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Google Acquires North

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Re: Google Acquires North

#51

Post by lowdose »

chimerasaurus wrote: post #33
DiabloD3 wrote: post #15

Sigh, all I can think is yet another promising startup vanishes into the depths of Google, never to be seen again. Google, please stop buying companies, please learn to support your products and build a loyal customer base. You are not a startup anymore, you need to make the transformation that companies like Microsoft did, and quit moving fast and breaking things. People don't want an agile foundation, they want a h…

Disclaimer - I’m a Googler. As a counterpoint, Cloud has acquired several companies that haven’t disappeared; rather, are fairly foundational in the portfolio: - Cask (now Cloud Data Fusion as a product, CDAP as an OSS project) - Looker - Stackdriver

Isn't Looker a talent acquisition for Data Studio?

Re: Google Acquires North

#52

Post by [deleted] »

ricardobeat wrote: post #46
0x5345414e wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny story about the Myo. It was a promising device and seemed to me like it had great niche applications (such as medical). Founders weren't interested in that I guess and moved to smart glasses. Last summer they sold the patents for Myo to a company called CTRL Labs for about $20M. In the fall Facebook snatched up CTRL Labs for $500M - $1B, and their product description was basically that of the Myo. More info: ht…

IIRC the reviews for the armband were unanimously bad, with the device barely working. If the device wasn't fit for gaming, it definitely would not be fit for any medical or industrial use at the time.

[deleted]

Re: Google Acquires North

#53

Post by vikramkr »

verdverm wrote: post #13
vikramkr wrote: post #2

I guess the competition for smart glasses is heating up - I imagine google thinks apple's glasses are coming soon and they take that seriously enough to want to be prepared to compete. It will be interesting to see how this space plays out. If it's anything like smart watches, the market is going to turn around with apple's entrance, and buying north now while they're suffering gives google the tech they need to ente…

If they are not as good as the Hololens 2, not interested. That device is off the hook good, really impressed with MS as a long time Linux user

They seem to be targeting very different use cases. Apple looks like it's going for the everyday consumer while microsoft sees AR as a business tool. I think the everyday consumer would be willing to trade off how good the AR is for style/battery life/weight etc. Especially if apple can get around the creep factor that turned so many people off of google glass, which might require cutting out a camera or two and reducing functionality

Re: Google Acquires North

#54

Post by 87er43 »

> We call this ambient computing.

Wow, it sounds like "IoT" is getting a makeover. Will this become the new more palatable vogue term for total immersion in corporate-owned wireless electronics?

Re: Google Acquires North

#55

Post by lozaning »

0x5345414e wrote: post #10
modeless wrote: post #9

What's the rumored price? They reportedly raised $200M. Employees get nothing, I'm guessing. Well, a secure job at Google is a decent consolation prize, at least.

$180M from what I read. Seems they were acquired because sales were almost non-existent and they were running out of money.

You had to show up in person to their store in Vancouver to actually buy them didn't you?

IIRC the price point was on the right side of a pay-day impulse buy, but Im not going to spend the money to get to vancouver to spend that money.

Re: Google Acquires North

#57

Post by bserge »

DiabloD3 wrote: post #15

Sigh, all I can think is yet another promising startup vanishes into the depths of Google, never to be seen again. Google, please stop buying companies, please learn to support your products and build a loyal customer base. You are not a startup anymore, you need to make the transformation that companies like Microsoft did, and quit moving fast and breaking things. People don't want an agile foundation, they want a h…

Yeah, I remember when they acquired that impressive autocorrect startup (they had something about context awareness and closest letter misspells)... Android's gboard autocorrect still sucks :/

Re: Google Acquires North

#58

Post by brutus1213 »

verdverm wrote: post #13
vikramkr wrote: post #2

I guess the competition for smart glasses is heating up - I imagine google thinks apple's glasses are coming soon and they take that seriously enough to want to be prepared to compete. It will be interesting to see how this space plays out. If it's anything like smart watches, the market is going to turn around with apple's entrance, and buying north now while they're suffering gives google the tech they need to ente…

If they are not as good as the Hololens 2, not interested. That device is off the hook good, really impressed with MS as a long time Linux user

Hololens 2 is decent display but the software development is atrocious. Can't believe MSFT engineers would ship this. They seem to almost require Unity to do anything in 3D/world space.

Re: Google Acquires North

#59

Post by corobo »

peeters wrote: post #41
DiabloD3 wrote: post #15

Sigh, all I can think is yet another promising startup vanishes into the depths of Google, never to be seen again. Google, please stop buying companies, please learn to support your products and build a loyal customer base. You are not a startup anymore, you need to make the transformation that companies like Microsoft did, and quit moving fast and breaking things. People don't want an agile foundation, they want a h…

I'm not sure "promising startup" describes North (previously Thalmic Labs) that well. Everything I've heard around the Waterloo tech scene is that it was mostly smoke and mirrors from the founders who were able to maintain their own lifestyles using grants from the Canadian government. Tales from past employees are not flattering. Being bought by Google is likely the best thing that could happen to both the founders…

> mostly smoke and mirrors

In fairness isn't that how this tech works

Re: Google Acquires North

#60

Post by bserge »

vikramkr wrote: post #2

I guess the competition for smart glasses is heating up - I imagine google thinks apple's glasses are coming soon and they take that seriously enough to want to be prepared to compete. It will be interesting to see how this space plays out. If it's anything like smart watches, the market is going to turn around with apple's entrance, and buying north now while they're suffering gives google the tech they need to ente…

I guess they're waiting until they improve their lock-in stuff. Can't have something open now, Google is big, they can flex their muscle. Just like Facebook and the Oculus products :/
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