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Google Acquires North

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Re: Google Acquires North

#81

Post by chabons »

ricardobeat wrote: post #46
0x5345414e wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny story about the Myo. It was a promising device and seemed to me like it had great niche applications (such as medical). Founders weren't interested in that I guess and moved to smart glasses. Last summer they sold the patents for Myo to a company called CTRL Labs for about $20M. In the fall Facebook snatched up CTRL Labs for $500M - $1B, and their product description was basically that of the Myo. More info: ht…

IIRC the reviews for the armband were unanimously bad, with the device barely working. If the device wasn't fit for gaming, it definitely would not be fit for any medical or industrial use at the time.

I had the chance to use one at a hackathon, and can confirm the device barely worked. It had huge difficulties differentiating between different input gestures, and the employee who demo'd it admitted as much.

Re: Google Acquires North

#82

Post by sprayk »

tl;dr what do I do about recycling my Focals, ring, and case, given the difficulties a generic e-waste facility will have in removing the highly integrated batteries from the Focals and case? Also, if you have a startup making pretty, highly integrated devices, please have a plan for recycling your devices when they inevitably turn into bricks.

I was a little surprised to hear that the acquisition is going to turn my Focals into a pair of chunky-looking, prescriptionless eyeglasses, and the carrying case into an alcantera-lined brick. I would like to recycle these, but I'm not sure how. The post-acquisition FAQ only seems to cover what's happening to their products/services, how we're going to get refunds (wasn't expecting that), and how to wipe my Focals.

My main concern in recycling these is the highly integrated batteries. The Focals, the ring, and the case all have batteries that I can't access and can't see, and I don't see too many screw holes (though I admittedly haven't looked). Given what I've seen of e-waste recycling processes, I don't see anyone taking the time to carefully opening these up to get the batteries out, and I doubt they would try cracking them open like a crab to get at the battery, given the risk of possibly breaking a battery or cutting onesself on something sharp.

Ideally, I would be able to just ship them my Focals and they would take care of recycling properly, but providing instructions on how to remove the battery or the types of facilities that would be capable of recycling these things would be a start.

Also, I'd like to make a request of all of you: if you are or are ever involved with a startup that is making pretty, highly-integrated devices, please have a plan on how to recycle your devices when they inevitably turn to bricks. Hell, make it part of your acquisition message so customers won't just throw them in the trash (or blindly throw them into the single-stream recycling expecting it to get handled there and have it end up back in the trash) and dump more lithium into landfills.

Re: Google Acquires North

#84

Post by vikramkr »

corobo wrote: post #56

byenorth https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/

I don't know if it really fits the spirit of the site if this aquisition is explicitly for the people and patents, they announce that the product is shutting down at the same time, and are giving out refunds. The spirit of ourincrediblejourney always felt to me more of when a company puts on a show at acquisition talking about how the acquisition will allow for all sorts of new growth and opportunities and then a few months later the service gets quietly shut down.

Re: Google Acquires North

#85

Post by macNchz »

chimerasaurus wrote: post #33
DiabloD3 wrote: post #15

Sigh, all I can think is yet another promising startup vanishes into the depths of Google, never to be seen again. Google, please stop buying companies, please learn to support your products and build a loyal customer base. You are not a startup anymore, you need to make the transformation that companies like Microsoft did, and quit moving fast and breaking things. People don't want an agile foundation, they want a h…

Disclaimer - I’m a Googler. As a counterpoint, Cloud has acquired several companies that haven’t disappeared; rather, are fairly foundational in the portfolio: - Cask (now Cloud Data Fusion as a product, CDAP as an OSS project) - Looker - Stackdriver

Stackdriver did not disappear, but having used it daily for the past 4 years and witnessed its painfully slow and buggy migration into the GCP admin, I can't say it's a product that has visibly gotten much love. We kept using it for some things out of inertia, but I can't say it ever impressed me.

Re: Google Acquires North

#86

Post by [deleted] »

DiabloD3 wrote: post #15

Sigh, all I can think is yet another promising startup vanishes into the depths of Google, never to be seen again. Google, please stop buying companies, please learn to support your products and build a loyal customer base. You are not a startup anymore, you need to make the transformation that companies like Microsoft did, and quit moving fast and breaking things. People don't want an agile foundation, they want a h…

[deleted]

Re: Google Acquires North

#87

Post by sprayk »

vikramkr wrote: post #76
jlarocco wrote: post #11

Well that's disappointing. It seemed like they had cool products, and it's too bad to see it bought up by an advertising/spyware company with a history of killing products.

the products are already killed as a part of this acquisition. Google must think the market is worth pursuing if they're willing to dish out $180 million for the company, but considering they simultaneously announced the end of all product sales and no more focals 2.0, this is pretty clearly an acquisition for the patents and talent. They were already close to running out of money. https://9to5google.com/2020/06/25/a…

They are also bricking the devices at the end of July

Re: Google Acquires North

#88

Post by 0x5345414e »

chabons wrote: post #81
ricardobeat wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC the reviews for the armband were unanimously bad, with the device barely working. If the device wasn't fit for gaming, it definitely would not be fit for any medical or industrial use at the time.

I had the chance to use one at a hackathon, and can confirm the device barely worked. It had huge difficulties differentiating between different input gestures, and the employee who demo'd it admitted as much.

In order to make it reliable you had to make a custom classifier. The one that shipped with their software was garbage.

Re: Google Acquires North

#89

Post by justinclift »

corobo wrote: post #59
peeters wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure "promising startup" describes North (previously Thalmic Labs) that well. Everything I've heard around the Waterloo tech scene is that it was mostly smoke and mirrors from the founders who were able to maintain their own lifestyles using grants from the Canadian government. Tales from past employees are not flattering. Being bought by Google is likely the best thing that could happen to both the founders…

> mostly smoke and mirrors In fairness isn't that how this tech works

The smoke bit is only for development, when accidentally plugging things in the wrong way around. ;)

Re: Google Acquires North

#90

Post by trimbo »

fludlight wrote: post #69
vmception wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because they were in the business of selling shares, and now they sold them all. This story is as old as America itself. The bank that is now JP Morgan Chase, the sixth largest bank in the world, was started by Aaron Burr's fundraise for a ripoff water supply system in Manhattan. He collected $2mm, used $100,00 on the stated purpose and the rest to start a bank. These are our role models, where the point is to…

More info on the water company: https://institute.jpmorganchase.com/about/our-history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Company https://www.jstor.org/preview-page/10.2307/25096785?seq=1

> Among its founders are Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr

Talk about co-founder infighting!

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