I mean the actual corporation Thinking Machines who were a remarkable oddity for their time. They were started by a Theoretical Physicist, one of Feynman's grad students - indeed Feynman himself apparently did some work for them and is credited with patents in the area.
Before them, supercomputers were massively vectorized but had relatively few CPUS, but they completely turned the industry on its head and of course now the norm is massive arrays of vector processors. They took multi-processor from 8 or 16 to 64,000 in a single jump.
What I'm reaching to here is that Google are in many ways really an applied mathematics company, and their core competency is that they've taken multi-processor computing up orders of magnitude, the way that TM did with the CM.
I was aware your allusion was to TMC, a company I greatly admired (I merely mentioned the French movie as an aside). The reason why I didn't quite agree with your analogy is that TMC's business model was marketing massively parallel processing, whereas for Google, it is a means to an end. They invest and innovate in distributed computing because they have to handle massively large datasets. On the other hand, the Apple-Sony analogy, IMO, is much direct, both in terms of design aspirations and business models (at least, the consumer division of Sony).
Nevertheless, as mentioned, despite my slight disagreement, I still enjoyed how your analogy invited me to think (a stark standout in these woods).
Let me get this clear, even though Google has unveiled things like MapReduce and Go, and described GFS, BigTable, etc - that doesn't mean that they're innovative in datacentre software because one of the two or three other players might have even more amazing stuff that they simply haven't told anybody about?
Is that your argument or am I mischaracterizing it?
To take that argument further, for every potential innovation, there may be a comparatively superior but undisclosed "real" innovation somewhere. Ergo, there is no such thing as innovation. The concept was merely .... invented as a rhetorical device.
The reason why I didn't quite agree with your analogy is that TMC's business model was marketing massively parallel processing, whereas for Google, it is a means to an end.
Well it is now, but remember that Google has started to open up their back end as a platform for others, and they have very tentatively started to open up their software tools as part of that. Ultimately I expect we'll see it a big part of their business, because managing concurrency is the hardest thing in software.
Well it is now, but remember that Google has started to open up their back end as a platform for others, and they have very tentatively started to open up their software tools as part of that. Ultimately I expect we'll see it a big part of their business, because managing concurrency is the hardest thing in software.
If they do seriously go down that route, I imagine it would not be built around marketing MapReduce, BigTable and GFS, or at least not in their current forms. After all, Hadoop is already widely adopted. Google would have to do something very different in order to beat the open source version of its own technology.
Google makes money from Mozilla users which was becoming the dominant consumer browser, as Chrome users replace them, they will make less money from Mozilla users.
I am embedded in the industry - I have been in more than a few data centers, directed development of data center-based technologies and work directly with many of the companies supplying data center technologies to all of the big players across a swath of industries.
Oh wow! That's impressive.
Sorry, I didn't know. Honestly, I didn't. I mean ... how could I know? How could I possibly tell since you have hidden your expertise so well in your posts? Playing dumb all this time, eh? You rascal, you!
Google is following in the footsteps of firms like Thinking Machines, who you probably also never heard of. Apple is following in the footsteps of Sony.
You realize Thinking Machines went bankrupt due to an inability to deliver on it's overhyped, unattainable promises and a famous overindulgence of it's workforce that caused the company to burn through cash at a horrendous rate while lowering employee productivity. That pair of circumstances convinced investors to not to put any more $$ into the company.
So if you are putting Google and Thinking Machines in the same mold that would be really bad to be Google.
Sony is at least still alive and merely a company culture change away from recovery. IBM did it, no reason Sony couldn't. Which would mean following your statement even if Apple stumbles it could recover again.
Did you really think that one through, or were you as enamored with early Thinking Machines promises and glossy mag praise as it seems?
Oh and what I don't seem to have seen anywhere in this thread yet. IBM didn't see value in retaining these patents anymore, and IBM is peripherally in the Linux/Java business on the side of Apache who is fully in a fight with Oracle over Java related patents and licenses.
If IBM had a patent that could bail out Google, they had a patent that would have unshackled Harmony from Oracle and Apache/IBM would have won control of the JCP and release 7, or at least legally forked Java, thereby making it legal for Google to partake of the Harmony branch and clearing Android of all kinds of Oracle related problems.
But IBM didn't put that(those) patent(s) on the table, because it(they) probably does(do) not exist.
I think IBM is giggling that they just got Google to buy a bunch of stuff IBM wasn't going to use and really won't be of any use it the current patent war Google is in. IBM cashes in, Google probably gets very little other than stalling material in return.
On one hand, I am rather tempted to let your "demand" speak for itself - You clearly neither appreciate nor understand computer science.
On the other hand, I am curious as to why the likes of you (to be fair, you're not the only ignorant one here) keep chirping away as if you really don't see what Google innovations are about.
The only conclusion I can draw from this is - This is not an act. Some of you genuinely do not believe Google has done anything innovative because this is your simple perspective: Google was not the first to develop a search algorithm. Google was not the first email company. They were not the first company to develop data centers, mobile OS, etc., etc. So if they didn't invent a new product category, they couldn't possibly be innovative (let's ignore the fact that Apple has never ever truly invented a product category either), right?
Wrong!
As mentioned already more than once (and as CloudGazer has so elegantly explained repeatedly), Google's innovations often are not easy to identify on the surface. Allow me to draw your attention to some of their most significant citations:
MapReduce: Simplified Data Processing on Large Clusters
In Proceedings of OSDI 2004
Bigtable: A Distributed Storage System for Structured Data
In Proceedings of OSDI 2006
You simply do not present "re-released" work at OSDI. And there are many, many more examples, not to mention many, many patents. If patents and academic publications do not represent innovations, what does?
I have invoked this Stephen Arnold quote before and will do so again - "Google’s database inventions by themselves make it clear that Google’s research unit has superseded Bell Labs and Xerox PARC as the place for technical innovation in the U.S., if not the world." Note that Apple is not mentioned.
All to say, if you don't take my word for it, take the word of someone who has written a book on Google.
Regardless, I think I am starting to understand why some of you are determined to deny credit where it is due at Google. At first, I thought it was just part and parcel of fanboyism. Now I believe it is a true failure to see beyond the level of product experience. Just because everyone here enjoys using computers and commenting on the industry does not mean everyone understands computer science. I get it now ... I believe.
You realize Thinking Machines went bankrupt due to an inability to deliver on it's overhyped, unattainable promises and a famous overindulgence of it's workforce that caused the company to burn through cash at a horrendous rate while lowering employee productivity. That pair of circumstances convinced investors to not to put any more $$ into the company.
So if you are putting Google and Thinking machines in the same mold that would be really bad to be Google.
Sony is at least still alive and merely a company culture change away from recovery. IBM did it, no reason Sony couldn't. Which would mean following your statement even if Apple stumbles it could recover again.
Did you really think that one through, or were you as enamored with early Thinking Machines promises and glossy mag praise as it seems?
He did, and did so rather well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hiro
Oh and what I don't seem to have seen anywhere in this thread yet. IBM didn't see value in retaining these patents anymore, and IBM is peripherally in the Linux/Java business on the side of Apache who is fully in a fight with Oracle over Java related patents and licenses.
If IBM had a patent that could bail out Google, they had a patent that would have unshackled Harmony from Oracle and Apache/IBM would have won control of the JCP and release 7, or at least legally forked Java, thereby making it legal for Google to partake of the Harmony branch and clearing Android of all kinds of Oracle related problems.
But IBM didn't put that(those) patent(s) on the table, because it(they) probably does(do) not exist.
I think IBM is giggling that they just got Google to buy a bunch of stuff IBM wasn't going to use and really won't be of any use it the current patent war Google is in. IBM cashes in, Google probably gets very little other than stalling material in return.
Oh sure, some of the brightest minds in the world can be easily fooled. Just like that. Sure.
Regardless, I think I am starting to understand why some of you are determined to deny credit where it is due at Google. At first, I thought it was just part and parcel of fanboyism. Now I believe it is a true failure to see beyond the level of product experience. Just because everyone here enjoys using computers and commenting on the industry does not mean everyone understands computer science. I get it now ... I believe.
What's interesting is that a HUGE part of Apple's success comes from recognising that consumers ultimately care more about design than they do about clever technology. Apple fans are an extreme case, they care even more than the average consumer about the minutia of interfaces and such.
I can't get that moment in this year's WWDC out of my mind when the presenter announced that in iOS 5 you could use part of the volume rocker as a camera shutter button and the crowd burst into a particularly loud round of applause. Even if another company made that change, they would never announce it at a big event like WWDC, and if they did their audience would just look on in confusion.
So even as on the one hand I curse the blindness of most Apple users to the broader movements in tech, I have to accept that it's probably their peculiarity that supported Apple in the quest for ever more elegant design - and I do appreciate the fruits of that quest.
What's interesting is that a HUGE part of Apple's success comes from recognising that consumers ultimately care more about design than they do about clever technology. Apple fans are an extreme case, they care even more than the average consumer about the minutia of interfaces and such.
I can't get that moment in this year's WWDC out of my mind when the presenter announced that in iOS 5 you could use part of the volume rocker as a camera shutter button and the crowd burst into a particularly loud round of applause. Even if another company made that change, they would never announce it at a big event like WWDC, and if they did their audience would just look on in confusion.
And let's not forget the near standing ovation for .... the innovative notification system!
Quote:
Originally Posted by cloudgazer
So even as on the one hand I curse the blindness of most Apple users to the broader movements in tech, I have to accept that it's probably their peculiarity that supported Apple in the quest for ever more elegant design - and I do appreciate the fruits of that quest.
Agreed.
It's just strange to me that Apple zealots are not satisfied to applaud, buy and enjoy Apple products. They need to put down, step on and criticize every move made by its competitors. It's a very unique blend of fervour and boosterism usually seen in the world of sports but not in engineering.
Comments
I mean the actual corporation Thinking Machines who were a remarkable oddity for their time. They were started by a Theoretical Physicist, one of Feynman's grad students - indeed Feynman himself apparently did some work for them and is credited with patents in the area.
Before them, supercomputers were massively vectorized but had relatively few CPUS, but they completely turned the industry on its head and of course now the norm is massive arrays of vector processors. They took multi-processor from 8 or 16 to 64,000 in a single jump.
What I'm reaching to here is that Google are in many ways really an applied mathematics company, and their core competency is that they've taken multi-processor computing up orders of magnitude, the way that TM did with the CM.
I was aware your allusion was to TMC, a company I greatly admired (I merely mentioned the French movie as an aside). The reason why I didn't quite agree with your analogy is that TMC's business model was marketing massively parallel processing, whereas for Google, it is a means to an end. They invest and innovate in distributed computing because they have to handle massively large datasets. On the other hand, the Apple-Sony analogy, IMO, is much direct, both in terms of design aspirations and business models (at least, the consumer division of Sony).
Nevertheless, as mentioned, despite my slight disagreement, I still enjoyed how your analogy invited me to think (a stark standout in these woods).
Let me get this clear, even though Google has unveiled things like MapReduce and Go, and described GFS, BigTable, etc - that doesn't mean that they're innovative in datacentre software because one of the two or three other players might have even more amazing stuff that they simply haven't told anybody about?
Is that your argument or am I mischaracterizing it?
To take that argument further, for every potential innovation, there may be a comparatively superior but undisclosed "real" innovation somewhere. Ergo, there is no such thing as innovation. The concept was merely .... invented as a rhetorical device.
The reason why I didn't quite agree with your analogy is that TMC's business model was marketing massively parallel processing, whereas for Google, it is a means to an end.
Well it is now, but remember that Google has started to open up their back end as a platform for others, and they have very tentatively started to open up their software tools as part of that. Ultimately I expect we'll see it a big part of their business, because managing concurrency is the hardest thing in software.
I am ignoring the facts? I am sorry you are not aware of Google's innovations.
What innovations, troll?
Well it is now, but remember that Google has started to open up their back end as a platform for others, and they have very tentatively started to open up their software tools as part of that. Ultimately I expect we'll see it a big part of their business, because managing concurrency is the hardest thing in software.
If they do seriously go down that route, I imagine it would not be built around marketing MapReduce, BigTable and GFS, or at least not in their current forms. After all, Hadoop is already widely adopted. Google would have to do something very different in order to beat the open source version of its own technology.
What innovations, troll?
Yeah, when devoid of a sound argument, call someone a troll. That makes you look smart every time. Sure does.
To continue denying that Google is a highly innovative company is to embarrass yourself. For your own sake, read this thread and learn.
Most of Mozilla's funding comes from Google...
How long will that keep up?
Google makes money from Mozilla users which was becoming the dominant consumer browser, as Chrome users replace them, they will make less money from Mozilla users.
Yeah, when devoid of a sound argument, call someone a troll. That makes you look smart every time. Sure does.
To continue denying that Google is a highly innovative company is to embarrass yourself. For your own sake, read this thread and learn.
Google buys and rereleases.
Give one example of Google's OWN work.
I am embedded in the industry - I have been in more than a few data centers, directed development of data center-based technologies and work directly with many of the companies supplying data center technologies to all of the big players across a swath of industries.
Oh wow! That's impressive.
Sorry, I didn't know. Honestly, I didn't. I mean ... how could I know? How could I possibly tell since you have hidden your expertise so well in your posts? Playing dumb all this time, eh? You rascal, you!
Google is following in the footsteps of firms like Thinking Machines, who you probably also never heard of. Apple is following in the footsteps of Sony.
You realize Thinking Machines went bankrupt due to an inability to deliver on it's overhyped, unattainable promises and a famous overindulgence of it's workforce that caused the company to burn through cash at a horrendous rate while lowering employee productivity. That pair of circumstances convinced investors to not to put any more $$ into the company.
So if you are putting Google and Thinking Machines in the same mold that would be really bad to be Google.
Sony is at least still alive and merely a company culture change away from recovery. IBM did it, no reason Sony couldn't. Which would mean following your statement even if Apple stumbles it could recover again.
Did you really think that one through, or were you as enamored with early Thinking Machines promises and glossy mag praise as it seems?
Oh and what I don't seem to have seen anywhere in this thread yet. IBM didn't see value in retaining these patents anymore, and IBM is peripherally in the Linux/Java business on the side of Apache who is fully in a fight with Oracle over Java related patents and licenses.
If IBM had a patent that could bail out Google, they had a patent that would have unshackled Harmony from Oracle and Apache/IBM would have won control of the JCP and release 7, or at least legally forked Java, thereby making it legal for Google to partake of the Harmony branch and clearing Android of all kinds of Oracle related problems.
But IBM didn't put that(those) patent(s) on the table, because it(they) probably does(do) not exist.
I think IBM is giggling that they just got Google to buy a bunch of stuff IBM wasn't going to use and really won't be of any use it the current patent war Google is in. IBM cashes in, Google probably gets very little other than stalling material in return.
Google buys and rereleases.
Give one example of Google's OWN work.
On one hand, I am rather tempted to let your "demand" speak for itself - You clearly neither appreciate nor understand computer science.
On the other hand, I am curious as to why the likes of you (to be fair, you're not the only ignorant one here) keep chirping away as if you really don't see what Google innovations are about.
The only conclusion I can draw from this is - This is not an act. Some of you genuinely do not believe Google has done anything innovative because this is your simple perspective: Google was not the first to develop a search algorithm. Google was not the first email company. They were not the first company to develop data centers, mobile OS, etc., etc. So if they didn't invent a new product category, they couldn't possibly be innovative (let's ignore the fact that Apple has never ever truly invented a product category either), right?
Wrong!
As mentioned already more than once (and as CloudGazer has so elegantly explained repeatedly), Google's innovations often are not easy to identify on the surface. Allow me to draw your attention to some of their most significant citations:
MapReduce: Simplified Data Processing on Large Clusters
In Proceedings of OSDI 2004
Bigtable: A Distributed Storage System for Structured Data
In Proceedings of OSDI 2006
You simply do not present "re-released" work at OSDI. And there are many, many more examples, not to mention many, many patents. If patents and academic publications do not represent innovations, what does?
I have invoked this Stephen Arnold quote before and will do so again - "Google’s database inventions by themselves make it clear that Google’s research unit has superseded Bell Labs and Xerox PARC as the place for technical innovation in the U.S., if not the world." Note that Apple is not mentioned.
All to say, if you don't take my word for it, take the word of someone who has written a book on Google.
Regardless, I think I am starting to understand why some of you are determined to deny credit where it is due at Google. At first, I thought it was just part and parcel of fanboyism. Now I believe it is a true failure to see beyond the level of product experience. Just because everyone here enjoys using computers and commenting on the industry does not mean everyone understands computer science. I get it now ... I believe.
You realize Thinking Machines went bankrupt due to an inability to deliver on it's overhyped, unattainable promises and a famous overindulgence of it's workforce that caused the company to burn through cash at a horrendous rate while lowering employee productivity. That pair of circumstances convinced investors to not to put any more $$ into the company.
So if you are putting Google and Thinking machines in the same mold that would be really bad to be Google.
Sony is at least still alive and merely a company culture change away from recovery. IBM did it, no reason Sony couldn't. Which would mean following your statement even if Apple stumbles it could recover again.
Did you really think that one through, or were you as enamored with early Thinking Machines promises and glossy mag praise as it seems?
He did, and did so rather well.
Oh and what I don't seem to have seen anywhere in this thread yet. IBM didn't see value in retaining these patents anymore, and IBM is peripherally in the Linux/Java business on the side of Apache who is fully in a fight with Oracle over Java related patents and licenses.
If IBM had a patent that could bail out Google, they had a patent that would have unshackled Harmony from Oracle and Apache/IBM would have won control of the JCP and release 7, or at least legally forked Java, thereby making it legal for Google to partake of the Harmony branch and clearing Android of all kinds of Oracle related problems.
But IBM didn't put that(those) patent(s) on the table, because it(they) probably does(do) not exist.
I think IBM is giggling that they just got Google to buy a bunch of stuff IBM wasn't going to use and really won't be of any use it the current patent war Google is in. IBM cashes in, Google probably gets very little other than stalling material in return.
Oh sure, some of the brightest minds in the world can be easily fooled. Just like that. Sure.
Regardless, I think I am starting to understand why some of you are determined to deny credit where it is due at Google. At first, I thought it was just part and parcel of fanboyism. Now I believe it is a true failure to see beyond the level of product experience. Just because everyone here enjoys using computers and commenting on the industry does not mean everyone understands computer science. I get it now ... I believe.
What's interesting is that a HUGE part of Apple's success comes from recognising that consumers ultimately care more about design than they do about clever technology. Apple fans are an extreme case, they care even more than the average consumer about the minutia of interfaces and such.
I can't get that moment in this year's WWDC out of my mind when the presenter announced that in iOS 5 you could use part of the volume rocker as a camera shutter button and the crowd burst into a particularly loud round of applause. Even if another company made that change, they would never announce it at a big event like WWDC, and if they did their audience would just look on in confusion.
So even as on the one hand I curse the blindness of most Apple users to the broader movements in tech, I have to accept that it's probably their peculiarity that supported Apple in the quest for ever more elegant design - and I do appreciate the fruits of that quest.
You mean like buying a company that used pinch to zoom and then patenting it and trying to stop others from using it?
Apple bought the company to cover it's own R&D on the same technologies. They then extended it tenfold. That's innovation.
Oh sure, some of the brightest minds in the world can be easily fooled. Just like that. Sure.
You're such a funny guy... bright minds are fooled all the time.
It makes me think that you really aren't that bright and that you are only borrowing your intelligence from the works of Arnold.
What's interesting is that a HUGE part of Apple's success comes from recognising that consumers ultimately care more about design than they do about clever technology. Apple fans are an extreme case, they care even more than the average consumer about the minutia of interfaces and such.
I can't get that moment in this year's WWDC out of my mind when the presenter announced that in iOS 5 you could use part of the volume rocker as a camera shutter button and the crowd burst into a particularly loud round of applause. Even if another company made that change, they would never announce it at a big event like WWDC, and if they did their audience would just look on in confusion.
And let's not forget the near standing ovation for .... the innovative notification system!
So even as on the one hand I curse the blindness of most Apple users to the broader movements in tech, I have to accept that it's probably their peculiarity that supported Apple in the quest for ever more elegant design - and I do appreciate the fruits of that quest.
Agreed.
It's just strange to me that Apple zealots are not satisfied to applaud, buy and enjoy Apple products. They need to put down, step on and criticize every move made by its competitors. It's a very unique blend of fervour and boosterism usually seen in the world of sports but not in engineering.
You're such a funny guy... bright minds are fooled all the time.
So Google lawyers and engineers were fooled by IBM to purchase useless patents. You really believe that? Good for you.
It makes me think that you really aren't that bright and that you are only borrowing your intelligence from the works of Arnold.
Borrowed or original, you clearly cannot help but be drawn to my posts. This stalking is kind of cute. It is inspiring me. Thanks, sweetie.
Apple bought the company to cover it's own R&D on the same technologies. They then extended it tenfold. That's innovation.
It's innovation when Apple does it, but refactoring when Google or someone else does. The unilateral logic here is impressive.
So Google lawyers and engineers were fooled by IBM to purchase useless patents. You really believe that? Good for you.
Borrowed or original, you clearly cannot help but be drawn to my posts. This stalking is kind of cute. It is inspiring me. Thanks, sweetie.
You are now on my ignore list. Bye bye..
He did, and did so rather well.
Oh sure, some of the brightest minds in the world can be easily fooled. Just like that. Sure.
Wow. I'm overcome by your lucid and amazing display of logic...
And yes, companies/suppodedly-bright-people make boneheaded decisions all the time, history is absolutely littered with them.