cross pond high tech
159.6K views | +0 today
Follow
cross pond high tech
light views on high tech in both Europe and US
Your new post is loading...
Your new post is loading...
Scooped by Philippe J DEWOST
Scoop.it!

Waymo's autonomous cars log 1 million miles in a month

Waymo's autonomous cars log 1 million miles in a month | cross pond high tech | Scoop.it

Waymo, the Alphabet self-driving car company that was spun out of Google, is picking up speed.

The company’s autonomous vehicles just drove 8 million miles on public roads. What’s more, it took the company just one month to go from 7 million miles to 8 million miles driven.

“We’re driving now at the rate of 25,000 miles every day on public roads,” CEO John Krafcik said Friday while addressing the National Governors Association.

Waymo’s acceleration in logging miles with self-driving cars has picked up in the last year. In November 2017, it crossed 4 million miles. Less than a year later it’s doubled that figure.

Most of the miles are being driven in the Phoenix area where the company has been developing and testing an autonomous ride-share service using modified Chrysler Pacifica hybrid minivans. The company plans to launch that ride-share service to the public later this year in Arizona.

Krafcik’s vision for the company is to partner with automakers, cargo operators and public transportation companies so they incorporate Waymo’s technology. Unlike automakers such as General Motors that are developing their own self-driving systems, Waymo has no plans to build its own vehicles.

Instead, Waymo is looking to build “drivers,” systems that can safely steer vehicles without requiring a human to sit behind the steering wheel.

“As we scale our business and have hundreds and thousands of Waymo drivers on the road, each one of those drivers is going to be exactly the same,” said Krafcik. “It’s going to be the world’s most experienced driver.”

Philippe J DEWOST's insight:

Interesting : it looks like Waymo's law it outpacing Moore's law. More interesting, they now log 25.000 miles per day. And even more interesting, they now say "We are driving..."

Philippe J DEWOST's curator insight, July 24, 2018 9:38 AM

“We’re driving now at the rate of 25,000 miles every day on public roads” — We stands for "our Way enabled car fleet" ... 

Richard Platt's curator insight, August 22, 2018 12:20 PM

Waymo, the Alphabet self-driving car company that was spun out of Google, is picking up speed.  The company’s autonomous vehicles just drove 8 million miles on public roads. What’s more, it took the company just one month to go from 7 million miles to 8 million miles driven.  “We’re driving now at the rate of 25,000 miles every day on public roads,” CEO John Krafcik said Friday while addressing the National Governors Association.  Waymo’s acceleration in logging miles with self-driving cars has picked up in the last year. In November 2017, it crossed 4 million miles. Less than a year later it’s doubled that figure.  Most of the miles are being driven in the Phoenix area where the company has been developing and testing an autonomous ride-share service using modified Chrysler Pacifica hybrid minivans. The company plans to launch that ride-share service to the public later this year in Arizona.  Krafcik’s vision for the company is to partner with automakers, cargo operators and public transportation companies so they incorporate Waymo’s technology. Unlike automakers such as General Motors that are developing their own self-driving systems, Waymo has no plans to build its own vehicles.

Instead, Waymo is looking to build “drivers,” systems that can safely steer vehicles without requiring a human to sit behind the steering wheel.  “As we scale our business and have hundreds and thousands of Waymo drivers on the road, each one of those drivers is going to be exactly the same,” said Krafcik. “It’s going to be the world’s most experienced driver.”

Scooped by Philippe J DEWOST
Scoop.it!

Alphabet's Google reports rising profits in core Businesses

Alphabet's Google reports rising profits in core Businesses | cross pond high tech | Scoop.it
Google's parent company - has surpassed Apple as the world's most valuable company after its latest earnings report.
Philippe J DEWOST's insight:

With @Trooclick you can see a summary of what 45 speakers said about @Alphabet passing @Apple in market cap... for now.

My preferred comment is "Essentially, what they have now is a big advertising business and a venture capital business." by Forrester's Frank Gillett ; and yours ?

No comment yet.
Scooped by Philippe J DEWOST
Scoop.it!

Softbank is buying robotics firms Boston Dynamics and Schaft from Alphabet

Softbank is buying robotics firms Boston Dynamics and Schaft from Alphabet | cross pond high tech | Scoop.it
Here’s a surprise turn of events: Softbank — maker of the friendly Pepper robot and a major M&A player in the tech world — has just announced that it is acquiring two more robotics companies from Google owner Alphabet as part of its own deeper move into the field: it is buying Big Dog developer Boston Dynamics and the secretive bipedal robotics firm Schaft.A spokesperson for Softbank has confirmed to us that the terms of the deal are not being disclosed, but we will try to find out. In case you are wondering (we were), we have double checked and these are the only two of Alphabet’s robotics companies getting acquired by Softbank.There had been lots of murmurs about Google (and then Alphabet) wanting to offload Boston Dynamics for over a year now. Most recently, Toyota was apparently eyeing up an acquisition of the two businesses.But robots are huge across all of Japan, with some of the biggest innovations, investments, and motivations for developing them coming out of the country; and so, in the end, it looks like another titan of Japanese industry beat Toyota to the punch.“Today, there are many issues we still cannot solve by ourselves with human capabilities,” said Masayoshi Son, Chairman & CEO of SoftBank Group Corp., in a statement. “Smart robotics are going to be a key driver of the next stage of the Information Revolution, and Marc and his team at Boston Dynamics are the clear technology leaders in advanced dynamic robots. I am thrilled to welcome them to the SoftBank family and look forward to supporting them as they continue to advance the field of robotics and explore applications that can help make life easier, safer and more fulfilling.”While Softbank has been hard at work doubling down on big bets in areas that it believes will be at the center of the future of computing — other acquisitions have included its $24 billion acquisition of chip maker ARM Holdings — for Alphabet, this is part of the company’s bigger efforts to rationalise some of its many acquisitions and strategic bets over the years that have not panned out as great fits with the wider business.It looks like the whole team is coming over with the deal. “We at Boston Dynamics are excited to be part of SoftBank’s bold vision and its position creating the next technology revolution, and we share SoftBank’s belief that advances in technology should be for the benefit of humanity,” said Marc Raibert, CEO and founder of Boston Dynamics, in a statement.“We look forward to working with SoftBank in our mission to push the boundaries of what advanced robots can do and to create useful applications in a smarter and more connected world.”When Alphabet (still called Google at the time) acquired Shaft and Boston Dynamics in 2013 (Shaft was purchased as one of a group of seven acquisitions), the company did not disclose the terms of the deals.While Boston Dynamics has been pretty public in posting (sometimes terrifying) videos and generally talking about of its advances in making animal-like robots that can trek across all terrains and get up instantly when knocked over, Schaft has been a fairly quiet presence.Schaft revealed its first big prototypes only about two years after the acquisition. The company has been around since 2012, after being incubated in the JSK Robotics Laboratory at the University of Tokyo by co-founders Yuto Nakanishi, Junichi Urata, Narito Suzuki and Koichi Nishiwaki. It remains a secretive company: an attempted visit to its website today was blocked.
Philippe J DEWOST's insight:
Impressed with Softbank acquisition spree ; now completing their consumer robotics stake (France's Aldebaran Robotics) with a military arm , after snapping (mobile) chip design behemoth ARM ($24Bn). Vertical integration in sight ?
No comment yet.
Scooped by Philippe J DEWOST
Scoop.it!

Apple = Microsoft + Google when it comes to profits

Apple = Microsoft + Google when it comes to profits | cross pond high tech | Scoop.it

Apple had the highest annual profit of any company in history for its fiscal year, which ended September 30. Can anybody else catch up?

Probably not anytime soon. This chart from Statista shows how far ahead Apple is compared with the rest of the tech industry. Apple's quarterly profit was more than the combined profits of Microsoft and Alphabet (Google). No other tech company came close.

Philippe J DEWOST's insight:

$10 Bn$ as a quarterly unit sounds a little unreal.

No comment yet.