Google Acquires North

Post by Kiro » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 5:00 PM UTC

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

Post by macspoofing » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 5:03 PM UTC

0x5345414e wrote: post #24

rattray wrote: post #14

North was previously known as Thalmic labs, and their first product was the Myo, a gesture-based input device. More recently, they created Focals, a smart glasses product. More on their blog here: https://www.bynorth.com/

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…

Post by Scoundreller » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 5:05 PM UTC

ornornor wrote: post #72

peeters wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 from the founders who were able to maintain their own lifestyles using grants from the Canadian government This describes a surprisingly high number of companies I’ve worked at in Canada. These SRED credits keep afloat so many companies that should have otherwise perished and that won’t ever go anywhere. You can even hire SRED consultants that will help you milk those credits as much as pos…

Post by frandroid » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 5:08 PM UTC

bserge wrote: post #57

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 :/

Post by andreilys » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 5:13 PM UTC

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.