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Comment by AndrewKemendo | Hacker News Reader

This acquisition plus the Carnegie Mellon robotics lab acquisition [1] makes it pretty certain they are doubling down and putting huge technical investments into autonomous cars. They are perfect for it too - but damn if that isn't quick considering how long they have been on the market.

[1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/is-uber-a-friend-or-foe-of-carne...

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Agreed, and another thing they're doubling down on: disentangling themselves from Google. Eventually they'll stop using Google Maps, and I'd guess Google Ventures will sell their stake in Uber at their next stratospheric private financing raise, if they haven't already.

It's vaguely reminiscent of Google/Apple's friendly status up until 2007, when it quickly deteriorated to "frenemy" then "direct competitor in nearly every market."

Ah, but wouldn't Google want to keep it's investments in sectors that it believes will grow, even if they're competing with them, a la Microsoft & Apple[1]?

[1]: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2010/05/apples...

Why would Google Ventures sell their stake? I've heard that they are not strategic to Google.

Uber has had a lot of trouble with routing their drivers using directions from Apple Maps. (E.g. in SF, Apple Maps commonly recommends making [either illegal or dangerous] left turns off of Market Street). Sounds like this acquisition focused on engineers who process street-view-like image/sensor data, which Uber could probably collect much more quickly than Microsoft. It makes sense that they'd want to have engineers who were good at gardening the data (tho not necessarily doing robotics/CV-oriented research on it). This purchase has some rather realistic near-term wins.

Those are just 'disruptive' lefts.

Illegal left turns across Market Street? That's not so bad. If I'm heading home from south Brooklyn then Uber tells my driver to make a right turn into a "do not enter / buses only" area followed by a left turn that takes you the wrong way on a one way street.

(Someone with too much time on their hands can probably figure out my address from that description. Or my Instagram feed.)

If the Uber driver is using an Android phone the Uber app can launch the native Google Maps navigation. For the short term it wouldn't take much other than providing or even requiring Android devices for the driver

UberPool requires the driver to accept fares during navigation.

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