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Google Businesses Transportation Technology

Google To Compete With Uber, Uber To Explore Autonomous Transportation 98

Posted by Soulskill from the skynet-arises-from-taxis dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Bloomberg breaks news that Uber has a major new competitor in ridesharing: Google. According to the report, Google has informed Uber's board of directors of this development, and shown them screenshots of a ride-sharing app currently being tested by employees. Why did Google share this information with Uber? Because they've heavily invested in Uber, and Google's David Drummond, chief legal officer and senior VP of corporate development, is on Uber's board. Of course, a Google ride-sharing service would fit perfectly with their project to build and develop autonomous vehicles. This could be very bad news for Uber (not to mention other ride-sharing services) because they rely heavily on Google's mapping data. That is, unless Uber beats them to it. Uber today announced a partnership with Carnegie Mellon University to develop, among other things, "autonomy technology." A source told TechCrunch that Uber went on a hiring spree and "cleaned out" the National Robotics Engineering Center, a research organization affiliated with CMU.
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Google To Compete With Uber, Uber To Explore Autonomous Transportation More

Google To Compete With Uber, Uber To Explore Autonomous Transportation

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  • Conflict of interest (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tough Love ( 215404 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2015 @12:22AM (#48966147)

    Blatant conflict of interest with Uber's minority shareholders. Watching Google tapdance around this one will be loads of fun.

    • Re:Conflict of interest (Score:4, Interesting)

      by TWX ( 665546 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2015 @12:29AM (#48966169)
      If Google is the majority shareholder, are they required to not maintain a conflict of interest?

      Years ago, even though eBay owned a percentage of Craigslist, they sued Craigslist, then bought Kijiji and have attempted to bring it to the United States as eBay Classifieds, with only limited success...

      • Something in law about minority shareholder rights...

        And Google also isn't allowed to destroy Uber's value just to buy out the minority shareholders for cheap. Never mind that Microsoft/Elop did exactly that to Nokia. But that was evil, this is... oh, hmm...

        • no way goog is majority shareholder. why would you think that.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by lpevey ( 115393 )

          Directors have certain fiduciary duties to all shareholders of a company. One type of breach of those fiduciary duties is usurpation of a corporate opportunity. The idea is that you can't use your position on a board to benefit yourself or your other business interests, to the detriment of the company or its shareholders. There are definitely potential legal issues here.

    • After the bad blood generated with the Apple iPhone stuff, google realized that they can't just compete with companies that have google employees as board members.

      I'm surprised Apple didn't sue Schmidt for breach of fiduciary duty, now that I think about it. At what point was he going to tell the Apple board about Android?

    • Blatant conflict of interest with Uber's minority shareholders. Watching Google tapdance around this one will be loads of fun.

      Shrug. Worst case Google can buy them out.

    • Blatant conflict of interest with Uber's minority shareholders. Watching Google tapdance around this one will be loads of fun.

      Shouldn't be an issue. Google's been pretty consistent about stealing from its partners [businessinsider.com] without retribution.
      What monopoly?

  • I guess the whole flamewar in the other discussion thread was for nothing; if autonomous cars become the norm then the bigger issue will be passengers not leaving the car in usable shape after a ride, and other passengers having to report that when the car comes for them.

    I suspect that private car ownership, even in an era of autonomous vehicles, will still be more the norm than not so long as people have places to park them.
    • I imagine that enough cameras to provide a thorough view of the interior, before and after, would be a fairly minimal part of the overall cost of an autonomous vehicle. Once you have that, it's your choice of attempting to assess damage/lost items/vomit/etc. with machine vision or just farming that out as piecework to cube slaves in a call center type environment.

      At that point, unless they've been very clever about spoofing their details when the hailed the ride(or just stole somebody's phone), you could

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by TWX ( 665546 )
        It'll be interesting to see how privacy rights and property rights collide on this issue. I admit I'm not wild about sitting with a camera pointed at me for the duration of a paid ride, even without any intention of committing a crime. I have no control over the recording or its use after it's created, after all.
        • Given the more-or-less-total legality of video surveillance in stores and other commercial settings(so long as there's no audio, that can be a major issue in some jurisdictions), and the willingness to accept clickwrap EULAs as being equivalent to real, contract-grade, 'consent', I suspect that 'privacy rights' won't know what hit them.

          That said, it will be interesting to see if Google(or others) voluntarily agree to a less intrusive mechanism(eg. snapshot of car state before you board and snapshot of ca

          • They can try to have EULA saying that we are not responsible but that will not hold up in court must less if there get in a accident with 3rd party victims.

            also what about traffic tickets? or even a case of a fake cop pulls over the auto drive car and something bad happens.

          • Given the more-or-less-total legality of video surveillance in stores and other commercial settings(so long as there's no audio, that can be a major issue in some jurisdictions), and the willingness to accept clickwrap EULAs as being equivalent to real, contract-grade, 'consent', I suspect that 'privacy rights' won't know what hit them.

            I really wish the ACLU would go find some sign-language-using people and get a court case to overturn that bullshit "video surveillance somehow isn't wiretapping" rationale.

          • It could just as easily follow the system used for car rentals. Someone / something inspects the vehicle for damage prior to check in. Of course, automating it like you suggest (check in / check out pics) makes a lot of sense for something that is turned over frequently, but there would be little need for constant surveillance.

        • Currently Queensland Taxis are REQUIRED to have cameras in them functioning and recording at all time. There was a bit of a stink about 18 months ago when the decision was made to add audio to the recording but I haven't heard anything more in a long time.

        • It'll be interesting to see how privacy rights and property rights collide on this issue.

          They will collide in precisely the same way that they have in any other public space. It'll be legal to make video recordings of you without signing a release, but not audio.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by TWX ( 665546 )
            The inside of a privately-owned car is not public space though. It's not like you're walking down the street in the open air.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • I don't know how much they would chose to nickel-and-dime the customers. If the service is aimed at being an upmarket 'all-annoying-incidentals-included' brand, they'd probably let it slide. If it's anything like flying coach on a major airline, well, the puke will definitely be extra, and the cameras will also use machine vision to ferret out carry on bags and charge for each, and a surcharge will be assessed if you attempt to change the vehicle's radio away from 'sponsored content'.

          What they will do is

    • Car2Go already had to deal with that problem. Is it really a problem for them though?

    • You know, I think in the future, municipalities might want to get in on this too. A radical idea for the more distant future might be to create a community-supported, super-large Uber-type vehicle that travels regularly on known routes, picking up multiple passengers along the way (charging each passenger a small set fee). Maybe even set up a central hub for these "Super Ubers" so they could transfer between vehicles to reach a specific destination. Something like that would probably take a long time to imp

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by q4Fry ( 1322209 )
        Taking a name from the computer industry which has a term for moving several data at once, we can analogize data to people and call your concept a "bus."
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Libertarian view (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2015 @12:41AM (#48966239) Homepage Journal

    I've been following with interest the debate about government-regulated taxis versus free-market Uber.

    So far as I can tell, the argument for Uber is that it's cheaper, and the rides are nicer and more convenient, but otherwise it's the same service. In particular, the service has not been a statistically significant source of crime.

    The arguments against are that 1) it's illegal, and 2) Uber drivers don't have enough (or the right kind of) insurance.

    The first argument seems contrived. Up here in NH the Portsmouth taxi commission decided that Uber is a better solution, then voted to disband [seacoastonline.com]. (As the Free State project points out, "where else would this happen?" [freestateproject.org])

    And as to the insurance argument, the Boston Globe reports [bostonglobe.com] that "Passengers hurt in accidents often run into denial and evasion by poorly insured firms".

    Uber is a good service, people seem to like and want it.

    Are there any objections I've missed? Besides "predictions", of course(*). Anyone can predict anything and sound just like an economist.

    (*) Predictions are invalid because both solutions are in play right now. There's no need to predict what will happen because we can just look to see if it's happening.

    • The arguments against are that 1) it's illegal, and 2) Uber drivers don't have enough (or the right kind of) insurance.

      The first argument seems contrived. Up here in NH the Portsmouth taxi commission decided that Uber is a better solution, then voted to disband [seacoastonline.com]. (As the Free State project points out, "where else would this happen?" [freestateproject.org]

      Why is the illegality argument contrived? Yes some municipalities have changed their laws to allow it, that doesn't change the fact that they're basing their expansion around a practise of flagrantly violating the law everywhere else.

      • Why is the illegality argument contrived?

        "It's bad because it's illegal" is a contrived argument because it depends on circular logic. It's disingenuous at best, or the person using it is an idiot who should not be allowed to communicate with others.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by swb ( 14022 )

        The illegality argument only slightly holds water in that in a civil society there is a general need of a respect for the rule of law. Flagrant violations of the law are no more ethical for Uber than they are for Goldman Sachs.

        But the primary reason it's contrived is that, as an argument, it doesn't reflect the qualitative reason it's illegal. Further, in a democratic republic, "legality" is entirely a political construct -- it's not an absolute measure of the ethics involved. Things can be illegal and e

        • I share the belief that laws should be updated to reflect ridesharing services, but that's not the source of the issue.

          A common complaint about the current application of laws is that large corporations willfully and deliberately violate the law because they know the consequences of doing so are so mild. Uber is more startup than Goldman Sachs but they are an even more blatant example of this phenomena. Uber's current strategy is to establish a dominant first-moving position in as many markets as possible,

    • Re:Libertarian view (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Tom ( 822 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2015 @07:01AM (#48967557) Homepage Journal

      I've been following with interest the debate about government-regulated taxis versus free-market Uber.

      One is real and the other one is a lie. There is no such thing as a free market. It's a theory the same way that in physics class you learn Newton mechanics without friction and air resistance and other distracting details.

      But in the real world, these things exist. In the real world, no market outside simulations satisfies all the criteria of a free market. However, people really like the idea, so companies like Uber ride on the wave of sympathy.

      Many of the arguments against Uber are bullshit, I will grant you that. However, you forget one very important thing: Uber enters a market dominated and defined by government-regulation. Do not for one second believe that the market would look the same if it had only Uber. Look to any country without government regulation on taxis for an idea of what it would be like. Uber has to behave and satisfy certain standards because people are used to them because they've always had them, thanks to government regulation.

      • The problem is, and one of the main reasons that Uber and other rideshare companies exist at all, is that gov't took things a step beyond simple regulation, at least in the US: they implemented full-bore artificial scarcity via the ridiculous, corrupt medallion system. These medallions act as both a completely unnecessary limit on competition as well as on the total number of available cabs. They are a lose-lose for the consumer and all the folks complaining about Uber et al have never been able to come u

      • I've been following with interest the debate about government-regulated taxis versus free-market Uber.

        One is real and the other one is a lie. There is no such thing as a free market. It's a theory the same way that in physics class you learn Newton mechanics without friction and air resistance and other distracting details.

        But in the real world, these things exist. In the real world, no market outside simulations satisfies all the criteria of a free market.

        Yes, that's why using your understanding of free market dynamics to understand the real economic world is utterly useless, just like using your understanding of mechanics to understand how real world objects behave is utterly useless.

        Except that as it turns out it's actually extraordinarily useful. In both cases. In both cases you do have to make allowances for the ways in which the model doesn't fit reality (or, more precisely, that your simplified version of the model doesn't fit), but in both cases the

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Tom ( 822 )

          Except that as it turns out it's actually extraordinarily useful.

          Yes, it is. As long as you never forget it's an approximation. When it's used as a propaganda tool, however, you need to be even more aware of that.

          There are pros and cons

          Exactly. That's what the simplified propaganda from any extremist side doesn't understand. Neither the "government, government, we want more government" (btw., does it really exist? I've yet to see someone like that, I think they're a figment of the imagination of the other side) nor the "de-regulate everything, if corporations poison my water supply, it's my fa

    • Are there any objections I've missed?

      Uber refusing to play nicely with the laws is bigger problem than just fucking the existing taxis. For one, as you mentioned, they don't ensure a safe (read, insured) ride. But taxi regulations also prevent taxis from refusing service to handicapped people with guide dogs [cbslocal.com] (for instance). While there may be some de facto racism when hailing a cab moving along the street, it cannot be baked into the service, but Uber seems like they will allow drivers to not pick up cer

  • Somebody needs to put these paid taxi services to bed. Ride sharing in no way involves set fares.

  • Once any system handles Pitt well, they have won the map issue. As someone who lives in the city, I can say that nobody has won the city. Google is close, but they have not won.

    • clearly you have never driven in DC or NYC.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by wed128 ( 722152 )

        I've lived in a suburb of NYC, had friends live in DC, and currently live in Pittsburgh. I have experience with all three. Pittsburgh is the worst place to drive and navigate (geography-wise), with DC as a close second.

        That said, NYC has worse traffic than either of the other two contenders.

    • Try driving in some european cities with windy narrow streets where cars have to pull in to let others pass and drivers cutting each other up left, right and centre. Good luck to a google car managing that. And even they are easy compared to some asian cities where the vehicles can hardly move due to obstructions and people.

  • Correction: The CIA heavily invests in Uber (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Please correct the headline, thanks:

    https://medium.com/@NafeezAhmed/how-the-cia-made-google-e836451a959e [medium.com]

  • Google has a good amount of people that have been working on this since the DARPA days and effectively already have a working prototype. Unless Uber is hiring people that have been working on the Google project, they are sadly mistaken if they think they can beat Google too the punch.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Google basically hired one of the DARPA Grand Challenge teams (the Stanford one). It sounds like Uber just hired another one of them (the CMU one). In fact, it looks like the CMU one actually did a bit better at the Urban Challenge [wikipedia.org]. I don't know what they've been working on since then, but in 2007, they were at the same level.
  • Will the autonomous cars crash if you get out without paying?
    • I think you'd be paying electronically in advance, which is a good thing. No fumbling for cash or dealing with tips.

  • I suspect that Uber is hiring all these researchers to patent key R&D on the still-developing field of autonomous vehicles, and use it as leverage against Google (which probably has its own chest of patents already) and other self-driving automakers.

  • robot taxi (Score:3)

    by Tom ( 822 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2015 @06:55AM (#48967535) Homepage Journal

    I've been waiting for something like that for a long time and wondered where it would come from.

    Personally, I'm a big fan of short-time rental companies (where you pick up a car wherever you find it, and drop it when you're at your destination, and someone else will take it from there). And the only problem is that at certain times, cars pool up in certain areas. So at times, the nearest car is quite far away. Or if you go to the center - no parking space.

    How cool would it be to have a car that you just exit at your destination, and it'll go and find a parking space on its own? And when you need it, you open an app on your smartphone, and the nearest car comes to pick you up.

    For me, that is exactly what the future of transportation in cities is going to look like. Robot cars for short distance travel.

    • Short distance travel? Walk. Avoids the health risks of all that car-sitting. How is your road funding going, by the way? $65 billion in bail-outs to the delightfully insolvent highway trust fund, the industry slumped out dead over the "build new road" lever and crickets on the topic of funding basic road maintenance are a few of the blinking red warning signs I've noticed. Ah, hmm, looks like they'll be needing another "bridging the gap" road funding tax increase in Seattle, as the previous one has already

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Tom ( 822 )

        Short distance travel? Walk.

        Please don't be an idiot. In context, it should be obvious that "short distance" doesn't mean 500 metres.

        How is your road funding going, by the way? $65 billion in bail-outs to the delightfully insolvent highway trust fund

        Please don't be an idiot. Nothing in my post was USA specific, and btw. I'm a German and road funding is perfectly fine over here, thank you.

  • Greatly surprised to learn "Dont-be-evil" Google is heavily invested in "Always-be-evil" Uber. What was it like in the board room? Was it like the cloud chamber in CERN where matter and anti-matter collide annihilating each other?

  • Would it still be ridesharing without a driver? (Score:3)

    by Dr. Spork ( 142693 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2015 @08:40AM (#48968113)

    If Google cabs come pick you up and you pay them to drive you somewhere, Google is running a straight up taxi service. It's not ridesharing in any sense. Maybe Google would allow private car owners to put their driverless cars into the system, and keep a portion of the fares, but I don't see this as being very motivated. Google will have the driverless cars first, private competitors in their system would only drive down prices, and then there's the legwork of making sure that all the privateer taxis are safe and insured.

    I love the idea of driverless taxis, and I'd love to live in a city where they were the only passenger cars allowed on roads. Unfortunately, I think that idiots will ruin the idea - for example, by using these things as convenient "date rape cabins".

  • I saw in the news today that Google may be developing its own driverless cabs.

    Yipee!

    Nice going Google, lets put even more people out of work!

  • I know Uber are doing well, but is it really sensible for them to be investing in research in a field whose commercial prospects are at least a few decades out?

    Google can afford a research program that won't be profitable in the foreseeable future. Can Uber?

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