7 ms·

yeah, i understand what the parent is saying, and i think it's stupid. how are they supposed to diversify if they don't try? or are they supposed to do all th

yeah, i understand what the parent is saying, and i think it's stupid. how are they supposed to diversify if they don't try? or are they supposed to do all their R&D in secret, just to avoid any perception that they might not be entirely evil? yes, their PR people hype up their R&D efforts. But the point is that they're doing R&D, and why shouldn't they get a PR win out of that?

ModernMech 8y ago
Well the point is it's been over a decade. They've done a lot of trying with little return.
- saulrh 8y ago
  The projects they're attempting take decades. Period. Loon, for example: Two years for a handful of prototypes, two years for LTE functionality and a "real" trial run, two more years for a mesh network so they aren't bottlenecked by satellites, another year for a large-scale real-world trial run (Puerto Rico), and now we're at the present day. Their job now is to demonstrate that they can keep a balloon fleet up long enough and at sufficiently low cost that it's safe to transition an entire country's economy over to the system. That's probably going to take another ten or fifteen years simply because that's how long it takes to show that your system is reliable enough to be core, critical infrastructure. And Loon is just an easy example. Waymo, Brain. Anything to do with healthcare. Etc. There's a reason these things are called "moonshots".
  - shaklee3 8y ago
    I thought loon was also considered a failure, although not shut down yet. It's an interesting idea on its own, but it's somewhat dated in that there are better technologies now that don't cost as much to run.
    - saulrh 8y ago
      Last I heard it was declared economically viable and spun out. Wikipedia says Loon is currently contracted to provide internet service to a few particularly inaccessible chunks of Kenya, and its performance during the hurricanes last year is probably enough to guarantee its continued existence regardless.
- stickfigure 8y ago
  Waymo doesn't count?

ModernMech 8y ago

Well the point is it's been over a decade. They've done a lot of trying with little return.

saulrh 8y ago
The projects they're attempting take decades. Period. Loon, for example: Two years for a handful of prototypes, two years for LTE functionality and a "real" trial run, two more years for a mesh network so they aren't bottlenecked by satellites, another year for a large-scale real-world trial run (Puerto Rico), and now we're at the present day. Their job now is to demonstrate that they can keep a balloon fleet up long enough and at sufficiently low cost that it's safe to transition an entire country's economy over to the system. That's probably going to take another ten or fifteen years simply because that's how long it takes to show that your system is reliable enough to be core, critical infrastructure. And Loon is just an easy example. Waymo, Brain. Anything to do with healthcare. Etc. There's a reason these things are called "moonshots".
- shaklee3 8y ago
  I thought loon was also considered a failure, although not shut down yet. It's an interesting idea on its own, but it's somewhat dated in that there are better technologies now that don't cost as much to run.
  - saulrh 8y ago
    Last I heard it was declared economically viable and spun out. Wikipedia says Loon is currently contracted to provide internet service to a few particularly inaccessible chunks of Kenya, and its performance during the hurricanes last year is probably enough to guarantee its continued existence regardless.
stickfigure 8y ago
Waymo doesn't count?