I am not really happy that Google is cloning all successful approaches from various companies with slight modifications to suit their own purposes. First Facebook, now Apple. Where is that amazing, creative, innovative company I once admired? It's like Microsoft all over again.
I am not really happy that Microsoft always is the example of a boring company while they have clearly been more innovative and bold than Apple in recent years. They built alot of cool tech in their labs and also release products that arent another iteration of older products to play it safe, eg. Surface, Windows 8, Metro, Kinect
Credit to them for these products but they still lack something. I don't know what exactly but we are talking about a company that innovated and still wasn't able to move a lot of units around! Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 have been so so, Surface RT did not sell well compared to competition.
their main problem is being late to the party imo. Windows 8, Phone 8 and the Surface Pro are pretty excellent. We are seeing the first generation of proper laptop/tablet hybrids that could really change the way we see computing. Those products might not come from MS directly, eg. Thinkpad Helix, but they enabled it and i think its awesome to be able to choose from hundreds of different devices.
Innovation is not just about being different, its about being different successfully.
I give credit to MSFT for ... finally, after 2 decades... trying to innovate. I don't think they will be successful with these products, but possibly they can iterate on them until they are successful.
This is a lot more than google has done, and you're right, people should make the comparison to 1990s Microsoft which used FUD to kill innovation in the industry.
Fortunately, Balmer seems to have killed that ability in 2007 when he said there was no chance the iPhone would be successful.
Maybe MSFT has turned a corner. And unlike google and everyone else, they actually have a license from Apple to use multi-touch, etc, so they're actually legitimate competitors.
You do realise that Google didn't invent self driving cars and that they aren't even leading the industry.
Mercedes Benz demoed the technology nearly 20 years ago and will be shipping cars along with Audi, Volvo etc en masse over the coming years. In fact every single notable car manufacturer has had their own program in place for decades.
Firstly, the car companies have been shipping for the last few years many of the key systems of an autonomous car. Even some of the cheapest cars can self park and auto brake in the event of an impending collision. Adding more sensors and better control systems builds on this.
Secondly, nobody knows who is leading the industry. But we know it's not Google since all of the car manufacturers have their own programs in fairly advanced stages. And due to the consolidated nature of the industry key technologies are shared within the groups. So if Google has no one interested in their technologies and they don't make cars then how will they ever lead anything ?
Google glass is just a bluetooth headset with a display and camera, combined with a SIRI like service.
People seem to think it's a competitor to the iPhone, but it's an ACCESSORY that needs and iPhone to connect to the network.
Worse, it has no technology (other than miniturization) that hasn't been done many times before-- I first saw a "glass" type system in the 1980s.... and that one actually had a computer on board!
I personally don't think it's a competitor to the iPhone, and I haven't seen this opinion around as well, so maybe it's an opinion shared just by Apple evangelists?
I've seen mp3 players, laptops, software stores and smartphones way before Apple did them, so should we blame Apple for being a copycat? Let's wait and see if it reveals itself as useful or not.
If someone gets it about right already, why would I want to change it up? Change for changes sake is generally bad. If someone has a good idea for a feature or interface, then hell yeah I would hope others would emulate and refine it.
