In message , at 09:08:36 on Mon, 26 Sep
2016, tim... remarked:
I have already explained, this is risk capital with the backers
expecting a return on only 1 in 3 of their investments. Uber has been
measured against that criteria. You really can't use the measure that
VCs are investing as proof that a venture is guaranteed to be
successful. The world is littered with VC failures, including some
that required investments in the Billions. How much did Microsoft lose
buying Skyp?

Twitter is looking for White Knight at the moment, having consistently
lost money with no turn-around on the horizon.
--
Roland Perry

On Fri, Sep 23, 2016 at 11:01:31AM +0100, tim... wrote:

but they can afford one city as a trial on the basis of their current
funding

but scaling it up to 10,000 cities just isn't going to be cheap, and I defy
them to find the funding for such.

If they can show that it works in one place, and makes money, then I'm
sure that the funding will be available. Not enough to go straight to
10,000 cities, but to roll it out to another 10 and do a larger trial.
And then to expand that, and to expand that, and so on, until all 10,000
are covered.

You could have levelled the same criticism against bold plans 130 years
ago to do ridiculous things like connect every single house in the
country to the electricity supply.

--
David Cantrell
Professor of Unvironmental Science
University of Human Progress

In message , at 10:50:29 on Mon, 26 Sep
2016, tim... remarked:

Oh and then there's Ionica, now much money was lost there?

An interesting business model: Try to attract only those customers who
want to spend as little as possible, or who are regarded by BT as too
big a credit risk. And then fail to roll out the only product which had
a technical edge on the competition (faster, but still narrowband,
data).

And losing £150m on a turnover of £10m is pretty much a world record I'd
have thought.
--
Roland Perry

On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 04:16:38PM +0100, tim... wrote:

The simple solution to that is not to insist on such a ridiculously high
spec car (as I have read that they do)

it is cheap and cheerful taxi service FFS, not a limousine service

What's wrong with a 5 year old Mondeo?

From the driver's point of view - running costs.

I assume that Uber also want a certain amount of consistency in the cars
as it helps their brand.

I used Uber on Saturday. I've noticed that in the last few months I've
not had a single Prius from Uber, but that previously it was almost all
Priuses. I asked the driver about it. He said that the Prius's fuel
economy is no longer a unique selling point as other cars have caught
up, but the Prius is still expensive. He claimed that the comfortable
efficient Honda we were in had cost him 6 grand second hand. He chose it
because the purchase price was reasonable, it was cheap to run, it was
reliable, and it didn't hurt his arse to sit in it all day.

--
David Cantrell | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david

Fashion label: n: a liferaft for personalities
which lack intrinsic buoyancy

In message
-sept
ember.org, at 08:45:29 on Mon, 26 Sep 2016, Recliner
remarked:
Roland Perry wrote:
In message
-sept
ember.org, at 21:30:40 on Sat, 24 Sep 2016, Recliner
remarked:

Anyway, here's a recent report of Uber's self-driving tests in Pittsburgh:

http://www.economist.com/news/busine...nches-its-firs
t-self-driving-cars-pitt-stop

I think you'll find that's the University's testing, and because Uber
funds that programme they get to go "along for the ride" so to speak.

It's also an early testing phase, which the cars won't necessarily pass.

It's not really a pass or fail issue. It's an alpha test. I assume the
software, algorithms and mapping database will be continually adjusted
during this testing phase, but no-one is planning to roll out this version
as a commercial release. But these improvements will feed back into the
eventual commercial release, which is probably several years away.

Like fusion power, you mean?

The big step in this phase is that it's not just the private test running
that Google has been doing for years, but a public test, with random
members of the public actually using the cars as a taxi service.

I've always assumed the Google test was at the very least assisting
their employees to commute to work. Or is it only people driving around
at random during their work day with the firm?

It seems to be a little more ambitious than the nuTonomy trial that
started a few days earlier in Singapore, but is still well short of a
commercial release.

The novelty is the way they are spinning it for PR purposes. I don't
blame them for that, but it does appear to have got many people rather
over-excited. Didn't BR run the APT in Alpha-testing revenue service,
before scrapping the project?

As an aside, it's interesting how much much hardware these early
self-driving cars currently need (numerous sensors, Lidar, Radar, cameras,
etc) compared to just the eyes and ears we human drivers get by with.

20 cameras, and radar! I wonder how fault-tolerant it is when one or
more of the cameras fails because of an electrical fault, or become
covered in snow. And don't forget, one of the problems Volvo has found
is the radar antennas getting clogged with snow.

ObRail: Right or wrong sort of snow, I wonder?
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 09:08:36 on Mon, 26 Sep
2016, tim... remarked:

If you're prepared to pay 50 grand for a new car, perhaps

I was astonished to see *second hand* Land Rover Discos for sale on a
forecourt for more than 50k. Some people have money to burn.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 12:01:29
on Mon, 26 Sep 2016, David Cantrell remarked:
It's possible for Amazon to kill the competition and for it not to come back
again, leaving you in an unassailable position to reap the rewards of
previous work

Once Uber has established in a city, competition can continually spring up
again meaning that you are continually fighting it. There is no path to
killing it off completely (other than making your price so low you don't
make a profit). There are always new drivers prepared to compete with you.

What's different about them that makes it possible for someone to pop up
and start competing with Uber, but impossible for someone to pop up and
start competing with Amazon?

Mainly that Uber's buyers are only dealing with one commodity - drivers,
and their product is self-delivering. Amazon has tens of thousands of
product suppliers and tens of thousands of people required for
picking/packing and delivering them.
--
Roland Perry

On Mon, 26 Sep 2016 12:26:00 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message
-sept
ember.org, at 08:45:29 on Mon, 26 Sep 2016, Recliner
remarked:
Roland Perry wrote:
In message
-sept
ember.org, at 21:30:40 on Sat, 24 Sep 2016, Recliner
remarked:

Anyway, here's a recent report of Uber's self-driving tests in Pittsburgh:

http://www.economist.com/news/busine...nches-its-firs
t-self-driving-cars-pitt-stop

I think you'll find that's the University's testing, and because Uber
funds that programme they get to go "along for the ride" so to speak.

It's also an early testing phase, which the cars won't necessarily pass.

It's not really a pass or fail issue. It's an alpha test. I assume the
software, algorithms and mapping database will be continually adjusted
during this testing phase, but no-one is planning to roll out this version
as a commercial release. But these improvements will feed back into the
eventual commercial release, which is probably several years away.

Like fusion power, you mean?

No, exactly the opposite. This stuff works, and just needs
fine-tuning. Fusion has never got that far.


The big step in this phase is that it's not just the private test running
that Google has been doing for years, but a public test, with random
members of the public actually using the cars as a taxi service.

I've always assumed the Google test was at the very least assisting
their employees to commute to work. Or is it only people driving around
at random during their work day with the firm?

I think it's just a test programme, with professional testers driving
around.


It seems to be a little more ambitious than the nuTonomy trial that
started a few days earlier in Singapore, but is still well short of a
commercial release.

The novelty is the way they are spinning it for PR purposes. I don't
blame them for that, but it does appear to have got many people rather
over-excited. Didn't BR run the APT in Alpha-testing revenue service,
before scrapping the project?

The self-driving cars are already much further ahead than the APT
reached.


As an aside, it's interesting how much much hardware these early
self-driving cars currently need (numerous sensors, Lidar, Radar, cameras,
etc) compared to just the eyes and ears we human drivers get by with.

20 cameras, and radar! I wonder how fault-tolerant it is when one or
more of the cameras fails because of an electrical fault, or become
covered in snow. And don't forget, one of the problems Volvo has found
is the radar antennas getting clogged with snow.

All stuff to be evaluated during the test phase. Hopefully the
commercial version won't need quite so many cameras and sensors.


ObRail: Right or wrong sort of snow, I wonder?

On Mon, 26 Sep 2016 12:06:13 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 09:08:36 on Mon, 26 Sep
2016, tim... remarked:
I have already explained, this is risk capital with the backers
expecting a return on only 1 in 3 of their investments. Uber has been
measured against that criteria. You really can't use the measure that
VCs are investing as proof that a venture is guaranteed to be
successful. The world is littered with VC failures, including some
that required investments in the Billions. How much did Microsoft lose
buying Skyp?

Twitter is looking for White Knight at the moment, having consistently
lost money with no turn-around on the horizon.

Of course, Twitter had a successful IPO, so the VCs have already got
their return. It's the later TWTR investors who are hoping for a
generous buyout. But the company is making money, albeit much less
than hoped-for:

"The company posted second-quarter adjusted earnings of 13 cents a
share on revenue of $602 million. Wall Street expected it to post
earnings of 10 cents a share on revenue of $607 million, according to
a Thomson Reuters consensus estimate. Profit per share was up from 7
cents a year earlier, and revenue rose 20 percent."

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/26/twitt...-earnings.html

David Cantrell wrote:

On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 04:21:44PM +0100, tim... wrote:

It's possible for Amazon to kill the competition and for it not to come back
again, leaving you in an unassailable position to reap the rewards of
previous work

Once Uber has established in a city, competition can continually spring up
again meaning that you are continually fighting it. There is no path to
killing it off completely (other than making your price so low you don't
make a profit). There are always new drivers prepared to compete with you.

What's different about them that makes it possible for someone to pop up
and start competing with Uber, but impossible for someone to pop up and
start competing with Amazon?

The capital needed to expand into a new market. Number of suppliers and
distribution.

Amazon uses existing infrastructure e.g. Royal Mail and other couriers
to hit a new market. A competetor has to get connectionbs with all the
suppliers and have a physical centre (although that might be avoidable)
So cost for setting up a new organisation is large.

Uber provides infrastructure e.g. the cars (and currently drivers). To
get a new market it needs to get all those. A competetor has to do
exactly the same. There are no suppliers and the central control can be
anywhwre it is just computers and support staff. So cost for a new
organisation is smaller but it is the cost to enter a new martket that
is large.



--
Mark