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A comment on Alphabet's Waymo Alleges Uber Stole Self-Driving Secrets. Parent comment

Re:Alphabet's Waymo Alleges Uber Stole Self-Driving Secrets by tyingq on Thursday February 23, 2017 @07:06PM (#13719285)
It also seems like the least interesting thing to steal. The hard part is probably the software and access to real world driving data. It is like holding up a bank and walking out with just the coins. The risk reward profile is terrible.
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Re:Alphabet's Waymo Alleges Uber Stole Self-Driving Secrets by philsnow on Thursday February 23, 2017 @08:50PM (#13720126)
I thought waymo's lidar sensors were much, much cheaper than other sensors: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/01/googles-waymo-invests-i...

We're talking about reducing a ~$25000 part to ~$2500.

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Re:Alphabet's Waymo Alleges Uber Stole Self-Driving Secrets by Qworg on Friday February 24, 2017 @05:01AM (#13722403)
A factor of 10 and at least 3-4 years of engineering work? Yeah, that's no small potatoes.
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Re:Alphabet's Waymo Alleges Uber Stole Self-Driving Secrets by tyingq on Friday February 24, 2017 @07:38AM (#13723045)
That was a result, though, of Google collaborating with Velodyne. I suspect Velodyne would have reduced pricing to everyone as a result. And Google's not the only entity working towards less expensive LiDAR. There's Delphi/Quanergy, etc.

Just seems like a huge risk to save maybe $10k per vehicle (assuming price drops for everyone) for some relatively short time period.

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Re:Alphabet's Waymo Alleges Uber Stole Self-Driving Secrets by Fricken on Thursday February 23, 2017 @08:35PM (#13720024)
Levandowski allegedly downloaded 14,000 files. The lidar circuit designs, while arguably trivial, are what Waymo can prove have been appropriated.
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Re:Alphabet's Waymo Alleges Uber Stole Self-Driving Secrets by Qworg on Friday February 24, 2017 @05:00AM (#13722402)
Discovery will likely find more things, no?
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Re:Alphabet's Waymo Alleges Uber Stole Self-Driving Secrets by lithos on Thursday February 23, 2017 @08:53PM (#13720150)
I imagine there are more software people capable of programming their way through the problem than electrical engineers that can work their way through it.

An electrical engineer is also going to see the Uber name and expect Valley idiocy, while being a being a secondary concern for not being softwary enough.

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