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I probably should have said "important" instead of "interesting". How many of those companies are doing research that can be compared to what came out of Bell
by tgflynn 15y ago
I probably should have said "important" instead of "interesting".
How many of those companies are doing research that can be compared to what came out of Bell Labs in the 60's and 70's - the transistor, the laser, ... ?
IBM's work on advanced semiconductors and Watson certainly qualify. The later will probably be seen as one of the most important developments in the history of humanity and it wouldn't have been possible without the former.
- yukyukyuk 15y agoDamn good point. With deep thought (chess program) and now with Watson, IBM is really pushing hard AI projects that can capture the public's attention. The amazing part is that this is being done by a PRIVATE CORPORATION and not the US federal government. This is like Lockheed Martin making and launching the space shuttle, and then putting satellites into orbit. Except that, of course, the capital cost is much smaller due to the fact that these days a million dollars now buys a very capable supercomputer.
- adrianbye 15y agoits pretty hard to know what is important in the moment.
- batista 15y agoNot really. Lots of people knew that the laser was important, that Xerox park stuff was important, that C/Unix was important, etc even at the time they were introduced.
- ams6110 15y agoIn the case of the laser, there may have been some sense that it was important, but at the time there were no immediate applications and it was called "a solution in search of a problem."
- batista 15y agoIn Wikipedia though it says that "Gould’s notes included possible applications for a laser, such as spectrometry, interferometry, radar, and nuclear fusion. He continued developing the idea, and filed a patent application in April 1959."