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Okay, so Fadell is out, following reports that Nest is a mess. Verily, the life sciences arm has similar CEO problems: https://www.statnews.com/2016/03/28/goo

by Fricken 10y ago

Okay, so Fadell is out, following reports that Nest is a mess. Verily, the life sciences arm has similar CEO problems: https://www.statnews.com/2016/03/28/google-life-sciences-exodus/ https://www.statnews.com/2016/03/28/google-life-sciences-exo... Boston Dynamics and Schaft are being sold off, and who knows if the rest of Rubin's robot companies are on the auction block. And while carmakers, rideshare companies and Autonomous AI companies are all forming alliances in varying capacities, Alphabet's self driving car project dance card remains conspicuously empty. Things at Alphabet are not looking good.

ghaff 10y ago
>And while carmakers, rideshare companies and Autonomous AI companies are all forming alliances in varying capacities, Alphabet's self driving car project dance card remains conspicuously empty. That seems to be mostly because even though many researchers in the field think that door-to-door Level 4 autonomy is decades out, Google is apparently uninterested in any intermediate steps. Which pretty much rules out any partnerships with automakers etc. who are interested in things they can sell in interesting commercial horizons.
- Fricken 10y ago
  The viability of door-to-door level 4 depends on which two doors you're talking about. Chris Urmson, the lead engineer will tell you that cross country, all weather level 4 might be 30 years out, but their Koala cars would be doing publicly accessible trials around Mountain View right now if it weren't for regulatory hang-ups.
beambot 10y ago
> And while carmakers, rideshare companies and Autonomous AI companies are all forming alliances in varying capacities, Alphabet's self driving car project dance card remains conspicuously empty. Except for the Ford partnership [1] and a strategic investment in Uber [2]. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/28/business/ford-and-google-team-up-tosupport-driverless-cars.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/28/business/ford-and-google-t... [2] http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/22/google-ventures-puts-258m-into-uber-its-largest-deal-ever/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/22/google-ventures-puts-258m-i...
- Fricken 10y ago
  Your first link refers to the Self-driving Coalition for Safer Streets which also includes Volvo, Uber and Lyft, and it's just a lobby group. The second link, about Google Ventures investment in Uber is unrelated to the self driving car program. Uber has, in the meantime, acquired a substantial portion of the Carnegie Mellon robotics department [1] and has siphoned off ~100 engineers from Bing Maps [2], which to me implies that for whatever reason Uber wants to be as independent from Google as possible. To graduate from a science project to a revenue generating business, Google needs a major manufacturing partnership, and while they've been seeking such a partnership for years now, no formal announcement has been made beyond a deal with FCA to outfit 100 Pacifica minivans with autonomous sensors. It was emphasized that Alphabet and FCA have no plans extending beyond those 100 vehicles [3]. [1]http://www.wsj.com/articles/is-uber-a-friend-or-foe-of-carnegie-mellon-in-robotics-1433084582 http://www.wsj.com/articles/is-uber-a-friend-or-foe-of-carne... [2] http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/29/uber-acquires-part-of-bings-mapping-assets-will-absorb-around-100-microsoft-employees/ http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/29/uber-acquires-part-of-bings... [3] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-google-selfdriving-idUSKCN0YA2ZP http://www.reuters.com/article/us-google-selfdriving-idUSKCN...

by Fricken 10y ago

ghaff 10y ago

>And while carmakers, rideshare companies and Autonomous AI companies are all forming alliances in varying capacities, Alphabet's self driving car project dance card remains conspicuously empty. That seems to be mostly because even though many researchers in the field think that door-to-door Level 4 autonomy is decades out, Google is apparently uninterested in any intermediate steps. Which pretty much rules out any partnerships with automakers etc. who are interested in things they can sell in interesting commercial horizons.

Fricken 10y ago
The viability of door-to-door level 4 depends on which two doors you're talking about. Chris Urmson, the lead engineer will tell you that cross country, all weather level 4 might be 30 years out, but their Koala cars would be doing publicly accessible trials around Mountain View right now if it weren't for regulatory hang-ups.

beambot 10y ago

> And while carmakers, rideshare companies and Autonomous AI companies are all forming alliances in varying capacities, Alphabet's self driving car project dance card remains conspicuously empty. Except for the Ford partnership [1] and a strategic investment in Uber [2]. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/28/business/ford-and-google-team-up-tosupport-driverless-cars.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/28/business/ford-and-google-t... [2] http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/22/google-ventures-puts-258m-into-uber-its-largest-deal-ever/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/22/google-ventures-puts-258m-i...

Fricken 10y ago
Your first link refers to the Self-driving Coalition for Safer Streets which also includes Volvo, Uber and Lyft, and it's just a lobby group. The second link, about Google Ventures investment in Uber is unrelated to the self driving car program. Uber has, in the meantime, acquired a substantial portion of the Carnegie Mellon robotics department [1] and has siphoned off ~100 engineers from Bing Maps [2], which to me implies that for whatever reason Uber wants to be as independent from Google as possible. To graduate from a science project to a revenue generating business, Google needs a major manufacturing partnership, and while they've been seeking such a partnership for years now, no formal announcement has been made beyond a deal with FCA to outfit 100 Pacifica minivans with autonomous sensors. It was emphasized that Alphabet and FCA have no plans extending beyond those 100 vehicles [3]. [1]http://www.wsj.com/articles/is-uber-a-friend-or-foe-of-carnegie-mellon-in-robotics-1433084582 http://www.wsj.com/articles/is-uber-a-friend-or-foe-of-carne... [2] http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/29/uber-acquires-part-of-bings-mapping-assets-will-absorb-around-100-microsoft-employees/ http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/29/uber-acquires-part-of-bings... [3] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-google-selfdriving-idUSKCN0YA2ZP http://www.reuters.com/article/us-google-selfdriving-idUSKCN...