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Bell Labs: An Institute of Creative Technology (2015)

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Re: Bell Labs: An Institute of Creative Technology (2015)

#11

Post by sllabres »

I loved the Bell Labs Technical Journal (then AT&T Technical Journal) for as long as it was freely available in the 90s. A lot of the content revolved around technologies like SS7 or the large AT&T ESS switches, which were not relevant to me. But there were always very interesting ideas in the papers which let me think a bit outside the box.

I remember reports like "The AT&T Switching Evolution Challenge", "Software in Large", "Improving on the Best: Like a 1A, Only Better", "Components for Software Fault Tolerance and Rejuvenation", or scientific reports like " Studies of Large-Scale Earth Potentials Across Oceanic Distances".

After more than thirty years, I still have many of them in a thick folder. Thanks to everyone who inspired me back then and gave me an peek into a different IT world!

Re: Bell Labs: An Institute of Creative Technology (2015)

#13

Post by EZ-Cheeze »

A place that takes you out of ordinary life

Humanist, surprising, challenging but comforting at the same time

On the top floor, bright sunspots are cast onto the floor, peeking through the roof as if through the dense branches of an old forest

New kinds of thinking, new kinds of connections, new kinds of possibilities. The mission is to uncover more never-known-before territories every day. Permutations evolving through randomness, experimentation and pattern recognition. Start a thousand projects and add a hundred every day.

Re: Bell Labs: An Institute of Creative Technology (2015)

#14

Post by nolongerthere »

msvana wrote: post #4
aborsy wrote: post #2

The term Bell Labs is used today mostly for advertisement. It hasn’t long produced much. It became Alcatel Lucent and now Nokia, not known as a particularly innovative company.

Well I guess the author of the blog post agrees, since he talks about "its demise in the 1980s". Probably a lot of things have changed since then and honestly I am kinda curious about it.

EH, once ma bell got broken up, not much of interest happened. My dad worked out of their Naperville office until it closed down. By that point it was less R&D and more, “how do we make money”.

Re: Bell Labs: An Institute of Creative Technology (2015)

#17

Post by aborsy »

quantum_state wrote: post #12

It’s a great pity such a great institution ended up in its current diminishing state due to a series of events related to the divestiture.. see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System . This makes one wonder …

Although some of the success of the old bell labs was because it was a monopoly, so it could afford long term investment. It’s a different environment now.

Re: Bell Labs: An Institute of Creative Technology (2015)

#18

Post by hiAndrewQuinn »

What companies in the modern day are like working at Bell Labs along the important dimensions? (E.g., impact, colleague quality, etc.) Asking for a friend.

I suspect the old Pivotal Labs was like this, if you can speak enough enterprise-ese to figure it out.

Re: Bell Labs: An Institute of Creative Technology (2015)

#19

Post by quantum_state »

aborsy wrote: post #17
quantum_state wrote: post #12

It’s a great pity such a great institution ended up in its current diminishing state due to a series of events related to the divestiture.. see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System . This makes one wonder …

Although some of the success of the old bell labs was because it was a monopoly, so it could afford long term investment. It’s a different environment now.

Yeah … the question is: where would the next Bell Labs come from for long term scientific endeavors? The national labs? But the funding there can be quite volatile … The universities? But it could run the risk of being too academic. There is a need for an environment like the old Bell Labs, with problems and opportunities coming from practical matters, yet with folks who are interested in solving the problems but not stopping at solving the problems only …

Re: Bell Labs: An Institute of Creative Technology (2015)

#20

Post by nunez »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #18

What companies in the modern day are like working at Bell Labs along the important dimensions? (E.g., impact, colleague quality, etc.) Asking for a friend. I suspect the old Pivotal Labs was like this, if you can speak enough enterprise-ese to figure it out.

Google Brain and Microsoft Research in the private sector. Air Force Research Lab, the folks at Oak Ridge and Sandia and some others in the public sector. (So, so, so many things were invented by DOD scientists and engineers. Defense is big business!)
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