Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics • Hacker News Board

Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics

#161

Post by mycall » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 4:26 AM UTC

zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #127

ogre_codes wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm far more worried about kamikaze drones with machine guns than I am about robot dogs. You can crank out 100 cheap and deadly flying drones for the cost of the smallest robot dog. The dog might be tougher, but it's much slower and easier to stop. I imagine in the not-so-near future there will be fleets of mini drones seeking out soft targets.

Machine guns are overly elaborate. A bunch of < $20 drones from Ali express with an explosive tied on would do it. You would not even need elaborate radio-jamming defeating control systems, they just need to fly straight until they hit something then a tilt sensor or timer detonates them. If it’s one thing we learned from myth busters, it’s how much damage the concussion wave from a surprisingly small blast can do to…

> they just need to fly straight until they hit something then a tilt sensor or timer detonates them.

or go to the correct lat/long, given wind and temperature, they can just drop from the sky

Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics

#162

Post by homero » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 4:40 AM UTC

karmicthreat wrote: post #2

I wonder if this is because of the SoftBank cash crunch. Or if it's just nobody has figured out how to make money with Boston Dynamics. Though if the 1 billion sale price is true, maybe flipping BD is the only way to make money with it.

Honda has robots, maybe they're monetized in other countries

Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics

#163

Post by totorovirus » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 4:55 AM UTC

I thought they were related to U.S army funded projects which were highly confidential to foreigners.. I think they split the company into sensitive department and public department and hyundai is buying the public one.

Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics

#164

Post by petre » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 5:11 AM UTC

dreamcompiler wrote: post #100

souprock wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ITAR or even classified The robots are practically weapons. Imagine the 4-legged one chasing you down like a large cat could, then pouncing on you. Imagine the 2-legged one with armor, relentlessly stalking you like Terminator.

BD robots could be easily defeated by a 50-cal bullet or an EMP or a sandstorm or merely by preventing them from recharging their batteries. Reality is not like the movies.

Or even easier: a lasso or string that ties its legs, a trap etc. If it works for animals it works for legged robots.

Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics

#165

Post by _trampeltier » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 5:28 AM UTC

marcusverus wrote: post #159

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The market is effectively a free money machine" That's clearly an absurdity and not physically possible. Whatbwe do know is that every time we have QE 90% of the money ends up in financial markets, not real economy. This is a well known problem, and Yanis Varufakis has talked about it at length

>That's clearly an absurdity and not physically possible. And yet the market has averaged a 7% annual return since 1870.

But special this year the USD lost a lot of value. USD - CHF (Switzerland) is about minus 8.5%, so your +7% would be still a minus business for me.

The high stock market and the high prices for building are more the true inflation than a true plus on the market.

Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics

#166

Post by seanmcdirmid » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 5:34 AM UTC

elefanten wrote: post #156

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Wonder if China's gonna require any IP transfer? That'll go over like a lead balloon in Korea even more than the west.

Hopefully. Not informed on how well that trick works on neighbors compared to the more distant suckers.

China’s neighbors are generally more wary of it than other countries further way due to a less than peaceful history.

Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics

#167

Post by ajit_singh » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 5:36 AM UTC

$1 billion!

I understand that the valuation of a company is also determined by its earning potential but did Boston Dynamics have that so much that it justified this crazy valuation.

From what I know it barely made any revenue while being in business for more than 25 years. It couldn't find a customer to produce any of its hyped robots at scale. It was clearly a loss-magnet entity for Softbank which is in a selling mode in the wake of Uber/Wework disaster.

In any other country valuation like this would have become the subject of enormous assessment because outside the US, $1 bn still means a lot of money. But I think USA is beyond but I really do not understand the system which facilitates such transaction without the corresponding exchange in value. How is the money being made?

Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics

#168

Post by sailfast » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 5:39 AM UTC

souprock wrote: post #54

nwsm wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What reason would there be to disallow it?

ITAR or even classified The robots are practically weapons. Imagine the 4-legged one chasing you down like a large cat could, then pouncing on you. Imagine the 2-legged one with armor, relentlessly stalking you like Terminator.

They tried to sell that to DoD already and obviously did not meet their needs in this way. If they had, they would not be looking for a sale, I’d imagine.

Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics

#169

Post by renewiltord » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 5:43 AM UTC

elefanten wrote: post #156

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Wonder if China's gonna require any IP transfer? That'll go over like a lead balloon in Korea even more than the west.

Hopefully. Not informed on how well that trick works on neighbors compared to the more distant suckers.

Neighbours are usually more wary of each other than they are of far away people. It's precisely because their interests conflict so much.

Part of America's reason for success is her relative isolation.

Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics

#170

Post by jitix » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 5:53 AM UTC

ajit_singh wrote: post #167

$1 billion! I understand that the valuation of a company is also determined by its earning potential but did Boston Dynamics have that so much that it justified this crazy valuation. From what I know it barely made any revenue while being in business for more than 25 years. It couldn't find a customer to produce any of its hyped robots at scale. It was clearly a loss-magnet entity for Softbank which is in a selling m…

As an immigrant engineer I feel this is actually good because it shows that the market in the US is bullish on new technologies. I believe this is what has led to most of the major inventions in the past 100 years to come from the US.

In my home country (India) it’d be impossible for a company to reach such valuations based only on research and prototypes, which in turn leads to low salaries for STEM people, culminating in brain drain.