Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Google X moonshot factory is struggling to get products out the door

recode.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 71 posts

Re: The Google X moonshot factory is struggling to get products out the door

#41

Post by obmelvin »

jfoster wrote: post #29
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just going to be about straight miles driven, it's about the technology being focused on and what's possible with it. Both Tesla and comma.ai are focusing primarily on what the car can see and do with it's own sensors... Google's cars are only functional on roads excessively mapped far above the normal Google Maps level. Google's existing strategy for self-driving cars isn't practical at a national level bec…

Tesla is either already mapping roads through the sensors on their cars, or is only one software update away from doing so. Their mapping data will be a lot fresher than Google's.

Tesla cars don't have enough sensors to capture great data. It will require a lot more than a software update for then to record data on par with googles quality

Re: The Google X moonshot factory is struggling to get products out the door

#42

Post by Analemma_ »

samwillis wrote: post #36
flexie wrote: post #16

I have been wondering if Google hasn't already lost the self driving race to Tesla. Google still drives a few test vehicles around and has totalled some 2.7 million km: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_self-driving_car Tesla has more than 100,000 model S driving around and in just 7 months their auto pilots have already surpassed the km driven by Google for the past 7 years by almost a factor 100 (roughly 200M…

Tesla's auto pilot isn't at all comparable to what Google are doing. It essentially the same as the adaptive cruse control (cruse control that adjusts to traffic in front) and lane assist (auto stearing to stay in lane) you can get from most other car manufactures as an option. That's not to say that tesla isn't developing full automation it's just that what they sell now is just clever branding on something you can…

But in terms of collecting training data to develop the algos that will eventually be fully autonomous, Tesla is way out in front. That's what the OP meant: every Tesla is collecting information that gets sent back to HQ to train the neural nets (or whatever) that will eventually drive the cars themselves.

Re: The Google X moonshot factory is struggling to get products out the door

#43

Post by oh_sigh »

cageface wrote: post #9
mdorazio wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people (myself included) would compare X in intent and setup to PARC from the 1970s. The latter managed the extraordinary feat of pushing out a major innovation on average about once every 2.5 years from 1970 to 2000. That's things like laser printing, OOP, Ethernet, etc. that went on to build industries or take existing ones in new directions. X, on the other hand, has been around for over 6 years now and as fa…

It may be true that it's harder now to make those kinds of leaps than it was in the 1970s though.

Evidence of this assertion?

Re: The Google X moonshot factory is struggling to get products out the door

#44

Post by heroprotagonist »

jfoster wrote: post #27
kllrnohj wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

200M km of adaptive cruise control & lane assist on a highway is very different from 2.7M km of fully autonomous driving on city streets & highway.

Think of the data collection aspect of it, though. Tesla's driving AI will know what happens in the real world better than Google's driving AI does.

How much data are each of Tesla's cars really collecting vs each of Google's cars? If the data is not useful, it won't matter how many miles they've driven. Do they have the same sensor capability and collection?

Imagine the difference between, say, trying to determine a user's video preferences based upon their hit statistics on IMDB vs direct viewing data from Netflix that includes everything they've watched, how long (1 minute vs the entire show), when, the order they've watched (eg, mood predictors), frequency, etc.

I'm not saying that this is the difference between Tesla and Google, just that quantity and quality don't necessarily equate.

Re: The Google X moonshot factory is struggling to get products out the door

#45

Post by jordonwii »

mdorazio wrote: post #8
advisedwang wrote: post #3

If Google is really aiming as high as it says it is, you would expect the rate of successes to be fairly low. A true "moonshot" success - one that creates a whole new industry - every decade would still be a phenomenal success. Maybe we just need patience?

Many people (myself included) would compare X in intent and setup to PARC from the 1970s. The latter managed the extraordinary feat of pushing out a major innovation on average about once every 2.5 years from 1970 to 2000. That's things like laser printing, OOP, Ethernet, etc. that went on to build industries or take existing ones in new directions. X, on the other hand, has been around for over 6 years now and as fa…

> Many people (myself included) would compare X in intent and setup to PARC from the 1970s.

That was probably true originally. Lately, (especially post-Alphabet) it seems like the pressure is on them to produce commercial products, albeit ones that might be many years out - my impression is that researchers at PARC were not, realistically, under the same pressure (see: the many innovations that were never commercialized).

That makes sense, though - Google is actively in search of new business models, while Xerox enjoyed such enormous market share while PARC was well-funded that I doubt they felt that kind of pressure until later.

Re: The Google X moonshot factory is struggling to get products out the door

#46

Post by karma_vaccum123 »

This feels like the type of operation better suited for a tier-one educational institution like Stanford or MIT.

In a academic context, there is no subtext of creating products. Yeah, churning out papers is as contrived...but I still feel like the timelines in academia are more generous.

Google talks a good press event, highlighting their embrace of failure, their desire to take on crazy moonshots etc...but its all in the context of quarterly reports. Something has to give.

Re: The Google X moonshot factory is struggling to get products out the door

#47

Post by karma_vaccum123 »

advisedwang wrote: post #3

If Google is really aiming as high as it says it is, you would expect the rate of successes to be fairly low. A true "moonshot" success - one that creates a whole new industry - every decade would still be a phenomenal success. Maybe we just need patience?

Or maybe you can't just put people in a room and say "invent stuff".

It may sound hackneyed, but I believe necessity is the mother of invention and it doesn't seem there is that kind of motivation here...it feels forced.

Re: The Google X moonshot factory is struggling to get products out the door

#48

Post by petra »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #25
flexie wrote: post #16

I have been wondering if Google hasn't already lost the self driving race to Tesla. Google still drives a few test vehicles around and has totalled some 2.7 million km: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_self-driving_car Tesla has more than 100,000 model S driving around and in just 7 months their auto pilots have already surpassed the km driven by Google for the past 7 years by almost a factor 100 (roughly 200M…

It's not just going to be about straight miles driven, it's about the technology being focused on and what's possible with it. Both Tesla and comma.ai are focusing primarily on what the car can see and do with it's own sensors... Google's cars are only functional on roads excessively mapped far above the normal Google Maps level. Google's existing strategy for self-driving cars isn't practical at a national level bec…

>> Google's existing strategy for self-driving cars isn't practical at a national level because of that extensive mapping requirement, and it possibly never will be.

>> Google's sensor platform is the most expensive out there.

>> Google has never tested in bad weather

What about a self-driving cars as a service ? they can be the first to start a very profitable service that is limited in area and in weather even thought the sensors are more expensive(and they can claim "we aren't cutting corners like everybody else!")

And that could be a great place to be in, strategically.

Re: The Google X moonshot factory is struggling to get products out the door

#49

Post by karma_vaccum123 »

khnd wrote: post #11

why does it matter if the moonshot factory is getting products out the door or not?

It doesn't, but if Google keeps feeding moonshot stories to the press, they should expect the press to circle back and see if there is any follow-through.

If Google X is really just a nerd-PR exercise, let's call it that.

Re: The Google X moonshot factory is struggling to get products out the door

#50

Post by jn1234 »

samwillis wrote: post #36
flexie wrote: post #16

I have been wondering if Google hasn't already lost the self driving race to Tesla. Google still drives a few test vehicles around and has totalled some 2.7 million km: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_self-driving_car Tesla has more than 100,000 model S driving around and in just 7 months their auto pilots have already surpassed the km driven by Google for the past 7 years by almost a factor 100 (roughly 200M…

Tesla's auto pilot isn't at all comparable to what Google are doing. It essentially the same as the adaptive cruse control (cruse control that adjusts to traffic in front) and lane assist (auto stearing to stay in lane) you can get from most other car manufactures as an option. That's not to say that tesla isn't developing full automation it's just that what they sell now is just clever branding on something you can…

I believe that at some point in the future they will launch a joint-venture for a fully automated Uber competitor with Tesla handling designing and building the vehicles and Google providing cash, self-driving software and building the actual app.

Musk is literally too good friends with Sergey Brin and Larry Page for this not too happen.

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/elon-musk-and-larry-page-ha...

http://www.businessinsider.com/googles-secret-apartment-elon...

Post reply on HN