4 ms·

I think the biggest problem here is that we have too much media coverage and scrutiny on stuff like this today. 24x7 financial news, 24x7 tech news, and 24x7 f

I think the biggest problem here is that we have too much media coverage and scrutiny on stuff like this today. 24x7 financial news, 24x7 tech news, and 24x7 financial/tech news! Here's the deal - these are HUGE bets, with a HUGE risk of failure, and a HUGE reward. As a society we should be focusing on the willingness to take these bets, and allowing them to fail without pointing an laughing like a bunch of school kids at a science fair. Scientific history is full of failure, and examples of failure leading to discovery and advancement. Let's embrace it and repeat after me - "Failure is Always an Option".

bravo22 10y ago
True. However Google PR tells the media about these bets in the first place. It used to be the case that R&D was kept under wraps. I'm sure a number of projects fail at Apple too but we never hear about them because Apple doesn't leak that info to the press.
- scholia 10y ago
  A lot of research comes out of universities, where it gets publicized because people want their research funded. Google's contact lens project for example, originally came out the University of Washington and Microsoft Research got publicity from it before it switched to Google. In fact, Microsoft Research still features the project: Medical Sensing via a Contact Lens (1) This kind of thing is not a problem if you present it as blue-sky research. It can become a problem if reporters think you're moving from research to commercialization because then they expect a product launch. Google's car came out of Stanford University's AI Lab. Google took it over after Stanford's car won $2 million in the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge competition (2). Again, it was great publicity for Stanford as a winning AI project, but it's a potential disaster for Google if it never turns into a good product. Most of the major car manufacturers were, of course, doing similar research work, but generally keeping it fairly quiet.... (1) https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/researchconnections/science/stories/functional-lens.aspx https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/researchconnections/science/... (2) http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/october12/stanleyfinish-100905.html http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/october12/stanleyfinish-1...
- beambot 10y ago
  Apple is a bad example; their secrecy means that humanity learns virtually nothing from most experiments. Most experiments fail -- either abject technical failures or merely commercially unviable at the time of their development. Hiding these away is a shame. People could learn from failures (not spending resources pursuing bad paths) or unviable explorations (revisit them later when conditions change). I think a more useful example is Bell Labs and their Technical Journal. The journal involved a more-significant level of rigor without the PR and media hype. Unfortunately, when the media follows every little happening (eg. patent publications)... big megacorps are left with two bad choices: let people draw erroneous, hyperbolic conclusions ("OMG! Ads in my eyes!") -or- address the PR and messaging directly head-on. Publication may still be the solution, but the timing issues are acute. From a business perspective, you need to be filing IP as soon as you have reasonable evidence of a proof of concept. But by the time you have sufficient material for top-tier journal peer review, those patents are already being published. The solution might be (again) something like the Bell Labs Technical Journal... but that provides a lot of fodder for competitors and patent trolls. So it's a tough balance! Either way... I applaud large organizations taking big technical risks and bets.
  - bravo22 10y ago
    My post was in response to: "I think the biggest problem here is that we have too much media coverage and scrutiny on stuff like this today". The coverage happens because Google talks about it; irrespective of merits of taking risks.
    - beambot 10y ago
      Yes... I know. And I'm saying that Google talks about it because patent publication forces their hand. They must either own it and talk about it themselves, or let people wildly speculate when patents are published.
sandworm101 10y ago
It's not the amount, but the quality. How many of the media people at the event had the faintest understanding of biology? The interns that are sent to these briefings don't have the skills to see the snake oil. Send a medical student. Send an engineer. Send a lawyer. Send anyone with experience in innovation within highly-regulated space. And listen to them. Do something more than photocopy the press release onto your "news" feed.
michaelbuckbee 10y ago
Completely agree, it seems like there is this consistent drumbeat of "nobody is working on big things", "devs are working on widgets instead of curing cancer" and here you have a group _trying_ to make some impact on core quality of life things for people and the criticism is essentially that it's not as easy (aka "floundering") as knocking out a Facebook app.
ModernMech 10y ago
>[Conrad] promised a working prototype of the cancer early-detection device within six months. That was three years ago. >Conrad rolled out the Tricorder to tech reporters in 2014, describing its scientific basis as proven. He predicted that high-risk patients would begin wearing the device within a few years, followed by widespread adoption. What to take huge risks? Fine, but don't promise results are around the corner when they're not. Headlines with the words "arrogance" are completely appropriate here.

bravo22 10y ago

True. However Google PR tells the media about these bets in the first place. It used to be the case that R&D was kept under wraps. I'm sure a number of projects fail at Apple too but we never hear about them because Apple doesn't leak that info to the press.

scholia 10y ago
A lot of research comes out of universities, where it gets publicized because people want their research funded. Google's contact lens project for example, originally came out the University of Washington and Microsoft Research got publicity from it before it switched to Google. In fact, Microsoft Research still features the project: Medical Sensing via a Contact Lens (1) This kind of thing is not a problem if you present it as blue-sky research. It can become a problem if reporters think you're moving from research to commercialization because then they expect a product launch. Google's car came out of Stanford University's AI Lab. Google took it over after Stanford's car won $2 million in the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge competition (2). Again, it was great publicity for Stanford as a winning AI project, but it's a potential disaster for Google if it never turns into a good product. Most of the major car manufacturers were, of course, doing similar research work, but generally keeping it fairly quiet.... (1) https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/researchconnections/science/stories/functional-lens.aspx https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/researchconnections/science/... (2) http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/october12/stanleyfinish-100905.html http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/october12/stanleyfinish-1...
beambot 10y ago
Apple is a bad example; their secrecy means that humanity learns virtually nothing from most experiments. Most experiments fail -- either abject technical failures or merely commercially unviable at the time of their development. Hiding these away is a shame. People could learn from failures (not spending resources pursuing bad paths) or unviable explorations (revisit them later when conditions change). I think a more useful example is Bell Labs and their Technical Journal. The journal involved a more-significant level of rigor without the PR and media hype. Unfortunately, when the media follows every little happening (eg. patent publications)... big megacorps are left with two bad choices: let people draw erroneous, hyperbolic conclusions ("OMG! Ads in my eyes!") -or- address the PR and messaging directly head-on. Publication may still be the solution, but the timing issues are acute. From a business perspective, you need to be filing IP as soon as you have reasonable evidence of a proof of concept. But by the time you have sufficient material for top-tier journal peer review, those patents are already being published. The solution might be (again) something like the Bell Labs Technical Journal... but that provides a lot of fodder for competitors and patent trolls. So it's a tough balance! Either way... I applaud large organizations taking big technical risks and bets.
- bravo22 10y ago
  My post was in response to: "I think the biggest problem here is that we have too much media coverage and scrutiny on stuff like this today". The coverage happens because Google talks about it; irrespective of merits of taking risks.
  - beambot 10y ago
    Yes... I know. And I'm saying that Google talks about it because patent publication forces their hand. They must either own it and talk about it themselves, or let people wildly speculate when patents are published.

sandworm101 10y ago

It's not the amount, but the quality. How many of the media people at the event had the faintest understanding of biology? The interns that are sent to these briefings don't have the skills to see the snake oil. Send a medical student. Send an engineer. Send a lawyer. Send anyone with experience in innovation within highly-regulated space. And listen to them. Do something more than photocopy the press release onto your "news" feed.

michaelbuckbee 10y ago

Completely agree, it seems like there is this consistent drumbeat of "nobody is working on big things", "devs are working on widgets instead of curing cancer" and here you have a group _trying_ to make some impact on core quality of life things for people and the criticism is essentially that it's not as easy (aka "floundering") as knocking out a Facebook app.

ModernMech 10y ago

>[Conrad] promised a working prototype of the cancer early-detection device within six months. That was three years ago. >Conrad rolled out the Tricorder to tech reporters in 2014, describing its scientific basis as proven. He predicted that high-risk patients would begin wearing the device within a few years, followed by widespread adoption. What to take huge risks? Fine, but don't promise results are around the corner when they're not. Headlines with the words "arrogance" are completely appropriate here.