There are a lot of pointless contrarian comments on the post, and I don't agree with everything in the actual article, but I do see the point being raised and the shift in Apple's ads.

Layered on top of the details of the product that used to make up 100% of their advertising are more explicit points about the company, their philosophies, and their process. I don't think that's necessarily wrong - it certainly isn't out of the ordinary in advertising - but its a tactile shift. That being said, they are still a long way from "jumping the shark" with this strategy, and I'd disagree with the writer's point of view that this indicates they have nothing on the product front to talk about.

I was down at the finish line (on the opposite side of the street) a couple of hours before the bombing watching a family member cross the finish line. My worry is that the crowd was so tightly packed that it might be tough to get any footage of what was happening at ground level. If I had simply looked down to see my feet, I wouldn't have been able to see them because we were so crammed in. If an object was on the ground, or if someone carried a backpack in at ground level, it seems like it could be missed by even the thousands of people snapping photos at all angles.

That being said, I'm wondering if you couldn't use some sort of facial recognition in conjunction with timestamps to track/detect unusual movements (like someone who quickly moves into the area of the detonation, then turns around and quickly moves out.)

You could say the same things about the internet or about software... that ingraining these technologies into every part of our society could have major long-term economic ramifications that deserve consideration. Even today, the number of low to middle-wage jobs that could still be replaced with software-driven solutions will amount to a huge number of jobs that will no longer be necessary. Agree with you that we shouldn't label these things good or bad - they represent progress. But we shouldn't ignore the likely ramifications of massive shifts like this until society feels the pain.

Agree with your point. It raises another question for me - if we are talking about shared or non-owned vehicles that people interchangably call and use when they need to go somewhere, aren't we inching closer to the same experience that other means of public transportation provide? And shouldn't we give those equal consideration to a world that is still built for and dominated by cars? For all the benefits we are all citing here, there are still a lot of problems with a world dominated by cars (pollution, the space they take up, the roads they require that cut up communities and are inhospitable to pedestrians / other modes of transportation, etc.)

Space waste happens because(1) ego, which means buying big and snarly cars to look like an action hero, (2) over-provision of car space, because you sit in one seat of a five-seat car on the off chance you might have passengers or cargo (3) cars parked, idle.

Robo-taxis have an economic attractor at the "runs forever, gets good mileage" end of the design scale, because energy and maintenance are the biggest ongoing costs. There would be incentives to make them small and efficient, maybe sized for one occupant. And they would not sit around idle, so they would need a long MTBF, which rules out designing for speed or beefiness and suggests electric (it's got fewer moving parts).

All of which means, fewer, smaller, cleaner, slower, simpler, vehicles. Aesthetes will pine for the days of muscle cars. In terms of green-ness, they may come to eclipse buses etc, while retaining the advantages of cars (goes where you want, when you want, and is not full of strangers).

I love the idea of smaller, more efficient vehicles, but I think we hold too much hope in the fact that they could be "self driving". Why would a smaller self-driving car be more likely to gain in popularity over what most people choose to drive today? Why is it more likely to be electric? Those are two independent characteristics that haven't taken off on their own; I don't see how the self-driving aspect is going to change many of the existing problems we have with car-based transportation.

That point often seems to be left completely out of the discussion about self-driving cars. Is making a 9x14' box an easier and more appealing mode of transportation really the best move for society? It's at least worth considering.

This is the harm-reduction debate. For example, Swedish snus and electronic cigarettes are much less harmful than smoking, but the argument goes that quitting nicotine altogether is less harmful than anything. Yet people still smoke and use nicotine, so switching the stalwarts over to less-harmful methods of nicotine consumption would save lots of lives and money.

Likewise, it may not be possible in the short term to convince everyone to stop driving cars. Self-driving cars won't fix the long-term problem of efficient transportation, urban sprawl, or emissions, but they can reduce its harm by efficiently providing car-like service to the public.

Robo-cars in taxi mode won't stop, they'll go from one job to the next, and they won't park except at times of low demand. Unlike drive-it-yourself cars, they won't eat up urban space for parking lots, and the total car fleet will be much smaller because the allocation only has to be "one per currently travelling commuter", more or less, rather than "one per human".

So just like taxis, then?

With no driver and a quarter the size or less for smaller (1-seat) units.

And instead of underground trains, there could be underground highways that automatic vehicles use.

I can appreciate that there are a lot of benefits to self-driving cars - safety, the possibility of reduced traffic and congestion, amongst other things. That being said, I'm always stunned at the complete lack of discussion about the topic of environmental impact (whether the impact of this technology will ultimately be positive or negative.)

If we are going to undertake such a major shift in how we all get from point A to point B, shouldn't that be a significant point of consideration? It is rarely even mentioned in the context of this discussion, which I find to be disappointing.

I actually have read discussions of the such, but unfortunately don't remember where... :(

However, that being said, here are some of the points I've seen:

Pros: Car sharing is easier, since you can pull out a smartphone and "order" a car to come pick you up at any point, there is less of a need to actually own a car. This should lessen the total number of vehicles manufactured/maintained/etc. The huge amounts of energy for making steel come to mind here. Also, if you are using a CaaS(car as a service) many would probably opt for a cheaper option where the car will stop and pick up other passengers on the way, offsetting the cost and therefore reducing price. A person doesn't have to arrange a carpool this way. If you make it easier and cheaper to carpool than to not (currently it is cheaper, but a hassle) then people will do it more.

Reduced traffic congestion: This sets the stage for the other benefits. Cars stopping and accelerating less equals less fuel used. Many, many more autonomous vehicles can share a roadway without reducing speed than human drivers.

Cons:

More suburbinazation/low population density: This is a big possibility. While living in a distant exurb would mean you probably have to own an autonomous vehicle, or schedule one to pick you up well in advance, car sharing suddenly works less.... but a 90 minute commute today would be much faster with autoomous vehicle roads, and people can read/chill/watch news/surf the net etc while cruising to work. Commuting is made more relaxing, so more people do it....

It's a very complex issue to try and understand the implications, but I really think that it would be an environmental net gain, due to the fact that, if everyone is using Car as a Service, then the CaaS providers will have cost minimization as a priority, and work to constantly increase efficiency. People only care about fast acceleration and performance when they are driving themselves. Computers don't have small penises to compensate for.

I can't see how it wouldn't be an improvement. Self-driving vehicles that automatically assess traffic conditions, reduce accidents will likely result in less gridlock, improved travel times, less wear on roads and other infrastructure etc.

I also don't see why this tech couldn't be used in public transit/shipping thereby reducing one of the largest cost factors (salaried drivers, poor lifestyle) and actually increase the amount of available public transit.

In Boston, every listing is contaminated with mentions of every single nearby neighborhood to take advantage of Craigslist's comically broken search functionality. Search "back bay", and you end up with listings in Somerville, since it's "NEAR BACK BAY SOUTH END CAMBRIDGE BROOKLINE" etc etc etc.

Apartment hunting on Craigslist is a total nightmare without Padmapper, and I'm resenting Craigslist more and more for relegating us all to using their horrible UI.

Fair point, but when each user adds less and less value over time, that billion plus userbase can be as much of a liability as it is an asset.

Billions of users or not, becoming boring is a huge problem for Facebook. With a revenue model so heavily dependent on pageviews, they need to keep their users engaged and on the site... and that doesn't appear to be the case over the long term. New users ride a wave of heavy usage, but over time, Facebook takes on more of a role as a utility than a diversion. It has for me and most everyone else I know who started using it when it was a shiny new toy exclusively for college students.

Facebook can't keep up the rate of new user acquisition it has enjoyed for the past couple of years forever - and as the userbase collectively ages, interest wanes, pageviews decline, and revenue drops off. Right now, it looks like they will inevitably be caught in the same race to the bottom, doing whatever they can to scrounge up page views, that Yahoo is in.