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A curious phenomenon called 'Etak'

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Re: A curious phenomenon called 'Etak'

#121

Post by bitcurious »

bambax wrote: post #101

Fascinating article. About this: > Before GPS, navigation systems used a technique called ‘dead reckoning‘. Dead reckoning relied on sensors to determine distance traveled and direction of travel. However, no sensor is perfect. As a result the further you travel the greater the errors build. Pretty quickly you have no idea where you are. > To solve this problem Etak invented ‘augmented dead reckoning’. This used a pr…

> Yet they don't seem to exist yet? Is this harder to do than it sounds?

It exists, but isn’t advertised much as it’s essentially a military technology. If you read about the homegrown attack drones Ukraine is building they use a variation of this tech. Various US platforms do something similar. You won’t see this in a consumer drone anytime soon, but a skilled hobbyist could rig something together.

Re: A curious phenomenon called 'Etak'

#122

Post by thombat »

apetresc wrote: post #97
teleforce wrote: post #28

>Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything. Or so said Steve Jobs when he announced iPhone in 2007. Interestingly, one of Etak co-founders was Nolan Bushnell, and he was Atari co-founder that hired Steve Jobs (or specifically Allan Alcorn) in his only full-time job prior to Apple, pardon the pun.

Sorry, what's the pun? I can't find it.

Guessing that it's Jobs' job?

Re: A curious phenomenon called 'Etak'

#123

Post by adamrezich »

neilv wrote: post #19

1991 home video demo of an Etak, in a custom housing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHCCjlSWbHE?t=1m50s (Bet they didn't think at the time that techies of the future would be watching it in 2024 on the ubiquitous global data network.)

I just love the look of vector displays and I wish they were more common still today. Such a cool aesthetic!

Re: A curious phenomenon called 'Etak'

#124

Post by amadeoeoeo »

gizmo wrote: post #118

One the one hand this is a cool story about real technology pioneers. On the other hand, this is a story about people building technology that was so ahead of its time that it had no chance of turning into a good product. Too expensive, too unreliable, too complicated. I think there are some obvious parallels here to General Magic and the Apple Newton. Very cool technology. Impressive demos. But ultimately the produc…

Isn't this a necessary part on the innovation path?

Re: A curious phenomenon called 'Etak'

#125

Post by bambax »

brk wrote: post #105
bambax wrote: post #101

Fascinating article. About this: > Before GPS, navigation systems used a technique called ‘dead reckoning‘. Dead reckoning relied on sensors to determine distance traveled and direction of travel. However, no sensor is perfect. As a result the further you travel the greater the errors build. Pretty quickly you have no idea where you are. > To solve this problem Etak invented ‘augmented dead reckoning’. This used a pr…

>Authorities usually intercept unwanted (consumer) drones by blocking the signal >between the pilot and the drone; Curious which country you are in where you see this occurring.

I'm in France; here's a demo of a "drone gun" by law enforcement authorities (in French, but you can probably get the gist of it even without the dialogue):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKHNVJfVIQg&t=480s

But I'm pretty sure this exists in most/all countries; DJI even sells equipment specially designed to listen to its own drones.

Re: A curious phenomenon called 'Etak'

#126

Post by MBCook »

lsaferite wrote: post #109
light_hue_1 wrote: post #30

> To solve this problem Etak invented ‘augmented dead reckoning’. This used a process to match the position given by the navigation sensors to a topologically correct electronic map. Whenever the vehicle turned you made the assumption that you’re driving on a road. At that point the location could be ‘snapped’ back to the road and the error from the sensors could be reset. This technique was later adopted by all navi…

I mean, if that paper wasn't declassified until 2017, what are they chances they knew about the prior art exactly? I'm not disputing your assertion, but perhaps I'm a little more charitable in thinking they could have independently invented the same thing and believed they were the first since the one you mentioned was apparently classified.

Right. Independent invention happens all the time.

Re: A curious phenomenon called 'Etak'

#127

Post by ShamelessC »

YouWhy wrote: post #114
iainmerrick wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean David Lynch’s Dune? Jodorowsky’s attempt was in the 70s and was never released.

I concur with you that Etak delivered a functional product, albeit not a commercially successful one, which is farther along than Jodorowsky's Dune project, which stalled mid-way in development. What I wanted to point out is that both projects produced massive amounts of reusable knowledge, and that knowledge set up the stage for a whole field of influential and exciting derivative works.

> I concur with you that Etak delivered a functional product, albeit not a commercially successful one, which is farther along than Jodorowsky's Dune project, which stalled mid-way in development.

You seem to be responding to another comment? Or are putting words in the commenters’ mouth?

Re: A curious phenomenon called 'Etak'

#128

Post by empath-nirvana »

gizmo wrote: post #118

One the one hand this is a cool story about real technology pioneers. On the other hand, this is a story about people building technology that was so ahead of its time that it had no chance of turning into a good product. Too expensive, too unreliable, too complicated. I think there are some obvious parallels here to General Magic and the Apple Newton. Very cool technology. Impressive demos. But ultimately the produc…

This is one of the reasons why I think patents are important, because it allows them to profit from their inventions, and for the inventions to be reused later by others, even if the product was "too soon". They invented innovative technology, tried to build a real product, they should be able to make some money from others picking up the baton -- and presumably they did, when they sold the company through the chain of acquisitions that ended up with them at TomTom and with TomTom in control of their patent portfolio.

Re: A curious phenomenon called 'Etak'

#129

Post by gizmo »

amadeoeoeo wrote: post #124
gizmo wrote: post #118

One the one hand this is a cool story about real technology pioneers. On the other hand, this is a story about people building technology that was so ahead of its time that it had no chance of turning into a good product. Too expensive, too unreliable, too complicated. I think there are some obvious parallels here to General Magic and the Apple Newton. Very cool technology. Impressive demos. But ultimately the produc…

Isn't this a necessary part on the innovation path?

When smart people work on hard problems this usually comes with positive externalities. Even when the tech ends up worthless the the engineers will have learned a ton. I don't think that having people work on technology that is ahead of its time is bad for society. I think it's effectively high budget university research that presents itself as a commercial endeavor.

How much does silicon valley invest into these doomed sci-fi projects annually? Many hundreds of millions at least. I suspect PhDs at a university could produce a lot more innovation at a fraction of the cost.

Re: A curious phenomenon called 'Etak'

#130

Post by gizmo »

empath-nirvana wrote: post #128
gizmo wrote: post #118

One the one hand this is a cool story about real technology pioneers. On the other hand, this is a story about people building technology that was so ahead of its time that it had no chance of turning into a good product. Too expensive, too unreliable, too complicated. I think there are some obvious parallels here to General Magic and the Apple Newton. Very cool technology. Impressive demos. But ultimately the produc…

This is one of the reasons why I think patents are important, because it allows them to profit from their inventions, and for the inventions to be reused later by others, even if the product was "too soon". They invented innovative technology, tried to build a real product, they should be able to make some money from others picking up the baton -- and presumably they did, when they sold the company through the chain…

I couldn't disagree more. If you try to build a commercial product and fail that doesn't entitle you to the profits made by others who made a successful product.
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