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Everything we know Google is working on for the new year

arstechnica.com

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Re: Everything we know Google is working on for the new year

#61

Post by lozf »

nl wrote: post #58
xasos wrote: post #46

I'm especially excited for their Google X projects[1] - Google Glass 2, Google X Display, and self-driving cars. If reports[2] are true that the self-driving car will start testing next month, I predict 2015 may be the year that autonomous vehicles go big. The true goals of Lyft and Uber will finally be accomplished. I hope there won't be much red tape getting these cars into action (although there probably will be).…

I predict 2015 may be the year that autonomous vehicles go big. I'd be interested to hear what you define "go big" as. It's going to be years before driverless cars are seen at all regularly outside the areas Google (and others) are testing them in, and at least a decade before they are common enough to start having a real impact on the road. The economics of car buying alone will show you that: eg, how many 5 year-o…

Self driving cars just have to be safer than Humans -- probably not that difficult.

The annoying part will be entering our destination in to Google Maps Car Interface, and having the car tell us:

"Because we searched for Chairs the other day, we'll be making a quick stop at our Sponsor: Furniture Warehouse to see their fantastic selection, with free delivery... After all your appointment isn't for another 45 mins and traffic is clear... (you may override this action at a cost of ${LostAdRevenue}"

Re: Everything we know Google is working on for the new year

#62

Post by nl »

lozf wrote: post #61
nl wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I predict 2015 may be the year that autonomous vehicles go big. I'd be interested to hear what you define "go big" as. It's going to be years before driverless cars are seen at all regularly outside the areas Google (and others) are testing them in, and at least a decade before they are common enough to start having a real impact on the road. The economics of car buying alone will show you that: eg, how many 5 year-o…

Self driving cars just have to be safer than Humans -- probably not that difficult. The annoying part will be entering our destination in to Google Maps Car Interface, and having the car tell us: "Because we searched for Chairs the other day, we'll be making a quick stop at our Sponsor: Furniture Warehouse to see their fantastic selection, with free delivery... After all your appointment isn't for another 45 mins and…

Self driving cars just have to be safer than Humans -- probably not that difficult.

Perhaps, on average. But (for example) should someone in the Netherlands trust car trained on US road rules? Or someone in Japan (where they drive on the left hand side of the road) trust software trained in India (where lane discipline is fairly.. loose).

Also, saying a system should be permitted because it kills less than humans seems a bit post-hoc. What happens if a bug is introduced that makes it worse in a specific circumstance?

Licensing seems a good way to deal with this, though I'm interested in alternatives.

Re: Everything we know Google is working on for the new year

#63

Post by DanBC »

lozf wrote: post #61
nl wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I predict 2015 may be the year that autonomous vehicles go big. I'd be interested to hear what you define "go big" as. It's going to be years before driverless cars are seen at all regularly outside the areas Google (and others) are testing them in, and at least a decade before they are common enough to start having a real impact on the road. The economics of car buying alone will show you that: eg, how many 5 year-o…

Self driving cars just have to be safer than Humans -- probably not that difficult. The annoying part will be entering our destination in to Google Maps Car Interface, and having the car tell us: "Because we searched for Chairs the other day, we'll be making a quick stop at our Sponsor: Furniture Warehouse to see their fantastic selection, with free delivery... After all your appointment isn't for another 45 mins and…

> Self driving cars just have to be safer than Humans -- probably not that difficult.

Sadly, this probably is not true.

TERRORISTS are the reason we go through ridiculous security theatre at airports - costig many millions of dollars - when the drive to the airport is very much more risky that flying.

People are not rational about risk. They will drive a car because they thinkthey are safe drivers. Giving up control is tricky.

Re: Everything we know Google is working on for the new year

#64

Post by patrickk »

navytank wrote: post #51
laxatives wrote: post #21

I've always thought that the Google Ideas projects page was a bit frightening since many of projects are closely tied to defense. https://www.google.com/ideas/projects/

It doesn't seem to be mentioned directly on the Google Ideas site, but it seems to be Jared Cohen's own project [1], which could explain the defense-themed sub-projects. Interestingly, their last public blog post was in late January [2], and there hasn't seemed to be much public press on what they're doing in a few years. [1] http://www.cfr.org/experts/cybersecurity-iran-technology-and... [2] https://plus.google.com/…

Julian Assange has some interesting things to say about Jared Cohen:

Later that year the two co-wrote a policy piece for the Council on Foreign Relations’ journal Foreign Affairs, praising the reformative potential of Silicon Valley technologies as an instrument of US foreign policy. Describing what they called “coalitions of the connected,” Schmidt and Cohen claimed that

Democratic states that have built coalitions of their militaries have the capacity to do the same with their connection technologies. . . . They offer a new way to exercise the duty to protect citizens around the world.

In the same piece they argued that “this technology is overwhelmingly provided by the private sector.” Shortly afterwards, Tunisia. then Egypt, and then the rest of the Middle East, erupted in revolution.

Of course, you have to take Assange's word with a pinch of salt, but he does a good job of explaining how Cohen links the State Department to Google senior management. So much for "Don't be evil."

https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/

Re: Everything we know Google is working on for the new year

#65

Post by corobo »

Spearchucker wrote: post #33
gtremper wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if price is factored in to the user experience. Plus the small amount of value of discovering something you wouldn't have heard of otherwise.

The only ads I ever notice are for things I already have. Everybody pro advertising tells me how good ads are for me. I started using the Internet in 1991 and have yet to see how advertising is good for me. Here are some ways in which ads are bad for me: - Increased operator bandwidth charges (REAL money) - Loss of privacy - Page download performance - Garish web sites - Lost time cleaning up after sites - Being show…

There's always the freebie users for every media form - piracy, adblock, etc. As a supplier of such things I can only really hope you'll spread the word to those that do fill my pockets with delicious fractions of a penny and not let it bug me

The rest? Not really my problem - I wouldn't redesign a website to save you time when you're (objectively speaking) worth nothing to me - that's bad business

On paying more - You might (might, I don't believe you) but you'd be in the minority. Having a system that allows you to paypal the site a penny every few months would be infeasible anyway

Re: Everything we know Google is working on for the new year

#66

Post by corobo »

DanBC wrote: post #63
lozf wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self driving cars just have to be safer than Humans -- probably not that difficult. The annoying part will be entering our destination in to Google Maps Car Interface, and having the car tell us: "Because we searched for Chairs the other day, we'll be making a quick stop at our Sponsor: Furniture Warehouse to see their fantastic selection, with free delivery... After all your appointment isn't for another 45 mins and…

> Self driving cars just have to be safer than Humans -- probably not that difficult. Sadly, this probably is not true. TERRORISTS are the reason we go through ridiculous security theatre at airports - costig many millions of dollars - when the drive to the airport is very much more risky that flying. People are not rational about risk. They will drive a car because they thinkthey are safe drivers. Giving up control…

Are terrorists driving old fashioned manual control cars into your child's school?! More at 11

Re: Everything we know Google is working on for the new year

#67

Post by coldpie »

gtremper wrote: post #25
Jormundir wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maximized user experience would be no ads.

Not if price is factored in to the user experience. Plus the small amount of value of discovering something you wouldn't have heard of otherwise.

I would be ecstatic if I could pay $8/mo. for YouTube with no ads. Instead I use AdBlock and no one gets anything.

Re: Everything we know Google is working on for the new year

#68

Post by coldpie »

toddkaufmann wrote: post #22
derekp7 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate this so much -- I'll search for some topic, and start getting ads all over the internet related to that topic. Case in point -- a few weeks ago I clicked on an article regarding "Computer Scientist Barbie", and clicked through the Amazon link. Guess how many Barbie advertisements I'm getting now.

Why are you getting ads ? Install adblock and/or ghostery. Fewer distractions, fewer cycles going to adware. I don't see ads in search results or gmail, and not a lot of other places either. Noticeably different on a tablet though, where it doesn't run. At the other extreme is adnauseum, which clicks on every ad link in the background (so you don't have to).

If you have an Android tablet, AdBlock runs very well in FireFox for Android.

Re: Everything we know Google is working on for the new year

#69

Post by hobs »

coldpie wrote: post #67
gtremper wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if price is factored in to the user experience. Plus the small amount of value of discovering something you wouldn't have heard of otherwise.

I would be ecstatic if I could pay $8/mo. for YouTube with no ads. Instead I use AdBlock and no one gets anything.

Agreed, I would pay for an ad free version of the internet. Unfortunately, as I have to negotiate everywhere and many advertisers act badly or are misleading, I choose the scorched earth option as well.

Re: Everything we know Google is working on for the new year

#70

Post by ghaff »

eru wrote: post #54
ams6110 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're at least a decade, more likely two or three, on the optimistic side. But we'll see.

Do you think the technological progress will take that long, or do we need the time for the regulation to catch up?

Both, also. From a technology perspective, I think a lot of people are greatly underestimating the gap between autonomous vehicles operating under relatively controlled conditions with a human available to take over control within a modest period of time and the general case. I.e., it's easy for me to imagine autonomous cars being possible for highway driving in good weather in the relatively near term. But, unfortunately, I suspect robo-taxis are decades away.

And regulations will be slow to change as well, especially to the degree that autonomous vehicles are seen as toys for rich people. One of the issues will be that, even if they really are statistically safer overall than human-driven cars, they will tend to fail in ways that are different. And you can be sure that those different failures will be highly publicized.

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