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Loon’s final flight

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Re: Loon’s final flight

#171

Post by knorker »

xyzzyz wrote: post #128
scottLobster wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the total cost over the decade+ the program was in existence. Divide by 10 and it becomes roughly 10% of Google's revenue. So it wouldn't be insubstantial, but they could fund a similar effort if they really wanted to. Shareholders would have a thing or two to say about that though, which is why Elon Musk is keeping SpaceX private.

Sending 2nd rocket to the moon was much cheaper than the first one, so you can’t just divide by 10.

That's not what the poster meant. It wasn't counting rockets, but the fact that the cost was spread out over multiple years.

Yes, if it were possible to go from zero to moon in one year then that would be all of Google revenue. But spread over 10 years that's just 10% per year.

Re: Loon’s final flight

#172

Post by ridaj »

ForHackernews wrote: post #163
antupis wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brain is doing great and Waymo probably at least hits close.

Is Brain doing great? From a few things people have said, it sounded like Brain was struggling so Google bought Deep Mind instead. All of the really cutting edge AI stuff has come out of Deep Mind, not Brain.

They've talked about it in some cases. See https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/30/16222850/youtube-google-b...

Re: Loon’s final flight

#173

Post by Dylan16807 »

ithkuil wrote: post #160
gundmc wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If, however, this news came with a grant of all the patents into the public domain, then it would be another story...THIS is the problem with these "skunkworks" type projects from megacorps. They suck all the air out of the room and prevent others from innovating. > Loon didn't fail, Google/Alphabet just decided they were going to discontinue funding. Now they hold a pool of patents they don't intend to do anything…

Yeah. This is how prejudice works. It doesn't matter what you do, if you're X you'll be (pre)judged as an X and nothing short of an immaculate behaviour will prevent people from just pointing at some past mistakes or self-serving behaviours to undo all positive actions you may have done

I can't believe you had the gall to post that after they said "I wasn't aware of that - that is fantastic."

Talk about bias...

Re: Loon’s final flight

#174

Post by Dylan16807 »

valvar wrote: post #28
7thaccount wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does google have anything successful outside of: search, adsense, chrome, chromebooks, and android? Those are all large accomplishments to be sure, but it seems like they should have more products out there that people actually buy.

They also have maps, gmail, docs, drive, translate, calendar, photos, scholar, and lately Stadia.

Stadia's successful now? How many users do they have?

Re: Loon’s final flight

#175

Post by knorker »

sixti60 wrote: post #129

Sorry to be this guy, but I am quite happy this will not happen. The sky - our sky - is not a playground for tech companies. Imposing a mesh-grid of thousands of balloons in the sky is an incredible intrusion for people around the world who have not asked for anything. It's the same for mega constellations of satellites (Starlink). Would you be willing to have a company come and put unsolicited electronic equipment i…

> Or maybe ask "the owner" before you start, i.e. the citizens of the world.

Are you under the impression that the sky and satellite space is unregulated, by the people's representatives?

Huh.

Re: Loon’s final flight

#176

Post by Judgmentality »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #166
Judgmentality wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This ignores the cost of sending data wirelessly over cellular networks so remote operators can see the vehicle, the cost of maintaining the software and hardware on the vehicle itself, the cost of maintaining the vehicle fleet, the cost of creating and operating a consumer-facing support system (!!! for Google), the cost of dealing with the enormous amounts of data those vehicles create (even for Google this is not…

The phrase "value of full autonomy" is excluding fleet costs on purpose. It's about drivers. Customer support is also going to be far far fewer than one person per vehicle. The enormous amounts of data? If it's not valuable they can just discard it! Having sensors attached to something doesn't obligate you to store it forever. Everyone knows the software/configuration costs are immense here. But that's the lion's sha…

> The enormous amounts of data? If it's not valuable they can just discard it!

I'm curious what the legal requirements for this will be. But I imagine they'd want to hold on to data of driving scenarios for at least a month, in case they get accused of wrongdoing by other drivers. If they had no data to back up their case with all those sensors, it would look awfully suspicious and essentially one witness against nobody - so they'd have to hold onto the data for however long the legal teams deem is okay.

This may sound crazy, but it's already happening at the scale of testing with just a few dozen cars.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/06/gm-settles-with-motorcy...

Re: Loon’s final flight

#177

Post by londons_explore »

Mistri wrote: post #4

People often make fun of Google/Alphabet for their graveyard of failed initiatives/products. While some of it might be warranted, projects like this—that strive to solve a large, global issue through somewhat charitable actions—are generous and have only increased my respect for the Google/Alphabet/X team. I hope they don't get flamed for this, and hopefully some of their research and donation funds can live on and s…

Loon was a clear failure on the inside around year 3. That's when the rate of innovation dropped dramatically and key figures left. Google's main failing was continuing to fund it for a further 6 years with only mediocre progress.

Re: Loon’s final flight

#178

Post by Dylan16807 »

sixti60 wrote: post #170
Tepix wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike an airplane, the baloon flies much higher. I don't think you can see it with your bare eyes from the ground. Perhaps if you look really hard. Regarding the satellites, i hope the Starlink satellites will also be not visible to the naked eye once they reach their final orbit now that they have the sunshade. On the other hand, these technologies provide a huge benefit to the people on the ground. If you want to…

> Regarding the satellites, i hope the Starlink satellites will also be not visible to the naked eye This is not guaranteed at all. I read articles in the past mentioning that you will see "trains" of dozens of white dots one behind another in the sky. Do we currently see satellites in a dark summer night? Yes. So for Starlink it will be the same, except with 10 of them one behind another. I'd be happy to read more s…

> I read articles in the past mentioning that you will see "trains" of dozens of white dots one behind another in the sky.

"Will" there means "right after launch, when they're in a very different orbit from final". They spread out by a very large distance, so that in the final version you'd only have line of sight to a few scattered across the sky.

Re: Loon’s final flight

#179

Post by Dylan16807 »

Judgmentality wrote: post #176
Dylan16807 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The phrase "value of full autonomy" is excluding fleet costs on purpose. It's about drivers. Customer support is also going to be far far fewer than one person per vehicle. The enormous amounts of data? If it's not valuable they can just discard it! Having sensors attached to something doesn't obligate you to store it forever. Everyone knows the software/configuration costs are immense here. But that's the lion's sha…

> The enormous amounts of data? If it's not valuable they can just discard it! I'm curious what the legal requirements for this will be. But I imagine they'd want to hold on to data of driving scenarios for at least a month, in case they get accused of wrongdoing by other drivers. If they had no data to back up their case with all those sensors, it would look awfully suspicious and essentially one witness against nob…

They should keep data in case of a crash but that's a minuscule amount. I don't see any need to keep a record of everything else for a full month.

Re: Loon’s final flight

#180

Post by Judgmentality »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #179
Judgmentality wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The enormous amounts of data? If it's not valuable they can just discard it! I'm curious what the legal requirements for this will be. But I imagine they'd want to hold on to data of driving scenarios for at least a month, in case they get accused of wrongdoing by other drivers. If they had no data to back up their case with all those sensors, it would look awfully suspicious and essentially one witness against nob…

They should keep data in case of a crash but that's a minuscule amount. I don't see any need to keep a record of everything else for a full month.

They can be accused of a crash even if there isn't a crash though. And if they have no data to back up their side of the story, why would any court believe them? In other words - people can just randomly accuse them of hit-and-runs and they'd have nothing to say otherwise.
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