5 ms·

Meet Google’s Secret Time Machine Investment

30 points by raju 16y ago

wisty 16y ago
Google once did an April fools, in Australia. http://www.google.com.au/intl/en/gday/index.html http://www.google.com.au/intl/en/gday/index.html Perhaps they'll be able to implement it for real?
mixer21 16y ago
So lastly posted on HN picture of time traveler was a guy from google...? :)
- Groxx 16y ago
  No, that's going to be posted next week.
igorzaq 16y ago
Google has so much money that I can believe in anything...
clistctrl 16y ago
I wonder if this is going to be a paid subscription service, or open? I can't decide which route would best relate to "Do No Evil"
Groxx 16y ago
That's a really interesting use for searches. Seems decently well designed, too. Given that you can search by day, week, month, etc within Google, and even see charts of hits, it'd make sense that they want to allow searches for future dates too. I'd imagine that, if they developed their own, they might be fighting a patent case really quickly. It's probably to cover their asses and get a jump-start at the same time.
eob 16y ago
I wonder if there will come a day when financial investors can not do without this type of tool. Ever since Google became big, I've always assumed that they must have the ability to beat the market ever day because they have access to queries, click trails, and web publications.
- ct4ul4u 16y ago
  I'm sure that type of signal is valuable, but it takes a lot more than that to make money. It needs to be combined with a lot of other signal in order to come up with an estimate of alpha (idiosyncratic return). Then you need to understand how to remove market risk from your bets (what risk factors are you exposed to and what opposing positions do you need to take to minimize them). Some of the return will disappear in market impact (movement of the stock due to getting into and out of the position). The people who do this are expensive and apprenticeship is the only road to competence (the distance between theory and practice is vast). Finally, it's a distraction from Google's core business.
huherto 16y ago
Napkin summary: It searches the web for information on future events. Not magical but still interesting.

30 points by raju 16y ago

wisty 16y ago

Google once did an April fools, in Australia. http://www.google.com.au/intl/en/gday/index.html http://www.google.com.au/intl/en/gday/index.html Perhaps they'll be able to implement it for real?

mixer21 16y ago

So lastly posted on HN picture of time traveler was a guy from google...? :)

Groxx 16y ago
No, that's going to be posted next week.

igorzaq 16y ago

Google has so much money that I can believe in anything...

clistctrl 16y ago

I wonder if this is going to be a paid subscription service, or open? I can't decide which route would best relate to "Do No Evil"

Groxx 16y ago

That's a really interesting use for searches. Seems decently well designed, too. Given that you can search by day, week, month, etc within Google, and even see charts of hits, it'd make sense that they want to allow searches for future dates too. I'd imagine that, if they developed their own, they might be fighting a patent case really quickly. It's probably to cover their asses and get a jump-start at the same time.

eob 16y ago

I wonder if there will come a day when financial investors can not do without this type of tool. Ever since Google became big, I've always assumed that they must have the ability to beat the market ever day because they have access to queries, click trails, and web publications.

ct4ul4u 16y ago
I'm sure that type of signal is valuable, but it takes a lot more than that to make money. It needs to be combined with a lot of other signal in order to come up with an estimate of alpha (idiosyncratic return). Then you need to understand how to remove market risk from your bets (what risk factors are you exposed to and what opposing positions do you need to take to minimize them). Some of the return will disappear in market impact (movement of the stock due to getting into and out of the position). The people who do this are expensive and apprenticeship is the only road to competence (the distance between theory and practice is vast). Finally, it's a distraction from Google's core business.

huherto 16y ago

Napkin summary: It searches the web for information on future events. Not magical but still interesting.