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This reminds me of the advice: Don't write articles that can be answered with a single word "no".

Unlike startups, it's not like Google's business depends on investors supporting lofty goals. There would seem to be no benefit to faking a demo like this.

Not revealing the business location is likely just because they consider their business partners to be business data that they don't want to give away to competitors. Clean auto could easily just be done via a simple noise filter, just for the sake of the demo. When you have a little noise in your ear, it's not bad. But when you need to broadcast sound to an entire stadium, you need to rebalance it. This story is a load of nonsense.


How do we know the answer is no? Maybe Google’s software can do what they say but they didn’t demo that.

Thay supposedly made a call (won’t release proof) to a restaurant (that they won’t name) and talked to a receptionist (who didn’t mention the restaurant name) that didn’t ask what time the reservation was for. And you couldn’t hear the restaurant in the background.

The demo is really suspicious. They deserve to be called on it. For all we know that was a recording of a fake training/test call with a Google employee.

If they manipulated the audio in some way (cut out an intro, filtered out noise, etc) they just have to say so.

Google deserves this kind of scrutiny. They’re a MASSIVE company, they should be able to handle these kind of questions about new products.

Especially those that are supposed to be released in the next few months.


A smoother fake would have bleeped over the supposed restaurant name. Something to look forward to next time!


Demo faking happens quite a lot even when company is not seeking external investment. I won't name the name but one of the high profile demos by a was actually borderline fake. The CEO insisted for his desired demo and was promised by his senior team months in advance. The whole keynote was structured around this demo. As usual, project was behind the schedule and hopeless. Ultimately the decision was to semi-fake the things while walking the fine line.


> Unlike startups, it's not like Google's business depends on investors supporting lofty goals. There would seem to be no benefit to faking a demo like this.

If they don't need to impress anybody, why would they even have a demo at all?


> Unlike startups, it's not like Google's business depends on investors supporting lofty goals. There would seem to be no benefit to faking a demo like this.

You could say the exact same thing about Microsoft and the Milo demo.


"Ego" is a European word so why would Buddha use it? Please try to stay on topic.


I'll be sure to tell all the Buddhists I meet who use the term that you said so.


Buddha lived literally over 2000 years ago. Please go read a book.


Differential privacy is basically a buzzword. Don't believe the hype.


It seems to me that diffpriv is a nascent area of research that has not yet been bastardized by the business community. The complete opposite of a buzzword.


There was a case I read which said roughly that, yes, if you clear your cache, and are not technically savvy enough to know the files could be recovered, then as far as you knew, the files were actually gone, and you no longer "possess" them legally.

Of course, proving that you are an idiot is always a great start to a trial, but it's worked in the past.


I don't think not knowing enough about computers to realize that "delete" doesn't actually delete the data qualifies someone as an idiot.


Well if you are technically savvy... maybe you'd go a step further too and then you do think they're gone, its a whole other question... or the same one.


I got the feeling there was more stuff he said that never leaked but who knows


There wasn't. There are extensive leakers in google on both sides of the fence who would have leaked the fuller doc if one existed.


It's not though, because it wasn't withdrawn it was rejected.


I think the official case record is not in agreement with your understanding:

https://www.nlrb.gov/case/32-CA-205351


Are you implying the lawyers in the case didn't read the citations? Please.


No, I'm responding to the claim in the comment above that Damore made statements "without citing direct evidence".

Though it is probably true that the lawyers in the case didn't read the citations. It wasn't their job to determine whether Damore's statements were scientifically accurate, and they stated that his statements were discriminatory and constituted sexual harassment, regardless of the scientific references and analysis.


With only 5.1 seconds of input, you could brute force it if you really wanted.


Could you?

The game runs at NTSC rates, which we'll round up to 60Hz. We'll also say that 6s of inputs need to be considered, and scores which are above 6s will be discarded. We'll finally say that the possible input states consist of the joystick in either left ("shifting") or neutral ("popping") position, and the gas button either up or down. This generates four possible input states.

The number of possible input states in total will be 60 * 6 = 360, and so the total input space is 4 * * 360 = 2 * * 720, which is a little big for brute-force exploration. Many of these states suck; after all, the total number of shifts is not ~300, but ~5. So a guided search is likelier to pay off.

Edit: Thanks HN for eating asterisks and having no math mode.


There's brute force and then there's brute force. You know that the joystick inputs have to be applied in a certain order, and you basically want the throttle on unless you're above a certain RPM, so the search space is more like 60^4 with a couple of parameters, which is plenty tractable.


I think the maximum polling frequency on the 2600's joystick ports is only 30 Hz.


Except the value of a CryptoKitty or Rare Pepe is unlikely to continue to be worth anything in a few years, because let's be honest, it's not very interesting art.


That's your opinion. Art is a matter of perception.


Haha, my sweet child. No one says on 9/11 "Those guys did a great job showing us a vulnerability in our security!"

Being indifferent to death of innocent people is the opposite of maturity.


No one says on 9/11 "Those guys did a great job showing us a vulnerability in our security!"

...except that's exactly what happened. Regardless of whether you think the changes are effective, just compare airport security before and after.


Every little opportunity to murder someone that isn't patrolled by armed guards isn't a "vulnerability", for most sane people this is not something that would cross their minds. The solution for the few outliers isn't to live in underground concrete bunkers.


Although few of the changes made to airport security since 9/11 would have hindered those terrorists. Theoretically the box cutters should have already been stopped by the X-Ray and that hasn't significantly changed. The only substantial difference is that now we lock the door to the cockpit, something we should have been doing since the 80s when airline hijackings were common.


> Haha, my sweet child.

This stuff automatically disqualified you from a content-based response in my mind. I'm an adult with substantial experience in these matters.


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