I have nothing against the concept of driverless cars. I'm convinced that eventually, they will be the only way people will be able to use them other than, possibly, for specialized uses.
But there are other companies that are ahead of Google in this, even thought they aren't going for the publicity the way Google always does. Don't forget that for several years, DARPA had a contest for driverless cars. Well before Google came out with this, others had negotiated that very difficult course, in realtime. Google's cars are dependent on mapping the area first.
I went through this before, what am I supposed to call you, since you post to me so personally? Gator? Guy? Lizard Boy?
I really have to disagree. Proof can be seen the rather lackluster hardware released this year. Don't even get me started on software.
That had very little to do with the size of the company. You are either on the bleeding edge or you aren't. Staying on that edge requires continuous development of new products to meet your customers needs. All we need to do is look at alternative companies that didn't maintain a strong R&D profile to see that HP's investments were a requirement.
True; however Apple is recognized in the industry as getting by on relatively low R&D investments.
When talking about R&D, the size of the company does matter. You can't spend more than your sales number. I us all of your expenses. Since what we,re talking about involved basic research, costs these days can be enormous.
So, I suppose my questions should be to those here who insist that Apple should do basic research, is what kind of research? In what field(s)? Then we can take a look at the cost structure for that, along with whether it has anything at all to do with their business, rather than being more of a publicity stunt.
These are significant considerations. I'd add to that list extensive research in AI, speech recognition, neural network tech and the like. In fact I see AI research as perhaps the near term hot technology that could easily slip by Apple.
Neural networks is another interesting tech as it has a far greater potential for implementation into an iPad in the short term. Certainly quantum computing would be nice but I just don t see a short term solution where it will be implemented into Apples hardware. Neural networks on the other hand can implement some solutions at very low power levels compared to conventional CPUs. Apple really should be looking into this just to accelerate speech recognition.
Those are areas in which I'd bet Apple is doing at least some work in, as it affects their business. We've read that Apple might have as many as 1,300 people working on voice recognition and related technologies.
I think you are missing the point, there is much that needs to be improved with Apples spell checkers. You won't get extra errors if reasonable intelligence is added to the spell checker. Some of the errors Apples software is coming up with is beyond explanation. I run into this all the time.
I'd go so far as to say there isn't anything in Apples software library that is more defective than their spell checking solutions.
I'm not saying that they shouldn't try to improve it. I'm saying that even the best have serious problems. There are fundamental problems in spellcheck that haven't been worked out yet, assuming that they even can be. That's why you are expected, in all of them, to add spellings that aren't there. When someone here states that it isn't their job to do that, it's nuts!
That might be a reasonable suggestion in some cases but the problem is Apples spell checkers are into everything and as such you would expect a reasonable investment on Apples part to make sure they don't suck. Honestly Mel, I'm not sure how you can defend Apple here. Apple can't imprive anything without putting energy into it. You seem to think because real progress has been slow with spell checkers that Apple should just punt and let somebody else do it.
Frankly that is rediculous and is where good R&D money should be going. If Apple want to support a system wide spell checking feature (a modern day expectation) then it needs to be excellent. If the majority of users out there didn't exoect viable spell checking that would be one thing, but these days it is a rational desire to have your OS support spell checking in a performant way.
I've never said that. I'm just saying that even the best, and paid for spellcheck programs, have problems. Apple's is free. Would I like it to be better? Of course. I'm just reacting to the thought that people shouldn't have to help these programs out a bit by adding words that give them problems.
Err no, Bell labs researchers have pursued a number of things with and without Bell labs support. The thing with basic research is that you will never know before hand if it has a payoff that will aid the bottoms line.
Very shortsighted! However the research shouldn't involve new techniques in basket weaving.
Honestly I'd like to see Apple funding basic research that has nothing to do with Apple.
Here is the thing though, consider what would happen these days if Apple acknowledged that it was funding research that had nothing to do with a near term project. Stock holders would be up in arms. Every analyst out there would be asking for Cooks head on a pike.
Bell encouraged researchers to work on projects, on their own time, as long as they did the work that was expected.
Comments
I have nothing against the concept of driverless cars. I'm convinced that eventually, they will be the only way people will be able to use them other than, possibly, for specialized uses.
But there are other companies that are ahead of Google in this, even thought they aren't going for the publicity the way Google always does. Don't forget that for several years, DARPA had a contest for driverless cars. Well before Google came out with this, others had negotiated that very difficult course, in realtime. Google's cars are dependent on mapping the area first.
I went through this before, what am I supposed to call you, since you post to me so personally? Gator? Guy? Lizard Boy?
When talking about R&D, the size of the company does matter. You can't spend more than your sales number. I us all of your expenses. Since what we,re talking about involved basic research, costs these days can be enormous.
So, I suppose my questions should be to those here who insist that Apple should do basic research, is what kind of research? In what field(s)? Then we can take a look at the cost structure for that, along with whether it has anything at all to do with their business, rather than being more of a publicity stunt.
Those are areas in which I'd bet Apple is doing at least some work in, as it affects their business. We've read that Apple might have as many as 1,300 people working on voice recognition and related technologies.
I'm not saying that they shouldn't try to improve it. I'm saying that even the best have serious problems. There are fundamental problems in spellcheck that haven't been worked out yet, assuming that they even can be. That's why you are expected, in all of them, to add spellings that aren't there. When someone here states that it isn't their job to do that, it's nuts!
I've never said that. I'm just saying that even the best, and paid for spellcheck programs, have problems. Apple's is free. Would I like it to be better? Of course. I'm just reacting to the thought that people shouldn't have to help these programs out a bit by adding words that give them problems.
Bell encouraged researchers to work on projects, on their own time, as long as they did the work that was expected.