Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google is building a new augmented reality device and operating system

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 205 posts

Re: Google is building a new augmented reality device and operating system

#141

Post by azeirah »

lgleason wrote: post #116

As an Android developer and early Glass explorer it pains me to say that I agree with a lot of the comments here. I was having a conversation with someone connected to the upper execs there one time who explained this to me. They said that Google could generate the same amount of profit with a small fraction of the staff it currently has. The thing is though, the stock price would not be nearly as high and they have…

I think we're getting closer to a time where smaller players can start competing in the search engine space.

Recently here on HN someone launched a search editor for small, niche, seo-free, old, content/text-heavy websites. It's useful because it serves a specific purpose, and can give you very different but useful results due to how it presents its results.

Storage is getting cheap, scaling is a solved-ish problem, ML and AI make simple to empjoy intelligent search easier than ever.

Of course, the solution is not to come up with a slightly tweaked google clone (like bing, duckduckgo, ...) but something that's more in the realm of reimagining what search means and does. I don't think it's wise to fight Google at its own game.

Re: Google is building a new augmented reality device and operating system

#142

Post by rbanffy »

kwertyoowiyop wrote: post #46
whoisjuan wrote: post #21

Google had the head start here with Glass, and then in classic Google fashion they let it die. I'm always baffled how bad is Google at playing long term games. Their biggest mistake with Glass was trying to productize it too fast and stopping when they saw it didn't have good consumer fit. They could have instead go more incremental by releasing developer hardware and learning from that. They could have kept that pro…

People start with the assumption that Google folks are very wise. Why? This assumption just makes it more difficult to explain their bad decisions.

I'd say they are all very smart. Wisdom is orthogonal to that.

Re: Google is building a new augmented reality device and operating system

#143

Post by echelon »

mwattsun wrote: post #122

People laughed when Steve Balmer went on stage and started dancing around like a crazy man singing "Developers, developers, developers!" but that's what Microsoft gets right and Google gets wrong. As a developer, I have no confidence that Google will stick with anything. With Microsoft, I can still create a Windows Forms program. Heck, I could write a DOS program and it will still work in Windows 11. I'm currently le…

Microsoft bought Github and improved it. In addition to Visual Studio and C#, Microsoft developed VSCode and TypeScript. Microsoft pours a lot of love into Azure, WSL, and PowerShell. We know where they're going with things.

Google considers us a stretch goal and will deprioritize and defund if developer revenue metrics aren't reached. Google developed Go (mixed feelings) and Dart (meh). GCP was once considered expendable. At the heart of it, they're still an ads company.

Microsoft gets it. Google doesn't.

Re: Google is building a new augmented reality device and operating system

#144

Post by rbanffy »

lukebuehler wrote: post #120
skohan wrote: post #85

So it seems like the tech giants may be in a race towards creating the "metaverse", or "metaverses". As a kid this would have been an incredibly exciting idea, but instead this kind of news creates a weird feeling in the bottom of my stomach. That's mostly for two reasons: 1. It seems like efforts so far towards creating the metaverse are heavily focused on reproducing the inequalities and status heirarchies we have…

It’s not gonna be like we image it now: virtual places where people gather. It’s going to be the twitter feed equivalent of an online world: tailored to you and your preferences to maximize engagement.

With the sky filled with ads.

Re: Google is building a new augmented reality device and operating system

#145

Post by rbanffy »

Grakel wrote: post #12
1cvmask wrote: post #8

It seems that Google Glass was not ready for prime time when it launched. Now, as in the next couple of years, seems to be the inflection point for the whole ecosystem. Apple is also supposedly preparing for a launch of their glasses. I see tremendous use cases for these glasses in all sorts of workplaces from surgery, dermatology, hair stylists, factory assembly, horticulturists to potentially nefarious uses cases l…

Yep, and Google will fail to foresee practical needs and cancel the project in less than five years.

It'll stop investing on it the very moment they cease to perceive it as an existential threat. That's more or less what Google does.

Re: Google is building a new augmented reality device and operating system

#146

Post by akomtu »

jkubicek wrote: post #140
akomtu wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VPs start at about 2M/year before taxes. That doesn't buy you much in the Bay Area.

I bought a $1MM house in the bay area on a salary 1/10th of that. $2MM/year TC buys you a heck of a lot of house.

You probably meant you were given a loan to buy a house.

Re: Google is building a new augmented reality device and operating system

#147

Post by dgs_sgd »

azeirah wrote: post #141
lgleason wrote: post #116

As an Android developer and early Glass explorer it pains me to say that I agree with a lot of the comments here. I was having a conversation with someone connected to the upper execs there one time who explained this to me. They said that Google could generate the same amount of profit with a small fraction of the staff it currently has. The thing is though, the stock price would not be nearly as high and they have…

I think we're getting closer to a time where smaller players can start competing in the search engine space. Recently here on HN someone launched a search editor for small, niche, seo-free, old, content/text-heavy websites. It's useful because it serves a specific purpose, and can give you very different but useful results due to how it presents its results. Storage is getting cheap, scaling is a solved-ish problem,…

I think this is the one you're talking about? https://search.marginalia.nu/

Re: Google is building a new augmented reality device and operating system

#148

Post by eitland »

ksec wrote: post #123
Andrex wrote: post #14

Whenever I transpose my comments to HN, I usually do some light editing. The following comment is unedited because this headline kinda fired me up. Considering how Google’s treated AR and VR in the last 10 years, hyping people up then quietly pulling back support and finally cancellation after just 2-3 years, I don’t see this going well. They had a toehold 6-10 years ago which they could have easily kept iterating on…

>Google, you’re charging into battle with Apple and Zuck and you got a dildo made of American cheese. Good luck. This is rare on HN. But true. Google's new CEO still have a lot to prove. The problem with Google was they were not found upon a product DNA. They have very little if any product sensibility. At this rate, Google search may be first to be disrupted before Facebook. Apple has its cracks but still far too mi…

> At this rate, Google search may be first to be disrupted before Facebook. Apple has its cracks but still far too minor.

After a few years of using DDG which is equally bad as Google but has less and less annoying ads I tried out Kagi last week.

The difference is so big I don't care to verify with neither DDG nor Google: I know based on long experience how bad their results are.

Kagi has so far been a breath of fresh air, a taste of how search used to work when Google actually found the things I asked for, not the thing an insanely annoying AI think I want.

Re: Google is building a new augmented reality device and operating system

#149

Post by rbanffy »

dekervin wrote: post #130
laserlight wrote: post #91

Take it slow Google. You’ll have to redo it anyways once Apple announces theirs.

This is so mean ! Yet it's probably the game plan, to be in the best position to adapt to whatever Apple we'll do.

Just look at the first Android concepts.

Re: Google is building a new augmented reality device and operating system

#150

Post by rbanffy »

Enginerrrd wrote: post #110
nynx wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you expand on this? There are many economic/political systems in which people have more freedom than in capitalism.

Incredible claims require incredible proof. In this case, I'd probably settle for even a single real-world example. You can't use hypothetical systems here because the implied power structures created will be utilized by actual humans.

That's all subjective. What is freedom to you? Which one is freer: choosing and working to buy a house or having the absolute certainty you'll always have a house? Which one is more liberating? If you had that certainty, would you abandon your current job and write poetry?
Post reply on HN