Baidu's Boffin Describes Beijing's Homegrown Self-Driving Car | Hacker News Reader

Baidu's Boffin Describes Beijing's Homegrown Self-Driving Car

spectrum.ieee.org

27 pointsjonbaer11 comments

I'm surprised that Spectrum is using "boffin" in their headline. IEEE is American, and "boffin" is rarely used in American English --- although it seems like it's been gradually increasing in popularity over the last few years. What exactly does "boffin" connote, and why is IEEE using it here?

I've never liked the word, but maybe (as an American) I don't understand the connotation correctly. I group it with "nerd" and "geek", which are originally negative slang that have been more recently adopted with pride by their targets. But I don't expect that Spectrum would run a headline quoting "Google's Geek" or "Nokia's Nerd".

I think the reason they used it is that it starts with "B" as does "Baidu" and thus it adds a bit of Dr. Seuss like whimsy to the headline. Boffin has a very positive connotation in British English. It's connotation is an eccentric, extremely smart, almost wizardly scientist. Think "Doc" in Back to the Future.

"Boffin continued, in this immediate postwar period, to carry its wartime connotations: a modern-day wizard who labours in secret to create incomprehensible devices of great power."[1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boffin

The term seems to be mainly linked to news outlets, but I for some reason find it maddening.

Brits, at least some that I know, like to point out the particularities of American English (and I would admit I love the English English pronunciation of "aluminium"), but I want to stab somebody when I hear the world "fondleslab" or boffin.

I fully expect Baidu and other tech giants on the Chinese shores to try and push the boundaries of technology. Silicon Valley (and the US) in general has always been the hot-bed of innovation. But with enormous increase in wealth in China (and to an extent in India), I can see these companies being more and more ambitious. Not long ago Andrew Ng of Coursera and Stanford AI Lab fame joined Baidu to further their rival to the 'Google Brain' project. Xiaomi has long been positioning itself as a company with design chops of Apple, engineering chops of Google, and e-commerce chops of Amazon, all rolled into one-- and I can see where they are coming from. If they manage to pull it off, I guess that's when we'd start seeing the proverbial "Death of Silicon Valley" as in, it loosing its strange monopoly and strangle hold on tech world in terms of both talent and innovation.

Another interesting development here in India is Flipkart has been attracting top talent from Silicon Valley companies. They're valued at $12bn but have their sights sets on much bigger things. They aren't shying away from claiming they want to be the Indian version of Google. These ambitions are lofty, sure, but aren't without substance. Not to mention the growth the start-up scene has seen in India in light of a few Multi-billion dollar companies (Flipkart, Ola, Zomato, Snapdeal, MuSigma, InMobi, PayTm, JustDial, MakeMyTrip, Info-Edge) springing up in space of last 12-24 months, and more (PubMatic, Zoho Corp, Freshdesk, Knowlarity, Jabong, Housing, Goibibo, CommonFloor, Quickr, Sokrati, Micromax) waiting to enter that exclusive club in the coming 12. With wealth creation at an all-time high in the Indian tech circles, we're seeing an unprecedented situation where a high number of people that aren't afraid of starting their own ventures anymore, enter the start-up world with audacious ideas (with experience and enough talent around them to execute) that once were prerogative of Silicon Valley.

I think Mobile has fueled a much of this revolution (particularly, Android and its low-cost variants). It has made tech and internet available to half-a-billion (or perhaps even more) people in an instant. A local hardware company (Micromax) was recently in the news because it had overtaken Samsung as #1 seller of Smartphones in India.

Either we're about to enter a horrible bubble, or The Times... They're a-Changin'

Nasscom's 10000 startups report: http://goo.gl/KNozT6 (via dropbox)

>positioning itself as a company with design chops of Apple

Are you kidding? Xaiomi is a classic copycat Chinese company that lifts designs and ideas from elsewhere, but sits pretty with the CCP so has access to the local market.

http://www.cultofandroid.com/66569/xiaomi-dont-copy-apple/

Heck they cant even make an invite without copying Apple

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/xiaomis-apple-fixation-goes-to-a-...

>engineering chops of Google,

Reselling a skinned Android that looks a lot like iOS isn't exactly the "engineering chops of Google."

I'd be VERY surprised if this Baidu car is remotely competitive with its Western counterparts, especially when companies like Mercedes have been working on this stuff for decades.

I think both Baidu's AI lab in Beijing and its Silicon Valley lab led by Andrew Ng have top researchers and engineers. The copy issue only shows how bad laws are enforced in China, and there is a lot to improve. Also, I don't think the tech of self-driving car can be copied. The idea can be copied and in these days, idea is cheap. That said, I totally agree that China needs IT companies that do cutting edge stuff within one field. Baidu, Tencent, and even Alibaba all failed to do so. But I have a good feeling about the future. Look at some of the young and promising start-ups in China that have leading technology in its own field:

http://www.faceplusplus.com/

http://www.dji.com/

http://www.foxitsoftware.com/Secure_PDF_Reader/

Edited format.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

I don't see what's wrong with copying, to be honest. People copy successful business models and best practices all the time-- some even write books about it. And a belief that's long held in tech circles is that ideas are worth nothing, and that execution is what matters. To give credit to Xiaomi, they're setting up themselves a very high bar when they set out to imitate Apple. Google tried it with its initial launch of Android, and if it weren't for M Duarte joining Google in the wake of Palm falling apart, who knows how Android would have looked today. In developing countries, to be able to own a phone that looks ever so similar to iPhone but costs a fraction of the cost is an instant hit. It results in a very good business [0].

I'd give you another example: Flipkart, in its early days, had a website that looked very much like Amazon's. They've since carved out their own identity and were among top 20 well designed apps on iOS Appstore last year (one of the many India-based apps to make the list) [1].

UX is another prime example of how often companies copy each other. Steve Jobs once famously quoted Picasso "Good artists copy, great artists steal" [2] Copying is rampant in the software side of the industry... websites look alike, marketing emails look alike, business models look alike, approaches to solve problems are alike... I am not trying to argue that Xiaomi is anywhere near Google or Apple, what I am saying is that they might just get there or thereabouts; or someone else might outside of the SV.

[0] http://www.businessinsider.com/xiaomi-mi-note-apple-samsung-... | http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2015/04/21/xiaomi-to-m...

[1] http://www.nextbigwhat.com/top-top-made-in-india-ios-apps-20...

[2] http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/what-steve-jobs-really-meant-whe...

I think the point is that being able to copy does not show (though doesn't disprove either) that you have the technical prowess to surpass the copied.

Wait for a few years and you will change your mind.

Unfortunately not very descriptive. From a quick search, it looks like Baidu previously announced[0] a partnership with BMW to work on driverless cars. [0] http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2014/10/03/an-...

What is it with search engines and self-driving cars?

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