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

The futures of Facebook and Google are embedded in these two images

robinsloan.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 258 posts

Re: The futures of Facebook and Google are embedded in these two images

#171

Post by uptown »

taligent wrote: post #46
ajross wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of truth to this (though I'm generally a big skeptic when people talk about "research" in the abstract; and I remain genunienly "WTF are they thinking!?" about Glass). Google tries stuff, fails a lot, and stumbles on as many successes as they engineer. Facebook has executed really well on their core stuff, but... what else? I mean, they've been on a huge hiring binge now for four years. What do they hav…

Being able to connect with people from around the world and share content is not a big waste to society.

What I find interesting about Facebook is that it allowed people from the current (and previous) generations to re-connect with people they'd lost touch with since previously there had been no tool designed to easily facilitate reconnecting. Future generations may find they they won't lose those connections since the tools will be in place allowing them to remain in touch as much or as little as they choose. Will they still have the same motivation to re-connect at some point in their lives if that opportunity has always been available to them? There's a very large percentage of Facebook users whose "friends" are really just people they knew back in high school that they connected with on Facebook out of curiosity. It'll be interesting to see if that dynamic continues for future generations.

Re: The futures of Facebook and Google are embedded in these two images

#172

Post by qq66 »

ajross wrote: post #87
qq66 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest technical achievement of Facebook has been scaling Facebook. They've solved a lot of difficult technical problems to do so. And News Feed, Connect, and Open Graph are all huge steps forward in Facebook's ambition, although the third-party ecosystem still leaves something to be desired. Thank god that Facebook killed Evite, but now I'm hoping for someone/something to kill Washington Post Social Reader.

But again, Google did all that stuff too (almost 1:1, even -- remember that G+ is a facebook clone). And somehow they also found time to make self driving cars, a first tier mobile operating system, ChromsOS, a Dropbox clone, these ridiculous glasses, etc... Facebook just looks pretty lame in comparison, sorry.

You do realize that Google has 10 times the employees, revenues, profits, etc. of Facebook?

Re: The futures of Facebook and Google are embedded in these two images

#174

Post by hk_kh »

brudgers wrote: post #117

Here's the thing I see, Google has no meaningful history of monetizing things like self driving cars or video glasses or anything else except for via advertising. Yeah, they sell some web services, but that's a lot different from going head to head with companies that know about manufacturing like Toyota and BMW or those that know about consumer electronics like Samsung and Sony. I guess they could create an advertis…

Why stick to ads if you can sell / license software for cars?

It could both work from a manufacturer or a personal POV.

    Buy my car, it comes with Google.

Re: The futures of Facebook and Google are embedded in these two images

#175

Post by jerf »

grandalf wrote: post #52
fuzzythinker wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are thinking of today's Glass. In 2-3 iterations, the camera will be so small and embedded in the frame that it won't be noticeable.

A camera that takes images comparable to a picture taken on a current iPhone? For every frame (such as in a video) the amount of work involved to reduce boredom increases. Raw video of people's lives is utterly, unimaginably boring, even if the person is a celebrity. Still photos work b/c they capture a whole moment, with just enough detail to inspire the imagination and to ground the imaginings in reality. My person…

"A camera that takes images comparable to a picture taken on a current iPhone?"

I will be intrigued to see what pops out when this really becomes a priority. You may not be able to stick a single small camera in a glasses frame and get anywhere, but what about having 4 or 8 relatively cheap cameras and some image processing? With the cameras tuned to the needs of the image processing. Perhaps not even 4 or 8 identical cameras. Can we play games with optical interferometry [1] to extract surprising amounts of visual data from surprisingly small cameras? There's a crapload of optical tricks we've learned that we've not really needed to apply yet, and ahem IT IS OBVIOUS TO ONE SKILLED IN THE ART THAT THESE TECHNIQUES MAY BE USEFUL ON AUGMENTED REALITY GLASSES. (ahem)

(Sorry, 2019, 2012 is just too cool for you.)

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_optical_interferom...

Re: The futures of Facebook and Google are embedded in these two images

#176

Post by jerf »

planetguy wrote: post #167
manpreets7 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people used to carry pens on their shirts. Many still do. Now using bluetooth earpieces is commonplace. I am sure people will get used to using very tiny gadgets on their clothing or ears if they assist them in meaningful ways.

A lot of people used to carry pens on their shirts Isn't "pens in the front pocket" a defining characteristic of a 1950s-era nerd? Now using bluetooth earpieces is commonplace Sure, among two classes of people: travelling salesmen and complete toolbags. I am sure people will get used to using very tiny gadgets on their clothing or ears if they assist them in meaningful ways. Oh sure, I'm just arguing that it'll never…

"Sure, among two classes of people: travelling salesmen and complete toolbags."

Yeah... next time you're walking through a crowded place, look at people's ears more closely.

Re: The futures of Facebook and Google are embedded in these two images

#177

Post by saraid216 »

tlrobinson wrote: post #107
51Cards wrote: post #33

"Google is getting good, really good, at building things that see the world around them and actually understand what they’re seeing." That statement spells it for me. With Google I see research, I see pushing tech boundaries and hardware experiments, I see new ways to interpret the world. With Facebook I see a huge lump of data but nothing really too groundbreaking. I don't deny Facebook's momentum... it's huge and i…

If I were Facebook, publicly I'd focus on growth, while quietly building killer applications with the massive amounts of data they have. Consider how many photos they have with users' faces tagged. They'd be crazy not to leverage that data. With the right facial recognition technology they will own that space, which would be extremely useful in products that compete with, say, Project Glass. Ditto with location data,…

Are you seriously suggesting that they'll come out with a piece of software that can compete with a piece of hardware? Competing with Glass, assuming it's successful by some meaningful measure, will require physical manufacture.

I guess they could leverage their massive amounts of data to blackmail supply chains or something...

Re: The futures of Facebook and Google are embedded in these two images

#178

Post by saraid216 »

falling wrote: post #39
51Cards wrote: post #33

"Google is getting good, really good, at building things that see the world around them and actually understand what they’re seeing." That statement spells it for me. With Google I see research, I see pushing tech boundaries and hardware experiments, I see new ways to interpret the world. With Facebook I see a huge lump of data but nothing really too groundbreaking. I don't deny Facebook's momentum... it's huge and i…

With Google you see research (which is of course commendable), but so far they haven’t been able to produce profit from anything else than ads, so I would call that research awesome, useful, beautiful, but not (yet) future proof for the company.

This is actually why I've been saying that Google is acting more like a government than like a business. They have a buoy of revenue to coast on and are spending it on (what appears to be) unrelated R&D. It smells more like IBM or Microsoft than Ford or Chevrolet.

To me, it's not just not the same race. It's not even the same game. Facebook's playing Tetris; Google's playing Civilization.

Re: The futures of Facebook and Google are embedded in these two images

#179

Post by bane »

51Cards wrote: post #33

"Google is getting good, really good, at building things that see the world around them and actually understand what they’re seeing." That statement spells it for me. With Google I see research, I see pushing tech boundaries and hardware experiments, I see new ways to interpret the world. With Facebook I see a huge lump of data but nothing really too groundbreaking. I don't deny Facebook's momentum... it's huge and i…

Google just seems to be taking a strategy of pushing the "R" a little closer to "D" in "R&D" then taking it directly to market.

What most people don't see is that a feature of the "R" is a great many failures. By pushing the "R" forward some of those failures end up in the public sphere.

Will it work? Who knows. But history shows that investments into pure R&D ultimately end up paying in large multiples of the initial investment despite the large numbers of failures.

Re: The futures of Facebook and Google are embedded in these two images

#180

Post by eric-hu »

ajross wrote: post #166
ececconi wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Connecting people and giving them a new way to communicate with each other is a big waste to society? Facebook has fundamentally changed the idea of the weak tie for many people. If that's a waste, then I don't really know what else is meaningful in life.

To be clear: I didn't say that Facebook was a waste. I said that Facebook's engineering effort was wasted, relative to the societal benefit (pick your definition) we see from the equivalent people at Google. And by extension, I made the point that Facebook hiring all these people was a net loss to society, because it didn't do anything but make an already good product a little better.

One could argue that Facebook's hiring spree enabled them to scale and further handle large amounts of users and photos.

Is this a total waste to society? Could the Arab spring have happened without such social tools? Is the world a better place when common people are empowered to fight against perceived repression?

I'm not taking a stance on those revolutions will affect their countries. I will say, however, that a government that can protect itself against revolt has little incentive to look out for its people. Society can be made 'better' in many ways.

Post reply on HN