I look forward to everything North ever was or did being chucked down the memory hole in 3-10 years, as is tradition
Google Acquires North
171–180 of 215 posts
Re: Google Acquires North
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't want AR glasses. I want glasses that look like regular glasses but can display stuff, similar to a smart watch.
You don't want to interact with those things using your hands or frisbee a photo to a friend, bouncing it off of a wall? (Physics applied to a UI system aware of surroundings is so much fun!)
Those sound ludicrous -- are you describing a real product in this space?
OTOH I think real subtle hand gestures could be a great input mechanism. The interface used by the now-abandoned "Soli" might be worthwhile. Voice interaction seems very tedious and embarrassing to use in public.
Re: Google Acquires North
#173I look forward to everything North ever was or did being chucked down the memory hole in 3-10 years, as is tradition
If you look at what they've released, it seems this was the best outcome. I don't know if Focals 2.0 were ever going to see the light of day, and Focals 1 plus the Myo weren't exactly a hit.
I do feel bad for the employees whose options are now worthless though, and even worse if they'd already exercised them.
Re: Google Acquires North
#174I think the biggest problem with smart glasses, (AR tech) is the battery/power system. A family member worked at a defunct AR eyeglass maker and mentioned that point. Magic leap is in that space also and their solution was a huge battery pack(hip mounted) with a chord attaching to the glasses. His company had the power supply near the ear(it was smaller but didn't have enough juice to last hours). These examples(north glasses) seem pretty simple with just basic info being piped out, the two examples I mentioned above you could play movies and watch detailed realistic meta scenes imposed on reality.
If power can be figured out in small form factor the end results could really be incredible. After trying out the demo AR glasses to my family members company(5 years ago) it was one of the most incredible things I have ever seen and felt like sci-fi come true.
Re: Google Acquires North
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
Employees are not guaranteed employment at Google. I'm sure a good chunk will be let go as part of this acquisition.
Does that really happen? I figured that an event like this is a good excuse to clean house a bit, but it seemed to me that this was the exception rather than the rule- how common is this and what is the process by which one gets unemployed?
Chaos Monkeys talks a bit about this where they had acquisition interest but not all the founders/employees passed the interviews
Re: Google Acquires North
#176I think the biggest problem with smart glasses, (AR tech) is the battery/power system. A family member worked at a defunct AR eyeglass maker and mentioned that point. Magic leap is in that space also and their solution was a huge battery pack(hip mounted) with a chord attaching to the glasses. His company had the power supply near the ear(it was smaller but didn't have enough juice to last hours). These examples(nort…
I think the biggest problem is the social cost. They weren't called glassholes for nothing. Maybe the stigma will be over with better use cases, like filming the police when in public.
Re: Google Acquires North
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
"able to maintain their own lifestyles using grants from the Canadian government" - that's absolutely false. North/Thalmic was flush with cash for a long time, and though their Myo didn't sell "well" - it still brought in millions. Not denying the founders had lavish lifestyles, but they were running a company that raised 15M series A, and 120M series B - so that's honestly "expected". The grant I assume you're refer…
Is it just common knowledge the founders have lavish lifestyles or was there talk in articles about the company/product?
I know them.
Maybe lavish is a bit of hyperbole. And after their 15M series A, I can assume they had competitive salaries given their life decisions (modest homes and cars).
Re: Google Acquires North
#178I think the biggest problem with smart glasses, (AR tech) is the battery/power system. A family member worked at a defunct AR eyeglass maker and mentioned that point. Magic leap is in that space also and their solution was a huge battery pack(hip mounted) with a chord attaching to the glasses. His company had the power supply near the ear(it was smaller but didn't have enough juice to last hours). These examples(nort…
I think the biggest problem is the social cost. They weren't called glassholes for nothing. Maybe the stigma will be over with better use cases, like filming the police when in public.
My recollection is that the ‘glasshole’ thing was down to a combination of the perceived privacy intrusion of the glasses bearing a camera, the significant cost of the early editions, and a broader anger (at roughly the same time) directed at big tech companies in SF.
Interestingly, there didn’t seem to be a similar backlash against the Snapchat smart glasses which came later, despite their raison d’etre being photos/video. (Cheaper? Better marketing? Or different time/social context?)
Anyway, I don’t think it’s a given at all that smart glasses will always come with a social stigma - they probably won’t, as long as the original Google Glasses missteps/bad luck is avoided.
Re: Google Acquires North
#179Sigh, 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…
> all I can think is yet another promising startup vanishes into the depths of Google, never to be seen again.
Like what? Android, YouTube, DoubleClick, ReCAPTCHA, Waze, VirusTotal, Nest, DeepMind?
Aside from search every major Google product is built on an acquisition. Maps was Keyhole and Where2. AdWords was Applied Semantics. Google Docs is Writely, and Tonic. Google Voice is GrandCentral. Google Analytics is Urchin. Google Shopping is BeatThatQuote. Google Flight is ATA. etc. etc. etc.
Whatever startup you're bitter about probably wasn't going to make it outside Google anyway and it was an aquihire, or Google gave them the runway to prove it out and it didn't work.
Re: Google Acquires North
#180I guess the competition for smart glasses is heating up - I imagine google thinks apple's glasses are coming soon and they take that seriously enough to want to be prepared to compete. It will be interesting to see how this space plays out. If it's anything like smart watches, the market is going to turn around with apple's entrance, and buying north now while they're suffering gives google the tech they need to ente…
>I imagine google thinks apple's glasses are coming soon and they take that seriously enough to want to be prepared to compete.
Like the half-hearted, and ultimately abandoned attempts they did for ultra-portables, wearables, tablets, etc? They even seem to lose interest in Android...
I wonder why they even bother...