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Drone startup Airware crashes, will shut down after burning $118M –

posted by Fnord666 on Sunday September 16 2018, @03:24AM   Printer-friendly
from the airware-vaporware dept.

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

Drone operating system startup Airware today suddenly informed employees it will cease operations immediately despite having raised $118 million from top investors like Andreessen Horowitz, Google's GV, and Kleiner Perkins. The startup ran out of money after trying to manufacture its own hardware that couldn't compete with drone giants like China's DJI. The company at one point had as many as 140 employees, all of which are now out of a job.

A source sent TechCrunch screenshots from the Airware alumni Slack channel detailing how the staff was told this morning that Airware would shut down.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/14/airware-shuts-down/

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 16 2018, @08:48AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 16 2018, @08:48AM (#735584)

    That's why I think patents are overrated.

    In too many cases coming up with the ideas is not the difficult part. It's actually implementing the ideas AND getting enough market adoption that's difficult.

    But patents are allowed to be so vague and allow some incompetent person/organization to prevent/tax others who can actually turn the dreams into reality.

    Look at The Mother of All Demos. By the time the market was ready for some of the ideas the original patents would have expired.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 16 2018, @10:02AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 16 2018, @10:02AM (#735599)

    It's actually implementing the ideas AND getting enough market adoption that's difficult.

    And *patents* are suppose to be that *implementation* so you can get a jump start on the market adoption instead of getting swallowed by a giant instead. The problem is with *software* patents because the implementation is not the blueprint of the patent. It's the problem with adopting patents into the "new" instead of with the basis of the system itself.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 16 2018, @02:56PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 16 2018, @02:56PM (#735662)

      Really? How about this then? https://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/03/sony-applies-for-patent-on-contact-lens-camera-that-shoots-photos-in-a-blink.html [cnbc.com]
      https://www.cnet.com/news/sony-patents-contact-lens-that-records-what-you-see/ [cnet.com]

      Sony has been awarded a patent for a smart contact lens that would be capable of recording video.

      But Sony isn't even close to having the tech yet!

      While the patent provides a glimpse of the future, the technology to fit all of those functions into a tiny contact lens does not presently exist, so it's currently more of a prototype than reality.

      Maybe in 10 years time someone else might actually have the tech but then Sony could slap them with a lawsuit. How does this encourage actual progress? The giants are the ones who can file thousands of bullshit patents. So even if the small guy has one real patent, to actually implement his stuff he might infringe on 10 bullshit patents.

      I (and many other people) can produce plenty of pie-in-the-sky dreams/ideas. The hard bit is not dreaming shit up. Just because it seems hard to some other people (like those who have only one innovative idea in their lifetime) doesn't mean it is.