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Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

bbc.com

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Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#5

Google has had no serious innovation in 20 years. Issue the dividend already and stop calling yourself a technology growth company.

Automatic translation, alpha go, google maps UI, ...

alpha go was acquired if Im not mistaken. Sure on the others.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#6
I saw a "Just Have A Think" YouTube channel video recently describing the 1MV HVDC line being built across China. It is part of Belt&Road infrastructure project and will allow them to distribute excess loads to different time zones without skin effect losses of an AC line. This is a part of their COVID stimulus injection.

When American $1.2k per citizen landed in accounts, I remember checking local Walmarts in the weeks that followed and I noticed all the TVs were gone.

With such a system, China could even launch excess solar as far as Germany in their afternoon peak sun angle when German duck curve morning peak begins?

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#7
I am always curious what people think about the following subject: Do you believe patents promote innovation or hamper it? Certainly some business models are dependent on patents and intellectual property restrictions, but do you think it actually promotes innovation?

My own observation has been that with the 3D printer for example, innovation was stagnant for the 20 years that they were under patent. Once the patents expired, innovation in the space boomed and the price of a decent 3D printer dropped by 100x.

So with the US so patent-heavy, are we actually making things more expensive and crippling innovation? What would it do to the price of your washing machine if it was open source hardware? Prusa Research has seemingly had good competitive success even with all open source products and many clones, so I feel like the economics can work. Would we be better off if we learned the economics of open source hardware and pushed the industry in that direction? Have any economists taken this question seriously?

This blog post on innovation from Bunnie Huang talks about the real on the ground experience of innovation without IP restrictions here: https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=284

Libertarians make a good case against intellectual property restrictions too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZgLJkj6m0A

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#9
If you follow the article around you realize this isn't about money invested but simply based on how many scientific articles are being published [0] and not dollars invested even though they toss in one Chinese based companies number.

Personally I do not find article count a good number to base the claim on. Percentage of GPD might not be a good reference either but then again I am not 100% sure a dollar for dollar comparison works well in all cases.

[0]https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/top-ten-countries-lea...

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#10
post #9

If you follow the article around you realize this isn't about money invested but simply based on how many scientific articles are being published [0] and not dollars invested even though they toss in one Chinese based companies number. Personally I do not find article count a good number to base the claim on. Percentage of GPD might not be a good reference either but then again I am not 100% sure a dollar for dollar…

Exactly. The funny thing is that many Chinese science articles have been found to be completely fake. Quantity over quality.

Doesn’t mean we can relax, but nothing about China can be judged by Western standards.

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