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This is similar to suggesting that a Desktop computer isn't innovative because it's just a few peripherals connected to a very fast turing machine. Some exampl

This is similar to suggesting that a Desktop computer isn't innovative because it's just a few peripherals connected to a very fast turing machine. Some examples of Smartphone innovation (in my opinion): At 2:00 AM in bed, when I'm exhausted, and realize I have to wake up at 7:00 AM, but I'm tired enough that I might not be able to reach my alarm clock, and I can just flex my thumb and say, "Wake me up at 6:00 AM" before drifting off to sleep - I call that innovation. I don't know if you recall, there was a time that the big "thing" at Hotels was having them give you a wakeup call, so you wouldn't have to figure out how the alarm clock in the room worked (if they had one). I haven't done that in 5+ years. Used to do it every night when I was in a hotel. I'm out walking at night in Redwood City, and Dark Sky pops up and tells me it's going to start raining in my neighborhood in about 15 minutes - so I turn around and grab an umbrella. I'm out at a customer luncheon in Singapore, and they ask me about a presentation I did awhile ago, on my laptop, and I know backblaze has backed it up, so I'm able to grab it while standing there from my iPhone and mail it to them - that real time delivery makes a positive impression. (Replace Backblaze with Dropbox/iCloud/SkyDrive/favorite cloud mechanism that you can connect to from your mobile device) Listening to a great german song in a Taxi in Aschaffenburg, and I pull up Shazam - and 90 seconds later I have it on my iPhone (and it's now been synced with iTunes match and is on my iPad and Laptop) Late at night in PaloAlto, and I need a ride home - and Uber tells me there will be a driver at the restaurant in 4 minutes, and shows them driving towards me, and makes sure they show up - As somebody who had spent hours waiting for cabs in the middle of the night - I call that innovation. Walking down the Stairs at Southwark in London, and getting the real-time update from TubeMap, that the London Bridge station is closed due to a station fire - turning right around and grabbing a cab to an important symposium. I could obviously go on - but I find it so hard to believe you don't recognize all of this as, "innovation"

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droopyEyelids 13y ago
You're just talking past each other. He's talking about computer science "software" innovation.
- potatolicious 13y ago
  I think he knows. The disagreement here is that characterizing pure-CS-stuff as "innovation" and the other stuff as not is an incredibly narrow way to define innovation. It feels like LowKarmaAccount really defines innovation as how far down the stack it is, which is a wholly arbitrary (and IMO nonsensical) criteria. By that criteria a helicopter is not innovative because it's just a slight rearrangement of fixed wing aircraft, an "evolutionary" progression. By that criteria the Internet is not innovative because it was just the natural evolution and consequence of radio and telephony.
  - LowKarmaAccount 13y ago
    droopyEyelids was correct in saying that I was talking about software innovation from a CS standpoint, so I didn't respond to the first reply to my comment. After reading your comment, I realized that I should make it clear that I'm using David A. Wheeler's definition of software innovation [1]. It was linked to on HN a few years ago[2]; it has an excellent listing of important innovations. The list was made to show that the most important computer innovations weren't patented. Wheeler does include the Internet (internetworking using diagrams, leading up to the Internet's TCP/IP)as an important innovation. On the page I linked to [1], Section 6 is called "What is not an important software innovation?", which inspired my post in part. I'll quote a portion of it below: " As I noted earlier, many important events in computing aren’t software innovations, such as the announcements of new hardware platforms. Indeed, sometimes the importance isn’t in the technology at all; when IBM announced their first IBM PC, neither the hardware nor software was innovative - the announcement was important primarily because IBM’s imprimateur made many people feel confident that it was “safe” to buy a personal computer. "An obvious example is that smartphones are not a software innovation. In the mid-2000s, smartphones rapidly became more common. By "smartphone" I mean a phone that can stay connected to the Internet, access the internet with a web browser capable of running programs (e.g., in Javascript), and install local applications. There's no doubt that widespread smartphone availability has had a profound impact on society. But while smartphones have had an important social impact, smartphones do not represent any siginificant software innovation. Smartphones typically run operating systems and middleware that are merely minor variants of software that was already running on other systems, and their software is developed in traditional ways. "Note that there are few software innovation identified in recent times. I believe that part of the reason is that over the last number of years some key software markets have been controlled by monopolies. Monopolies typically inhibit innovation; a monopoly has a strong financial incentive to keep things more or less the way they are. Also, it’s difficult to identify the “most important” innovations within the last few years. Usually what is most important is not clear until years after its development. Software technology, like many other areas, is subject to fads. Most “exciting new technologies” are simply fashions that will turn out to be impractical (or only useful in a narrow niche), or are simply rehashes of old ideas with new names." [1]: http://www.dwheeler.com/innovation/innovation.html http://www.dwheeler.com/innovation/innovation.html [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=813110 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=813110

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droopyEyelids 13y ago

You're just talking past each other. He's talking about computer science "software" innovation.

potatolicious 13y ago
I think he knows. The disagreement here is that characterizing pure-CS-stuff as "innovation" and the other stuff as not is an incredibly narrow way to define innovation. It feels like LowKarmaAccount really defines innovation as how far down the stack it is, which is a wholly arbitrary (and IMO nonsensical) criteria. By that criteria a helicopter is not innovative because it's just a slight rearrangement of fixed wing aircraft, an "evolutionary" progression. By that criteria the Internet is not innovative because it was just the natural evolution and consequence of radio and telephony.
- LowKarmaAccount 13y ago
  droopyEyelids was correct in saying that I was talking about software innovation from a CS standpoint, so I didn't respond to the first reply to my comment. After reading your comment, I realized that I should make it clear that I'm using David A. Wheeler's definition of software innovation [1]. It was linked to on HN a few years ago[2]; it has an excellent listing of important innovations. The list was made to show that the most important computer innovations weren't patented. Wheeler does include the Internet (internetworking using diagrams, leading up to the Internet's TCP/IP)as an important innovation. On the page I linked to [1], Section 6 is called "What is not an important software innovation?", which inspired my post in part. I'll quote a portion of it below: " As I noted earlier, many important events in computing aren’t software innovations, such as the announcements of new hardware platforms. Indeed, sometimes the importance isn’t in the technology at all; when IBM announced their first IBM PC, neither the hardware nor software was innovative - the announcement was important primarily because IBM’s imprimateur made many people feel confident that it was “safe” to buy a personal computer. "An obvious example is that smartphones are not a software innovation. In the mid-2000s, smartphones rapidly became more common. By "smartphone" I mean a phone that can stay connected to the Internet, access the internet with a web browser capable of running programs (e.g., in Javascript), and install local applications. There's no doubt that widespread smartphone availability has had a profound impact on society. But while smartphones have had an important social impact, smartphones do not represent any siginificant software innovation. Smartphones typically run operating systems and middleware that are merely minor variants of software that was already running on other systems, and their software is developed in traditional ways. "Note that there are few software innovation identified in recent times. I believe that part of the reason is that over the last number of years some key software markets have been controlled by monopolies. Monopolies typically inhibit innovation; a monopoly has a strong financial incentive to keep things more or less the way they are. Also, it’s difficult to identify the “most important” innovations within the last few years. Usually what is most important is not clear until years after its development. Software technology, like many other areas, is subject to fads. Most “exciting new technologies” are simply fashions that will turn out to be impractical (or only useful in a narrow niche), or are simply rehashes of old ideas with new names." [1]: http://www.dwheeler.com/innovation/innovation.html http://www.dwheeler.com/innovation/innovation.html [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=813110 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=813110