The mesh network was informed by, and in turn informed LEO stuff. They did smart work
Loon’s final flight
71–80 of 264 posts
Re: Loon’s final flight
#72Loon always caught my eye, and I thought the reason it would catch on is due to cost. Isn’t launching a satellite much more expensive than a balloon? For example, providing Loon antennas to a telecom provider, and decreasing the infrastructure cost of setting up networks.
Yeah but satellites get actual shit done reliably and for decades.
Re: Loon’s final flight
#73I am currently reading "The Idea Factory" [1], the story of Bell Labs and its innovation streak for many decades. There were so many amazing things Bell Labs worked on - all directly related to solving business problems. At one point, they were given a task of developing the most perfect lubrication oil dispenser with a requirement that it dispenses exactly 15 drops of oil per squeeze of the trigger. They worked on T…
The difference is that Bell scientists were always focused on core business problems and not just chasing fantasies. OK sure, Shannon was doing whatever with mice and unicycles...but he earned it! All of Bells big accomplishments were tightly coupled to business needs: Information theory => everything, transistors => bad vacuums, fiber optics => latency. Similarly Google has had huge contributions on "research" focus…
I think another very important component was that they were innovating in an area where they had a legal monopoly - there was no risk that their competitors would steal away their inventions. This is not the case with Waymo for instance.
Re: Loon’s final flight
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
We put a man on the moon though? I thought a moonshot was hard but doable.
The internet says: "The Apollo program's total cost was about $25.4 billion, about $152 billion in today's dollars." That's about Google's entire revenue for 2020. I don't think even Google could put a man on the moon at those rates. Literal moonshots are expensive.
A public funding source can provide that kind of support for a decade, but even for the likes of Google that's a stretch.
I prefer to think of a moonshot as longer than a longshot, whatever that might be worth.
It sure is sad though, coming from the acquisition before Google X that had just so many great players throughout.
Re: Loon’s final flight
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
A robotaxi without a human driver! For some reason Waymo seems way ahead of everyone else in self-driving
Maybe they are, but their service is super constrained and retains human supervision - just remote controlled.
They can't be remote controlled i.e. remote operators can't steer the car. They can only "answer questions" apparently.
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/e8bfse/way...
Re: Loon’s final flight
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Brain is doing great and Waymo probably at least hits close.
Huh, I used to work next to the Brain team, didn't realize that they started out as Google X. Per their wiki article: > Astro Teller has said that Google Brain paid for the entire cost of Google X even assuming that Waymo has zero expected future profitability.
It's kinda weird to think of brain as an X project. DistBelief was developed out in the open in the main source code repo by people you think of as googlers, like Jeff. So what makes it "X"?
Re: Loon’s final flight
#77Loon always caught my eye, and I thought the reason it would catch on is due to cost. Isn’t launching a satellite much more expensive than a balloon? For example, providing Loon antennas to a telecom provider, and decreasing the infrastructure cost of setting up networks.
> Isn’t launching a satellite much more expensive than a balloon?
Historically yes, but while I don't know the numbers, a launch provider that is able to reduce the cost by about an order of magnitude might have an advantage here (SpaceX are also launching 60 of them at once).
It also seems like satellites would be a bit less vulnerable to outside interference than balloons.
Re: Loon’s final flight
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
You connect to Loon balloons with your regular cellphone whereas StarLink requires a "pizza-box-sized" antenna. They solve slightly different problems.
It's likely easier to set up a solar powered cell tower on the ground with a starlink antenna on top, than to float the same equipment on a balloon though.
Don’t forget about Amazon’s Kuiper System.
https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/innovation-at-amazon/amazon...
Re: Loon’s final flight
#79Starlink made this obsolete before it launched
But Loon launched in 2013 and Starlink in 2018 (?).
In a world in which satellites stayed very expensive I could imagine it being a bit more successful.
Re: Loon’s final flight
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
A robotaxi without a human driver! For some reason Waymo seems way ahead of everyone else in self-driving
Maybe they are, but their service is super constrained and retains human supervision - just remote controlled.
The actual thing that self driving cars get you is "not paying for a taxi driver."
If one remote operator can supervise 10 mostly autonomous vehicles, you've gotten 90% of the economic value of full autonomy.