TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation • Hacker News Board

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#171

Post by kodah » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 5:45 PM UTC

pkulak wrote: post #166

VBprogrammer wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that going deeper integrated into cars was their game plan. I've never used our in-car GPS (other than playing with it once). If it was any good it has a ton of advantages over using Google, including display on the "speedometer" screen. Sadly, it's pants. It comically announces caution stationary traffic on the M25, generally after we've been stationary for 5 minutes. The navigation directions aren't as…

I'm the total opposite. I love my in-car nav. I have a shortcut on the steering wheel that brings up a list of recent destinations, so starting it takes literally seconds. I don't have to plug in my phone, or even look at it. I get turn by turn in the binnacle AND the heads-up display. And on top of that, it _doesn't_ do all the silly stuff that Google does to make people think it's so great, like routing me through…

I was traveling with some friends through Los Gatos on the way to Monterrey and Google had me sit in a residential neighborhood traffic jam for over 45 minutes when I could've turned left and gotten to my destination much quicker. I did end up turning left, but the takeaway that I had is that Google isn't always doing the "right" thing.

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#172

Post by Hamuko » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 5:48 PM UTC

cgriswald wrote: post #150

asdff wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no experience with tom tom but I was a garmin user, and I got the sense that tom toms were pretty much identical. IMO an integrated tom tom into the car, if it performs as well as the external unit, would be amazingly better than your cell phone. The biggest advantage imo is satellite coverage is much better than quality data network coverage. I'm not even talking about in the boonies. Plenty of times in the m…

I have an older in-car system and my experience is the opposite. First, the car doesn't download map data. I'm stuck with what was on the car when I bought it unless I want to pay an unreasonable amount to update it. Second, it does download traffic data, but it's so slow that it's useless. I took its advice once and it cost me over an hour, because the alternate route had already filled up and had the disadvantage o…

>First, the car doesn't download map data. I'm stuck with what was on the car when I bought it unless I want to pay an unreasonable amount to update it.

Apparently car navigation maps are a thing that you can also pirate. I think I saw a Windows tool for downloading Mercedes-Benz map updates. Never tried it though, since I was pretty content to sticking with Google Maps and a phone mount.

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#173

Post by nradov » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 5:49 PM UTC

pkulak wrote: post #166

VBprogrammer wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that going deeper integrated into cars was their game plan. I've never used our in-car GPS (other than playing with it once). If it was any good it has a ton of advantages over using Google, including display on the "speedometer" screen. Sadly, it's pants. It comically announces caution stationary traffic on the M25, generally after we've been stationary for 5 minutes. The navigation directions aren't as…

I'm the total opposite. I love my in-car nav. I have a shortcut on the steering wheel that brings up a list of recent destinations, so starting it takes literally seconds. I don't have to plug in my phone, or even look at it. I get turn by turn in the binnacle AND the heads-up display. And on top of that, it _doesn't_ do all the silly stuff that Google does to make people think it's so great, like routing me through…

With Android Auto I can save time by starting navigation before I even get into the car. And it does clearly show how much time alternate routes will save, so it's easy to see when a detour through a residential neighborhood isn't worth the hassle.

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#174

Post by idiotsecant » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 5:50 PM UTC

sbrother wrote: post #138

sp332 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube doesn't make a lot of money. Android might if you include the Play store.

> YouTube doesn't make a lot of money. Citation needed... Is $7B/quarter not a lot of money?

Google doesn't release net income numbers by business unit but in 2021 revenue for search was around $148B and Youtube revenue was around $29B. Given that youtube revenue dollars are probably much more expensive than search revenue dollars I'd say that ratio will skew toward more of the profit being in the search category than the you tube category, not less. It does seem on balance to be a relatively small part of their business dollars-wise, although I'd make the case that the cultural relevancy that youtube gives google has a non-zero value.

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#175

Post by tshaddox » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 5:52 PM UTC

VBprogrammer wrote: post #90

scotty79 wrote: post #85

I used to work for TomTom maybe 10 years ago. I was there when Google started offering turn by turn navigation for free. Other issue was live traffic information. As you might imagine all this caused some concern among employees because that was, I think, the main source of revenue for the company. They were already doing some other stuff like fitness wearables but they didn't seem to be leaning into it. Main idea fo…

Interesting that going deeper integrated into cars was their game plan. I've never used our in-car GPS (other than playing with it once). If it was any good it has a ton of advantages over using Google, including display on the "speedometer" screen. Sadly, it's pants. It comically announces caution stationary traffic on the M25, generally after we've been stationary for 5 minutes. The navigation directions aren't as…

> If it was any good it has a ton of advantages over using Google, including display on the "speedometer" screen.

Just as a quick note, when I use Apple Maps via CarPlay on my 2020 Subaru it does display the next turn on the instrument cluster. This doesn't work with Google Maps via CarPlay, so it might be a private CarPlay API that only Apple's first-party apps can use.

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#176

Post by ceras » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 5:53 PM UTC

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #135

perlgeek wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about cloud?

Hasn’t Google said if they don’t “win” Cloud against AWS and/or Azure, they’re going to shut GCP down eventually?

IIRC the rumor leak around that was more nuanced: the leaks reported someone allegedly saying that market economics may not ultimately be able to support more than 2 leaders, because the economics will make #1 and #2 able to profit at prices that numbers 3+ can't compete with due to lack of scale. So the statement was that GCP has keep up or its ability to profit will be at risk, not that they'd shut down just because their slice of the pie isn't big enough if they end up as #3.

I don't believe it was clear who said this, how confident it was that someone said this, and whether it was an off-the-cuff comment in support of a push for more growth or an actual deep assessment of the economics of the space.

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#177

Post by mrtranscendence » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 5:59 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #161

mrtranscendence wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, a corporation is a specific type of business arrangement. For example, you can have a limited liability company (LLC) that is wholly owned by an individual.

I don't think TomTom changed what type of company it was.

Gotcha. You meant something more like "wasn't TomTom already a corporation?"

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#178

Post by alaricus » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 6:00 PM UTC

ratww wrote: post #123

alaricus wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is basically what youtube is doing. PiHole does not work on Youtube, but uBlock origin does (so does NewPipe, FreeTube and a bunch of software). This would solve Google's immediate problem, but it's such a huge escalation that I expect lots of unintended effects not to Google's benefit. There is a reason they haven't done this, despite widespread adblocking use.

Yeah, the industry is definitely moving to that. Admiral, probably the most known ad-blocker-blocker already successfully circumvents PiHole and other DNS blocking by being served by the same domain. I also expect Google to double down on Chrome Manifest v3 limitations if ad-blocking keeps getting more popular. Or even using DNS-over-HTTPS as a default on Chrome if ISP blocking ever becomes a thing.

Do you have pointers on what Admiral is doing? I just remember they tried to get their domains removed from blocklists via DMCA.

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#179

Post by pishpash » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 6:00 PM UTC

kodah wrote: post #171

pkulak wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the total opposite. I love my in-car nav. I have a shortcut on the steering wheel that brings up a list of recent destinations, so starting it takes literally seconds. I don't have to plug in my phone, or even look at it. I get turn by turn in the binnacle AND the heads-up display. And on top of that, it _doesn't_ do all the silly stuff that Google does to make people think it's so great, like routing me through…

I was traveling with some friends through Los Gatos on the way to Monterrey and Google had me sit in a residential neighborhood traffic jam for over 45 minutes when I could've turned left and gotten to my destination much quicker. I did end up turning left, but the takeaway that I had is that Google isn't always doing the "right" thing.

It became a 45 minute traffic jam because Google directed everyone there. Maybe.

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#180

Post by kube-system » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 6:04 PM UTC

pkulak wrote: post #166

VBprogrammer wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that going deeper integrated into cars was their game plan. I've never used our in-car GPS (other than playing with it once). If it was any good it has a ton of advantages over using Google, including display on the "speedometer" screen. Sadly, it's pants. It comically announces caution stationary traffic on the M25, generally after we've been stationary for 5 minutes. The navigation directions aren't as…

I'm the total opposite. I love my in-car nav. I have a shortcut on the steering wheel that brings up a list of recent destinations, so starting it takes literally seconds. I don't have to plug in my phone, or even look at it. I get turn by turn in the binnacle AND the heads-up display. And on top of that, it _doesn't_ do all the silly stuff that Google does to make people think it's so great, like routing me through…

> I don't have to plug in my phone, or even look at it. I get turn by turn in the binnacle AND the heads-up display. And on top of that, it _doesn't_ do all the silly stuff that Google does to make people think it's so great, like routing me through some residential neighborhood to save 45 seconds.

Apple CarPlay + Apple Maps checks all of those boxes in my car.