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I'd say that it hurts _all_ of it's software development, though AI is probably the most obvious genre. If you can't discuss issues with outsiders how do you a

I'd say that it hurts _all_ of it's software development, though AI is probably the most obvious genre. If you can't discuss issues with outsiders how do you attract developers who are interested/skilled in those specific issues. I realize that Apple gets plenty of applicants, but when you're building something that requires some very specific sets of knowledge, it's harder to find them if you don't give them any way at all to find you. The developers who can make Pages/Numbers/Keynote/iCloud great are out there, but they certainly don't work at Apple.

amelius 11y ago
Also, how are you going to attract scientists who want to make a career (which, perhaps unfortunately for them, involves publishing stuff). They should probably take an example from research.microsoft.com.
- desilinguist 11y ago
  Some scientists just want to build cool things and not have to worry about publishing. Some of my colleagues over the years have moved to Apple and startups for this reason.
  - amelius 11y ago
    Perhaps so. Other scientists want to push the border of human knowledge.
    - eivarv 11y ago
      There is a difference between pushing the borders of human knowledge and disseminating said knowledge, though.
      - amelius 11y ago
        I guess that depends on your interpretation of "human knowledge" then :)
        eivarv 11y ago
        By being a human, you would be able to expand human knowledge without letting other humans know about it. So yeah, it's a matter of definition;P
      - walterstucco 11y ago
        Exactly. The first, Without the second, is not called science.
        eivarv 11y ago
        If the scientists in question are applying the scientific method as a means to "build cool things", can they not be said to be doing science?
        cwyers 11y ago
        One of the key tenets of the scientific method is reproducibility. People can't reproduce your results if they don't know what your results are.
        eivarv 11y ago
        Reproducibility does not necessarily mean that other people should be able to reproduce the results in question (which would depend upon them knowing the relevant information in the first place) - but that an experiment can be replicated. I would agree that publishing results is better for several reasons (ethics, pragmatism, probably more thorough evaluation, etc.), but the definition doesn't really deal with the public at all. TLDR; Reproducibility != public reproducibility.
        coldtea 11y ago
        It doesn't have to be "arbitrarily many people". Just people other than the original scientist. So colleagues at Apple still qualify. There are tons of secret research behind any company (and governments), and it's still "science". (And conversely, lots of published scientific papers are actually not reproducible, but for most of them nobody bothers -- even if other scientists cite them as accurate).
        snowwrestler 11y ago
        It's just the conclusions that need to be reproducible. In fact, science as a whole works better when researchers devise alternate experiments to test the same conclusion. For example, say I measure gravitational acceleration on Earth by dropping a feather repeatedly. I get a number and I publish it. If other scientists just repeat my exact experiment, they will get a similar number and my result will be confirmed. Yay science! But if scientists decide to check my number by dropping a wide variety of other objects, they will illustrate the flaws in my original experiment and everyone will get a clearer picture of gravity. So it's not about just reproducing an experiment; scientists seek to test and expand upon each others' results.
- iQuercus 11y ago
  To my knowledge, Apple ran a program called "The Apple University Consortium," among others, where they would tap into work of higher education research. It's my understanding these efforts continue, you just don't hear a whole lot (if anything) about it publicly. Check it out, you'll see Apple quietly listed on several university websites, CMU for example: http://www.cmu.edu/corporate/partnerships/cic/tenants.html http://www.cmu.edu/corporate/partnerships/cic/tenants.html
- username223 11y ago
  It has been awhile, but MSR used to be the place where people went and still published, while Google Labs was a black hole. I remember some Google guy giving a talk at NIPS, but it was just a presentation from a shared corporate slide deck, which did not fit in with the rest of the conference. Google attracted some really good machine learning folks (temporarily) by offering them boatloads of money and manpower to implement their ideas, not freedom to publish. Has that changed?
  - m0g 11y ago
    Yup, Google now has two teams publishing the very best ML papers alongside FAIR, Toronto, Montreal and some other places. The teams or Deep Mind and Google Brain.
  - dekhn 11y ago
    I don't know what you're talking about; Google researchers publish all the time and give presentations at machine learning conferences with plenty of interesting and unique detail. Google just didn't do much with machine learning in the old days- the pubs were mostly system infrastructure and data analysis. Here's an oldie but a goodie: http://people.mbi.ohio-state.edu/datta.53/philtalk.pdf http://people.mbi.ohio-state.edu/datta.53/philtalk.pdf note the talk refers readers to the patent. At the time, reading Google's patents was the best strategy to learn what it was doing.

amelius 11y ago

Also, how are you going to attract scientists who want to make a career (which, perhaps unfortunately for them, involves publishing stuff). They should probably take an example from research.microsoft.com.

desilinguist 11y ago
Some scientists just want to build cool things and not have to worry about publishing. Some of my colleagues over the years have moved to Apple and startups for this reason.
- amelius 11y ago
  Perhaps so. Other scientists want to push the border of human knowledge.
  - eivarv 11y ago
    There is a difference between pushing the borders of human knowledge and disseminating said knowledge, though.
    - amelius 11y ago
      I guess that depends on your interpretation of "human knowledge" then :)
      - eivarv 11y ago
        By being a human, you would be able to expand human knowledge without letting other humans know about it. So yeah, it's a matter of definition;P
    - walterstucco 11y ago
      Exactly. The first, Without the second, is not called science.
      - eivarv 11y ago
        If the scientists in question are applying the scientific method as a means to "build cool things", can they not be said to be doing science?
        cwyers 11y ago
        One of the key tenets of the scientific method is reproducibility. People can't reproduce your results if they don't know what your results are.
        eivarv 11y ago
        Reproducibility does not necessarily mean that other people should be able to reproduce the results in question (which would depend upon them knowing the relevant information in the first place) - but that an experiment can be replicated. I would agree that publishing results is better for several reasons (ethics, pragmatism, probably more thorough evaluation, etc.), but the definition doesn't really deal with the public at all. TLDR; Reproducibility != public reproducibility.
        coldtea 11y ago
        It doesn't have to be "arbitrarily many people". Just people other than the original scientist. So colleagues at Apple still qualify. There are tons of secret research behind any company (and governments), and it's still "science". (And conversely, lots of published scientific papers are actually not reproducible, but for most of them nobody bothers -- even if other scientists cite them as accurate).
        snowwrestler 11y ago
        It's just the conclusions that need to be reproducible. In fact, science as a whole works better when researchers devise alternate experiments to test the same conclusion. For example, say I measure gravitational acceleration on Earth by dropping a feather repeatedly. I get a number and I publish it. If other scientists just repeat my exact experiment, they will get a similar number and my result will be confirmed. Yay science! But if scientists decide to check my number by dropping a wide variety of other objects, they will illustrate the flaws in my original experiment and everyone will get a clearer picture of gravity. So it's not about just reproducing an experiment; scientists seek to test and expand upon each others' results.
iQuercus 11y ago
To my knowledge, Apple ran a program called "The Apple University Consortium," among others, where they would tap into work of higher education research. It's my understanding these efforts continue, you just don't hear a whole lot (if anything) about it publicly. Check it out, you'll see Apple quietly listed on several university websites, CMU for example: http://www.cmu.edu/corporate/partnerships/cic/tenants.html http://www.cmu.edu/corporate/partnerships/cic/tenants.html
username223 11y ago
It has been awhile, but MSR used to be the place where people went and still published, while Google Labs was a black hole. I remember some Google guy giving a talk at NIPS, but it was just a presentation from a shared corporate slide deck, which did not fit in with the rest of the conference. Google attracted some really good machine learning folks (temporarily) by offering them boatloads of money and manpower to implement their ideas, not freedom to publish. Has that changed?
- m0g 11y ago
  Yup, Google now has two teams publishing the very best ML papers alongside FAIR, Toronto, Montreal and some other places. The teams or Deep Mind and Google Brain.
- dekhn 11y ago
  I don't know what you're talking about; Google researchers publish all the time and give presentations at machine learning conferences with plenty of interesting and unique detail. Google just didn't do much with machine learning in the old days- the pubs were mostly system infrastructure and data analysis. Here's an oldie but a goodie: http://people.mbi.ohio-state.edu/datta.53/philtalk.pdf http://people.mbi.ohio-state.edu/datta.53/philtalk.pdf note the talk refers readers to the patent. At the time, reading Google's patents was the best strategy to learn what it was doing.