singularity Early in the game, you'd hack machines to run mechanical-turk style jobs to earn money. Later you'd build a factory to manufacture more processors... ;)

If you try to download the Windows version from http://www.emhsoft.com/singularity/ Chrome blocks the download, saying that the .rar contains a virus. Downloading singularity-1.00-win.zip from https://github.com/singularity/singularity/releases/tag/v1.0... also fails.

Works for me. https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file-analysis/ZGU3MDg0YjM3MjU... comes up clean, too.

Edit: Cylance doesn't like the main exe. I think Cylance is full of shit.

https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/39e13204ff3dea8b00a93f73...

Re: Playstation's secret weapon: a nearly all-automated factory

#262

Post by Iv »

hobofan wrote: post #34

If you enjoy that you will probably also enjoy the fully-automated Valve Steam Controller assembly line (including video)[0]. [0]: https://www.theverge.com/2015/12/11/9890914/valves-steam-con...

Oh, they do the plastic injection by themselves? Makes sense I guess. Their rig is sexy.

Re: Playstation's secret weapon: a nearly all-automated factory

#263

Post by Tuna-Fish »

easytiger wrote: post #32
rusk wrote: post #11

God I love my PS4 - it has to be the peak of this class of machine. I can't imagine how it could be improved upon without going beyond the "box under the telly format". Incredible piece of machinery. I can't imagine the PS5 will be much more than an upgrade. In my opinion the second best console is the PS2. I love Nintendo but they're more like toys than hard core gaming and entertainment machines. PS2 up until PS4 w…

> it has to be the peak of this class of machine. I'm sure phones had better GPUs 3-4 years ago than the PS4, and more RAM When i enter the notification quick tab it takes 30-40 seconds to show the message I've received, then another 10-15 to accept it. Currently one single game, COD:MW consumes the entirety of the space on the device. From launch it wasn't ever going to be enough. You need to keep space free because…

> I'm sure phones had better GPUs 3-4 years ago than the PS4, and more RAM

They really, really didn't. And still don't. And won't for a good while yet.

Cell phones work in a power envelope that is basically 1/50th of what PS4 uses. Assuming that power consumption/unit of work done drops by half every two years (and it doesn't), it would take a decade for a PS4 in a cell phone power envelope to become feasible.

The very newest cell phones have GPUs with more raw compute power than the PS4, however they still typically have less than half the memory bandwidth, and that raw compute power is only usable for very short bursts.

Re: Playstation's secret weapon: a nearly all-automated factory

#264

Post by 6nf »

blackrock wrote: post #193
mkroman wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you might imagine, this is already the case in places like Shenzhen - there's off the shelf “building blocks” for machines - not necessarily to any written standard, though. In this[1] Strange Parts video he mentions it. If you watch some of his other videos you'll start to notice that many of the machines actually look similar - I highly recommend watching them, they're great. [1]: https://youtu.be/PZBQzLfCKpw?t=…

That video was incredible. The machines that makes the product, the lithium ion battery for your iPhone, is this super intricate process, that outputs the final product. And everything is made from the raw materials. Now, this is what I call a true fabrication process.

'Industrial lego' as some call it. Get all right bits and pieces, put them together and you have a production line. Every piece comes with detailed specifications, performance curves, maintenance instructions etc - which means an industrial part is more expensive than consumer grade stuff doing the same task. But when you're building a big machine you don't want unplanned downtime.

Re: Playstation's secret weapon: a nearly all-automated factory

#265

Post by raviisoccupied »

enchiridion wrote: post #248
dfox wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan always had its “peculiar” approach to electronics manufacturing automation. While rest of the world tries very hard do design out any kind of “fiddly” steps, Japanese manufacturers got very good at automating such things. Just look at any kind of Japanese home AV gear with its typical large single sided boards full of obviously robot placed jumper links and thru hole components.

A piece of wisdom I decided to follow recently. If you are entering a new hobby, buy Japanese for the best value/price ratio. Served me well when buying a guitar and amp. Can anyone else support this? Does the type of manufacturing outlined above play an important role?

Out of interest, what music gear did you purchase, and how did you find it?

I'm currently looking to expand my guitar collection (from 1 to 2!)

Re: Playstation's secret weapon: a nearly all-automated factory

#266

Post by rusk »

numpad0 wrote: post #245
rusk wrote: post #11

God I love my PS4 - it has to be the peak of this class of machine. I can't imagine how it could be improved upon without going beyond the "box under the telly format". Incredible piece of machinery. I can't imagine the PS5 will be much more than an upgrade. In my opinion the second best console is the PS2. I love Nintendo but they're more like toys than hard core gaming and entertainment machines. PS2 up until PS4 w…

Sony’s PS architect/chief Kutaragi always had that kind of bright future thing, like “today we are sailing out on this new PlayStation platform and by the end of this decade the whole nation will be driven by this open machine and its groundbreaking processors doing every tasks beyond our imagination”. And I thought he was full of it, and PS was always very obviously just another game console, and he’s also the culpr…

No that’s not what I’m talking about but interesting info nonetheless!

Re: Playstation's secret weapon: a nearly all-automated factory

#267

Post by anoncake »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #244
wallacoloo wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Morally ambiguous, but I actually implemented exactly what you’re describing back when bitcoin was at $50-100. I found some service that would pay me $1 for every 1000 captchas I solved, and then I scraped that and built a BTC faucet site (I think I called it captchacoin.com, or captchabit.com) that would essentially pay the user $0.50 in BTC for each captcha they solved. It went from 0 captchas per day to 10000 capt…

Have an upvote for the story, but don't pretend it was "morally ambiguous". That was plain evil with one level of detachment, and helped enable spammers and scammers.

Not only scammers and spammers are restricted by CAPTCHAS. Helping bypass them would only be immoral if they were never used to prevent scraping or other illegitimate purposes.

Re: Playstation's secret weapon: a nearly all-automated factory

#268

Post by mywittyname »

baybal2 wrote: post #114

Fully automated assembly lines rarely make sense economically even in Europe, and Japan. A "lights out" factory needs a really expensive, complex widget to make, but one which doesn't vary, or change over time much. Game consoles are exactly like: long product life times, and can be engineered specifically with automated lines in mind, without compromises. Robotic factories are by no means a final solution for manufa…

Sony is also a huge company who can leverage experience from this across several markets. It certainly makes more financial sense to use the playstation budget to make this happen rather than start with one of their bluray players.

Re: Playstation's secret weapon: a nearly all-automated factory

#269

Post by raj_khare »

zbrozek wrote: post #45

Lots of folks here are talking about the latency and throughput, but nobody is amazed at what the robots are doing. Plugging in cables and putting down tape is fiddly and hard. I'm super impressed that they elected to automate those things based on cost merit. Massive kudos to the manufacturing engineers who managed to pull that off.

They must have played factorio over 3000 hours

Re: Playstation's secret weapon: a nearly all-automated factory

#270

Post by beenBoutIT »

ornornor wrote: post #140
Pxtl wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I could have one change to electronics manufacturing, it would be a ban on glue for non-waterproof devices. Most repair-hostile trend in history.

I took apart my PS4 Pro several times since I own it. It’s very easy to do, nothing is glued, and the plastic clips that hold the cover in place don’t break when you unsnap and snap them back. The only thing is an obnoxious warranty void sticker that delaminates if you don’t lift it carefully but even then I don’t think it’s legal to void the warranty with a sticker (Switzerland, bought from a EU retailer)

You can get replacement stickers for around $10 on eBay. Sadly the PS4 line looks a lot better with the stickers on as they hide exposed screws.
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