| >Duo A success by pretty much any metric (no seriously). Yes, its essentially facetime, but I don't really think that matters. It still was the right decision. (and don't get me wrong I have some issues with Google's messaging strategy, but Duo isn't reasonably one of them). >Inbox I must have missed that? Also, you kinda glossed over the whole infrastructure thing. Is infrastructural innovation not innovation? >At the end of the day, almost all profit at Google still comes from ads, Sure, but a quick check says that Google's revenue from not-ads today is about the same as Google's total revenue when they released android. >and most of the marketing videos showed capability that predated the cars actually being so capable So is your argument that Google isn't the innovator in the space, or that they won't be successful? Because I think both of those are totally wrong, but I want to clarify. And in both cases, who do you think the innovators were, and who do you think will instead be successful? >They're staged. I, don't have words, this is just denial of reality. Tesla staged and inflated its autonomy. Waymo (and, to be clear, other companies, like Cruise) haven't. I see their vehicles driving around every day. The data on this is pretty compelling: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/disen... (waymo: 600K miles, Cruise ~10K, everyone else: <1K) Waymo is also active in the most areas (Bay Area, Tahoe, Phoenix, Kirkland, now Atlanta apparently). I'm curious what leads you to believe that Waymo is somehow not innovative and not successful. Who on earth is doing better? |
Months after Urmson was bragging about Waymo's ability to interpret hand signals, a Google engineer confirmed to a Slate reported that your cars would run a stoplight if Google's maps didn't already tell it the stoplight was there, and to look for it. And of course, that Waymo cars could not function on a road that wasn't excrutiatingly mapped to centimeter detail in advance.
While Google's marketing their upcoming launch of Waymo as a service being "fully autonomous", the car has to be remote controlled by a contractor when it gets confused.
Google likes to brag, like you did, about the "X number of miles", while intentionally ignoring real statistics that matter. (Driving the same mile over and over can be thousands of miles, but gains you really no understanding of the world of driving. Circling Mountain View isn't really as valuable as you'd believe.)
Contiguous miles without failure is a super interesting statistic for driving capability, but Google would not like to advertise that it fails and needs human help as often as one currently fills up on gas. That sort of statistic has usually showed up in the DMV reports while Google hasn't talked about it much. Hilariously, they're launching their service in Arizona where they don't have to disclose those statistics. When "no accountability" is what leads to the location choice for a product launch, you have to ask what they have to hide.
There's a huge discrepancy in the practical reality of what the technology has been capable of and what Waymo has claimed it can do. It's been so repetitively dishonest, I don't think I could ever trust the company or the cars based on their behavior alone.