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Dr. Thrun is known as a passionate promoter of the potential to use robotic vehicles to make highways safer and lower the nation’s energy costs. It is a commitm

Dr. Thrun is known as a passionate promoter of the potential to use robotic vehicles to make highways safer and lower the nation’s energy costs. It is a commitment shared by Larry Page, Google’s co-founder, according to several people familiar with the project. It sounds like this may be as much an idealistic pet project as it is any kind of corporate strategy.

jedc 16y ago
That's probably what Google Translate and speech recognition and text-to-speech probably all sounded like ten years ago. But now all of these are able to work together to make a universal translator, turning speech in one language into speech of another language. Pretty fking cool, I'd say! A company like Google can turn an idealistic pet project into something truly game-changing with consistent time and resources.
andrewljohnson 16y ago
Larry's idealistic pet projects _are_ corporate strategy. That's why Google dominates - they are unpredictable and creative. Crazy stuff Google did: * mapped all the world's roads using cameras and a mechanical turk, destroying billions in market cap for map data providers * Android, groundbreaking in both technology and pushing the envelope on patent law * launched a satellite * deep tendrils of fiber optics and community oriented wi-fi projects to connect the world It doesn't surprise me at all Google is building autonomous cars. Search and adwords are not even the most intriguing things to me about Google these days. Imagine a mad scientist who has $12,000,000,000. That is Google's strategy... also lots of testing.
- rbranson 16y ago
  Small correction: Google didn't "map all the world's roads using cameras and a mechanical turk, destroying billions in market cap for map data providers." That is more than a stretch. They mapped SOME of the roads in the US, augmenting existing TIGER data from the US government, and used it in place of TeleAtlas. The "new" data is pretty bad, so I use Bing for directions because of it. They still rely on TeleAtlas (one of the map data providers they "destroyed") for almost every other country.
kiba 16y ago
Hey, less dying and making money! Can't beat that.
endtime 16y ago
I don't know Sebastian that well, but I believe his motivations are largely idealistic. At least, that's the pitch he and his group used to make to prospective members - that solving the autonomous driving problem could save tens of thousands of lives a year.

jedc 16y ago

That's probably what Google Translate and speech recognition and text-to-speech probably all sounded like ten years ago. But now all of these are able to work together to make a universal translator, turning speech in one language into speech of another language. Pretty fking cool, I'd say! A company like Google can turn an idealistic pet project into something truly game-changing with consistent time and resources.

andrewljohnson 16y ago

Larry's idealistic pet projects _are_ corporate strategy. That's why Google dominates - they are unpredictable and creative. Crazy stuff Google did: * mapped all the world's roads using cameras and a mechanical turk, destroying billions in market cap for map data providers * Android, groundbreaking in both technology and pushing the envelope on patent law * launched a satellite * deep tendrils of fiber optics and community oriented wi-fi projects to connect the world It doesn't surprise me at all Google is building autonomous cars. Search and adwords are not even the most intriguing things to me about Google these days. Imagine a mad scientist who has $12,000,000,000. That is Google's strategy... also lots of testing.

rbranson 16y ago
Small correction: Google didn't "map all the world's roads using cameras and a mechanical turk, destroying billions in market cap for map data providers." That is more than a stretch. They mapped SOME of the roads in the US, augmenting existing TIGER data from the US government, and used it in place of TeleAtlas. The "new" data is pretty bad, so I use Bing for directions because of it. They still rely on TeleAtlas (one of the map data providers they "destroyed") for almost every other country.

kiba 16y ago

Hey, less dying and making money! Can't beat that.

endtime 16y ago

I don't know Sebastian that well, but I believe his motivations are largely idealistic. At least, that's the pitch he and his group used to make to prospective members - that solving the autonomous driving problem could save tens of thousands of lives a year.