techrules

This article is just amazing.    

Google purchased over 2,000 hardware people from HTC for $1.1 billion people.  They have now been onboarded and Google has moved some roles to this new unit.    So a net of a plus 2K headcount and a big investment in hardware for Google.

What appears to have happened is a reporter at Business Insider (BI) had a Google employee share they were being reassigned as their role moved.      The reporter then created an article that incorrectly came to the conclusion Google was cutting back on hardware where it is actually the exact opposite.   Tons and tons of more hardware is coming from Google.  They will be announcing their new gramming console next week (3/19 at GDC).   Plus Google has been hiring up chip engineer expertise and working on a custom SoC optimized for Zircon.   Alsonow selling the Edge TPUs, selling their LIDAR, and continue to add additional hardware products.

What is amazing is Business Insider does the article and then a bunch of articles are written based on the BI article.   These second tier articles, like this one, then get picked up on Reddit for example.    The fact is there is now a shortage in Intel processors because of Chromebook popularity.

"Chromebook popularity could prompt another round of Intel CPU shortages"

I personally purchased a Pixel Book to replace a Mac Book Pro I used for development.  Having GNU/Linux built into your development machine is just ideal.  MacOS is Unix and close to GNU/Linux but not the same.   Was at a recent Flutter meet up and there was two others with Pixel Books.   I have never seen a single Pixel Book in the wild before this.   I had seen the headline.

"Chromebooks outsold Macs for the first time in the US"

But had not experienced beyond K12.  The schools here in the US use Chromebooks extensively.

Google will continue to create a ton of hardware and we will see them producing more of their own custom chips.  They poached John Bruno from Apple and have been poaching a lot of chip engineers from Nvidia, Intel and others.   They have also been on a chip hiring spree in India.   Zircon is the new kernel coming from Google that replaces Linux and there is obvious design decisions with a chip to optimize.

Ultimately Google will do the entire stack like how Apple does the iPhone.

But man it is amazing one reporter can create so much misinformation.  Kudos to this person.  Would love to know if it was what was expected?  Or they are surprised?

Think you have completed missed what is going on.  Plus it is happening right in front of us as Google develops in the open on GitHub.  They will move to Fuchsia.  It is not a question of if but rather when.

It is going to provide a much higher level of security then we have with anything else.  Even higher then ChromeOS.   The iOS, Android (Linux), Windows kernels are all in many millions of lines of code.   Zircon the kernel for Fuchsia is in the the 10s of thousands.   Apple tried to use a micro kernel but failed and had to back track.

But Apple did it with a different era of silicon.   So it just makes sense to move away from the "Android" brand.  

We can see on GitHub Android being ported to Fuchsia as a run time. 

BTW, I just love Google develops in the open like they do.  The only one that does this and it is so cool to watch.  You can see what they focus on from day to day.  You can see place holders to address later.  You can see what the strategy with the kernel is all about.    I have not been excited about anything this much since the development of the Linux kernel.   It is about time we got a completely new kernel.  That has not happen for over 20 years now.  iOS is really the architecture of the previous kernel and was not a fresh sheet effort.

genovelle said:

So, what commands are you using on these other devices that makes them more useful. I’m really curious here. I’ve seen lots of claims but no proof. In fact when Siri has been compared I feel it is more useful in real use situations. 

Wife clicks a photo on her iPhone X. Later walks into our family room and without touch a single button ask for fine details in photos. The TV turns itself on, input sets itself, and the photo appears in 4K on the largest screen in the house. We also have a 4k Chromecast and wife already used Google Photos on her phone. But we can do this on the Home Max but not the HomePod.

rob53 said:

"First of all, if you're going to use Google Wifi, a Google account is required. It just is. If you're a hold-out rejecting any and all Google services on principle, you probably weren't considering a product named Google Wifi anyway."

Yep, that's me perfectly. No Google services at all and I get upset when the on-line stores I frequent make use of Google Services. 

If this is a concern you would just create a dummy account and not use for anything else.   Rather simple solution if a concern.   For me I love it uses my Google account because I have multiple times lost the account for network gear I have to manage.    The Google WiFi has an app that I use with my Google account and makes it a lot easier plus I have access anywhere I need.

I also am my up and side family (parents and siblings) network admin and also now my down family with kids starting to move out.   Love that I can easily admin their network if needed remotely and using the app with multiple networks all tied to my Google account.

SpamSandwich said:

One thing... I can't understand why the router companies haven't addressed the issue of signal saturation (not sure if that's really the technical term). Routers that are heavily used, at least in my experience and I've had confirmation of this from some tech podcast folks, will become oversaturated with signal data and slow down. My router is to the point now where at nearly the same time every day it needs to be unplugged and restarted because the signal gets spotty and it slows down Internet access. If I'm diagnosing the problem correctly, and if it's a common problem, I wonder why a router shouldn't be able to be restarted on a schedule?

This issue is what Mesh products like the Google WiFI is taking care of.    You have multiple access points scattered in your home where each is being communicated with instead of everything going back to a single router/AP combination like the past.   Traffic is then managed as needed without going back to the single unit often times in the basement.   So if you are streaming video from your iPad to your TV in your master bedroom for example the Google WiFi is issoloating that traffic so the router in the basement is not at all involved and able to be servicing other traffic as needed.   But then your son in his room playing a game on his Xbox it is the same and he is not inferring with your streaming or anybody elses.    

The traffic is then segmented as needed and the effect of routing is actually done a layer below.    So this allows your network to look like it is flat and one thing which is needed with some devices and in particular iOT devices.   But underneath it is segmenting traffic and using intelligence to do it dynamically.   Versus in the past we set up static routes.   There was never an if/then/else for traffic that was possible in consumer networking to do this.   Here you do not have to do that but Google has put an algorithm to do it for you based on changing conditions.    In a way it has an experienced network admin inside the box but able to do it dynamically which was not possible in the past.   Plus selling it as a consumer product.    Eventually all home networks will be mesh.   As more and more devices come into the home.

Now ideally you use wired backhaul and not wireless if possible.   That is how we use our Google WiFi.

Not exactly sure what you are trying to achieve with a "restarted on a schedule"?