<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>Animats</author><text>Levandowski is going to come out of this OK.  He was doing self-driving years before Google.&lt;p&gt;As I&amp;#x27;ve pointed out before, the whole LIDAR thing is a side issue. Google&amp;#x27;s LIDAR is another Velodyne-like spinning thing. Google&amp;#x27;s patented innovation is to make each scan beam slightly oval, which is marginally useful but not essential.  Spinning 3D LIDAR units are research and prototyping tools.  The future is either flash LIDAR or MEMS. Even Velodyne is moving beyond the spinning top thing.[1]&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s a video with some images from Continental&amp;#x27;s flash LIDAR.[2] That&amp;#x27;s suitable for production cars. Continental is a big German auto parts company. They make other LIDAR products, vehicle cameras and processors, radars, GPS units, and most of the other parts needed for self-driving. Continental demoed a self-driving car in 2013. They have 1,300 people working on this. Uber makes a lot of noise, but Continental is going to ship product in volume.&lt;p&gt;Quanergy, a Silicon Valley startup, announced a flash LIDAR last year, but they seem to be having problems getting it out the door. A new startup, TetraView, got series A funding to develop a higher resolution flash LIDAR (&amp;quot;2K&amp;quot;, they boast), using standard CMOS technology.[3] That, if it works, will bring the price down further while increasing the resolution, and will have other robotics applications.&lt;p&gt;So nobody really needs the Waymo LIDAR technology. For testing, you can buy a Velodyne, and for production, the flash LIDAR people are almost ready.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cnet.com&amp;#x2F;roadshow&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;velodyne-lidar-enters-the-no-spin-zone&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cnet.com&amp;#x2F;roadshow&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;velodyne-lidar-enters-the...&lt;/a&gt;
[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=xxy08YX0C8w&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=xxy08YX0C8w&lt;/a&gt;
[3] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.tetravue.com&amp;#x2F;technology&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.tetravue.com&amp;#x2F;technology&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text><parent_chain></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Judge orders Uber not to use technology taken from Waymo</title><url>http://www.seattletimes.com/business/judge-orders-uber-not-to-use-technology-taken-from-waymo/</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>golfer</author><text>Link to the full injunction text:
&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.scribd.com&amp;#x2F;document&amp;#x2F;348409551&amp;#x2F;Waymo-Uber-Injunction#from_embed&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.scribd.com&amp;#x2F;document&amp;#x2F;348409551&amp;#x2F;Waymo-Uber-Injunct...&lt;/a&gt;</text><parent_chain></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Judge orders Uber not to use technology taken from Waymo</title><url>http://www.seattletimes.com/business/judge-orders-uber-not-to-use-technology-taken-from-waymo/</url></story>