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Google is the new Bell Labs

davidlitwak.com

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Re: Google is the new Bell Labs

#41

Post by cargo8 »

nemothekid wrote: post #29

I really don't understand the Apple hate boner. Apple may have single handedly jump started the mobile industry, and is the godfather of huge apps like Facebook, Twitter, Vine, Instagram , Snapchat, Uber, Square, Candy Crush, the last few that have been causing major problems for major incumbents. Now what platforms has Google built that is changing the game for everyone else? You have YouTube and thats pretty much i…

Google is probably one of the biggest single contributors to pushing the web platform over and has been the largest contributor to the webkit project until they recently forked it into Blink.

Apple is great and all and probably everyone will agree they have far and away the best hardware and products, but Google pushes technology in ways just to get the world thinking of what is possible.

Re: Google is the new Bell Labs

#42

Post by nemothekid »

dlitwak wrote: post #32
nemothekid wrote: post #29

I really don't understand the Apple hate boner. Apple may have single handedly jump started the mobile industry, and is the godfather of huge apps like Facebook, Twitter, Vine, Instagram , Snapchat, Uber, Square, Candy Crush, the last few that have been causing major problems for major incumbents. Now what platforms has Google built that is changing the game for everyone else? You have YouTube and thats pretty much i…

Candy Crush, we're holding that up as a development that Apple is responsible that we want to be proud of, seriously? Regardless, an app store wasn't groundbreaking. They executed much better on what Blackberry was already doing with smartphones. The point isn't necessarily what has come to pass yet, it's the focus on things that don't necessarily have a path to revenue yet. Everything Apple does is product and reven…

Yes, Candy Crush, especially when King is apply major pressure to Nintendo, a 30 year incumbent, on their home court[1]. I understand most people don't understand the video games industry.

Second, don't take execution lightly. Execution is everything. Again, the last few major tech products in silicon valley aren't moonshots. Most of the them are ideas that could have built 2001. Square could have been released on Windows Mobile 6.

What I'm simply trying to argue is that Google Research isn't inherently better than Apple's workshop. Moonshots are great yes, but its a bit too early to be sounding the bells. Microsoft Research had a similar position in the past and everyone thought they were ushering the new age, but it turned out to simply be PR. "The World of Tomorrow" at Disney Land (which probably hasn't been touched in 5-10 years) is chock full of a Microsoft Research moonshots that never caught on or weren't really practical. I see Google Glass heading a similar direction.

Re: Google is the new Bell Labs

#43

Post by philwelch »

dlitwak wrote: post #32
nemothekid wrote: post #29

I really don't understand the Apple hate boner. Apple may have single handedly jump started the mobile industry, and is the godfather of huge apps like Facebook, Twitter, Vine, Instagram , Snapchat, Uber, Square, Candy Crush, the last few that have been causing major problems for major incumbents. Now what platforms has Google built that is changing the game for everyone else? You have YouTube and thats pretty much i…

Candy Crush, we're holding that up as a development that Apple is responsible that we want to be proud of, seriously? Regardless, an app store wasn't groundbreaking. They executed much better on what Blackberry was already doing with smartphones. The point isn't necessarily what has come to pass yet, it's the focus on things that don't necessarily have a path to revenue yet. Everything Apple does is product and reven…

Blackberry was going to do away with hardware keyboards and ship something with capacitive multitouch in 2007? They were going to use their massive economy of scale to rush out ultra-high-resolution displays in 2010?

New revenue opportunities? Google's #1 revenue source in 2000 was AdWords and their #1 revenue source in 2013 is AdWords. Apple's #1 revenue source in 2000 was Macintosh, in 2005 it was iPod, in 2010 it was iPhone. AppleTV is a "hobby", but by that standard, everything Google does other than AdWords is also a "hobby".

Re: Google is the new Bell Labs

#44

Post by nemothekid »

dchichkov wrote: post #34
nemothekid wrote: post #29

I really don't understand the Apple hate boner. Apple may have single handedly jump started the mobile industry, and is the godfather of huge apps like Facebook, Twitter, Vine, Instagram , Snapchat, Uber, Square, Candy Crush, the last few that have been causing major problems for major incumbents. Now what platforms has Google built that is changing the game for everyone else? You have YouTube and thats pretty much i…

How many researchers are working at Apple Research? Like zero? Because there's no Apple Research? How many researchers are working at Google Research? Like a thousand? I'd say that makes all the difference.

Don't you think its little hard to believe that a 500B publicly traded company doesn't have an R&D team? I think you should rethink your post. Just because Apple doesn't advertise their research division doesn't mean they don't have one.

Re: Google is the new Bell Labs

#46

Post by kayoone »

nemothekid wrote: post #42
dlitwak wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Candy Crush, we're holding that up as a development that Apple is responsible that we want to be proud of, seriously? Regardless, an app store wasn't groundbreaking. They executed much better on what Blackberry was already doing with smartphones. The point isn't necessarily what has come to pass yet, it's the focus on things that don't necessarily have a path to revenue yet. Everything Apple does is product and reven…

Yes, Candy Crush, especially when King is apply major pressure to Nintendo, a 30 year incumbent, on their home court[1]. I understand most people don't understand the video games industry. Second, don't take execution lightly. Execution is everything. Again, the last few major tech products in silicon valley aren't moonshots. Most of the them are ideas that could have built 2001. Square could have been released on Wi…

But thats the point. MS and Google are trying, Apple is more or less only making safe bets, combining existing technologies and executing extremely well on improving those. Thats great, i love my Apple products, but its still a different philosophy.

Re: Google is the new Bell Labs

#47

Post by angersock »

nemothekid wrote: post #29

I really don't understand the Apple hate boner. Apple may have single handedly jump started the mobile industry, and is the godfather of huge apps like Facebook, Twitter, Vine, Instagram , Snapchat, Uber, Square, Candy Crush, the last few that have been causing major problems for major incumbents. Now what platforms has Google built that is changing the game for everyone else? You have YouTube and thats pretty much i…

"is the godfather of huge apps like Facebook, Twitter, Vine, Instagram , Snapchat, Uber, Square, Candy Crush,"

Um, no?

Re: Google is the new Bell Labs

#48

Post by stan_rogers »

Keyframe wrote: post #22
dlitwak wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. I'll admit that there is probably a fair amount of bias because Google has a better PR department. But I doubt it's that much better than these other guys . . . I think much of the research being done is around incremental improvements, and the point is that Google seems to be dreaming much bigger and thinking much more long term.

I got what the main thought was, but I'm not sure about much longer term or greater plans. Maybe broader appeal? Again, related to PR. IBM seems to be doing fine long term with their research, but not very PR active, and when they are you notice that - Watson?

Watson is actually sort of boring stock-in-trade stuff for IBM when looked at through a certain lens. (Not that it isn't noteworthy or anything.) The phrase "IBM researchers have..." used to be attached to things like atom-by-atom manipulation (the atomic IBM logo was the PR piece), superconductivity (Bednorz and Müller)... things that might one day mean a whole heck of a lot, but in the meantime amounted to allowing some very smart people to piddle around trying interesting stuff. There was always hope that some technology might fall sideways out of the work, but the IBM of the day was significantly less attached to success. Pre-PC Revolution, they were in a position to afford it; Gerstner's IBM could not.

Re: Google is the new Bell Labs

#49

Post by alayne »

rmason wrote: post #39
alayne wrote: post #7

Bell Labs invented fundamental technology like the transistor and the laser. I wouldn't put Google Maps in that league. They did not invent autonomous vehicles or wearable computers, though they have made strides in commoditizing the technology.

Commodotized it? Google's remote driving apparatus costs a quarter of a million dollars per car. Less than ten years ago remotely controlled vehicles had a hard time driving in a straight line ten miles in the desert. Google's have now driven millions of accident free miles. Granted they haven't tackled a Michigan snowstorm yet but I think you have to admit they pioneered this technology.

Much of the driverless car tech is from CMU and other universities who have been working on it for 30 years. Google hired several people from CMU and Berkeley. Are they putting resources into it and improving it? Absolutely. I just don't see them as being like Bell Labs here.

Re: Google is the new Bell Labs

#50

Post by Balgair »

Eduardo3rd wrote: post #2

I've been reading The Idea Factory by Jon Gertner recently and I feel like the parallels between the two are really striking. The advent of Google X projects, the Motorola acquisition, and all of the recent robotics acquisitions make it feel like Google is actually building the future that I've been dreaming of since I was in elementary school. I only hope that the next wave of technological innovation will be far mo…

Take a drive around the googleplex. Go by the LinkedIn offices to the south. See those buildings off on the end there? Look at your google maps. Do you see them online? Will you ever? Google has it's secrets too, ones it doesn't want advertised.
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