[bsullivan01]

what Jrockway said https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6407580

But your comments are factually wrong. None of Google's products you mention are new or really that much better (so far.)

>> Google is a company that is making self-driving cars

So is every major car manufacturer out there. Who's ahead of the game? I don't know because Google gets all the press and fawning from fanboys--like you.

">>providing incredibly fast internet to consumers

Experimenting in a few ares with plenty of subsidies doesn't count. The much hated Verizon has done a LOT more on that regard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_FiOS

">> providing Internet to suffering area with a patently new idea (the Loon)"

Not providing anything yet, just experiments and Loon is not a new idea at all. http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120347353988378955.ht...

">> exploring definitively new ideas for hardware (Google Glass)" Not a new idea at all. Different thinking of course but the verdict is still out.

One day--the focused like a laser--Google will manufacture their toilet paper and you'll be here to wonder how we managed without toilet paper before Google invented it.

[robotresearcher]

> Who's ahead of the [self-driving car] game? I don't know because Google gets all the press and fawning from fanboys--like you.

It's Google. They have the right people, the right ideas, the resources, and they started first. Source: I'm a prof in a related field with graduated PhD students at Google.

The Google cars get press because they are really very good.

[coldtea]

>It's Google. They have the right people, the right ideas, the resources, and they started first.

I believe we covered the "fawning from fanboys" part already.

>Source: I'm a prof in a related field with graduated PhD students at Google.

That's not a "source". That's at best a "full discosure" and at worst a "conflict of interest" in this discussion...

[agumonkey]

Sebastian Thrun's team was the first winner of DARPA driverless vehicles (2nd year) challenge, the year before that contestants failed very early. Do you know car manufacturers with such know-how ? They probably had research about it but I doubt they were as complete. Since Google backed the project they did very extensive tests in the real world. GM and such are bringing back computer aided driving but I'm sure they're too busy sustaining their business to put resources in something as disruptive and risky.

[robotresearcher]

That's what I get for providing a professional opinion on HN? Wow.

For the record, none of my former students work on the Google cars as far as I know.

[bsullivan01]

Google didn't start first at all. Maybe they have the right people but as far as resources, other car companies have them too. That's their bread and butter, not some experiment

By the way: " Mercedes missed a barn-door sized opportunity last week when it revealed technical details of next year's 2014 S-class, which showed that while this flagship model could potentially have been the world's first autonomous driving car, Mercedes has decided not to give it that capability. For now, the driver's hands have to remain on the wheel at all times.

"The car would do it [autonomous driving] today," said Jochen Haab technical support manager, "we have had test cars doing that, but what happens if a child steps out into the street and the radar misses it?" http://www.roadandtrack.com/go/first-looks/new-car-tech-2014...

[corporalagumbo]

Wow... what are you even doing on this site? What's it like hating everything?

[piyush_soni]

No other company has reached so far in self driving cars as Google has. Learn to live with it.

[bsullivan01]

OK, you hit a nerve, so I'll keep beating a dead horse: says who? Who made a side by side study of all the efforts in self driving cars?

http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-autos-mercede...

[throwawaay]

"... Mercedes-Benz announced Monday that it had successfully driven an autonomous S-Class sedan 62 miles on German city streets."

Well, shit, that quote right there plus your hostile attitude sure have me impressed. 62 whole miles! They're clearly on the doorstep of releasing a production autonomous car, as you were trying to imply over at <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6408590>.

Meanwhile, that other company's car has made the trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles (at least 380 miles, in case you didn't know):

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/science/sebastian-thrun-se...

That was two years ago.

Here's a suggestion: why don't you just take a step back from the topic of Google, since you clearly get all twisted up inside about it?

[bsullivan01]

Well, shit, that quote right there plus your hostile attitude sure have me impressed. 62 whole miles! They're clearly on the doorstep of releasing a production autonomous car

I'm here to impress you sir, that's my mission in life.

Now who said that they drove a total of 62 miles vs a 62 mile trip? Did the car crash at mile 62 or they reached the destination? All these are little details that need to be taken in consideration before an idiot exclaims "Google is #1 in autonomous cars..."

By the way, see anything funny http://i.bnet.com/blogs/google-self-driving-car.jpg sticking out of the Mercedes car http://www.trbimg.com/img-522e6325/turbine/la-fi-hy-autos-20... ? Don't tell me they have shrunk it to make it fits inside a normal car already. How much does the Google system cost now, is it $100K+ just for the autonomous driving system? Details, details, details

[throwawaay]

Well, sorry to say that you're failing pretty hard at your mission then. But do keep ramping up the snarky rhetoric. It looks like I hit a nerve.

I didn't say anything about total miles; I was comparing Mercedes' single 62 mile trip against the other car's single 380+ mile trip. But if you want to bring up total miles logged, That Company In Mountain View hit 300k miles last year [1] and there are absolutely no public numbers from Mercedes. If the figure were impressive, they'd probably have released it.

But now you want to make a fuss over the LIDAR on top of That Company's car while the S Class gets by on just radar. Your earlier post quoted a Mercedes engineer saying "we have had test cars doing that, but what happens if a child steps out into the street and the radar misses it?" -- well, gosh, maybe that funny spinning thing is doing something useful. Wouldn't you want an autonomous car to use any and every available method to detect obstacles? Details indeed.

[1] http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-self-driving-car-...

[corporalagumbo]

Okay, I'd say you're both off here. I think you're right that Bsullivan should take Google more seriously - I think he's going to have to eat his hat with the way Google is heading. But you shouldn't dismiss Mercedes - the German car companies are very smart, and have the potential to be top players over the coming decades.

[seiji]

There are more people who believe the google brain washing of "Google itself is singularly advancing the world of driving, ubiquitous computing, and medicine!" than realize google is just very noisy about the things it does (plus the fan-blog-fawning multiplier of hearing about the same thing in 10,000 different outlets).