6 ms·

This article is a little fanboyish. Google hasn't actually invented anything either. Google Now, Glasses, self driving cars, Google+ have all been done before m

This article is a little fanboyish. Google hasn't actually invented anything either. Google Now, Glasses, self driving cars, Google+ have all been done before many years ago. What Google is doing is simply executing them in a far more polished and integrated way. Similar to what Apple does. I personally believe that the real raw innovation in the industry is surprisingly coming from Microsoft.

jfoster 14y ago
When you say self-driving cars and Glasses had been done before many years ago, you must mean experimental prototypes that never made it to market, right? Making a self-driving car that "kindof, sort of" works along some desert route as part of a competition is so different from bringing one to market that successfully completes hundreds of thousands of miles in traffic, obeying road rules, and along a less predictable route. Bringing something like Glasses or autonomous cars to market and making it work well enough to be a success counts for more than creation of prototypes that are never more than a cool experiment, in my opinion.
- Someone 14y ago
  Did I miss the news that Google brought Gogole glaass/autonomous cars to market, and that those products were successful? IMO, autonomous cars will be a success at some time. Who will be the first to sell them is anybody's guess, but Idonit think it is a given it will be Google. Car companies such as Volkswagen and Toyota have the advantage that they already can build cars. Glasses? They might sell at some time, but IMO, the call is out whether these will be niche products or not. I think something must be done on the 'when not in use, they obstruct my view; when in use, they are so tiny' problem before such products can become mainstream.
  - michaelt 14y ago
    Did you know that the team that won the DARPA Grand Challenge[1], was run by Sebastian Thrun [2] - who went on play a big part in the creation of Google Street View? And did you know the Grand Challenge winning cars made use of LIDAR and machine vision to identify road features and obstacles, high precision GPS, and inertial navigation? And that very similar sensors can be seen on Google Street View? If you wanted a test data set, to refine your self-driving car by simulating driving every road in the developed world, you could scarcely do better than Google's data. This could be valuable in advancing from a car that works well on wide, well maintained freeway to a car that can work well around towns and cities. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoiJeIb0wBA#t=21m50s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoiJeIb0wBA#t=21m50s [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Thrun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Thrun
    - Someone 14y ago
      Did you know that that Stanford team only came second in the Urban Grand Challenge, a likely more relevant measure, as far as succesfully bringing autonomous driving to market goes? Did you know that in both challenges, the relative time differences between the top 3/4 competitors were so low that they may not tell anything about the quality of their software? Do you know why, in both competitions all teams were US based (my guess would be that large external players such as Mercedes-Benz and Toyota do not want to give away too many secrets for little gain. US competitors who do well there stand a chance of getting orders from the US military, but non-US ones? Unlikely.) Do you know that Mercedes-Benz claims that this year's S-class model could ride autonomously, if laws permitted it (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/its-the-dawn-of-the-robocars/story-fnb64oi6-1226540648529 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/its-the-dawn-of-t...)? Do you know none of that has anything to do with the issue at hand (the OP lauding Google for bringing successful products to market, while they didn't even bring them to market yet?)
      - michaelt 14y ago
        I'd certainly agree that all the teams that completed the Grand Challenge did a good job, whether they finished first or fifth. Although DARPA rules require that the team have an American representative, teams like Team Berlin [1] and CarOLO [2] were run by German universities. I certainly agree that universities produced a lot more entries than the vehicle industry did - but I don't know if that means Mercedes and Toyota had secrets they didn't want to give away in 2005, or if it means they didn't have anything worth showing off. Of course, we'll know much more when companies actually start bringing these products to market, and we shouldn't count Google's chickens before they've hatched. But by my reckoning they got a pretty good head start - I certainly wouldn't bet against them. [1] http://archive.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/Teams/Teamberlin.asp http://archive.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/Teams/Teamberlin.asp [2] http://archive.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/Teams/CarOLO.asp http://archive.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/Teams/CarOLO.asp
- taligent 14y ago
  Volvo has plans to sell autonomous cars in 2014. And this idea that Google has invented something that the car companies haven't is just ridiculous. Car companies have been selling millions of self-parking and auto avoidance cars for the last few years. So they clearly have the ability to deliver intelligent control systems. As for Google Glasses well all I've seen to date is a video camera on your head (around for years) and a science fiction promo video.
  - jfoster 14y ago
    My point is that "inventing" isn't what I value. What Volvo and Google are doing is what I value. Apple do it too. Companies like Apple, Google, and Volvo were not the first with tablets or autonomous vehicles, but they were the first to adapt such inventions into products that the market can accept. (I am making the assumption that Volvo & Google will produce autonomous vehicles that the market will accept) It's almost like the difference between "having an idea" and "achieving product-market fit".
- OGinparadise 14y ago
  "When you say self-driving cars and Glasses had been done before many years ago, you must mean experimental prototypes that never made it to market, right?" Ford, GM, BMW and Toyota are among manufacturers working on what Google is getting virtually all the press for. We'll compare them when you can buy a Google Self-Driving Car at your local dealer. How can you judge Glasses and compare them to others? How many have you used and tested?
drucken 14y ago
"I personally believe that the real raw innovation in the industry is surprisingly coming from Microsoft." <-- can you give any examples?
- camus 14y ago
  yeah , i'm curious about that too , MS is a follower with big money , not a leader in innovation.
  - Ygg2 14y ago
    Well, that's an often repeated meme, but I'm not sure it's true, really. Didn't Microsoft create Tablet PC (without multi-touch) long before apple? Isn't same true for smart wristwatches, etc? Microsoft has good ideas but doesn't execute on them any good.
    - alayne 14y ago
      Microsoft was late to the party. This is a pretty good overview: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tablet_computers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tablet_computers
    - icebraining 14y ago
      Apple had the Newton before Microsoft, and other companies launched "tablet terminals" even earlier. It's usually rather hard to know who invented a concept like tablet computers. After all, the concept existed long before they were even possible to fabricate (e.g. in sci-fi).
  - taligent 14y ago
    Their product side is definitely a follower. But Microsoft Research is a whole different story: http://research.microsoft.com/apps/catalog/default.aspx http://research.microsoft.com/apps/catalog/default.aspx
- andreasklinger 14y ago
  Examples: "Wearable Multitouch Interaction" - http://research.microsoft.com/apps/video/dl.aspx?id=160684 http://research.microsoft.com/apps/video/dl.aspx?id=160684 But also things that are closer to market - like: Kinect, Photosynth, Metro Their retail devision has still the worst image i can think of in this industry. But their research teams seem to be far forward.
simonh 14y ago
Ideas are cheap. Execution and delivery are hard and at the end of the day they are what matters. For example, how could Bill Gates recognise back in the 90s that mobile was the future of computing, but a decade later Steve Jobs walked away with all the market share and money from it? Because Steve figured out how to execute and deliver, and Bill for all his genius and achievements in other areas (I am not doing him down in general, just in this case) didn't. Great artists ship. That's why the intellectual property patent system is such an economically damaging disaster.
- Joeri 14y ago
  Apple had its own mobile failure in the mid-90's with the newton. You wonder if steve's presence could have made the mobile revolution happen a decade sooner, or whether the technology of the day simply couldn't deliver the experience of the iphone. Its strange when i look at my old palm pro how competent that device was. I keep wondering how palm managed to lose it all.
dasil003 14y ago
By this standard no one is really inventing anything anymore, and future inventions may in fact prove impossible.
- taligent 14y ago
  I think it was one of the All Things Digital talks with Bill Gates / Steve Jobs were they thought that much of the new innovation would come from startups. It could well be that the future of the industry revolves around acqui-hires.

jfoster 14y ago

When you say self-driving cars and Glasses had been done before many years ago, you must mean experimental prototypes that never made it to market, right? Making a self-driving car that "kindof, sort of" works along some desert route as part of a competition is so different from bringing one to market that successfully completes hundreds of thousands of miles in traffic, obeying road rules, and along a less predictable route. Bringing something like Glasses or autonomous cars to market and making it work well enough to be a success counts for more than creation of prototypes that are never more than a cool experiment, in my opinion.

Someone 14y ago
Did I miss the news that Google brought Gogole glaass/autonomous cars to market, and that those products were successful? IMO, autonomous cars will be a success at some time. Who will be the first to sell them is anybody's guess, but Idonit think it is a given it will be Google. Car companies such as Volkswagen and Toyota have the advantage that they already can build cars. Glasses? They might sell at some time, but IMO, the call is out whether these will be niche products or not. I think something must be done on the 'when not in use, they obstruct my view; when in use, they are so tiny' problem before such products can become mainstream.
- michaelt 14y ago
  Did you know that the team that won the DARPA Grand Challenge[1], was run by Sebastian Thrun [2] - who went on play a big part in the creation of Google Street View? And did you know the Grand Challenge winning cars made use of LIDAR and machine vision to identify road features and obstacles, high precision GPS, and inertial navigation? And that very similar sensors can be seen on Google Street View? If you wanted a test data set, to refine your self-driving car by simulating driving every road in the developed world, you could scarcely do better than Google's data. This could be valuable in advancing from a car that works well on wide, well maintained freeway to a car that can work well around towns and cities. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoiJeIb0wBA#t=21m50s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoiJeIb0wBA#t=21m50s [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Thrun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Thrun
  - Someone 14y ago
    Did you know that that Stanford team only came second in the Urban Grand Challenge, a likely more relevant measure, as far as succesfully bringing autonomous driving to market goes? Did you know that in both challenges, the relative time differences between the top 3/4 competitors were so low that they may not tell anything about the quality of their software? Do you know why, in both competitions all teams were US based (my guess would be that large external players such as Mercedes-Benz and Toyota do not want to give away too many secrets for little gain. US competitors who do well there stand a chance of getting orders from the US military, but non-US ones? Unlikely.) Do you know that Mercedes-Benz claims that this year's S-class model could ride autonomously, if laws permitted it (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/its-the-dawn-of-the-robocars/story-fnb64oi6-1226540648529 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/its-the-dawn-of-t...)? Do you know none of that has anything to do with the issue at hand (the OP lauding Google for bringing successful products to market, while they didn't even bring them to market yet?)
    - michaelt 14y ago
      I'd certainly agree that all the teams that completed the Grand Challenge did a good job, whether they finished first or fifth. Although DARPA rules require that the team have an American representative, teams like Team Berlin [1] and CarOLO [2] were run by German universities. I certainly agree that universities produced a lot more entries than the vehicle industry did - but I don't know if that means Mercedes and Toyota had secrets they didn't want to give away in 2005, or if it means they didn't have anything worth showing off. Of course, we'll know much more when companies actually start bringing these products to market, and we shouldn't count Google's chickens before they've hatched. But by my reckoning they got a pretty good head start - I certainly wouldn't bet against them. [1] http://archive.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/Teams/Teamberlin.asp http://archive.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/Teams/Teamberlin.asp [2] http://archive.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/Teams/CarOLO.asp http://archive.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/Teams/CarOLO.asp
taligent 14y ago
Volvo has plans to sell autonomous cars in 2014. And this idea that Google has invented something that the car companies haven't is just ridiculous. Car companies have been selling millions of self-parking and auto avoidance cars for the last few years. So they clearly have the ability to deliver intelligent control systems. As for Google Glasses well all I've seen to date is a video camera on your head (around for years) and a science fiction promo video.
- jfoster 14y ago
  My point is that "inventing" isn't what I value. What Volvo and Google are doing is what I value. Apple do it too. Companies like Apple, Google, and Volvo were not the first with tablets or autonomous vehicles, but they were the first to adapt such inventions into products that the market can accept. (I am making the assumption that Volvo & Google will produce autonomous vehicles that the market will accept) It's almost like the difference between "having an idea" and "achieving product-market fit".
OGinparadise 14y ago
"When you say self-driving cars and Glasses had been done before many years ago, you must mean experimental prototypes that never made it to market, right?" Ford, GM, BMW and Toyota are among manufacturers working on what Google is getting virtually all the press for. We'll compare them when you can buy a Google Self-Driving Car at your local dealer. How can you judge Glasses and compare them to others? How many have you used and tested?

drucken 14y ago

"I personally believe that the real raw innovation in the industry is surprisingly coming from Microsoft." <-- can you give any examples?

camus 14y ago
yeah , i'm curious about that too , MS is a follower with big money , not a leader in innovation.
- Ygg2 14y ago
  Well, that's an often repeated meme, but I'm not sure it's true, really. Didn't Microsoft create Tablet PC (without multi-touch) long before apple? Isn't same true for smart wristwatches, etc? Microsoft has good ideas but doesn't execute on them any good.
  - alayne 14y ago
    Microsoft was late to the party. This is a pretty good overview: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tablet_computers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tablet_computers
  - icebraining 14y ago
    Apple had the Newton before Microsoft, and other companies launched "tablet terminals" even earlier. It's usually rather hard to know who invented a concept like tablet computers. After all, the concept existed long before they were even possible to fabricate (e.g. in sci-fi).
- taligent 14y ago
  Their product side is definitely a follower. But Microsoft Research is a whole different story: http://research.microsoft.com/apps/catalog/default.aspx http://research.microsoft.com/apps/catalog/default.aspx
andreasklinger 14y ago
Examples: "Wearable Multitouch Interaction" - http://research.microsoft.com/apps/video/dl.aspx?id=160684 http://research.microsoft.com/apps/video/dl.aspx?id=160684 But also things that are closer to market - like: Kinect, Photosynth, Metro Their retail devision has still the worst image i can think of in this industry. But their research teams seem to be far forward.

simonh 14y ago

Ideas are cheap. Execution and delivery are hard and at the end of the day they are what matters. For example, how could Bill Gates recognise back in the 90s that mobile was the future of computing, but a decade later Steve Jobs walked away with all the market share and money from it? Because Steve figured out how to execute and deliver, and Bill for all his genius and achievements in other areas (I am not doing him down in general, just in this case) didn't. Great artists ship. That's why the intellectual property patent system is such an economically damaging disaster.

Joeri 14y ago
Apple had its own mobile failure in the mid-90's with the newton. You wonder if steve's presence could have made the mobile revolution happen a decade sooner, or whether the technology of the day simply couldn't deliver the experience of the iphone. Its strange when i look at my old palm pro how competent that device was. I keep wondering how palm managed to lose it all.

dasil003 14y ago

By this standard no one is really inventing anything anymore, and future inventions may in fact prove impossible.

taligent 14y ago
I think it was one of the All Things Digital talks with Bill Gates / Steve Jobs were they thought that much of the new innovation would come from startups. It could well be that the future of the industry revolves around acqui-hires.