"Who else today is like them?" I don't know, but for sure, they're not in computing. PARC was special, among many other reasons, because it existed (and had th

"Who else today is like them?" I don't know, but for sure, they're not in computing. PARC was special, among many other reasons, because it existed (and had the vision and the funding) in the early, gold rush era of computing. Google Research isn't it, not because they're not generously funding important and worthy research, but because computing as a field is too far along for them to have a chance of introducing truly fundamental research in the area. Self-driving cars comes close, no doubt hugely important, but even they have a quite incremental feel to them, especially next to inventing something like the graphical user interface.