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Waymo Launches Its Self-Driving Armada
- provost 9y ago> The details are a bit sketchy. Ask "how many thousands," and you're told, ¯_(ツ)_/¯. Off-topic: I was surprised to see that journalists are doing Unicode art in articles now, and I don’t think that’s wise. Wouldn’t this confuse a blind reader who is listening to a transcribed version?
- pault 9y ago¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- buro9 9y agoTheir article format is Markdown, and if you enter the full shrug as Markdown then the back slash escapes the underscore to prevent it becoming markup, but it is removed in the process. Markdown is not friendly to the shrug.
- pault 9y agoI was trying to make a joke about the journalist not caring about screen readers. Also, the correct way to shrug in markdown is ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯ (verified in github and gitlab).
- detaro 9y agoYes it would (if not correctly marked up), but caring about that isn't exactly widespread in the web world in general.
- criddell 9y agoI think when you include the context of the article around that sentence, the meaning should be clear.
- alistairSH 9y agoLooks at the source, in this instance, the emoji is not accessible. It's text in the paragraph, just like the actually words. The author is relying on tools like Jaws/NVDA correctly translating a graphic into spoken word. There are ways to add emojis in an accessible fashion. You'd have to treat them like images and add alt text or some aria attributes to ensure the screen-reader interprets it correctly. Or, use predefined Unicode verisons. Neither was done here and Wired should be ashamed of themselves for not even making an effort.
- maxerickson 9y agoI think it is reasonable to expect a transcription service or screen reader to treat "¯_(ツ)_/¯" like it treats any other word. Emojis have been around long enough that they ought to be handling them by now anyway.
- croon 9y ago> I think it is reasonable to expect a transcription service or screen reader to treat "¯_(ツ)_/¯" like it treats any other word. For a seeing person, there is negligible difference between "¯_(ツ)_/¯" and "¯\_(ツ)_/¯". For either a seeing or blind person there is negligible difference between "emoji" and "meoji". We can all make up emojis on the spot that can only heuristically be decrypted by seeing them as an image, not reading them one character at a time. Making up a new word is still just a sequence of characters, and can be understood by any medium, whether it's written, braille, audio, etc. There's no reasonable way to transcript emojis other than a predefined database of them, which unicode already has.
- maxerickson 9y agoYes, my point is that a transcription service or screen reader will be well served by having a database containing symbol sequences like "¯\_(ツ)_/¯". And transcription services should certainly recognize "¯_(ツ)_/¯" as a failed attempt at "¯\_(ツ)_/¯". Screen readers probably should too. If they are sticking to whatever Unicode blesses they aren't serving their users well. Also, I read provost as talking about the art in general, including a correct shrug, so I replied in that context instead of spending time on the missing \.
- wahnfrieden 9y agoUnicode language prescriptivism... that’s a new one.
- croon 9y agoThat's not what I was suggesting. I was suggesting that the proposed solution would be nothing more than doing the same thing again, but as a transcription service. Unicode updates with new emojis too. Being more adaptive than that requires offloading the responsibility of readability to the writers. If I write a blog post featuring a unique ascii emoji I made up, I can't expect a third party to handle that for blind patrons, regardless if it's a transcription service or unicode.
- geofft 9y agoWouldn't the same thing happen with ":-)", which is likely to appear (and be relevant) in quotations if nothing else? I'd expect a screen reader to handle ":-)", and given that Slack has had /shrug for years, I am curious if screen readers also know how to pronounce the shrug yet. (Is Slack screen-reader-accessible?)
- JackC 9y agoIt's fun to try stuff like this. In iOS for example you can go to Settings - General - Accessibility - VoiceOver to try the screen reader experience. For the shruggie I get "macron backslash underscore japanese in a different voice slash macron," which sucks. Too bad - I was hoping it would be recognized as a word.
- robin_reala 9y agoThe Japanese pronunciation is ‘tsu’, it’s from the katakana alphabet.
- fiatjaf 9y agoThere should be an "alt" attribute that specifies to the transcriber what the face means. Nevertheless, I'm very satisfied that they're using emoticons and not emoji.
- pault 9y agoI think that's what aria-label[1] does. Also, I believe the correct term of art is "kamoji"[2]. Emoticons are faces constructed from ascii characters. [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Accessibility/ARIA/ARIA_Techniques/Using_the_aria-label_attribute https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Accessibility/A... [2] http://kaomoji.ru/en/ http://kaomoji.ru/en/
- wccrawford 9y agoSpelling correction: Kaomoji, not "kamoji". "Kao" is the japanese word for "face" and "moji" is "character". That said, I don't think there's a "correct term" yet for these things. That's just what some people call them.
- garblegarble 9y agoI was impressed to discover that on macOS, asking it to speak '¯\_(ツ)_/¯' results in it saying "shrug". The exact form from the article without the backslash for the left arm, though, results in it saying "comma" for some (very) strange reason. For example: say '¯_(ツ)_/¯' say '¯\_(ツ)_/¯'
- virgilp 9y agoNope - neither of them say "shrug" on my laptop. High Sierra/ 10.13.2 [edit] And it "says" them exactly the same, regardless of backslash: "macron, (unintelligible)letter two underscore slash, macron". What is says is actually this: ¯ツ_/¯
- garblegarble 9y agoStrange, I'm on 10.13.3... have you tried running the say commands at the command-line? My speech settings are set to "Allison", so perhaps it's a feature of the advanced voices?
- virgilp 9y ago> have you tried running the say commands at the command-line I don't know how else to run it :) But you guessed it. I have 4 voices, Samantha/Victoria/Alex/Fred. I was using Alex. Samantha behaves as you say, all others behave as I say. (Strangely enough, now it says "Samantha (downloading)", so maybe after download it will be 'fixed'?)
- steve_adams_86 9y agoIs this a joke? I just ran it and got something like "macron colo-con letter to underscore macron" And that's... The best I can interpret, it's very muddled. edit: Ah, I see your response to someone else. I'm going to try Allison. edit: Ha! It is Allison! "Shrug". What a time to be alive!
- savrajsingh 9y agoWhat cities? Article light on any details
- ocdtrekkie 9y agoThis article is actually just about them buying the cars. But currently their service operates in a small area in Arizona... A state chosen because they decided not to require Waymo to disclose safety statistics that other states like California require of self-driving cars.
- robkop 9y agoWaymo's "on the road" page [0] says that they're also currently testing in Mountain View, CA, Austin, TX and Kirkland, WA. Their early rider program is only in Phoenix AFAIK. [0]: https://waymo.com/ontheroad/ https://waymo.com/ontheroad/
- ocdtrekkie 9y agoThat's correct, they are testing in those cities, but AFAIK, only specially trained Waymo contractors are involved in those locations who can intervene during a failure. (Some parts of) Phoenix is the only place they're currently allowing passengers, where they conveniently, do not need to disclose any information about their safety record.
- dmix 9y agoThey mentioned "25 cities" in the article though. I wonder when they'll release the complete list. > Takeaway number two: You may come in contact with these cars sooner than you think, especially if you live in one of the 25 cities where Waymo is currently testing the tech.
- rwmj 9y agoIf someone is familiar with the US, are these cities all mainly wide freeway, low traffic? Or do they include cities with difficult, narrow, busy streets and also country lanes?
- nukeop 9y ago"Waymo" was invented so that the press would stop calling them Google cars, because in case things go awry, Google as a whole would be under fire. This way "Waymo" (effectively a department of Google) can be thrown under the bus effortlessly with no PR damage to Google. They don't want people thinking of Google when their cars are holding up traffic, turn out to be assholes when merging or changing lanes, or cause a fatal accident. Thus, Waymo.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- meri_dian 9y agoThat may not be the primary reason, but its definitely an added benefit to the decision.
- kowdermeister 9y agoSmart branding choice, but this is more or less obvious choice that most mega-companies do since forever.
- jonknee 9y agoI think they just wanted something for investors to know by name outside of "other bets". Easier to say you're losing money investing in Waymo than their other more conventional money losing ideas.
- nora4 9y agoIn general I think separating brands is a good idea. And I think, at least from technical perspective (not legal perspective) you shouldn't blame Google in case something goes bad, and rather Waymo. After all, the set of people running Google search or Android are very different from those managing the self-driving car project. In some sense, a single entity Google is an illusion so best to avoid it.
- anonymfus 9y agoWhile they are different people, they are still the same money, and so Google's top managers still should be shamed for not investing enough in car safety.
- skarap 9y agoSo what happens when one of these cars runs over someone? Tough luck, 5 million dollars to the family?
- defertoreptar 9y agoIs it worthwhile when the tech could save tens of thousands of lives altogether?
- ebikelaw 9y agoThe same thing that happens when a driver runs over a person: the police exonerate the driver on the spot without investigating and file no charges. http://www.berkeleyside.com/2018/01/12/breaking-pedestrian-died-crash-near-uc-berkeley/ http://www.berkeleyside.com/2018/01/12/breaking-pedestrian-d...
- notimetorelax 9y agoDo you prefer when there is someone to punish? What good does it bring?
- rplnt 9y agoNothing good to the person being punished. But it should deter from negligence. Monetary punishment only works on the poor.
- dmix 9y agoYeah because businesses and the wealthy always disregard financial liability and the potential PR disasters of robots killing people on public streets /s
- rplnt 9y agoBusiness themselves don't cause them. They can try to have good processes, verification, etc, etc, ... but even then something can happen by simple human error.
- 9y ago
- thebiglebrewski 9y agoWow so much negativity in this thread and sarcasm. I for one welcome our self driving overlords!
- mentos 9y agoWhat do you guys think of a solution where the driverless leg of the trip is also passengerless. In v1 of the system the passenger is required to have a license and will follow route guidance from the car to navigate to their destination. After arrival the car will return to autonomous mode and take much safer precautions to the next customer.
- maxerickson 9y agoIs the cautious mode going to obstruct traffic or something? Or are you saying that exposing other people to risk is okay and exposing users of the service is not? If the autonomous system can't operate in a way that passengers would be comfortable with I don't see why it should be allowed on the roads at all.
- dabeeeenster 9y agoIf you're worried about them not being safe enough, why not just drive them around endlessly without people being in them?
- tinalumfoil 9y agoI don't think that would work. First, nobody wants to drive a taxi. Unless it was really cheap most people would just get a lyft and not worry about following guidance from their taxi. Second, most of the people at risk of dying from a malfunctioning self driving car will be people outside the car. Third, how are you going to convince regulators your car is safe if you're making concessions like that? The government is a slow beuracracy and won't take kindly to halfway solutions that will force them to do things over once things are actually ready. And as pessimistic as I'm being, I don't think its that bad of an idea. I just wouldn't put my money on it.
- jameshart 9y agoI am picturing your conversation with the insurance company: “So in autonomous mode, the car takes many precautions, so it is really safe” “Sounds good. So why do you want to let the customer drive?” “Because they will be less cautious” “I am raising your premiums”
- 9y ago
- princess-aslaug 9y agoI wonder if the FCA plan to be the platform for Google's self driving AI, instead of trying to develop their own AI like other car vendors are doing, make sense. In some way it seems very hard and costly to build your own AI, even Tesla appears to be lagging behind Waymo. On the other hand I'm not sure how much replaceable the position of FCA is. Currently trivially replaceable, but maybe in the future as they develop more and more skills about building the platform for autonomous driving vehicles (minus software), it could be a good position to be in.
- kyrra 9y agoWaymo is also working on courting other manufacturers, but nothing else has been announced outside of Honda[0] (which hasn't gone anywhere). Car manufacturers today can be seen as integrators of various technologies. Most all of the driver assist tech out there today comes from companies like MobileEye and Bosch. It tends to make sense from an expense perspective to let that type of tech be developed outside of car manufacturers so the development costs can be more easily be recouped. [0] https://www.recode.net/2016/12/21/14046496/waymo-alphabet-honda-partnership https://www.recode.net/2016/12/21/14046496/waymo-alphabet-ho...
- princess-aslaug 9y agoThanks. The question will be if owning the best or first autonomous driving logic, good enough that can be mass deployed, will be such a big advantage to make the fact you can make a good car almost irrelevant compared to that.
- icebraining 9y agoeven Tesla appears to be lagging behind Waymo That's not surprising. Waymo's team goes all the way back from the 2005 DARPA challenge[1] - they've been working on it for a long time. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_(vehicle) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_(vehicle)
- lovelearning 9y agoDo you think self-driving cars will have different shapes in future, or is the existing typical look of cars the optimum shape? TBH, I can see lots of problems even in existing cars for people - too many blind spots, too uncomfortable to get in and get out, more dangerous for those sitting on the driving side. I wonder if all these problems will go away with self-driving cars, or are they necessary consequences of an optimum design to meet safety regulations.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- unreal37 9y agoI think the "uncomfortable to get in and out" needs to be addressed. Without the steering wheel, perhaps the seat can swivel, or perhaps passengers can exit from the front or back. I doubt, at typical car speeds, aerodynamics is a big factor. It's not like a jet.
- kuschku 9y agoAn interesting idea that Mercedes showed in their self-driving prototypes (which only ran on a hardcoded loop for that test) was having all seats face the middle, so the passengers could look at one another. That's a lot more comfortable, and already common for the rear two rows in larger cars.
- IntronExon 9y agoIt sounds fun, but I know at least two people who would be violently carsick in that situation.
- munificent 9y agoMost trains I've ridden on have seats like this and it seems to work out OK. If you're one of the people who gets motion sickness if not facing forward, just grab one of the forward-facing seats.
- Zigurd 9y agoOh. So the "Self Driving Armada"is not a Nissan Armada. Maybe the next headline could be "Waymo Has Self Driving Edge."
- kome 9y agoSo we will have a comment about how it's not a Ford Edge ;)
- ChuckMcM 9y agoI am looking forward to self driving cars, and keep hoping they will get here before my parents lose their ability to safely drive themselves. Back in the mid 70's there was a 'personal rapid transport' or PRT system proposed which was individual 'cars' on a rail system that were smart enough to stop at a station. The idea was that the rail line had switches where a PRT unit (4 or 8 passenger) could go into a station when called with an elevator like button. You would get in, and then it would head out on the track and not stop again until your destination station. The idea was that it eliminated the two biggest issues with 'public transportation' which were pickup and drop off schedules that forced waits when you transferred from one line to another, and the fact that the train/bus would make all stops forcing it to be slower than a point to point bus/train. I believe you could implement that system safely on a dedicated 'self driving car' road. And such roads would be less expensive to build than a rail infrastructure.
- scottfr 9y ago"Aramis, or the Love of Technology" is a fascinating book on the attempted launch of such a system in Paris. https://www.amazon.com/Aramis-Love-Technology-Bruno-Latour/dp/0674043235 https://www.amazon.com/Aramis-Love-Technology-Bruno-Latour/d...
- FreakyT 9y agoCompletely agree! That's what I think the future of self-driving cars will be -- not so much "automatic Uber" but instead little busses that can automatically optimize their routes to get people where they need to go. This would mitigate a key issue that is often raised in regard to ridesharing -- that it has the potential to clog streets. Speaking of PRT in the 70s, for quite some time the Morgantown PRT in West Virginia was the only functioning example of one. (I believe nowadays there are a couple others): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgantown_Personal_Rapid_Transit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgantown_Personal_Rapid_Tran...
- mavhc 9y agoA highly used system would be able to do it all, cars to take you to a bus, to take you to a train, bus at the other end, and then more cars, all scheduled JIT. Throw in a standardised luggage system and lockable storage boxes at stations etc, to keep all the stuff you have around in your car, and you're getting somewhere. Charge someone who wants to travel alone by car 10x as much as those who share and move between modes of transport