I see this feature alone as a battery killer, there is no way they can passively signal process someone voice and then make some sort of decision and then got out to the net and bring back information.
It is not going out on the internet until AFTER the phrase matches, which wakes the main CPU.
Think of it as a waveform activated Home button.
Reportedly it's using a very low power CPU section just for this feature. (There have been standalone low power chips like this for decades, used most often in kid's toys. In this case, I think they added the processor to their SoC to save room.)
(Reminds me of that Apple patent low power always-on facial recognition. They have the camera constantly watch everything in low resolution for basic human skin colors, then wake up the main CPU and go to higher resolution to check. Same kind of idea.)
That's why it requires a specific phrase to activate the command functionality. Whatever phrase you choose shouldn't be one that would come up in conversation. Out of the box it's “ok Google Now." How many times have you said that to your friends?
Heh heh. Key words can get misused. My favorite Google Glass review is this one from a girl whose boyfriend... well, see for yourself at around the 3:00 mark! Very funny.
Point is, YouTube was leaking money every quarter too. Someone once calculated that it would have taken YouTube something like 10 years to recoup its purchase price plus losses, and in fact, some people think YouTube is still unprofitable depending on accounting, but what value do you place on owning the world's most watched video site?
Google is in this for the long haul, like Amazon, and short term profit and loss don't drive strategic decisions. I think it is one of the failings of Apple that they hyperfocus on margins. They make paultry few acquisitions, and aren't spending anywhere near the amount of their $100+B warchest on basic R&D that they should be spending. I'm not talking about figuring out how to make the iPhone 7's screen 1mm smaller, I'm talking about *basic* R&D for stuff unrelated to near term products.
You look at IBM, HP, AT&T, Sun, Google, even Microsoft, these are companies that fund basic research labs, some even unrelated to developing a product at all, whose main result is often just academic papers. Apple's main results of R&D tend to be lots of patents. Apple spent $3 billion on R&D in 2012. Google spent $6 billion. Microsoft spent almost $10 billion on R&D in 2012. IBM spent $6.4 billion in 2012. Even HP Labs spends $3 billion. This buys stuff like next-generation storage advancements, silicon processes, image censors. Apple by contrast effectively outsources their R&D to Korea and Japan. Who's inventing the next generation of flexible displays? Of printable flexible circuits? Not Apple, Apple will be forced to license those.
Everything that Google is trying to do, from self driving cars, to stratospheric internet balloons, to building the world's largest neural network for language understanding, or Google Glass, at least they are trying to do something crazy and new. HP is trying to commercial memristors and self-assembling nanostructures. IBM is working on practical quantum computers. All of this stuff might fall on its face. But as the Apple commercial says, here's to the crazy ones.
With Apple's huge warchest of money, they could be doing a lot more amazing things than putting 5 year old fingerprint scanner technology into the home button.
It is rumored that iOS was developed around the time the iPod was announced and Jobs originally wanted it to be on a tablet. The iPod was released almost ten years before the iPad. And the iPhone was released 5-6 years after the iPod. That doesn't look like "short-term" profit to me.
And spending money just because you can isn't smart business. At the end of the day, that's what Apple is. That's what your beloved Google is. It is disappointing to see you apply altruistic intentions to the massive R&D spending practices of companies like Google, IBM, and Microsoft, and the acquisition of Motorola because it is such an asinine notion. Money doesn't grown on trees, and Google wants to make profit as much as Apple. The reason companies like Google, IBM, and Microsoft are funding so-called "basic R&D" is because they are confident in their revenue streams' ability to generate enough cash for the business.
Businesses are judged on their ability to create value for shareholders, because that's who they're accountable to. And let me also say that a company that has a track record of creating value for shareholders is likely taking good care of its employees and other relevant stakeholders. I believe that Apple's R&D deserves as much respect as that of Google or Microsoft. Look at it this way. The iPhone has been instrumental in popularizing mobile apps. That has helped create a lot of new jobs for mobile software developers and ancillary jobs in software. How is that contribution in any way inferior to the contribution to society of Google writing a fat check for R&D expenses?
Quote:
Maybe Motorola will turn out to be a bust for Google, but I give them credit for trying, and for having a chance at rescuing what was once a great American company. You know, the company that *invented the cellphone*. That created the communication systems used by NASA. That built (the failed) Iridium satellite phone network. That created the original RAZR design. That built the CPU, you know, that Steve Jobs used for the Macintosh.
If Motorola turns out to be a bust for Google, they don't deserve any accolades for trying "[rescue] what was once a great American company." Do you seriously think that was Google's intention when they bought Motorola in the first place? No. Motorola was about to get in bed with Microsoft, which would have created an intellectual property nightmare for other Android OEMs. Google swooped into buy out Motorola so that they wouldn't do that. Motorola took Google to the cleaners from the looks of it. So to think that Google bought Motorola out of some altruistic intention of trying to save a company with a storied past is absolutely asinine.
Obviously. This is basically a very mid-range, near-stock Android phone priced at high-end, flagship phone prices. The colors are customizable and there's some hardware/software tweaks. This was supposed to be phone that was "as game-changing as the original iPhone", and "industry-changing".
Hilarious.
Couldn't agree more. After months of leaks and hype, this was a complete let down with every revelation. First the specs were sorry for a flagship phone. Then the hype with the customization turned into lame colors and engravings when I thought it meant selecting from a (limited set) of screen sizes, storage, RAM, battery size etc. And then the price which was rumored to be $250-$300 off contract - like the Nexus 4. They shouldn't have hyped it so much.
Couldn't agree more. After months of leaks and hype, this was a complete let down with every revelation. First the specs were sorry for a flagship phone. Then the hype with the customization turned into lame colors and engravings when I thought it meant selecting from a (limited set) of screen sizes, storage, RAM, battery size etc. And then the price which was rumored to be $250-$300 off contract - like the Nexus 4. They shouldn't have hyped it so much.
Heh heh. Key words can get misused. My favorite Google Glass review is this one from a girl whose boyfriend... well, see for yourself at around the 3:00 mark! Very funny.
But watch it from the beginning for best effect.
Well, it looks like we're just going to get a bunch of MORE stupid amateur videos on YouTube only recorded using Google Glass. Oh great.
It is rumored that iOS was developed around the time the iPod was announced and Jobs originally wanted it to be on a tablet. The iPod was released almost ten years before the iPad. And the iPhone was released 5-6 years after the iPod. That doesn't look like "short-term" profit to me.
Not to take away from the rest of your post, but ...
I think perhaps you're mixing up stories of early tablet R&D, with stories of the first iPhone project being based on iPod hardware.
Every history, interview, biography and trial testimony has stated that iOS was begun as an OSX port at the very end of 2005 / beginning of 2006, after Apple decided not to use Linux.
Someone has to fund these things, even if they are far off, especially if the government isn't doing it. "Trying to go in a direction" of future company plans is actually how companies fail to innovate because it's incrementalism. The greatest breakthroughs in the world have come through serendipity, when researchers were funded to do whatever they wanted, who would most likely fail, and quite surprisingly, something they discovered turned out to have a practical application. Avoiding failure and risk leads to stagnation.
The way you talk reminds me of all of those utterly stupid Republicans who want to cut science funding by picking on stuff like "Why do we need to study Bear DNA? What use is it!?"
If it often unpredictable to know when and where a breakthrough will occur, or even what use it would be. ARPA couldn't have forseen today's internet. CERN didn't forsee the modern Web. When computers were invented for breaking WW2 cryptography and computing artillery tables, no one ever thought they'd have practical application for personal use. When Bell Labs invented the transistor, they weren't trying to make computers. Number theory and Abstract Algebra were once thought to have *zero* practical application until modern cryptography.
IBM T.J. Watson Research, for example, ran completely independently of IBM product divisions. They did basic research on elementary chemistry and physics. Scanning Tunnelling and Atomic Force Microscopes were not invented to make things, yet, they potentially applicable to nanotechnology.
As for car companies doing their own self driving car research, every single one I've seen from both manufacturers and universities has paled in comparison to what Google has achieved in terms of distance traveled, achievable speeds, types of environment, etc.
The reality here is if you don't spend money on basic R&D, and merely pick it up for profitable application later when it is mature, you are in essence, a parasite that is not contributing back. Apple needs to invest more in basic science and stop doing everything purely in the service of known plans and profits. They need to take chances and give grants to people with insane ideas. Apple really isn't a technology company in some regards, they are a consumer electronics company, who buys technology developed by other companies, and packages it in a nice design that is acceptable by consumer.
I almost feel the government should tax away a big chunk of their $100+b billion cash stockpile and give it to universities, rather than letting it go to waste sitting in foreign bank accounts or used in stock buy backs.
Translation: Businesses that invest money smartly deserve to be punished with seizure of the illbegotten savings.
First of all, Apple is a business. They're accountable to shareholders. Any decision on spending money has to be looked at with the yardstick of strategic importance.
And your notion that Apple just looks at "known plans and profits" is very far from the truth. How long do you think iOS was in development before it was released with the first iPhone? I don't know the exact number but I'm pretty sure it was about five years or more. Does that sound like going after "known plans and profits?" Sadly, people like you seem to married to the notion that if a company is getting successful products out of its R&D, then it's probably not being reckless enough.
Go to http://www.patentlyapple.com/ and click on a link on the right under "Categories" called "Materials, Processes" below and tell me if you still think Apple "really isn't a technology company," but rather "a consumer electronics company [that] buys technology developed by other companies and, packages it in a nice design that is acceptably by consumer."
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by Maestro64
I see this feature alone as a battery killer, there is no way they can passively signal process someone voice and then make some sort of decision and then got out to the net and bring back information.
It is not going out on the internet until AFTER the phrase matches, which wakes the main CPU.
Think of it as a waveform activated Home button.
Reportedly it's using a very low power CPU section just for this feature. (There have been standalone low power chips like this for decades, used most often in kid's toys. In this case, I think they added the processor to their SoC to save room.)
(Reminds me of that Apple patent low power always-on facial recognition. They have the camera constantly watch everything in low resolution for basic human skin colors, then wake up the main CPU and go to higher resolution to check. Same kind of idea.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by wakefinance
That's why it requires a specific phrase to activate the command functionality. Whatever phrase you choose shouldn't be one that would come up in conversation. Out of the box it's “ok Google Now." How many times have you said that to your friends?
Heh heh. Key words can get misused. My favorite Google Glass review is this one from a girl whose boyfriend... well, see for yourself at around the 3:00 mark! Very funny.
But watch it from the beginning for best effect.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rjc999
Point is, YouTube was leaking money every quarter too. Someone once calculated that it would have taken YouTube something like 10 years to recoup its purchase price plus losses, and in fact, some people think YouTube is still unprofitable depending on accounting, but what value do you place on owning the world's most watched video site?
Google is in this for the long haul, like Amazon, and short term profit and loss don't drive strategic decisions. I think it is one of the failings of Apple that they hyperfocus on margins. They make paultry few acquisitions, and aren't spending anywhere near the amount of their $100+B warchest on basic R&D that they should be spending. I'm not talking about figuring out how to make the iPhone 7's screen 1mm smaller, I'm talking about *basic* R&D for stuff unrelated to near term products.
You look at IBM, HP, AT&T, Sun, Google, even Microsoft, these are companies that fund basic research labs, some even unrelated to developing a product at all, whose main result is often just academic papers. Apple's main results of R&D tend to be lots of patents. Apple spent $3 billion on R&D in 2012. Google spent $6 billion. Microsoft spent almost $10 billion on R&D in 2012. IBM spent $6.4 billion in 2012. Even HP Labs spends $3 billion. This buys stuff like next-generation storage advancements, silicon processes, image censors. Apple by contrast effectively outsources their R&D to Korea and Japan. Who's inventing the next generation of flexible displays? Of printable flexible circuits? Not Apple, Apple will be forced to license those.
Everything that Google is trying to do, from self driving cars, to stratospheric internet balloons, to building the world's largest neural network for language understanding, or Google Glass, at least they are trying to do something crazy and new. HP is trying to commercial memristors and self-assembling nanostructures. IBM is working on practical quantum computers. All of this stuff might fall on its face. But as the Apple commercial says, here's to the crazy ones.
With Apple's huge warchest of money, they could be doing a lot more amazing things than putting 5 year old fingerprint scanner technology into the home button.
It is rumored that iOS was developed around the time the iPod was announced and Jobs originally wanted it to be on a tablet. The iPod was released almost ten years before the iPad. And the iPhone was released 5-6 years after the iPod. That doesn't look like "short-term" profit to me.
And spending money just because you can isn't smart business. At the end of the day, that's what Apple is. That's what your beloved Google is. It is disappointing to see you apply altruistic intentions to the massive R&D spending practices of companies like Google, IBM, and Microsoft, and the acquisition of Motorola because it is such an asinine notion. Money doesn't grown on trees, and Google wants to make profit as much as Apple. The reason companies like Google, IBM, and Microsoft are funding so-called "basic R&D" is because they are confident in their revenue streams' ability to generate enough cash for the business.
Businesses are judged on their ability to create value for shareholders, because that's who they're accountable to. And let me also say that a company that has a track record of creating value for shareholders is likely taking good care of its employees and other relevant stakeholders. I believe that Apple's R&D deserves as much respect as that of Google or Microsoft. Look at it this way. The iPhone has been instrumental in popularizing mobile apps. That has helped create a lot of new jobs for mobile software developers and ancillary jobs in software. How is that contribution in any way inferior to the contribution to society of Google writing a fat check for R&D expenses?
Quote:
Maybe Motorola will turn out to be a bust for Google, but I give them credit for trying, and for having a chance at rescuing what was once a great American company. You know, the company that *invented the cellphone*. That created the communication systems used by NASA. That built (the failed) Iridium satellite phone network. That created the original RAZR design. That built the CPU, you know, that Steve Jobs used for the Macintosh.
If Motorola turns out to be a bust for Google, they don't deserve any accolades for trying "[rescue] what was once a great American company." Do you seriously think that was Google's intention when they bought Motorola in the first place? No. Motorola was about to get in bed with Microsoft, which would have created an intellectual property nightmare for other Android OEMs. Google swooped into buy out Motorola so that they wouldn't do that. Motorola took Google to the cleaners from the looks of it. So to think that Google bought Motorola out of some altruistic intention of trying to save a company with a storied past is absolutely asinine.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Slurpy
Obviously. This is basically a very mid-range, near-stock Android phone priced at high-end, flagship phone prices. The colors are customizable and there's some hardware/software tweaks. This was supposed to be phone that was "as game-changing as the original iPhone", and "industry-changing".
Hilarious.
Couldn't agree more. After months of leaks and hype, this was a complete let down with every revelation. First the specs were sorry for a flagship phone. Then the hype with the customization turned into lame colors and engravings when I thought it meant selecting from a (limited set) of screen sizes, storage, RAM, battery size etc. And then the price which was rumored to be $250-$300 off contract - like the Nexus 4. They shouldn't have hyped it so much.
Moto had to hype it. they got nothing else.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KDarling
Heh heh. Key words can get misused. My favorite Google Glass review is this one from a girl whose boyfriend... well, see for yourself at around the 3:00 mark! Very funny.
But watch it from the beginning for best effect.
Well, it looks like we're just going to get a bunch of MORE stupid amateur videos on YouTube only recorded using Google Glass. Oh great.
Quote:
Originally Posted by vvswarup
It is rumored that iOS was developed around the time the iPod was announced and Jobs originally wanted it to be on a tablet. The iPod was released almost ten years before the iPad. And the iPhone was released 5-6 years after the iPod. That doesn't look like "short-term" profit to me.
Not to take away from the rest of your post, but ...
I think perhaps you're mixing up stories of early tablet R&D, with stories of the first iPhone project being based on iPod hardware.
Every history, interview, biography and trial testimony has stated that iOS was begun as an OSX port at the very end of 2005 / beginning of 2006, after Apple decided not to use Linux.
Otherwise, carry on.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rjc999
Someone has to fund these things, even if they are far off, especially if the government isn't doing it. "Trying to go in a direction" of future company plans is actually how companies fail to innovate because it's incrementalism. The greatest breakthroughs in the world have come through serendipity, when researchers were funded to do whatever they wanted, who would most likely fail, and quite surprisingly, something they discovered turned out to have a practical application. Avoiding failure and risk leads to stagnation.
The way you talk reminds me of all of those utterly stupid Republicans who want to cut science funding by picking on stuff like "Why do we need to study Bear DNA? What use is it!?"
If it often unpredictable to know when and where a breakthrough will occur, or even what use it would be. ARPA couldn't have forseen today's internet. CERN didn't forsee the modern Web. When computers were invented for breaking WW2 cryptography and computing artillery tables, no one ever thought they'd have practical application for personal use. When Bell Labs invented the transistor, they weren't trying to make computers. Number theory and Abstract Algebra were once thought to have *zero* practical application until modern cryptography.
IBM T.J. Watson Research, for example, ran completely independently of IBM product divisions. They did basic research on elementary chemistry and physics. Scanning Tunnelling and Atomic Force Microscopes were not invented to make things, yet, they potentially applicable to nanotechnology.
As for car companies doing their own self driving car research, every single one I've seen from both manufacturers and universities has paled in comparison to what Google has achieved in terms of distance traveled, achievable speeds, types of environment, etc.
The reality here is if you don't spend money on basic R&D, and merely pick it up for profitable application later when it is mature, you are in essence, a parasite that is not contributing back. Apple needs to invest more in basic science and stop doing everything purely in the service of known plans and profits. They need to take chances and give grants to people with insane ideas. Apple really isn't a technology company in some regards, they are a consumer electronics company, who buys technology developed by other companies, and packages it in a nice design that is acceptable by consumer.
I almost feel the government should tax away a big chunk of their $100+b billion cash stockpile and give it to universities, rather than letting it go to waste sitting in foreign bank accounts or used in stock buy backs.
Translation: Businesses that invest money smartly deserve to be punished with seizure of the illbegotten savings.
First of all, Apple is a business. They're accountable to shareholders. Any decision on spending money has to be looked at with the yardstick of strategic importance.
And your notion that Apple just looks at "known plans and profits" is very far from the truth. How long do you think iOS was in development before it was released with the first iPhone? I don't know the exact number but I'm pretty sure it was about five years or more. Does that sound like going after "known plans and profits?" Sadly, people like you seem to married to the notion that if a company is getting successful products out of its R&D, then it's probably not being reckless enough.
Go to http://www.patentlyapple.com/ and click on a link on the right under "Categories" called "Materials, Processes" below and tell me if you still think Apple "really isn't a technology company," but rather "a consumer electronics company [that] buys technology developed by other companies and, packages it in a nice design that is acceptably by consumer."
Agreed and first thing I thought of...between Google always listening and Xbox 1 always watching...Big Bro is in the HOUSE!
Moto at least should be able to compete with Samsung with this...iPhone users, not so much.
...and a bigger screen is all the iPhone really needs at this point IMO.
Edit: Maybe some curved glass...
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Motorola+Moto+X+Teardown/16867/2