franklinjackcon

freerange said:

FALSE!!!! “Google has ousted Amazon as the top manufacturer in the world”. Excuse me, they simply had ONE good quarter. That DOES NOT make them the top manufacturer in the world! They have a lot of catching up to do to sell as many devices as Amazon, the clear market leader. AI try to be more accurate in your analysis and reporting.

Further, you failed to make any comment or analysis comparing sales and profitability of the high end of this emerging market as most of the units sold by both Amazon and google are cheap, low quality products. What we are most likely to find is Apple’s HomePod being a leader in unit sales, quality and profitability with high end / more expensive offerings from the competitors. Just like in the smartphone category. Or at least Apple trending toward being the de facto leader at the high end, especially as it launches in more countries and its software is updated.

Lastly, your headline is shameful clickbat! We expect more from you.

Usually "market" refers to sales/shipments not installed base. 

cgWerks said:

ronn said:
Several experts said that dash cam footage is not the same as real world footage. It appears darker from the car footage that it actually was. Uber F—ed up by lowering the amount of sensors, "tuning" the software too low because of too many previous "false" positives, and halving the amount of safety drivers in their test cars. Of course, had the safety driver been alert, he could have at least swerved or hit the brakes, lessening the impact of the collision with the woman.

Yeah, my guess is that Uber quickly got that video (doctored, even?) to the police to help sway the initial report... or maybe there was even some pressure to so quickly get that initial 'wasn't Uber's fault' statement out into the mainstream press. And, that's the impression most people have, even though the experts (and people who routinely drive the area) have been weighing in with opposite reports.

At least it seems the Governor has finally gotten some sense and booted this stuff out of the state.

Considering the state had absolutely no oversight of Uber, I do wonder how the investigation will go. Probably it'll fall into the too hard basket and we'll hear nothing more of it. But Uber jumped in very quickly and settled the case with the family - no doubt offered several million and washed their hands of it. A pity, I'd have loved to see it go through the courts.

lkrupp said:

Well it’s starting to look like self-driving cars will go the way of Google Glass. The public will simply not accept them. Something like 50,000 people in the U.S. are killed each year in automobile accidents and no one bats an eyelash. Yet people are indeed convinced that driving a car is safer than flying in an airplane even though ALL the data and statistics prove otherwise.  All it took was a couple of fatalities for the recriminations and hand wringing over autonomous vehicles to start. Add to that the state of the legal system in this country and you know the injury lawyers are salivating over the prospects. Much easier for a jury to blame a machine than a human. Self-driving cars are a solution to a problem no one cares about and no one believes. Those testing them just don’t know it yet. Apple and others will never EVER convince the general public that these vehicles are safe. Yes, momma, stupid is as stupid does. And you just know that there will those, “Here, hold my beer while I try to fuck over up this auto-car here, Bubba” moments.

Don't assume that because Uber half-arsed it and had to pack it in that this applies to anyone else. The stats on the need for driver intervention comparing Uber and Google are insane, something like every 13km vs 9000km. Uber should never have been on the road. Google is streets ahead. I would guess that Apple will be getting the tech spot on before they get out on the street and will hopefully have some tech in place to prevent their testers from drifting off and killing someone. It'll take time but this is already happening.

tmay said:

franklinjackcon said:

tmay said:

franklinjackcon said:

Meanwhile, in the real world, Google is setting the standard for autonomous cars, has the best assistant on the market, and keeps making advances in photos. It's still early days for all AI but to suggest they've squandered their lead is plain silly.

I think that the point of the article is that it isn't innovation if you aren't making money at it, and almost without fail, Apple, with a small share of the smartphone market is grabbing most of the revenue and profits comparative to Android OEM'a and developers.

Google itself is doing fine, excepting the scrutiny given it's near monopoly in search, and privacy issues, and it's persistent inability to generate much revenue off of consumer hardware. Google has noticeable leads in services and technologies that the OEM's and developers have, for the most part, been unable to leverage to enhance revenue and profit, and Google I/O doesn't appear to have accelerated that.

If that is the point of the article then I disagree with it. Google makes its money in advertising - much of it on mobile - and uses the profits to fund innovative technologies that won't be profitable in the R&D stage. 

How are the OEM's doing? Which "innovative technologies" has Google released that have generated any income other than from search or advertising?

Some of Google's OEMs make money and some don't. Many of them have different business models to Apple, e.g. Samsung doesn't need to make as much profit off selling handsets because it has its components business and the scale and innovation they get from handsets benefits the components business. Huawei's carrier business benefits when more people get capable smartphones in their hands and use more data. Besides, I'm not terribly concerned in defending the OEMs.

The comment about search or advertising being Google's main source of income, well, yeah, that's its core business. It's like saying Apple only makes money from hardware. Its advertising business has evolved - it was previously all desktop search, now it's mobile and it's not just search - it's YouTube, Maps, Gmail. Imagine if it hadn't poured money into those three areas before the iPhone launched, it'd be stuck on a dwindling income from desktop search. Not to mention that it's third in the market for cloud, which makes >$1B/quarter and growing. It doesn't operate like Apple where it launches only a few products and wants them to be perfect on day one. Google tries its hand at plenty of things, knowing that if 7 things fail and 3 take off, it will be successful. And it's users are, or many of them are, happy to try things that are just beta releases. And yes, they are doing the world a service by helping to get technology to people at a low/no cost. 

tmay said:

franklinjackcon said:

Meanwhile, in the real world, Google is setting the standard for autonomous cars, has the best assistant on the market, and keeps making advances in photos. It's still early days for all AI but to suggest they've squandered their lead is plain silly.

I think that the point of the article is that it isn't innovation if you aren't making money at it, and almost without fail, Apple, with a small share of the smartphone market is grabbing most of the revenue and profits comparative to Android OEM'a and developers.

Google itself is doing fine, excepting the scrutiny given it's near monopoly in search, and privacy issues, and it's persistent inability to generate much revenue off of consumer hardware. Google has noticeable leads in services and technologies that the OEM's and developers have, for the most part, been unable to leverage to enhance revenue and profit, and Google I/O doesn't appear to have accelerated that.

If that is the point of the article then I disagree with it. Google makes its money in advertising - much of it on mobile - and uses the profits to fund innovative technologies that won't be profitable in the R&D stage.