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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

by 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.

by bravo22 10y ago

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.