5 ms·

Classic Google troll. Get everyone salivating for glorious, apocolyptic disruption, scare the crap out of the traditional auto industry, incite a mad scramble

by Fricken 10y ago

Classic Google troll. Get everyone salivating for glorious, apocolyptic disruption, scare the crap out of the traditional auto industry, incite a mad scramble that mobilizes billions of dollars and thousands of men, and then turn around and say 'well, actually... this is really hard, guys.'

josefresco 10y ago
Can you name another Google instance of "well, actually... this is really hard, guys.". The only thing that jumps to my mind is Google Glass?
- akerro 10y ago
  Modular phone project abandoned a few days ago. I really hoped it would bring to the end stupid era of endless consumption where you have to replace your whole phone just to get better camera or remove micro-jack.
  - Zigurd 10y ago
    I called that shot the first time I read about it. There are zero successful modular consumer electronics products. The near-trivial analog connectivity between stereo components is as close as modularity has ever come in that business, and that's really an example of how, at best, modularity attracts customers that resemble audiophiles (and wannabes), which may not be an ideal target market.
    - ghaff 10y ago
      And in the case of stereos, bigger and heavier components wasn't really a bug. In fact, to many it was seen as something of a feature.
    - mhermher 10y ago
      Desktop computers are still pretty popular. Especially among PC gamers. That is the only example I can think of to refute your comment. Edit: but it only works because of the space in a PC tower. It doesn't work for laptops, and I was sort of in the same boat as you. I couldn't imagine it would work for phones. Specifically that they are so space constrained.
      - Zigurd 10y ago
        Yes, they are modular. But the reason laptops took over the mainstream PC market is that modularity had an incremental cost, and was VERY seldom used, and when it was used, it caused problems that are relatively expensive compared to the cost of the PC. It was easier to make a range of non-modular products to cover any variability in needs. Now modularity in PCs is the domain of gaming PCs, plus a few speciality niches. Gamers as a market could be seen as analogous to audiophiles: a bit cranky and hard to please.
    - alasdair_ 10y ago
      What about DSLRs? Modular lens, modular flash etc?
      - snowwrestler 10y ago
        Well, the modular part is not really the electronic part. Interchangeable lenses go back to before the days of Ansel Adams. DSLR bodies go through a release cycle that is not much longer than major phone models, these days.
        blumentopf 10y ago
        You can download firmware updates for lenses as well as camera bodies, and with MFT there's even an open standard for interchangeable lenses/bodies across manufacturers.
        Zigurd 10y ago
        That modularity is a pain in the ass that only photo snobs (like me) will put up with. For example: the RAW quality on my Sony a6000 was crap until I checked the firmware version, and it was several versions behind. Doing the update appeared to brick the camera, and the updating software is a nightmare. Solving the bricking problem took a non-trivial effort. Replace "camera" with "GPU card" and you get a typical story about modular PC problems. One reason to put up with this crap is that you can save thousands of dollars buying nice old glass for your nice new camera. But even though the glass lasts forever, once you get 50MP sensors in cameras, old glass that was designed for the best resolution of 35mm film will limit the performance of a 50MP+ image sensor. Soon, photography will be mostly computational, and big old lenses will all be museum pieces. I don't even want to think about whether I've kept the firmware on my Sony E-mount lenses up to date.
- pessimizer 10y ago
  Every single product that Google has ever announced. Google has never had a successful original product. It has only been successful in slight refinements (or in the case of Android, just changes - not refinements) within already successful product categories. To be really harsh; if success means profit, it's only ever been successful with ads.
  - powera 10y ago
    No TRUE Google product is original, gotcha.
- Fricken 10y ago
  It's more that they've got a whole grab bag of pending technologies that may or may not allow them to replicate the kind of success they've had with their search engine. It keeps potential disruptees twitchy because they're all cognizant that they could be the next Blockbuster if they don't respond aggressively.
- kochthesecond 10y ago
  The Google X project on vertical farming. They wanted to feed the world, but could only grow salad.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  Google+. Google Books kicked off to a really nice start, but seems to be languishing. OTOH, much of the accessible out-of-copyright material has been scanned, and a significant amount of in-copyright material (books and articles) is being provided ... by other means. Still, the Google Ngram Viewer tops out at 2008, which is increasingly irksome. A great many of Google's social products: Orkut, Buzz, and Wave. Whatever those barges were supposed to have been used for.
- sien 10y ago
  Re < C, Google's project to make renewable electricity cheaper than coal was abandoned. http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2014/11/30/why-google-stopped-trying-to-make-renewable-energy-cheaper-than-coal/#6c7f55c05ed8 http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2014/11/30/why-g...
arethuza 10y ago
That reminds me of the Japanese 5th Generation Computer initiative which caused all kinds of panicky responses in the US and Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_generation_computer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_generation_computer [Edit: I worked on a couple of EU Esprit projects so I shouldn't complain too much!]
- drzaiusapelord 10y ago
  >The highly parallel computer architecture was eventually surpassed in speed by less specialized hardware (for example, Sun workstations and Intel x86 machines). Strangely enough, a decade or so later Sony tried an exotic architecture with its PS3 only to go back to a generalist x86/x64 architecture with the PS4. Funny how the top-down approaches fail compared to bottom up 'kitchen sink' approaches almost consistently and how so many countries and companies never learn this lesson. The West didn't panic from what I can tell. AMD and Intel kept raising transistor density and clock speeds and kept giving their customers what they wanted via a competitive market approach.
  - arethuza 10y ago
    Those ESPRIT projects I worked on tended to have very nice Sun workstations as their standard machines - when we maxed out the RAM on a 4/330 someone actually flew from London to Edinburgh just to fit it! Not sure if the research was worth the money but we certainly did eat well.
  - jdmichal 10y ago
    Was that because the PS3 architecture was a failure? Or was it because many game developers are interested in cross-platform releases (many consoles and PC), and having an oddball architecture makes that harder for your platform to get those releases?
    - blakeyrat 10y ago
      A little from column A, a little from column B. On the one hand, the PS3's weird architecture made porting older PC game engines (like Bethesda's Gamebryo, which drives Skyrim and Fallout 3+) extremely difficult, and much-anticipated Skyrim DLCs were long-delayed by problems that existed on the PS3 but no other platform Gamebryo supports. On the other hand, once Xbox 360 games started getting ported to PS3 and the graphics were compared across the two systems, the consensus was that the PS3 really wasn't much more graphically powerful at all. There was one sports game in particular (boxing? I can't recall-- it's been too many years) that was a particularly telling case because the PS3 port had had something like 6-8 months of extra optimization work, and despite that the launch-day Xbox 360 version of the same game looked and played better. "Failure" is strong; obviously the PS3 wasn't a failure as a gaming system. But its weird architecture certainly didn't deliver the benefits Sony claimed it would, and it definitely made things more difficult on game developers.
akerro 10y ago
We software developers, don't do things that are easy. We do things because we thought they would be easy.
- IgorPartola 10y ago
  This is gold and I am stealing it. Thank you.
  - akerro 10y ago
    Send donation to your favourite open source project.
  - cpeterso 10y ago
    The Programmers’ Credo: we do these things not because they are easy, but because we thought they were going to be easy. https://twitter.com/pinboard/status/761656824202276864 https://twitter.com/pinboard/status/761656824202276864 and the JFK mashup: https://twitter.com/uno_v2/status/761712499037044736 https://twitter.com/uno_v2/status/761712499037044736

by Fricken 10y ago

josefresco 10y ago

Can you name another Google instance of "well, actually... this is really hard, guys.". The only thing that jumps to my mind is Google Glass?

akerro 10y ago
Modular phone project abandoned a few days ago. I really hoped it would bring to the end stupid era of endless consumption where you have to replace your whole phone just to get better camera or remove micro-jack.
- Zigurd 10y ago
  I called that shot the first time I read about it. There are zero successful modular consumer electronics products. The near-trivial analog connectivity between stereo components is as close as modularity has ever come in that business, and that's really an example of how, at best, modularity attracts customers that resemble audiophiles (and wannabes), which may not be an ideal target market.
  - ghaff 10y ago
    And in the case of stereos, bigger and heavier components wasn't really a bug. In fact, to many it was seen as something of a feature.
  - mhermher 10y ago
    Desktop computers are still pretty popular. Especially among PC gamers. That is the only example I can think of to refute your comment. Edit: but it only works because of the space in a PC tower. It doesn't work for laptops, and I was sort of in the same boat as you. I couldn't imagine it would work for phones. Specifically that they are so space constrained.
    - Zigurd 10y ago
      Yes, they are modular. But the reason laptops took over the mainstream PC market is that modularity had an incremental cost, and was VERY seldom used, and when it was used, it caused problems that are relatively expensive compared to the cost of the PC. It was easier to make a range of non-modular products to cover any variability in needs. Now modularity in PCs is the domain of gaming PCs, plus a few speciality niches. Gamers as a market could be seen as analogous to audiophiles: a bit cranky and hard to please.
  - alasdair_ 10y ago
    What about DSLRs? Modular lens, modular flash etc?
    - snowwrestler 10y ago
      Well, the modular part is not really the electronic part. Interchangeable lenses go back to before the days of Ansel Adams. DSLR bodies go through a release cycle that is not much longer than major phone models, these days.
      - blumentopf 10y ago
        You can download firmware updates for lenses as well as camera bodies, and with MFT there's even an open standard for interchangeable lenses/bodies across manufacturers.
        Zigurd 10y ago
        That modularity is a pain in the ass that only photo snobs (like me) will put up with. For example: the RAW quality on my Sony a6000 was crap until I checked the firmware version, and it was several versions behind. Doing the update appeared to brick the camera, and the updating software is a nightmare. Solving the bricking problem took a non-trivial effort. Replace "camera" with "GPU card" and you get a typical story about modular PC problems. One reason to put up with this crap is that you can save thousands of dollars buying nice old glass for your nice new camera. But even though the glass lasts forever, once you get 50MP sensors in cameras, old glass that was designed for the best resolution of 35mm film will limit the performance of a 50MP+ image sensor. Soon, photography will be mostly computational, and big old lenses will all be museum pieces. I don't even want to think about whether I've kept the firmware on my Sony E-mount lenses up to date.
pessimizer 10y ago
Every single product that Google has ever announced. Google has never had a successful original product. It has only been successful in slight refinements (or in the case of Android, just changes - not refinements) within already successful product categories. To be really harsh; if success means profit, it's only ever been successful with ads.
- powera 10y ago
  No TRUE Google product is original, gotcha.
Fricken 10y ago
It's more that they've got a whole grab bag of pending technologies that may or may not allow them to replicate the kind of success they've had with their search engine. It keeps potential disruptees twitchy because they're all cognizant that they could be the next Blockbuster if they don't respond aggressively.
kochthesecond 10y ago
The Google X project on vertical farming. They wanted to feed the world, but could only grow salad.
dredmorbius 10y ago
Google+. Google Books kicked off to a really nice start, but seems to be languishing. OTOH, much of the accessible out-of-copyright material has been scanned, and a significant amount of in-copyright material (books and articles) is being provided ... by other means. Still, the Google Ngram Viewer tops out at 2008, which is increasingly irksome. A great many of Google's social products: Orkut, Buzz, and Wave. Whatever those barges were supposed to have been used for.
sien 10y ago
Re < C, Google's project to make renewable electricity cheaper than coal was abandoned. http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2014/11/30/why-google-stopped-trying-to-make-renewable-energy-cheaper-than-coal/#6c7f55c05ed8 http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2014/11/30/why-g...

arethuza 10y ago

That reminds me of the Japanese 5th Generation Computer initiative which caused all kinds of panicky responses in the US and Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_generation_computer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_generation_computer [Edit: I worked on a couple of EU Esprit projects so I shouldn't complain too much!]

drzaiusapelord 10y ago
>The highly parallel computer architecture was eventually surpassed in speed by less specialized hardware (for example, Sun workstations and Intel x86 machines). Strangely enough, a decade or so later Sony tried an exotic architecture with its PS3 only to go back to a generalist x86/x64 architecture with the PS4. Funny how the top-down approaches fail compared to bottom up 'kitchen sink' approaches almost consistently and how so many countries and companies never learn this lesson. The West didn't panic from what I can tell. AMD and Intel kept raising transistor density and clock speeds and kept giving their customers what they wanted via a competitive market approach.
- arethuza 10y ago
  Those ESPRIT projects I worked on tended to have very nice Sun workstations as their standard machines - when we maxed out the RAM on a 4/330 someone actually flew from London to Edinburgh just to fit it! Not sure if the research was worth the money but we certainly did eat well.
- jdmichal 10y ago
  Was that because the PS3 architecture was a failure? Or was it because many game developers are interested in cross-platform releases (many consoles and PC), and having an oddball architecture makes that harder for your platform to get those releases?
  - blakeyrat 10y ago
    A little from column A, a little from column B. On the one hand, the PS3's weird architecture made porting older PC game engines (like Bethesda's Gamebryo, which drives Skyrim and Fallout 3+) extremely difficult, and much-anticipated Skyrim DLCs were long-delayed by problems that existed on the PS3 but no other platform Gamebryo supports. On the other hand, once Xbox 360 games started getting ported to PS3 and the graphics were compared across the two systems, the consensus was that the PS3 really wasn't much more graphically powerful at all. There was one sports game in particular (boxing? I can't recall-- it's been too many years) that was a particularly telling case because the PS3 port had had something like 6-8 months of extra optimization work, and despite that the launch-day Xbox 360 version of the same game looked and played better. "Failure" is strong; obviously the PS3 wasn't a failure as a gaming system. But its weird architecture certainly didn't deliver the benefits Sony claimed it would, and it definitely made things more difficult on game developers.

akerro 10y ago

We software developers, don't do things that are easy. We do things because we thought they would be easy.

IgorPartola 10y ago
This is gold and I am stealing it. Thank you.
- akerro 10y ago
  Send donation to your favourite open source project.
- cpeterso 10y ago
  The Programmers’ Credo: we do these things not because they are easy, but because we thought they were going to be easy. https://twitter.com/pinboard/status/761656824202276864 https://twitter.com/pinboard/status/761656824202276864 and the JFK mashup: https://twitter.com/uno_v2/status/761712499037044736 https://twitter.com/uno_v2/status/761712499037044736