7 ms·

Doesn't seem particularly notable, they got rear ended at 15 miles an hour while essentially stopped.

by GhostVII 8y ago

janekm 8y ago
The notable part is that it appears to confirm that Apple is testing self-driving cars.
- diminoten 8y ago
  Is this the result of the old, "Every company that gets big enough also becomes an investment firm." or does Apple really think autonomous cars fit into its portfolio of technology?
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    Every company that gets big enough becomes a VC firm, which is natural when you've got a firehose of money and don't want to miss out on the Next Big Thing.
  - ENGNR 8y ago
    If Apple can take over transport and wall it off for somebody then it just further cements their high ground I fully expect that you won't be able to tether an Android (or any open specced) phone to an Apple car, like iMessage and Apple TV, and they'll use further cement their grip on existing customers
    - jarjoura 8y ago
      It only mattered in the last couple of years that you could buy a car that supported Android Auto. So as long as Bluetooth works, I think that gets you 80% of the way there. Maps seems to be the only real UI app allowed anyway, and hopefully Google releases a version for iOS 12.
      - MBCook 8y ago
        I can’t imagine Google NOT releasing that update. Ever since CarPlay first came out people have been complaining about this and blaming Apple. When iOS 12 was first unveiled a huge chunk of the comments I saw were people happy about this exact feature. Now that there’s absolutely no reason Google can’t do this… it seems moronic said they would choose to hold the feature back. What would the benefit be? They wouldn’t get the data collection because the app isn’t running, and how many people would realistically switch to Android over this single decision? When it comes to the Apple car I guess part of the question is… can people even buy them? It’s not as much of an issue if it’s a fleet car or a cab kind of situation. It’ll be very interesting to see what Apple does if that day comes.
  - toasterlovin 8y ago
    I actually think cars are a good fit for Apple's strengths. Apple is good at user interface and hardware engineering. 1. User Interface You'd be hard pressed to find an object which most people own that has a more complicated UI than a car. Steering wheel, pedals, buttons everywhere. Probably well over 100 separate features. I think there's tons of room for Apple to create a better experience here. 2. Hardware Engineering Cars, much more than personal computing devices, rely on hardware engineering. Granted, most of the big engineering issues in cars have been handled, but there will be plenty of new hardware to be engineered as cars transition to full autonomy.
    - vatueil 8y ago
      Sleek UI and hardware is nice, but for autonomous vehicles AI is essential. You can have the best car in the world in other respects, but without AI it's not self-driving. Apple hasn't shown that it's particularly good at AI or mapping. Siri and Apple Maps are distant runner-ups. If it weren't for name brand awareness, I doubt anyone would be paying attention to Apple's self-driving project versus the field of competitors. Apple may have enough money to brute force their way to a spot in the rankings, but it hardly seems like a natural fit for them.
      - toasterlovin 8y ago
        We are a long way off from 100% autonomous cars. In the meantime, human-car interaction is ripe for improvement. And regarding Apple Maps and Siri: we'll see what the next few years holds. It's always useful to keep in mind that Google had a huge head start. There's a difference between being incompetent and being behind. Apple is rolling out new maps this fall; we'll see how they do. Remember, there was once a time when Apple didn't know how to do web services. I think the last few years has shown that they figured out whatever it was they needed to figure out. Generally speaking, there probably isn't another company that is better than Apple at engineering management. Google and Amazon may be better in some areas, but they're probably also worse in others. Remember, this is a company with the best mobile processors in the world—by a long shot—despite not having even been in the processor business 10 years ago. They also deployed a brand new file system to a billion devices with basically no issues.
userbinator 8y ago
The important part is that it got rear-ended while waiting to merge --- I suspect a strong factor in this was the fact that the car behind it was expecting it to go and merge, but it suddenly stopped instead. Even for a human, merging into flowing traffic is tricky and one of the more difficult maneuvers; combine that with a (not obviously?) self-driving car that doesn't behave quite like human drivers expect, and I can see how this could happen. If I saw a clearly-marked "autonomous test vehicle" I'd probably stay far away from it, but I suspect this one wasn't. Imagine the surprise of the human driver who thought the car in front that he hit was just driven by another idiot...
- Mizza 8y ago
  I wonder if it would be more useful if these cars had more lights than normal cars (yellow, green, etc.), so that they could signal their intentions before they act.
- refurb 8y ago
  Looks like it happened here: https://goo.gl/maps/RHiVTRSuDJ62 https://goo.gl/maps/RHiVTRSuDJ62 Pretty short merge lane, more of a surface street than a highway. Probably not atypical for a car to stop to wait for an opening to merge.
  - AceJohnny2 8y ago
    Lawrence Expressway is terrible. I frequently see cars stopped at these "merge lanes".
    - saagarjha 8y ago
      But that’s what you’re supposed to do here, right? There’s a yield sign.
      - userbinator 8y ago
        You're not supposed to stop at a yield sign if there isn't traffic preventing you from merging. That's why it's a yield sign, not a stop sign. Since the report mentions Apple's car was moving slowly (~1mph) when it got hit, I suspect what could've happened is it may have just released the brakes and was about to accelerate into the merge, meaning the car coming from behind would see both a clear path in front of it and its brake lights off. There's a comment here about the car behind following too closely, but if you look at regular traffic and your own driving behaviour, you'll find that you subconsciously monitor and anticipate the behaviour of the cars around you --- meaning that almost everyone is technically "following too closely" to expect the car in front to suddenly and rapidly brake to a complete halt. Self-driving cars are far less predictable in that sense. If you come up behind a car in a merge lane with its brake lights off and no traffic obstructing it, you would not expect it to be slowing down or even stopped, because your past knowledge has taught you that a car in this condition is almost certainly going to be accelerating.
stephengillie 8y ago
It's like a humble-brag form of advertising that you've got a self-driving car program.
- toasterlovin 8y ago
  Somehow I don't think Tim Cook is the kind of guy who does shit just so he can brag about it.
  - stephengillie 8y ago
    Why waste an opportune situation?

Doesn't seem particularly notable, they got rear ended at 15 miles an hour while essentially stopped.

janekm 8y ago

The notable part is that it appears to confirm that Apple is testing self-driving cars.

diminoten 8y ago
Is this the result of the old, "Every company that gets big enough also becomes an investment firm." or does Apple really think autonomous cars fit into its portfolio of technology?
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  Every company that gets big enough becomes a VC firm, which is natural when you've got a firehose of money and don't want to miss out on the Next Big Thing.
- ENGNR 8y ago
  If Apple can take over transport and wall it off for somebody then it just further cements their high ground I fully expect that you won't be able to tether an Android (or any open specced) phone to an Apple car, like iMessage and Apple TV, and they'll use further cement their grip on existing customers
  - jarjoura 8y ago
    It only mattered in the last couple of years that you could buy a car that supported Android Auto. So as long as Bluetooth works, I think that gets you 80% of the way there. Maps seems to be the only real UI app allowed anyway, and hopefully Google releases a version for iOS 12.
    - MBCook 8y ago
      I can’t imagine Google NOT releasing that update. Ever since CarPlay first came out people have been complaining about this and blaming Apple. When iOS 12 was first unveiled a huge chunk of the comments I saw were people happy about this exact feature. Now that there’s absolutely no reason Google can’t do this… it seems moronic said they would choose to hold the feature back. What would the benefit be? They wouldn’t get the data collection because the app isn’t running, and how many people would realistically switch to Android over this single decision? When it comes to the Apple car I guess part of the question is… can people even buy them? It’s not as much of an issue if it’s a fleet car or a cab kind of situation. It’ll be very interesting to see what Apple does if that day comes.
- toasterlovin 8y ago
  I actually think cars are a good fit for Apple's strengths. Apple is good at user interface and hardware engineering. 1. User Interface You'd be hard pressed to find an object which most people own that has a more complicated UI than a car. Steering wheel, pedals, buttons everywhere. Probably well over 100 separate features. I think there's tons of room for Apple to create a better experience here. 2. Hardware Engineering Cars, much more than personal computing devices, rely on hardware engineering. Granted, most of the big engineering issues in cars have been handled, but there will be plenty of new hardware to be engineered as cars transition to full autonomy.
  - vatueil 8y ago
    Sleek UI and hardware is nice, but for autonomous vehicles AI is essential. You can have the best car in the world in other respects, but without AI it's not self-driving. Apple hasn't shown that it's particularly good at AI or mapping. Siri and Apple Maps are distant runner-ups. If it weren't for name brand awareness, I doubt anyone would be paying attention to Apple's self-driving project versus the field of competitors. Apple may have enough money to brute force their way to a spot in the rankings, but it hardly seems like a natural fit for them.
    - toasterlovin 8y ago
      We are a long way off from 100% autonomous cars. In the meantime, human-car interaction is ripe for improvement. And regarding Apple Maps and Siri: we'll see what the next few years holds. It's always useful to keep in mind that Google had a huge head start. There's a difference between being incompetent and being behind. Apple is rolling out new maps this fall; we'll see how they do. Remember, there was once a time when Apple didn't know how to do web services. I think the last few years has shown that they figured out whatever it was they needed to figure out. Generally speaking, there probably isn't another company that is better than Apple at engineering management. Google and Amazon may be better in some areas, but they're probably also worse in others. Remember, this is a company with the best mobile processors in the world—by a long shot—despite not having even been in the processor business 10 years ago. They also deployed a brand new file system to a billion devices with basically no issues.

userbinator 8y ago

The important part is that it got rear-ended while waiting to merge --- I suspect a strong factor in this was the fact that the car behind it was expecting it to go and merge, but it suddenly stopped instead. Even for a human, merging into flowing traffic is tricky and one of the more difficult maneuvers; combine that with a (not obviously?) self-driving car that doesn't behave quite like human drivers expect, and I can see how this could happen. If I saw a clearly-marked "autonomous test vehicle" I'd probably stay far away from it, but I suspect this one wasn't. Imagine the surprise of the human driver who thought the car in front that he hit was just driven by another idiot...

Mizza 8y ago
I wonder if it would be more useful if these cars had more lights than normal cars (yellow, green, etc.), so that they could signal their intentions before they act.
refurb 8y ago
Looks like it happened here: https://goo.gl/maps/RHiVTRSuDJ62 https://goo.gl/maps/RHiVTRSuDJ62 Pretty short merge lane, more of a surface street than a highway. Probably not atypical for a car to stop to wait for an opening to merge.
- AceJohnny2 8y ago
  Lawrence Expressway is terrible. I frequently see cars stopped at these "merge lanes".
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    But that’s what you’re supposed to do here, right? There’s a yield sign.
    - userbinator 8y ago
      You're not supposed to stop at a yield sign if there isn't traffic preventing you from merging. That's why it's a yield sign, not a stop sign. Since the report mentions Apple's car was moving slowly (~1mph) when it got hit, I suspect what could've happened is it may have just released the brakes and was about to accelerate into the merge, meaning the car coming from behind would see both a clear path in front of it and its brake lights off. There's a comment here about the car behind following too closely, but if you look at regular traffic and your own driving behaviour, you'll find that you subconsciously monitor and anticipate the behaviour of the cars around you --- meaning that almost everyone is technically "following too closely" to expect the car in front to suddenly and rapidly brake to a complete halt. Self-driving cars are far less predictable in that sense. If you come up behind a car in a merge lane with its brake lights off and no traffic obstructing it, you would not expect it to be slowing down or even stopped, because your past knowledge has taught you that a car in this condition is almost certainly going to be accelerating.

stephengillie 8y ago

It's like a humble-brag form of advertising that you've got a self-driving car program.

toasterlovin 8y ago
Somehow I don't think Tim Cook is the kind of guy who does shit just so he can brag about it.
- stephengillie 8y ago
  Why waste an opportune situation?