Google discontinues Google Glass for enterprise(google.com)
google.com
Google discontinues Google Glass for enterprise
https://www.google.com/glass/start/
258 comments
I think this is both obsolete and subtly wrong. Big corps want products with global impact. When a product is new, it's evaluated for its potential. When it's been around for a while, it's evaluated on how well its growth is matching the estimated impact. Eventually, growth has stopped. If the product lands at an active base of a billion users or so, it's a success and people definitely can make a career out of maintaining and improving it.
And to make working on new stuff a bit less incentivized, promotions to higher levels need to see at least some realized growth and not just getting v0 out these days as far as I know.
And to make working on new stuff a bit less incentivized, promotions to higher levels need to see at least some realized growth and not just getting v0 out these days as far as I know.
google will never get a new service to a billion users right now
They have the netflix problem (or does nexflix have the Google problem)
they have killed off soo many projects that no one want to invest their time into new ones unless they reach the multi-year stage, and they can not reach the multi-year stage unless they get millions of users...
It is a catch 22, and neither company seems to want to address or even acknowledge is a problem for them
They have the netflix problem (or does nexflix have the Google problem)
they have killed off soo many projects that no one want to invest their time into new ones unless they reach the multi-year stage, and they can not reach the multi-year stage unless they get millions of users...
It is a catch 22, and neither company seems to want to address or even acknowledge is a problem for them
I don't think Netflix has a particular problem; maintaining series for more than a couple of seasons has always been hard in broadcasting. It's easier to spot now because people have complete visibility: instead of caring about a couple of series in key time slots, they can know care about all series, so it's more noticeable that most series die a sad death. Addressing off-ramps in a nicer way would be an innovation. The problem is that production costs are so high, that keeping a losing franchise running is extremely expensive.
On the other hand, Google plays in a field where maintenance costs are a rounding error. You can basically freeze a product and keep it running forever for pennies, and these products get embedded in our daily lives, which is why killing it looks so bad - I can always pick up a new series with zero effort, whereas migrating off a productive service takes time and effort.
On the other hand, Google plays in a field where maintenance costs are a rounding error. You can basically freeze a product and keep it running forever for pennies, and these products get embedded in our daily lives, which is why killing it looks so bad - I can always pick up a new series with zero effort, whereas migrating off a productive service takes time and effort.
2 "Seasons" of a netflix show is not even 1 season of broadcast... Most Broadcast shows run 20-24 Episodes per Season. Netflix is 10 at the most, some 6 episodes. per "season"
That is part of their problem, and why the cancellations feel even more abrupt and why people do not want to invest time in them. it is hard to tell a compelling story in 6 episodes of TV. So if a netflix series get 2 seasons, 12 Episode. it is just starting... even though to netflix thinks it should have a captive audience. that would just be the midseason of a Broadcast show
Most of the popular shows on broadcast would never had made it to be popular under the netflix model of 1000 shows @ 6 episodes...
That is part of their problem, and why the cancellations feel even more abrupt and why people do not want to invest time in them. it is hard to tell a compelling story in 6 episodes of TV. So if a netflix series get 2 seasons, 12 Episode. it is just starting... even though to netflix thinks it should have a captive audience. that would just be the midseason of a Broadcast show
Most of the popular shows on broadcast would never had made it to be popular under the netflix model of 1000 shows @ 6 episodes...
I think the "hard to tell a compelling story in 6 episodes" thing just depends on the type of story. Previous replies mention several excellent shorter-run series.
Often, if I find out a show is a miniseries (or I guess they call them "limited series" nowadays) I am much more likely to watch it. Too many shows go the route of "how many seasons can we get this to run" instead of "how long will it take to tell this story with good pacing to conclusion?"
I get tired of watching shows that seem designed to run indefinitely. They all have the same sort of pacing that stretches things out unnecessarily just to pad seasons. Shows like that feel like basic cable to me when I watch them. I'll take a good 6 or 8 episode arc over indefinite seasons any day.
Often, if I find out a show is a miniseries (or I guess they call them "limited series" nowadays) I am much more likely to watch it. Too many shows go the route of "how many seasons can we get this to run" instead of "how long will it take to tell this story with good pacing to conclusion?"
I get tired of watching shows that seem designed to run indefinitely. They all have the same sort of pacing that stretches things out unnecessarily just to pad seasons. Shows like that feel like basic cable to me when I watch them. I'll take a good 6 or 8 episode arc over indefinite seasons any day.
Amen. Knowing that the show runners had the ending in mind when they started making the show gives it a much better chance of being a cohesive package than a vehicle for somebody's desire to build a franchise.
Depends on the country, it is totally ok for some british detective/crime series to have 6 episode seasons, because each episode is an hour or 1,5 long, they are not filled with pointless stuff to make them longer, etc.
I recommend Line of duty.
I recommend Line of duty.
The short series format works if you write a story that is suited to it. When done right it feels like the middle ground between movies and a full TV series, not as starved for time as a movie and moves much faster than a 12-24 episode TV series. Of course the issue with Netflix is they tend to take what would traditionally be a 24 episode TV series, break it down into small parts, then cancel it at a inconvenient point in the story.
> So if a netflix series get 2 seasons, 12 Episode. it is just starting
True Detective season one: 8 episodes and done => one of the most acclaimed TV shows in many years.
Mare of Easttown: 7 episodes and done => one of the most acclaimed TV shows in many years
If you make actual stories instead of trying to create ongoing scenarios, you can hit it out of the park in less than 10 episodes.
True Detective season one: 8 episodes and done => one of the most acclaimed TV shows in many years.
Mare of Easttown: 7 episodes and done => one of the most acclaimed TV shows in many years
If you make actual stories instead of trying to create ongoing scenarios, you can hit it out of the park in less than 10 episodes.
A friend who's written Netflix original shows says that Netflix has a lot of data regarding user watch behavior, and provide specific directions for how shows should be structured to maximize viewer retention. As a theoretical example, they know people tend to lose interest around 60% mark in episode 2, so that's where you have to insert a plot twist.
The result is shows that keep your interest just barely enough for you to keep watching …until you grow even tired of that.
Those are 1 hour episodes with no commercial breaks, so the run time is pretty comparable to a season of network TV.
But that's tangential to the point: once you've watched the 10 episodes, what is there to keep you subscribing?
But that's tangential to the point: once you've watched the 10 episodes, what is there to keep you subscribing?
That wasn't the point at all. The nominal point was a hand-wavy claim that you can barely get started with a small number of episodes, which is clearly not true.
> 2 "Seasons" of a netflix show is not even 1 season of broadcast
I'd say most of their episodes are longer, on average. But that's not entirely relevant anyway, the main cost is in setting up the production as a whole.
> it is hard to tell a compelling story in 6 episodes of TV.
It's even harder to do it in one episode - the pilot.
In the past, a lot of pilots would be produced and never seen by anyone but execs. Then something like 5% of projects would be picked to air, and typically be given two seasons to iron out any problems - because it would look bad on execs who had fought to use a scarce slot for it, so there was a level of continued support for a while. Episodes were very short in length, and being effectively just containers for ads, it was alright to schedule tried-and-tested material, even if performing in a relatively mediocre manner.
Pilots are now less necessary, Netflix will invest on screenplays; but that means that a lot of the selection previously made by execs is now made by viewers. NF execs have less skin in the game, because there isn't a real limit to the amount of picks they can have. Netflix needs subscriber numbers to grow, so it needs big hits more than tv channels did. They have no incentive to continue pushing nonperforming series.
> Most of the popular shows on broadcast would never had made it to be popular under the netflix model
I'd argue that most of the series produced under the NF model would never even have existed on broadcast.
I'd say most of their episodes are longer, on average. But that's not entirely relevant anyway, the main cost is in setting up the production as a whole.
> it is hard to tell a compelling story in 6 episodes of TV.
It's even harder to do it in one episode - the pilot.
In the past, a lot of pilots would be produced and never seen by anyone but execs. Then something like 5% of projects would be picked to air, and typically be given two seasons to iron out any problems - because it would look bad on execs who had fought to use a scarce slot for it, so there was a level of continued support for a while. Episodes were very short in length, and being effectively just containers for ads, it was alright to schedule tried-and-tested material, even if performing in a relatively mediocre manner.
Pilots are now less necessary, Netflix will invest on screenplays; but that means that a lot of the selection previously made by execs is now made by viewers. NF execs have less skin in the game, because there isn't a real limit to the amount of picks they can have. Netflix needs subscriber numbers to grow, so it needs big hits more than tv channels did. They have no incentive to continue pushing nonperforming series.
> Most of the popular shows on broadcast would never had made it to be popular under the netflix model
I'd argue that most of the series produced under the NF model would never even have existed on broadcast.
IMO the problem of Netflix is not how the split the shows or their duration, but their quality.
Yeah, I think that's the real issue. People complain about 6 episodes not being enough, but the truth is that a lot of those 6-8 episodes now feels like filler - probably because some constraints (ad cuts on scenes...) have disappeared, so writers feel emboldened. Not everything can be The Wire.
I have a friend who's written Netflix original shows, and I'll say it's the opposite - Netflix has very specific instructions for how scripts must be structured based on viewership data. Netflix knows where people tend to pause, and where viewership tends to fall off, and have formulated guidelines for scripts to counter it. They require scripts to conform to their requirements - add a plot twist in episode 2 at the 60% mark, for example. The primary character should occupy 60% of episode 1, and 40% of episode 2, and so on.
> 2 "Seasons" of a netflix show is not even 1 season of broadcast...
Yes, most streaming-first platforms use shorter seasons than is typical for US broadcast (but that was also often true of US cable, and is also true of, e.g., British broadcast.)
> That is part of their problem, and why the cancellations feel even more abrupt
Mid-season, especially first-season, cancellations on broadcast have always been a thing (as have soft-cancellations by moving—often multiple times in a season—to a less valued timeslot, especially when timeslots mattered more.)
Yes, most streaming-first platforms use shorter seasons than is typical for US broadcast (but that was also often true of US cable, and is also true of, e.g., British broadcast.)
> That is part of their problem, and why the cancellations feel even more abrupt
Mid-season, especially first-season, cancellations on broadcast have always been a thing (as have soft-cancellations by moving—often multiple times in a season—to a less valued timeslot, especially when timeslots mattered more.)
> Mid-season, especially first-season, cancellations on broadcast have always been a thing
A TV or cable network canceling a show is very different from netflix doing it though. When a network cancels a show mid-season fans get pissed but the network removes that show from broadcast and replaces it with shows that do get full seasons and proper endings.
When netflix puts out an unfinished product by starting a show and then not finishing it, the fans get pissed, and it just sits like a giant turd in their library so that month after month and year after year more and more people will start the show, get to where it cuts off and also get angry that netflix wasted their time.
Even if a netflix show seems to under-perform, it's in netflix's best interest to make sure every story has some kind of conclusion because some percentage of subscribers will still be able to find value in it. A finished product is a win for their library.
Otherwise the unfinished show will just sit on their servers being forever unwatched by anyone aware that Netflix screwed the show's fans, or it becomes a trap that will only make anyone who does start it angry at netflix.
Netflix should either just commit to concluding any show they start, or remove any shows that get left without a conclusion from their library entirely (throwing away all of the money they invested)
A TV or cable network canceling a show is very different from netflix doing it though. When a network cancels a show mid-season fans get pissed but the network removes that show from broadcast and replaces it with shows that do get full seasons and proper endings.
When netflix puts out an unfinished product by starting a show and then not finishing it, the fans get pissed, and it just sits like a giant turd in their library so that month after month and year after year more and more people will start the show, get to where it cuts off and also get angry that netflix wasted their time.
Even if a netflix show seems to under-perform, it's in netflix's best interest to make sure every story has some kind of conclusion because some percentage of subscribers will still be able to find value in it. A finished product is a win for their library.
Otherwise the unfinished show will just sit on their servers being forever unwatched by anyone aware that Netflix screwed the show's fans, or it becomes a trap that will only make anyone who does start it angry at netflix.
Netflix should either just commit to concluding any show they start, or remove any shows that get left without a conclusion from their library entirely (throwing away all of the money they invested)
> Google plays in a field where maintenance costs are a rounding error. You can basically freeze a product and keep it running forever for pennies, and these products get embedded in our daily lives, which is why killing it looks so bad
That would be nice if it was true, but that is not how it plays out at most tech companies.
I have specifically targeted this in my career, thinking about engineering productivity and even spent a number of years working at a company that provided software for manufacturing and explicitly learning about lessons learned in that field.
What usually happens is maintenance costs are not taken into account when building a product and a team is not disbanded after building something. They continue to run the larger teams/orgs until one day some VP looks at the expenses and decides to simply kill the entire product.
So in a world of having hiring freezes, having someone come in to help reduce total costs, from AWS to headcount is a way to free up people and get "new hires" without additional cost.
Some companies and individuals seem to get this instinctively, but many are happy to not make waves and try to improve the system. For some in management, adding value without headcount doesn't mean anything for them individually so they wont.
Increasing the total value over total costs of teams and orgs is my jam. I can take over products that have high maintenance burden, but are valuable, dramatically reduce the maintenance burden, then turn around with my free headcount and go and do it again and again growing the total value produced. This is the 10X-100X game.
That would be nice if it was true, but that is not how it plays out at most tech companies.
I have specifically targeted this in my career, thinking about engineering productivity and even spent a number of years working at a company that provided software for manufacturing and explicitly learning about lessons learned in that field.
What usually happens is maintenance costs are not taken into account when building a product and a team is not disbanded after building something. They continue to run the larger teams/orgs until one day some VP looks at the expenses and decides to simply kill the entire product.
So in a world of having hiring freezes, having someone come in to help reduce total costs, from AWS to headcount is a way to free up people and get "new hires" without additional cost.
Some companies and individuals seem to get this instinctively, but many are happy to not make waves and try to improve the system. For some in management, adding value without headcount doesn't mean anything for them individually so they wont.
Increasing the total value over total costs of teams and orgs is my jam. I can take over products that have high maintenance burden, but are valuable, dramatically reduce the maintenance burden, then turn around with my free headcount and go and do it again and again growing the total value produced. This is the 10X-100X game.
Netflix is different from traditional broadcasting in that they always order an entire season. That makes the cancellations more dramatic because instead of a pilot or few episodes like in the past they instead keep performing a Firefly on their viewers over and over again.
The joke I've heard is "six seasons and a movie" that goes back to broadcast TV series. Something about contracts running six years, so costs balloon after that, and a one-time movie is much easier to schedule a group of actors for. I've long wondered why Netflix doesn't do it more often. I'm sore about the cancellation of "Santa Clarita Diet" and I think it could easily be wrapped up in a movie.
Costs (salaries) can balloon on successful series. It's also the case that, if a series is getting close to the number of episodes that can make for profitable syndication deals, it made sense (in the context of network TV) to stretch things to that point. It's also the case that, as long a series is still doing pretty well, odds are that putting something new in its slot will be a net negative.
Traditional broadcast also just had different incentives than streaming.
A successful sitcom captured a lot of eyeballs that could be translated into advertising dollars. It could also be a magnet for viewers to watch perhaps somewhat less captivating content in adjacent timeslots a la "must see TV Thursdays on NBC."
Netflix, on the other hand, mostly needs to fill its catalog and have enough really must see content so that subscribers keep renewing.
There's overlap between the two models. Both reward series that people really want to watch. But the specifics are subtly different.
Traditional broadcast also just had different incentives than streaming.
A successful sitcom captured a lot of eyeballs that could be translated into advertising dollars. It could also be a magnet for viewers to watch perhaps somewhat less captivating content in adjacent timeslots a la "must see TV Thursdays on NBC."
Netflix, on the other hand, mostly needs to fill its catalog and have enough really must see content so that subscribers keep renewing.
There's overlap between the two models. Both reward series that people really want to watch. But the specifics are subtly different.
This is a joke from Community about open ended TV shows typically having enough narrative steam to get a compelling run of six seasons and a movie at best. Not a financial thing.
Community has crawled through the trenches to get its six seasons and now finally a movie and I wish them the best.
Community has crawled through the trenches to get its six seasons and now finally a movie and I wish them the best.
I wasn't thinking of it as a Community joke, but rather a Dan Harmon quote/meme that he placed in Community (he's nothing if not meta). If my memory is correct (and it does get a bit fuzzy over time), my comment above is paraphrasing him or some other explanation of the saying.
Sometimes shows naturally have a 1 or 2 season arc and sometimes (rarely) they go out strong at 6 or 7. But, yeah, for me sometime around season 5--even if a show has successfully mixed things up a bit--I find tuning in for new episodes more and more optional in most cases.
There's no 6-season cutoff.
It was just an estimate of a successful show.
The cutoff is 100 episodes, which traditionally is a magic number for US syndication deals. An ongoing series with 100 episodes under its belt will get a good deal for everyone involved.
Most traditional series will hit that number in 5 seasons, but obviously nobody wants to make a deal for a dead series; so you produce season 6 too, to make it palatable. By this point, however, your talent bill has probably grown significantly, so making new seasons is less and less profitable - as well as narratively hard. So you pull the plug and start afresh.
Most traditional series will hit that number in 5 seasons, but obviously nobody wants to make a deal for a dead series; so you produce season 6 too, to make it palatable. By this point, however, your talent bill has probably grown significantly, so making new seasons is less and less profitable - as well as narratively hard. So you pull the plug and start afresh.
I think google needs to stop launching new products under its own name.
If they dont explode as desireable but are sustainable, spin them out.
Then again, maybe we are all over estimating how sustainable these products really are.
If they dont explode as desireable but are sustainable, spin them out.
Then again, maybe we are all over estimating how sustainable these products really are.
when I was doing research on ratings, one thing I noticed: no matter how popular or unpopular a show, its an almost certainty that the number of viewers viewing something goes down over time.
The first season almost always has more viewers than season 2, season 2 almost always has more viewers than season 3. The only real difference between the extremely popular shows is that the decrease from season to season is not as pronounced, but its still there.
I was like wow, I'm surprised they even bother with season 2s.
The first season almost always has more viewers than season 2, season 2 almost always has more viewers than season 3. The only real difference between the extremely popular shows is that the decrease from season to season is not as pronounced, but its still there.
I was like wow, I'm surprised they even bother with season 2s.
> You can basically freeze a product and keep it running forever for pennies
We’re moving to a security culture where a Cloud product not only has to be constantly rewritten to keep its features (not only upgrade libraries but also swap out the old Apache libs), but logs must be constantly inspected to address security risks, and GDPR issues have to be automatically lodged with CNIL. This “let’s keep this service only” has become as dangerous as leaving a Windows XP computer connected to the Internet.
We’re moving to a security culture where a Cloud product not only has to be constantly rewritten to keep its features (not only upgrade libraries but also swap out the old Apache libs), but logs must be constantly inspected to address security risks, and GDPR issues have to be automatically lodged with CNIL. This “let’s keep this service only” has become as dangerous as leaving a Windows XP computer connected to the Internet.
Yes and no. Things do need monitoring and support. But hardening is doable, as well. With more and more use solidifying exactly what to allow.
Upgrades and new features often make hardening tougher, due to a combinitorial explosion in exposed surface area.
Upgrades and new features often make hardening tougher, due to a combinitorial explosion in exposed surface area.
It’s worth noting the competitive space for Google Glass Enterprise is still busy - products like Vuzix and Realware are succeeding at the same use cases.
So if you were in charge of procuring such a solution three years ago and opted not to go for Glass because Google has a history of killing projects, you saved your firm a lot of wasted time and money.
So if you were in charge of procuring such a solution three years ago and opted not to go for Glass because Google has a history of killing projects, you saved your firm a lot of wasted time and money.
Exactly.
Indeed. I got so disappointed with their cancellation of The OA that at this stage I'm pretty unwilling to start watching a new niche show unless it's already completed its full arc (or was defined from the start as a "limited series").
I would bet that the majority of non-techies couldn't name a single discontinued Google product.
Outside of the tech world Google still has a stellar reputation. Most people don't seem to care/know/notice any of the privacy issues, support issues or product continuation issues.
So I think your statement has some merit for certain types of products - ones that are targeted at the tech crowd - but overall I don't think it's generally true.
Outside of the tech world Google still has a stellar reputation. Most people don't seem to care/know/notice any of the privacy issues, support issues or product continuation issues.
So I think your statement has some merit for certain types of products - ones that are targeted at the tech crowd - but overall I don't think it's generally true.
I would bet that the majority of non-techies couldn't name a single discontinued Google product.
There are 283 products listed on Killed By Google. If you're right then Google must have a massive problem communicating with non-techies. What's the point in launching anything new if they're so bad at getting users?
There are 283 products listed on Killed By Google. If you're right then Google must have a massive problem communicating with non-techies. What's the point in launching anything new if they're so bad at getting users?
Sure, that list has a bunch of items. Have you looked at what they are? Here's a random sample of five items from it:
1. YouTube for PS Vita - a YT app for hardware that's been discontinued. Nobody would know of this because the PS Vita was a tiny platform that Sony quickly abandoned; normal people did not own Vitas.
2. Postini - email security software that Google bought, stopped selling standalone, and integrated into GMail. Nobody would have heard of this because it was enterprise software, not consumer.
3. Gesture Search - a toy Android app for searching for contacts / apps with handwriting recognition rather than a virtual keyboard. Nobody would have heard of this because it's a tech demo solving a tiny problem that people just didn't have. But if people had wanted this kind of search, it would have been integrated to the OS.
4. Building Maker - software for making building models on Google Earth. Nobody would have heard of this since it was incredibly niche. How many people want to model buildings into Google Earth? 10k?
5. Google Schemer - some kind of location-based activity sharing. This does appear to be a legit consumer application, though not one I'd heard of.
1. YouTube for PS Vita - a YT app for hardware that's been discontinued. Nobody would know of this because the PS Vita was a tiny platform that Sony quickly abandoned; normal people did not own Vitas.
2. Postini - email security software that Google bought, stopped selling standalone, and integrated into GMail. Nobody would have heard of this because it was enterprise software, not consumer.
3. Gesture Search - a toy Android app for searching for contacts / apps with handwriting recognition rather than a virtual keyboard. Nobody would have heard of this because it's a tech demo solving a tiny problem that people just didn't have. But if people had wanted this kind of search, it would have been integrated to the OS.
4. Building Maker - software for making building models on Google Earth. Nobody would have heard of this since it was incredibly niche. How many people want to model buildings into Google Earth? 10k?
5. Google Schemer - some kind of location-based activity sharing. This does appear to be a legit consumer application, though not one I'd heard of.
Exactly, ironically I was finally just starting to get comfortable enough with Stadia being around long enough to buy a few games on it, literally weeks before the shutdown was announced.
Specifically I re-bought the Jackbox games which were perfect for it since I could now simply cast them when visiting friends/family. I also recently purchased a budget Chromebook for travelling and probably would have bought more games for that.
Specifically I re-bought the Jackbox games which were perfect for it since I could now simply cast them when visiting friends/family. I also recently purchased a budget Chromebook for travelling and probably would have bought more games for that.
We can analyze another course of action from companies such as Microsoft. Not saying that is better or worse but showing an alternative in big corporations.
Microsoft launched similar initiatives every time for decades even failing at prior tries. In the UI front they "play" with Silverlight, WFP, Windows Forms, MFC and a lot more. Try and retry.
I also think that these issues are worse when you are dealing with hardware: do they open the codebase to continue playing with the devices? I am on the European side of not only repairing youself but opening "dead" code or somethink like that. It is just an idea.
Microsoft launched similar initiatives every time for decades even failing at prior tries. In the UI front they "play" with Silverlight, WFP, Windows Forms, MFC and a lot more. Try and retry.
I also think that these issues are worse when you are dealing with hardware: do they open the codebase to continue playing with the devices? I am on the European side of not only repairing youself but opening "dead" code or somethink like that. It is just an idea.
Microsoft is suffering form the reality that Azure is the OS that matters, WinDev seems to be getting new devs without much background on how Windows used to be, and wiht constrained resources versus anything Azure.
Also note that DevTools is no longer .NET only, rather any language that has tier 1 support on Azure.
Also note that DevTools is no longer .NET only, rather any language that has tier 1 support on Azure.
Problem with promoting on potential is that it’s rife for nepotism and poor judgement.
People want to get promoted, managers want their people promoted. Inflating impact can quickly become the name of the game.
People want to get promoted, managers want their people promoted. Inflating impact can quickly become the name of the game.
> I think this is both obsolete and subtly wrong
Maybe you are right, not sure. But this is my impression from working at Big tech. New thing is easy to measure, compare these: "launched X in region Y" vs "prevented possible incident X from happening" (your manager would ask, how do you know if that incident will happen? maybe you spent too much time for over optimizing the solution?)
Maybe you are right, not sure. But this is my impression from working at Big tech. New thing is easy to measure, compare these: "launched X in region Y" vs "prevented possible incident X from happening" (your manager would ask, how do you know if that incident will happen? maybe you spent too much time for over optimizing the solution?)
Focusing on individual product growth is just one strategy an organization may follow. And it's a strategy that if followed blindly will eventually make said organization be seen as unreliable to customers.
I wouldn't pay Google for any services right now. I prefer products and services that last more than mere single digit years (looking at you Stadia).
I wouldn't pay Google for any services right now. I prefer products and services that last more than mere single digit years (looking at you Stadia).
This sounds like a B-school idea, not one based on observed reality.
> promotions to higher levels need to see at least some realized growth and not just getting v0 out these days as far as I know
I don't think that's very far.
> promotions to higher levels need to see at least some realized growth and not just getting v0 out these days as far as I know
I don't think that's very far.
Yeah, when your cycles are 6 months long that’s about as long as you need to maintain anything, if that. Even 1 quarter might be enough. The effort to promote “Landings not launches” was not particularly successful :/
all the incentives for promotion or getting a high rating is on creating a new product that has cross team impact. Even if your new product improves your team / current product, No - that doesnt have cross team impact, no promotion / high rating for you.
There are exceptions, but those are outliers, not the norm. so as an individual, you have to do what's best for you - that means don't take your chances at improving an existing product, make something new and force other teams to use it.
There are exceptions, but those are outliers, not the norm. so as an individual, you have to do what's best for you - that means don't take your chances at improving an existing product, make something new and force other teams to use it.
This is a meme that people love and there's some truth to it, but also a number of ways in which it's inaccurate.
Sure you can get promoted for launching a new thing, but you can also get promoted for fixing a first pass implementation, for scaling something from a small user base to a large user base, and so on, as long as you can show the "impact" of the change – whether that's revenue, savings, productivity, improved UX, etc.
It's possible that up at the top there's more of a focus on shipping new things, but I don't think that's something that 99% of Googlers need to obsess over, and it doesn't reflect the bulk of the work actually being done.
Sure you can get promoted for launching a new thing, but you can also get promoted for fixing a first pass implementation, for scaling something from a small user base to a large user base, and so on, as long as you can show the "impact" of the change – whether that's revenue, savings, productivity, improved UX, etc.
It's possible that up at the top there's more of a focus on shipping new things, but I don't think that's something that 99% of Googlers need to obsess over, and it doesn't reflect the bulk of the work actually being done.
The problem is that "impact" is easy to establish for shiny new things, whereas for preventing problems – you know, maintaining things – the impact is how much better you have made the universe compared to what the universe would have been without your work. Of course, you have done your work, so we never get to observe that other, "counterfactual" universe that establishes your actual impact.
To estimate the impact, we need to run controlled experiments. And we have lots of A/B testing infrastructure to help us run those experiments when it comes to launching shiny new things. But when it comes to maintaining things, not so much.
So if there are two possible projects of equal difficulty and impact that you could take on, and one is to launch a shiny new thing and the other is to maintain an existing thing, you're always better off launching the shiny new thing because the cost of quantifying your impact will be low, whereas had you chosen the maintenance project, quantifying your impact would be prohibitively expensive.
And that's why building shiny new things dominates maintaining existing things: you get full credit for your work, not a small fraction.
To estimate the impact, we need to run controlled experiments. And we have lots of A/B testing infrastructure to help us run those experiments when it comes to launching shiny new things. But when it comes to maintaining things, not so much.
So if there are two possible projects of equal difficulty and impact that you could take on, and one is to launch a shiny new thing and the other is to maintain an existing thing, you're always better off launching the shiny new thing because the cost of quantifying your impact will be low, whereas had you chosen the maintenance project, quantifying your impact would be prohibitively expensive.
And that's why building shiny new things dominates maintaining existing things: you get full credit for your work, not a small fraction.
Exactly why google sucks at it.
You get promoted for launching hot new products, quickly scaling it or fixing obviously broken ones.
The boring grind in-between them is much harder to show value so few teams are motivated to work on it.
You get promoted for launching hot new products, quickly scaling it or fixing obviously broken ones.
The boring grind in-between them is much harder to show value so few teams are motivated to work on it.
I think you've missed my point. As you break down "the grind", it breaks down into projects like "fix this bug" or "speed up that API", and those are impactful and can lead to promotion. Sure, no director is going to be promoted to VP for fixing a bug, but it's useful stuff for a new grad to have completed and would feed into their promotion.
If there is "grind" that is truly not impactful, then why is it being done? I'm not talking about for promotion, I mean why would anyone make changes that have no impact?
If there is "grind" that is truly not impactful, then why is it being done? I'm not talking about for promotion, I mean why would anyone make changes that have no impact?
Because, especially now, we can see lack of it drastically impacting new Google products like Stadia. No one can trust Google to maintain their products at all.
Stadia failed as a business, not as a product or technical solution.
I work on Google Play, we've been going for a decade, no sign of stopping now. Much of what I and the many people around me do is maintenance – making things go faster, making things error less, etc. Some of that is done with new features, some is transparent to users (or app developers).
I don't see this culture that HN seems so convinced about. I can see elements of it at a very high level, as I said I'm not really commenting on the top leadership, but for most people at Google, new products do not appear to be necessary for progression.
I work on Google Play, we've been going for a decade, no sign of stopping now. Much of what I and the many people around me do is maintenance – making things go faster, making things error less, etc. Some of that is done with new features, some is transparent to users (or app developers).
I don't see this culture that HN seems so convinced about. I can see elements of it at a very high level, as I said I'm not really commenting on the top leadership, but for most people at Google, new products do not appear to be necessary for progression.
>> Stadia failed as a business, not as a product or technical solution.
Stadia failed as a business because it failed to get adoption by developers and gamers / users.
It failed to get adoption by developers and gamers because Google has a reputation for killing things.
Google has a reputation for killing things because it's leadership does not have a vision outside of advertising and its internal culture does not reward long-term maintenance of products.
>> I don't see this culture that HN seems so convinced about.
It started with Google Reader and has become ever more obvious since then.
When Google launches a new product, observers in tech make bets about how long the product will be around before Google kills it.
It has become a meme: https://killedbygoogle.com/
Stadia failed as a business because it failed to get adoption by developers and gamers / users.
It failed to get adoption by developers and gamers because Google has a reputation for killing things.
Google has a reputation for killing things because it's leadership does not have a vision outside of advertising and its internal culture does not reward long-term maintenance of products.
>> I don't see this culture that HN seems so convinced about.
It started with Google Reader and has become ever more obvious since then.
When Google launches a new product, observers in tech make bets about how long the product will be around before Google kills it.
It has become a meme: https://killedbygoogle.com/
> Stadia failed as a business because it failed to get adoption by developers and gamers / users.
Nonsense. It failed to attract developers because it was an unsure new platform so of course most of them wouldn't spend hours to develop for it. They were always going to need convincing (with money of course), which took Google too long, but around a year or so in there were multiple heavy hitters in the form of Red Dead Redemption 2, Hitman, Ubisoft's entire catalogue (and an Ubisoft+ integration), EA Games' most new games, Destiny 2, alongside a ton of indie games. By the time Stadia shut down, it didn't really have a catalogue problem. Problem is, Google bungled the rollout and took too long to start doing this - they banked on the initial release being highly successful, but didn't start massively investing in games until later on.
For gamers, fear of Google shutting it down played a part, of course. But so did all the extremely negative coverage, from everywhere, that Stadia is dead on arrival which only reinforced that fear. Had Google actually told everyone their shutdown plan (reimburse everyone for all games), a lot of gamers would have overcome those fears (what was there to lose, really?).
Technically, the platform was amazing. To this day the best UX by far of out cloud gaming platforms. Quality upgrades were lacking though.
To sum up, Google failed in their strategy and marketing. Had they 1) promised to reimburse everyone in case the platform was shut down before X years 2) given away Stadia Premiere packs to anyone they can (like YouTube Premium subscribers, etc.) 3) enticed big studios to port games, all things they eventually ended up doing, Stadia would have been a roaring success and would be undergoing a hardware refresh at the moment. Instead, it just reinforces that Google sucks at b2c and shouldn't be trusted.
Nonsense. It failed to attract developers because it was an unsure new platform so of course most of them wouldn't spend hours to develop for it. They were always going to need convincing (with money of course), which took Google too long, but around a year or so in there were multiple heavy hitters in the form of Red Dead Redemption 2, Hitman, Ubisoft's entire catalogue (and an Ubisoft+ integration), EA Games' most new games, Destiny 2, alongside a ton of indie games. By the time Stadia shut down, it didn't really have a catalogue problem. Problem is, Google bungled the rollout and took too long to start doing this - they banked on the initial release being highly successful, but didn't start massively investing in games until later on.
For gamers, fear of Google shutting it down played a part, of course. But so did all the extremely negative coverage, from everywhere, that Stadia is dead on arrival which only reinforced that fear. Had Google actually told everyone their shutdown plan (reimburse everyone for all games), a lot of gamers would have overcome those fears (what was there to lose, really?).
Technically, the platform was amazing. To this day the best UX by far of out cloud gaming platforms. Quality upgrades were lacking though.
To sum up, Google failed in their strategy and marketing. Had they 1) promised to reimburse everyone in case the platform was shut down before X years 2) given away Stadia Premiere packs to anyone they can (like YouTube Premium subscribers, etc.) 3) enticed big studios to port games, all things they eventually ended up doing, Stadia would have been a roaring success and would be undergoing a hardware refresh at the moment. Instead, it just reinforces that Google sucks at b2c and shouldn't be trusted.
>> For gamers, fear of Google shutting it down played a part, of course. But so did all the extremely negative coverage, from everywhere, that Stadia is dead on arrival which only reinforced that fear. Had Google actually told everyone their shutdown plan (reimburse everyone for all games), a lot of gamers would have overcome those fears.
It is a self-reinforcing vicious cycle. Stadia was yet another demonstration of how Google has developed its current reputation.
>> Technically, the platform was amazing. To this day the best UX by far of out cloud gaming platforms.
That's what is so sad. Google's tech is amazingly good, but their user support and reputation are terribly bad. Bad enough that, in many cases, it breaks the business.
It is a self-reinforcing vicious cycle. Stadia was yet another demonstration of how Google has developed its current reputation.
>> Technically, the platform was amazing. To this day the best UX by far of out cloud gaming platforms.
That's what is so sad. Google's tech is amazingly good, but their user support and reputation are terribly bad. Bad enough that, in many cases, it breaks the business.
> It has become a meme: https://killedbygoogle.com/
That is exactly what it is: a meme. Look at most products / services / hardware on there. A lot of entires are things that have newer version, were renamed or merged with other services / products, or features included in core products.
Some were discontinued, but they didn't have enough use. Only a few user loved products were discontinued: Inbox, Reader, etc.
That is exactly what it is: a meme. Look at most products / services / hardware on there. A lot of entires are things that have newer version, were renamed or merged with other services / products, or features included in core products.
Some were discontinued, but they didn't have enough use. Only a few user loved products were discontinued: Inbox, Reader, etc.
> It has become a meme: https://killedbygoogle.com/
Yes. It being a meme is exactly the problem. It just gets repeated over and over with no regard to the facts, in a kind of positive feedback loop.
If you did the same for Google's peer companies like Amazon and Microsoft (using the same criteria and same level of obsession), you'd find that the Amazon Abattoir is doing brisk business and the Murdered by Microsoft website would need pagination. But for whatever reason, when those companies launch a product, their past failures are not trotted out. When they inevitably kill their failures, the reaction is "about time, nobody used that product anyway" rather than the mass hysteria.
This is Google Glass! A product 99.99% of HN readers would have claimed was killed a decade ago. "Killed by Google" has been claiming it was dead for a long time, but I'm sure will now dishonestly find a way to double-count it.
Yes. It being a meme is exactly the problem. It just gets repeated over and over with no regard to the facts, in a kind of positive feedback loop.
If you did the same for Google's peer companies like Amazon and Microsoft (using the same criteria and same level of obsession), you'd find that the Amazon Abattoir is doing brisk business and the Murdered by Microsoft website would need pagination. But for whatever reason, when those companies launch a product, their past failures are not trotted out. When they inevitably kill their failures, the reaction is "about time, nobody used that product anyway" rather than the mass hysteria.
This is Google Glass! A product 99.99% of HN readers would have claimed was killed a decade ago. "Killed by Google" has been claiming it was dead for a long time, but I'm sure will now dishonestly find a way to double-count it.
I suppose "nobody used that product anyway" is way more true of Microsoft's dropped projects than Google's, and that's important.
Everyone here can name Google products they loved which they can't use anymore. For me, the big ones are Google Reader (RSS), Google Inbox (bundles, and the Travel and Shopping email categories), Google Now (flight information), and Google Hangouts (SMS integration).
For other companies, not so much. I can name minor things, like I miss macOS's old 2D virtual desktop grid. And an AirPort router would have been nice. And I'm sad Amazon Go is being shut down. But nothing on the level of those Google shutdowns.
Everyone here can name Google products they loved which they can't use anymore. For me, the big ones are Google Reader (RSS), Google Inbox (bundles, and the Travel and Shopping email categories), Google Now (flight information), and Google Hangouts (SMS integration).
For other companies, not so much. I can name minor things, like I miss macOS's old 2D virtual desktop grid. And an AirPort router would have been nice. And I'm sad Amazon Go is being shut down. But nothing on the level of those Google shutdowns.
> "Killed by Google" has been claiming it was dead for a long time, but I'm sure will now dishonestly find a way to double-count it.
I haven't gotten around to it yet, but my plan was to merge Google Glass entries. The holy trinity of Google Glass Explorer Edition, Glass OS, and Google Glass Enterprise Edition will become "Google Glass."
I haven't gotten around to it yet, but my plan was to merge Google Glass entries. The holy trinity of Google Glass Explorer Edition, Glass OS, and Google Glass Enterprise Edition will become "Google Glass."
Holy Cow. I don’t even know about most of those products!
I completely understand the "google kills products" meme.
I just think that "google doesn't reward maintenance" doesn't lead to "google kills products" except in very general examples. For the most part Google is maintaining products, that's most of what most people do.
The reasons for the killing of products are I think much more nuanced and numerous.
I just think that "google doesn't reward maintenance" doesn't lead to "google kills products" except in very general examples. For the most part Google is maintaining products, that's most of what most people do.
The reasons for the killing of products are I think much more nuanced and numerous.
Stadia also failed as a technical solution on various of the boring bits. Stadia did not even support the new Chromecast for at least half a year, so you were expected to get the older Chromecast Ultra until then.
I was employed at Google at the time, and within Google this was treated as a matter of fact problem that was not that important. The planning was to support this most likely in the first or second half of the next year. I found this shocking, and to me it made it clear that Stadia was unlikely to succeed if it couldn't even support its main hardware components close to launch.
I was employed at Google at the time, and within Google this was treated as a matter of fact problem that was not that important. The planning was to support this most likely in the first or second half of the next year. I found this shocking, and to me it made it clear that Stadia was unlikely to succeed if it couldn't even support its main hardware components close to launch.
In comparison, Microsoft lost billions to get into the console market. I don't see the same drive or commitment from Google. If they had the same red ring of death problem the first xbox had, Google would have cut their losses and jumped ship.
Not evaluating whether the meme is true or not (or it’s spectrum truthiness), it isn’t just HN where you will see this meme, it’s also common on memegen as well.
> I don't see this culture that HN seems so convinced about.
Isn't that perhaps because you're completely immersed in it to the point where it's invisible to you? To borrow David Foster Wallace's metaphor, fish don't see water either.
What outsiders (like us at HN) see is the external manifestation of culture. People naturally speculate about what they think is going on inside the chocolate factory, but the external part is very clear - a self-reinforcing vicious cycle where things get killed off leading to mistrust in the permanence of future things, leading to their failure, leading to them getting killed off.
Isn't that perhaps because you're completely immersed in it to the point where it's invisible to you? To borrow David Foster Wallace's metaphor, fish don't see water either.
What outsiders (like us at HN) see is the external manifestation of culture. People naturally speculate about what they think is going on inside the chocolate factory, but the external part is very clear - a self-reinforcing vicious cycle where things get killed off leading to mistrust in the permanence of future things, leading to their failure, leading to them getting killed off.
If you discontinue Google Play you discontinue Android so it won't happen. OK, you could extract the app store and discontinue all the other parts that I know exist and I never used, or split them in two, apps vs media. The app store is going to stay until Google will support Android.
This may be shocking but truth doesn't matter, it's about perception maybe users don't see it yet.
The second problem I see is in creative products, if the success bar is 100 million users, how can you take chances on anything, basically before you start your already constraint while small players can grow normally.
The second problem I see is in creative products, if the success bar is 100 million users, how can you take chances on anything, basically before you start your already constraint while small players can grow normally.
How much do you know about the rest of the business though? Even with only 10 to 20 teams, it’s easy to not know specifics about what’s happening in the rest of the business.
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That’s problem: there is impact, but it is not recognized well. For promos higher than L4 you need bigger projects. Stringing together a bunch of medium impact bug fixes won’t get it done even if the net effect is very high impact. You only get credit for something you measure and if the quantity is big enough.
> If there is "grind" that is truly not impactful, then why is it being done?
Because it's hard to measure and even harder to predict. E.g. Something that fixes Youtube's scam comment problem where scammers impersonate creators and lure viewers into telegram and whatsapp to scam them.
It won't be working immediately, so someone will have to work on it for a while and iterate against the scammers' countermeasures until it gets too costly for them and most of them give up. Should someone pick it up?
It's not immediately impactful as it won't increase engagement and ads, but it's probably going to prevent a big PR issue when some media company picks up the topic and highlights Google's inaction and their decision to tolerate the scammers and their crimes on their platform.
Fixing it has no direct impact on income, and the problem it mitigates hasn't happened yet, why would anyone work on it? And in the real world we see: they're not working on it (or it's taking them longer than a year, who knows).
Because it's hard to measure and even harder to predict. E.g. Something that fixes Youtube's scam comment problem where scammers impersonate creators and lure viewers into telegram and whatsapp to scam them.
It won't be working immediately, so someone will have to work on it for a while and iterate against the scammers' countermeasures until it gets too costly for them and most of them give up. Should someone pick it up?
It's not immediately impactful as it won't increase engagement and ads, but it's probably going to prevent a big PR issue when some media company picks up the topic and highlights Google's inaction and their decision to tolerate the scammers and their crimes on their platform.
Fixing it has no direct impact on income, and the problem it mitigates hasn't happened yet, why would anyone work on it? And in the real world we see: they're not working on it (or it's taking them longer than a year, who knows).
I think you might underestimate the number of people working on this stuff. There are rarely trade-offs between, as you suggested, working on ad engagement and YouTube scam comments. Both will have teams working on them.
At a very high level you could argue that the number of people being allocated to each may not be right, but it's not that one or the other doesn't have any resources.
From what I've seen, people at Google are very cognizant of these issues, and the only real reason that the public may see progress come and go is that these are hard problems and the work against malicious content is sadly never-ending.
At a very high level you could argue that the number of people being allocated to each may not be right, but it's not that one or the other doesn't have any resources.
From what I've seen, people at Google are very cognizant of these issues, and the only real reason that the public may see progress come and go is that these are hard problems and the work against malicious content is sadly never-ending.
Thank you for your perspective. It's frustrating from the outside with the lack of progress (or even acknowledgement, really), and it feels like nobody is working on it (or cares). I'm sure they're hard problems, but on the other hand I'm sure Google has lots of smart people, and they have sheer endless resources and own pretty much every part of the user journey and the stack, and the attacks aren't even sophisticated.
Amazon had a similar issue a while back where well-rated seller accounts got hacked (or sold?) and started offering vastly underpriced premium items with text added somewhere to get in contact with the seller, trying to get people off of the platform. But to their credit, they dealt with it pretty swiftly, and I'd consider it a solved problem, I haven't seen it since.
Amazon had a similar issue a while back where well-rated seller accounts got hacked (or sold?) and started offering vastly underpriced premium items with text added somewhere to get in contact with the seller, trying to get people off of the platform. But to their credit, they dealt with it pretty swiftly, and I'd consider it a solved problem, I haven't seen it since.
The problem exists at the managerial level. If no VP is going to be promoted for Google glass improvements then they sure as fuck don’t want to be involved. When managers are better off shifting budget to projects that can help them progress, these projects stagnate and ultimately get cancelled.
>> This is a meme that people love and there's some truth to it, but also a number of ways in which it's inaccurate.
In many cases perception is reality, regardless of what the facts actually are.
In many cases perception is reality, regardless of what the facts actually are.
> as long as you can show the "impact" of the change
Which is far easier if the thing is brand new and didn't exist yesterday, then attribution is straightforward, and we're to square one.
Which is far easier if the thing is brand new and didn't exist yesterday, then attribution is straightforward, and we're to square one.
Maybe, maybe not. Again I'm not thinking so much about the very top of the company as almost everyone is not in that position and never will be.
For me, it's not necessarily true that showing impact on a completely new feature is easier than showing impact in improving an existing one. It's a lot more work to measure new things as we don't have the tools to measure them yet, or as you have to introduce new measurements to colleagues and get buy-in that they are the right thing to be measuring. On the other hand, saying that I reduced an existing error rate by half is very easy to communicate, understand, prioritise, and even reward.
For me, it's not necessarily true that showing impact on a completely new feature is easier than showing impact in improving an existing one. It's a lot more work to measure new things as we don't have the tools to measure them yet, or as you have to introduce new measurements to colleagues and get buy-in that they are the right thing to be measuring. On the other hand, saying that I reduced an existing error rate by half is very easy to communicate, understand, prioritise, and even reward.
The problem honestly has nothing to do with SWE/PM incentives. The problem here, as noted, isn't going from 0->1. The problem is business strategy and leadership, and the ability for multiple stakeholders to rally around a xfn initiative to ensure it receives dedicated care & feeding to take it from 1->100.
When you step outside the eng bubble, the incentives problems absolutely apply when discussing issues Google has creating mature products.
When you step outside the eng bubble, the incentives problems absolutely apply when discussing issues Google has creating mature products.
Another issue is about the clients. In the AR-space, "Enterprise customers" is the secret code to say "military clients".
If Google has the policy to not work with the DoD, then it makes its options very limited (Magic Leap doesn't have such restrictions as far as I know).
The same way they likely didn't appreciate when they were associated with Boston Dynamics.
So, if you can't sell your product for its main useful usage, then it's a bit difficult :/
If Google has the policy to not work with the DoD, then it makes its options very limited (Magic Leap doesn't have such restrictions as far as I know).
The same way they likely didn't appreciate when they were associated with Boston Dynamics.
So, if you can't sell your product for its main useful usage, then it's a bit difficult :/
Google has no such policy. Google Workspaces has active DOD contracts (and DOD is featured as a case study on their site) and active pursuits in other spaces, employee concerns very much notwithstanding.
Far from being different than startups, Google’s product development ecosystem actually mirrors the VC/startup ecosystem quite well.
The idea behind both is that you pursue a lot of varied opportunities simultaneously and then cull the ones that aren’t delivering dramatically outsized success.
A startups founding team, like a Google product team, may be committed to their product and want to pivot and keep taking fresh angles on adoption, but they can’t do that without money and the money works by different. Your favorite startups evaporate for the same reason.
That said, this approach seems to chip away at Google’s reputation and doesn’t seem to be yielding a lot of standout successes, so it might not be a great idea for them.
The idea behind both is that you pursue a lot of varied opportunities simultaneously and then cull the ones that aren’t delivering dramatically outsized success.
A startups founding team, like a Google product team, may be committed to their product and want to pivot and keep taking fresh angles on adoption, but they can’t do that without money and the money works by different. Your favorite startups evaporate for the same reason.
That said, this approach seems to chip away at Google’s reputation and doesn’t seem to be yielding a lot of standout successes, so it might not be a great idea for them.
Google refuses to see through products that do not go supernova like their search did back in the day.
Search/ads give them a business with Pablo Escobar margins. They will never go "legit" with a regular product, they will never have something close to their main cash cow, so why not just stop making DOA products and stick to what they actually want to do?
That will save people a lot of time and money.
Search/ads give them a business with Pablo Escobar margins. They will never go "legit" with a regular product, they will never have something close to their main cash cow, so why not just stop making DOA products and stick to what they actually want to do?
That will save people a lot of time and money.
> Support shiny thing -> it's not difficult, everyone can do it
Sometimes people say those things, but I can't understand for whom it rings true.
What's especially hard about new things? Maintenance on the other hand, can be much more tricky. Especially when taking backwards compatibility in mind you really have to think about every step going forward.
It's much easier to build a brand new highway than repairing an existing one which is in use without disturbing traffic, if the car analogy can be forgiven.
I think the situation here has more to do with Google culture where the are too scared to stop throwing stuff at the wall and see what sticks.
Sometimes people say those things, but I can't understand for whom it rings true.
What's especially hard about new things? Maintenance on the other hand, can be much more tricky. Especially when taking backwards compatibility in mind you really have to think about every step going forward.
It's much easier to build a brand new highway than repairing an existing one which is in use without disturbing traffic, if the car analogy can be forgiven.
I think the situation here has more to do with Google culture where the are too scared to stop throwing stuff at the wall and see what sticks.
You're right, support is difficult. But there's no "glory" in support. there's glory in making something new, everyone being amazed, world-is-changed-forever.
Of course that is pretty much 1% of the journey. Turning that light-bulb moment into an actual product, getting mass market adoption, finding the killer app, that's hard. And anonymous. Keeping customers happy is hard. But again, anonymous.
Are you more impressed with a CV that says "invented iphone" or one that says "worked on iphone 2 to make it better than iphone 1"? Or worse yet "accumulated customer feedback to improve iphone 1, worked with team developing iphone 2"?
So it's not just google (although magnified there.) It's everywhere. You remember who _invented_ the light-bulb, but you've no idea of the people who developed that into a product, with manufacturing, distribution, sales and developed bulb-connector-standards and so on.
In our business it's the same. Here's a new wizz-bang feature. 100% glory. Maintaining feature for the next 20 years, adapting to ever-changing world requirements, keeping customers happy, and using it - anyone can do that. (and nobody wants to - it's too much like hard work.)
Of course that is pretty much 1% of the journey. Turning that light-bulb moment into an actual product, getting mass market adoption, finding the killer app, that's hard. And anonymous. Keeping customers happy is hard. But again, anonymous.
Are you more impressed with a CV that says "invented iphone" or one that says "worked on iphone 2 to make it better than iphone 1"? Or worse yet "accumulated customer feedback to improve iphone 1, worked with team developing iphone 2"?
So it's not just google (although magnified there.) It's everywhere. You remember who _invented_ the light-bulb, but you've no idea of the people who developed that into a product, with manufacturing, distribution, sales and developed bulb-connector-standards and so on.
In our business it's the same. Here's a new wizz-bang feature. 100% glory. Maintaining feature for the next 20 years, adapting to ever-changing world requirements, keeping customers happy, and using it - anyone can do that. (and nobody wants to - it's too much like hard work.)
> But there's no "glory" in support. there's glory in making something new, everyone being amazed, world-is-changed-forever.
Glory is where you place it. And Google, like most of those Companies nowadays, are putting glory on the simple path of new creations, not the hard path of everything else.
> Are you more impressed with a CV that says "invented iphone" or one that says "worked on iphone 2 to make it better than iphone 1"?
Neither. If you have a speck of competence, you will evaluate actual skill, not the outcome of a whole team's work, of which you were just one screw.
But if you know history, or care for your companies future, I would be more interested in the second, because the first iPhone wasn't really that impressive or groundbreaking. The later iterations had more substance for the company.
Glory is where you place it. And Google, like most of those Companies nowadays, are putting glory on the simple path of new creations, not the hard path of everything else.
> Are you more impressed with a CV that says "invented iphone" or one that says "worked on iphone 2 to make it better than iphone 1"?
Neither. If you have a speck of competence, you will evaluate actual skill, not the outcome of a whole team's work, of which you were just one screw.
But if you know history, or care for your companies future, I would be more interested in the second, because the first iPhone wasn't really that impressive or groundbreaking. The later iterations had more substance for the company.
Taking this opporuntity to link to Charles Proteus Steinmetz[1]. Among the many, many things Steinmetz did, he invented the Metal Halide Lamp which was later refined for mass production decades later. This took the innovation of others less well-known to history[2]. So great example, bringing up the light bulb!
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Proteus_Steinmetz
[2] https://americanhistory.si.edu/lighting/20thcent/invent20.ht...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Proteus_Steinmetz
[2] https://americanhistory.si.edu/lighting/20thcent/invent20.ht...
> Are you more impressed with a CV that says "invented iphone" or one that says "worked on iphone 2 to make it better than iphone 1"? Or worse yet "accumulated customer feedback to improve iphone 1, worked with team developing iphone 2"?
None of those are impressive in isolation, honestly. What's impressive isn't what product you worked on, but how well you worked on the team, how well you technically performed, and whether the skills you were using are relevant to the position you're applying for.
None of those are impressive in isolation, honestly. What's impressive isn't what product you worked on, but how well you worked on the team, how well you technically performed, and whether the skills you were using are relevant to the position you're applying for.
Mass adaptation is not even that hard, profitable mass adaptation is.
> What's especially hard about new things?
Because it doesn't exist yet, you need to investigate previous approaches/research, come up with architecture/design, evaluate pros/cons, hardware requirements, staffing and so on.
When things become clear, it is easy to build it.
Support is harder in the sense that it takes a lot of time and digging into the platform to understand how can you solve it, but for a small gain (0.5% users will not see this issue again, unless you introduced new bug). Imagine solving 100 different support tickets, you need to solve at least 10 of them to start seeing the pattern, if there is any, to come up with generic solution. But at the time you solve 100 tickets, someone with experience can build solution which can make your product obsolete.
Support vs new has different trade-offs.
- Support -> takes more time and persistence, very small incremental improvements (88% -> 88.4%,..). But happy customers
- New thing -> takes more time on how to approach the problem, after problem/solution is clear, much faster to build for 85% cases
Because it doesn't exist yet, you need to investigate previous approaches/research, come up with architecture/design, evaluate pros/cons, hardware requirements, staffing and so on.
When things become clear, it is easy to build it.
Support is harder in the sense that it takes a lot of time and digging into the platform to understand how can you solve it, but for a small gain (0.5% users will not see this issue again, unless you introduced new bug). Imagine solving 100 different support tickets, you need to solve at least 10 of them to start seeing the pattern, if there is any, to come up with generic solution. But at the time you solve 100 tickets, someone with experience can build solution which can make your product obsolete.
Support vs new has different trade-offs.
- Support -> takes more time and persistence, very small incremental improvements (88% -> 88.4%,..). But happy customers
- New thing -> takes more time on how to approach the problem, after problem/solution is clear, much faster to build for 85% cases
Maybe support isn't a great word here. Maintaining software goes way beyond just supporting someone.
Staffing and hardware requirements aren't terribly important for greenfield development without any users yet. New products can be brittle and constantly in flux and that's probably ok.
Actually scaling the product once it exists and have users, building out new features without disturbing existing workflows, that's the hard work.
Which do you think is harder, inventing twitter as the fail whale product, or going from that to a hundred million users without disturbing the customers you got? I can't imagine the difficulties can even compare.
Staffing and hardware requirements aren't terribly important for greenfield development without any users yet. New products can be brittle and constantly in flux and that's probably ok.
Actually scaling the product once it exists and have users, building out new features without disturbing existing workflows, that's the hard work.
Which do you think is harder, inventing twitter as the fail whale product, or going from that to a hundred million users without disturbing the customers you got? I can't imagine the difficulties can even compare.
I think there's a personality aspect to it as well.
I've noticed that some programmers live for the front-end of a project. When you have a clean slate, are doing design, developing the data structures, approaches, all of that creative stuff. By the time the project is mature and the big problems have been resolved, they tire of it and want to move on to another new thing.
But there are others who hate that front-end stuff. They love taking a mature product and maintaining it. Debugging, adding new features, etc.
A successful product absolutely requires both kinds of people. A company who devalues one or the other is a company that is shooting itself in the foot.
I've noticed that some programmers live for the front-end of a project. When you have a clean slate, are doing design, developing the data structures, approaches, all of that creative stuff. By the time the project is mature and the big problems have been resolved, they tire of it and want to move on to another new thing.
But there are others who hate that front-end stuff. They love taking a mature product and maintaining it. Debugging, adding new features, etc.
A successful product absolutely requires both kinds of people. A company who devalues one or the other is a company that is shooting itself in the foot.
> It's much easier to build a brand new highway
In software world, new highway is not a new thing, it is just a copy/paste. In software new thing is mostly relates to inventing a solution for specific use case, solution itself could be invented long ago, but using in your area could be novel.
Even in construction industry, building new highway is not 100% new thing, processes, structures, materials, rules are already defined. You spend time for different type of thinking (where to build, which road to buy,...)
In software world, new highway is not a new thing, it is just a copy/paste. In software new thing is mostly relates to inventing a solution for specific use case, solution itself could be invented long ago, but using in your area could be novel.
Even in construction industry, building new highway is not 100% new thing, processes, structures, materials, rules are already defined. You spend time for different type of thinking (where to build, which road to buy,...)
> - Support shiny thing -> it's not difficult, everyone can do it
This is not a truism, even though many managers see it like that. Dealing with someone else's mess is way harder than to deal with your own.
This is not a truism, even though many managers see it like that. Dealing with someone else's mess is way harder than to deal with your own.
> This is not a truism, even though many managers see it like that.
Which is, I think, exactly the point that OP is trying to make. Incentives are defined by managers, after all.
Which is, I think, exactly the point that OP is trying to make. Incentives are defined by managers, after all.
Yes, exactly.
Managers are too much focused on new thing, because it is much easier to see impact on new thing.
Quantifying impact on support is much difficult and it seems big tech mostly gave up on trying to quantify it, hence people get praise when they are incident commanders, but when you go above and beyond to avoid it from happening at all, you are just doing labor work
Managers are too much focused on new thing, because it is much easier to see impact on new thing.
Quantifying impact on support is much difficult and it seems big tech mostly gave up on trying to quantify it, hence people get praise when they are incident commanders, but when you go above and beyond to avoid it from happening at all, you are just doing labor work
Ye maybe he was paraphrasing.
The same mindset can be seen everywhere, even in opensource:
-Build shiny new replacement -> HN front page, exposure, kudos -Fix bugs in existing thing -> No recognition
Rewriting is so much more fun than hunting after obscure issues
-Build shiny new replacement -> HN front page, exposure, kudos -Fix bugs in existing thing -> No recognition
Rewriting is so much more fun than hunting after obscure issues
That’s true, but in theory a professionally-managed company like Google should not be motivated by HN front pages and kudos; it should be about maximizing long term profits.
That’s exactly the meme/complaint: Google seems to value innovation more than success.
That’s exactly the meme/complaint: Google seems to value innovation more than success.
In open source, it's more that you get to make all the decisions in your own project, and don't have to spend time trying to convince someone who may ultimately disagree with a proposed change.
Also, just making a profit isn't enough, the profit margin per person supporting it must be huge or they can it.
What could be just fine small company doing their product is canned and engineers are moved to look for another big thing or to support other big thing
What could be just fine small company doing their product is canned and engineers are moved to look for another big thing or to support other big thing
I don't have a good solution for this. The reality is a lot of people can't be the quarterback to build new shiny things so promoting those who can is reasonable. But at the same time, it does incentivize this path more than needed and there are more people who CAN build shiny new things than the number of shiny new things that NEED to be built. It's easy to separate those who can do this from those who don't in promo review committees. In promotion reviews it's harder to separate those who are excellent at maintenance vs OK.
I think you’re spot on, except it’s simpler:
- Support shiny thing -> it’s not incentivised, valued, or promotion-worthy
I don’t think it’s a necessarily a value judgement on support or maintenance being easy (it’s not, necessarily) - it’s just not Google’s current culture/process to value this work.
If Google switched to incentivising (something like) cumulative user engagement or happiness, it would both incentivise longer-term thinking (as growth in users and also growth in engagement over time would be valued) and also probably help solve their reputation for poor customer service.
- Support shiny thing -> it’s not incentivised, valued, or promotion-worthy
I don’t think it’s a necessarily a value judgement on support or maintenance being easy (it’s not, necessarily) - it’s just not Google’s current culture/process to value this work.
If Google switched to incentivising (something like) cumulative user engagement or happiness, it would both incentivise longer-term thinking (as growth in users and also growth in engagement over time would be valued) and also probably help solve their reputation for poor customer service.
Indeed, and calling it “moving the needle” doesn’t make a difference. You can see these perverse incentives in the sheer number of times Google has launched a different version of the same product.
Just don't put the founder's mistress in charge of marketing, so nobody can criticize or question their outrageous ridiculous decisions or silly "Ok, Glass" slogan without being sacked.
https://valleywag.gawker.com/meet-the-google-founders-mistre...
https://valleywag.gawker.com/meet-the-google-founders-mistre...
Are we being too hard on Google, or did the company change?
When it comes to launching new products, whether innovative or not, they seem to have launched some of the most used products out there: Gmail, Google Calender, Analytics Google Play, Chrome etc.
They also did their fair share of copying: Galaxy, Cloud etc.
Software wise they've launched Go, Angular, Kubernetes, probably some more.
They've succesfully launched more products than any other corp out there. Even though nothing rivals their search revenue.
Although of lately they've been getting a bad rep with killing projects. Startups we often push to move fast and break things, but from Google we seem to expect more.
Regarding Stadia they handled it nicely, got a full refund after using it for almost a year (except for the subscription which is fair)
When it comes to launching new products, whether innovative or not, they seem to have launched some of the most used products out there: Gmail, Google Calender, Analytics Google Play, Chrome etc.
They also did their fair share of copying: Galaxy, Cloud etc.
Software wise they've launched Go, Angular, Kubernetes, probably some more.
They've succesfully launched more products than any other corp out there. Even though nothing rivals their search revenue.
Although of lately they've been getting a bad rep with killing projects. Startups we often push to move fast and break things, but from Google we seem to expect more.
Regarding Stadia they handled it nicely, got a full refund after using it for almost a year (except for the subscription which is fair)
Let's say 3B unique people use 100 Google products. Their biggest apps get largest amount of users, but there are disjoint number of users using other products, e.g. 100M using Google Reader, 10M using Stadia and so on.
For Google, independently it might feel like "only 10M users" will be impacted by deprecation, but in total 500M people might get impacted by deprecating 50 smaller products. Google might think, it is less than 1% of our user base, but in reality they impacted 16% of their user base.
1 out 6 people will know that new google product will be killed in 3-4 years. They tell about it to others, eventually it becomes a meme.
For Google, independently it might feel like "only 10M users" will be impacted by deprecation, but in total 500M people might get impacted by deprecating 50 smaller products. Google might think, it is less than 1% of our user base, but in reality they impacted 16% of their user base.
1 out 6 people will know that new google product will be killed in 3-4 years. They tell about it to others, eventually it becomes a meme.
We want company's and individuals to be innovative?
But then give them shit for their failures, even if fairly handled. After failure startups leave customers & employees empty handed, Google refunds and pays all.
Even though they've killed many, their successes are really impressive.
This is their graveyard: https://killedbygoogle.com/
Most are small project, or large project that found continuation some other way. (angular, fitbit etc, who cares about hangout?).
Innovation wise Google is still the most diverse out there. FB, Apple etc. are not creating a very diverse list of products.
And yeah and a lot of products fail, but for most large projects they've handled it nicely.
FB also discontinued a lot of products and became a meme. In the end I would rather they keep trying to create something useful instead of just milking their search revenue till the end of time.
But then give them shit for their failures, even if fairly handled. After failure startups leave customers & employees empty handed, Google refunds and pays all.
Even though they've killed many, their successes are really impressive.
This is their graveyard: https://killedbygoogle.com/
Most are small project, or large project that found continuation some other way. (angular, fitbit etc, who cares about hangout?).
Innovation wise Google is still the most diverse out there. FB, Apple etc. are not creating a very diverse list of products.
And yeah and a lot of products fail, but for most large projects they've handled it nicely.
FB also discontinued a lot of products and became a meme. In the end I would rather they keep trying to create something useful instead of just milking their search revenue till the end of time.
I am not arguing about Google's innovation. They innovate, but their definition of "failure" internally is hurting real users and people are losing trust.
People can't give Google a chance all the time, especially when it comes to their livelihood and businesses. I know people who built product on top of Google product, which got deprecated later and hurt their product. Do you think next time they will choose Google immediately again?
> who cares about hangout?
Remember Google Talk? it was awesome, far ahead of its time. If they kept investing to Google Talk, probably WhatsApp, Telegram and other alternatives will be struggling to get users and momentum. Now Google has how many chat apps? 8-9 or 18?
People can't give Google a chance all the time, especially when it comes to their livelihood and businesses. I know people who built product on top of Google product, which got deprecated later and hurt their product. Do you think next time they will choose Google immediately again?
> who cares about hangout?
Remember Google Talk? it was awesome, far ahead of its time. If they kept investing to Google Talk, probably WhatsApp, Telegram and other alternatives will be struggling to get users and momentum. Now Google has how many chat apps? 8-9 or 18?
Google Analytics was an acquisition (Urchin)
I mean with Nest you might argue the success was already there but with tools as anlytics, maps etc. it was really Google's quality and push that made it.
Maps was indistinguishable from magic at launch.
Analytics was indistinguishable from Urchin On-Demand at launch. They took a successful $500/m service and made it free w/ an AdSense/AdWords account.
Analytics was indistinguishable from Urchin On-Demand at launch. They took a successful $500/m service and made it free w/ an AdSense/AdWords account.
I was an ardent Google fan boy, but I'm not longer going to buy their stuff. Your comment articulates why, before I only had a vague feeling.
I think Google should create Google Spinner. A division whose only purpose is to spin off projects
It sort of exists: Area 120.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_120
https://area120.google.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_120
https://area120.google.com
Area 120 is almost completely dead as of the layoff.
I am a millennial, but I feel old when I remember Google Labs. They started GMail and Google Calendar there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Labs
Area 120 may try to revitalize that, but it seems to feature more Press Releases than actual demos.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Labs
Area 120 may try to revitalize that, but it seems to feature more Press Releases than actual demos.
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I think this is true not just for google but for everyone as well.
How many times have people just given up on doing the extra mile? I know I did.
How many times have people just given up on doing the extra mile? I know I did.
Unfortunately it's not just a Google problem.
I wish they had spun it off so it wouldn't just have died within Google. It seems that any project that isn't wildly popular is just starved of talent inside Google. Outside Google with a little bit of money and a dedicated team, I don't see why this couldn't have been a success.
What I would really like was a product that was developed to be affordable, fairly open so you can easily integrate it into your own system, write applications that can run on the device without need to call home to the mothership etc.
There are lots of situations where it would have been very convenient to have access to an affordable, ruggedized, light-weight product that provides both a head mounted display, a decent quality camera and a user interface that can be operated while wearing gloves.
For instance, right now I'm involved in a project where we help build a huge piece of machinery (the size of several intercity trains in terms of size and mass). The team is spread all over the world while the building of the actual machine takes place in a backwater that takes about a 24 hours to travel to. It would be really useful if the onsite engineers could stream video of what they see while working on the machine rather than having to use handheld mobile phones. It would also be useful if they could see telemetry and parameters in the display as they work on the machine without having to move to look at the various displays. Perhaps also see the video stream of other engineers working at the same site.
What I would really like was a product that was developed to be affordable, fairly open so you can easily integrate it into your own system, write applications that can run on the device without need to call home to the mothership etc.
There are lots of situations where it would have been very convenient to have access to an affordable, ruggedized, light-weight product that provides both a head mounted display, a decent quality camera and a user interface that can be operated while wearing gloves.
For instance, right now I'm involved in a project where we help build a huge piece of machinery (the size of several intercity trains in terms of size and mass). The team is spread all over the world while the building of the actual machine takes place in a backwater that takes about a 24 hours to travel to. It would be really useful if the onsite engineers could stream video of what they see while working on the machine rather than having to use handheld mobile phones. It would also be useful if they could see telemetry and parameters in the display as they work on the machine without having to move to look at the various displays. Perhaps also see the video stream of other engineers working at the same site.
Check out apprentice.io
The founder initially fell in love with Google Glass and went on to build an AR/VR startup around it.
They are life sciences focused, but I see no reason it couldn't fit your use case.
The founder initially fell in love with Google Glass and went on to build an AR/VR startup around it.
They are life sciences focused, but I see no reason it couldn't fit your use case.
I just put in a request to talk to them. Got a call back from a sales rep.
I explained the my application was remote support of engineers /customers working in on our hardware microscopes (similar to an electron microscope).
The sales rep says they are only interested in selling life sciences /drug companies. So I would recommend against anyone contacting them who want to use this for general purpose AR.
I explained the my application was remote support of engineers /customers working in on our hardware microscopes (similar to an electron microscope).
The sales rep says they are only interested in selling life sciences /drug companies. So I would recommend against anyone contacting them who want to use this for general purpose AR.
Unfortunate! I think you can try their social channels (LinkedIn) and see if there's any interest higher up. Sales folks are probably too narrowly market focused.
Interesting, but I think the device is a bit too bulky and sticks too far out to work in my use case. The environment where we'd use this is essentially a giant machine shop where you have to wear a hard-hat, it is noisy and dirty and you often have to get into tight spaces with cabling and piping everywhere.
Besides it doesn't look like they are primarily focused on selling the device itself.
For a device to work for us it would either have to be so small it can be worn with a hard hat, and not stick out beyond the helmet and incorporate safety glasses, or it would have to be a lightweight helmet mounted system that can be folded out of the way when not in use so people don't have to change helmets.
With a helmet mounted device you could incorporate the camera(s) in the helmet and perhaps even include an IR camera as well. For the stuff we work on on that project, having an IR camera, would actually be of immense help. Both for on-site work (being able to see what temperature different parts of the machine are with some accuracy), for remote observation and for documenting.
Besides it doesn't look like they are primarily focused on selling the device itself.
For a device to work for us it would either have to be so small it can be worn with a hard hat, and not stick out beyond the helmet and incorporate safety glasses, or it would have to be a lightweight helmet mounted system that can be folded out of the way when not in use so people don't have to change helmets.
With a helmet mounted device you could incorporate the camera(s) in the helmet and perhaps even include an IR camera as well. For the stuff we work on on that project, having an IR camera, would actually be of immense help. Both for on-site work (being able to see what temperature different parts of the machine are with some accuracy), for remote observation and for documenting.
Reach out to the team. They are not a device company but a software company that focuses on integrating with AR devices.
Angelo, the founder, has a deep passion for VR/AR so I'm sure he'd love to hear your use case.
As a bonus: their focus has been on adding evidence capture (documentation, really) in the flow of the process. The primary use case is pharma manufacturing execution systems (e.g. installation, configuration, and validation of a new production line).
Angelo, the founder, has a deep passion for VR/AR so I'm sure he'd love to hear your use case.
As a bonus: their focus has been on adding evidence capture (documentation, really) in the flow of the process. The primary use case is pharma manufacturing execution systems (e.g. installation, configuration, and validation of a new production line).
Seems like both the Microsoft Hololens 2 and Magic Leap 2 fit your requirements.
> Outside Google with a little bit of money and a dedicated team, I don't see why this couldn't have been a success.
Fortunately, dedicated teams outside of google have built similar products and been much more successful in the market.
I think that Vuzix[0] or Realware[1] might have exactly what you need: a rugged head-worn camera and lightweight 2D display/hud that can stream video/audio/files over the internet. They're in use today for use cases just like what you describe and are definitely glove-friendly.
If you need 3D interactivity/perception, it's a more complex case, but there's products for that too using hardware like the HoloLens or iOS pro devices.
[0]https://www.vuzix.com/ [1]https://www.realwear.com/
Fortunately, dedicated teams outside of google have built similar products and been much more successful in the market.
I think that Vuzix[0] or Realware[1] might have exactly what you need: a rugged head-worn camera and lightweight 2D display/hud that can stream video/audio/files over the internet. They're in use today for use cases just like what you describe and are definitely glove-friendly.
If you need 3D interactivity/perception, it's a more complex case, but there's products for that too using hardware like the HoloLens or iOS pro devices.
[0]https://www.vuzix.com/ [1]https://www.realwear.com/
> I wish they had spun it off so it wouldn't just have died within Google.
Exactly. Why isn't this their norm? So dumb.
Expand scope of Google Ventures. Or create "Google Spinoffs" with a tighter focus.
I'm certain they'd have plenty of Googlers/Xooglers who'd jump at the chance.
Exactly. Why isn't this their norm? So dumb.
Expand scope of Google Ventures. Or create "Google Spinoffs" with a tighter focus.
I'm certain they'd have plenty of Googlers/Xooglers who'd jump at the chance.
I guess one way they could have done it is to spin out companies with enough money for 3 years of runway (with non-obscene compensation packages) for a minority stake in the company and a 2 year option to buy a majority stake for N times the valuation at the time of spin-out.
That way they can give the product a chance, motivate the people who jump aboard and have the option to buy back the company within a reasonable time frame if it proves to be a success. It would also give Google an incentive to promote the company to some degree and perhaps channel business opportunities their way.
(Or some variation of the above).
Back when I left Google I would have been happy to take a deal along those lines.
That way they can give the product a chance, motivate the people who jump aboard and have the option to buy back the company within a reasonable time frame if it proves to be a success. It would also give Google an incentive to promote the company to some degree and perhaps channel business opportunities their way.
(Or some variation of the above).
Back when I left Google I would have been happy to take a deal along those lines.
Glass just wasn't very good. Tiny low resolution display, poor quality camera, uncomfortable to wear, terrible battery life. Pivoting to "for Enterprise" was just a half-assed attempt to make back some of the $$$ wasted on development without putting much more effort into R&D. Not a surprise that adoption was limited.
(I worked at X 2013-2015.)
(I worked at X 2013-2015.)
There was a lot of really impressive tech in glass. Especially for 10 years ago. I have no doubt that with continued focus and funding, they could have build something truly impressive.
Unfortunately, glass was a pet project of Sergey's and he decided to exit stage left fairly quickly once some of his unsavory behaviors started becoming known publicly. This was just a few months after the launch. Once he was no longer hands on, the entire endeavor was left the languish without clear direction.
Unfortunately, glass was a pet project of Sergey's and he decided to exit stage left fairly quickly once some of his unsavory behaviors started becoming known publicly. This was just a few months after the launch. Once he was no longer hands on, the entire endeavor was left the languish without clear direction.
Unsavory behaviors with Google Glasses ?
No. He got caught up in some me too type stuff and quietly disappeared from the limelight as rumors started surfacing.
I don't understand: it is not a fashion thing but a work equipment. Battery life: why isn't there an option for a battery pack on your belt and a wire under the cloth? If it is uncomfortable, than with a (different hardware design) that battery pack could carry most of the hardware too.
This let me think that google never intended this as a real product, just for the media attention.
This let me think that google never intended this as a real product, just for the media attention.
More reasons to iterate on it.
I did some work on a project using these last year.
My findings were:
- couldn't get them onboarded into intune/active directory
- camera wasn't good for task past 1.5m or so
- screen was too low res for required use (see features on a chart)
They were cheaper than the latest iPhone... I think this is the error that they made - if they had gone for a top of the line device then they would have been closer to the expectations that our customers had.
My findings were:
- couldn't get them onboarded into intune/active directory
- camera wasn't good for task past 1.5m or so
- screen was too low res for required use (see features on a chart)
They were cheaper than the latest iPhone... I think this is the error that they made - if they had gone for a top of the line device then they would have been closer to the expectations that our customers had.
Innovators dilemma. You were early to market, you did all the work, and no one wanted the product. What do you do? Keep going? Or give up from exhaustion? This is the unfortunate situation with many who tackle new spaces like Mobile, VR and AR. Google will no doubt re-enter the space, but only after it's been validated. And that's totally fine. Expect Google to produce quality hardware and software at a time when the market is ready, I don't expect them to innovate. Apple as a market leader has shown that they know how to pull off new hardware trends and drive that to mass market. Others struggle with this significantly. It was a valiant effort by Google, one that I applaud, but now it's time to move on.
Things like Starline are where Google will shine for now. They can come back to AR.
Things like Starline are where Google will shine for now. They can come back to AR.
>Things like Starline are where Google will shine for now.
I had to Google-fu because I never heard of this before.
Turns out it's buried beneath at least five other companies/brands named Starline, and the thing I did eventually find was a single non-descript Google blog post from 2021.
Suffice it to say I expect whatever the hell Starline is to be another of many on the Killed By Google(tm) pile.
I had to Google-fu because I never heard of this before.
Turns out it's buried beneath at least five other companies/brands named Starline, and the thing I did eventually find was a single non-descript Google blog post from 2021.
Suffice it to say I expect whatever the hell Starline is to be another of many on the Killed By Google(tm) pile.
Starline, really? While this sounds like neat technology, I'm not sure if it has mass-market potential in the same way that VR/AR does. Is every company going to be clamouring to outfit their meeting rooms with Starline units? Is every kid going to want a bulky Starline set in their home/bedroom? How much is it going to cost relative to the sort of cheap mass-market headsets that are likely to be available in 5 years time?
Remember, Google is a company that shuts down even some of its relatively successful products, so it's hard to imagine Starline ever succeeding as an actual Google hardware product.
Remember, Google is a company that shuts down even some of its relatively successful products, so it's hard to imagine Starline ever succeeding as an actual Google hardware product.
[deleted]
Yeah, Edison's gramophone sucked because there were no records at the time.
[deleted]
I would pur a starline in my home today if it were available.
Exactly! Absolutely phenomenal and I think we'll see this in many places. Knowing Google, it will start in the office and then end up dispersed elsewhere, potentially purchasable in the home, but just imagine finding these booths anywhere you could use. We used to have telephone booths! Imagine Starline booths.
Wouldn’t that take several years of investment with little to no return?
I've tried consumer Google Glasses once they were released. I was truly impressed. If I were to guess — camera & privacy concerns killed them.
I see others say that its just another product Google killed. I have to disagree, >10 years is quite a long time to see if product works or not. This time its a bit different.
Google is a cool company. Maybe not as cool as before, but certainly an order of magnitude better than Microsoft. I wish them all the best and hope they can come up with new exciting stuff
I see others say that its just another product Google killed. I have to disagree, >10 years is quite a long time to see if product works or not. This time its a bit different.
Google is a cool company. Maybe not as cool as before, but certainly an order of magnitude better than Microsoft. I wish them all the best and hope they can come up with new exciting stuff
More than 10 years later, it's still not good enough for business adoption? Wow. When it was first released, it was really neat. I'd imagine that we'd all be wearing AR glasses by now.
Google Glass wasn't really AR, more like a smart watch taped to your face, so I can imagine there being little business adoption. HoloLens seems much more promising, but development still seems to be slow.
I'd love to see AR succeed but with the current price I doubt it'll gain popularity in the near future.
I'd love to see AR succeed but with the current price I doubt it'll gain popularity in the near future.
Microsoft has laid off entire HoloLens team. It's dead.
Bummer, I visited a museum* using HoloLens to bring a command bunker to life, and even though it felt a bit gimmicky, it was really interesting and I could immediately see it being super useful in tons of other museums (e.g. seeing dinosaurs, explain physics/astrology concepts, show vehicles that no longer exist, etc. etc.)
* Musée de la Libération de Paris - musée du Général Leclerc - musée Jean Moulin - yes, that's actual full name
* Musée de la Libération de Paris - musée du Général Leclerc - musée Jean Moulin - yes, that's actual full name
Sad to hear it, but not too surprising with how little advancements Microsoft seems to have made in the space since the first release of HoloLens.
I'm sure AR will be back eventually, maybe all the factors align next time.
I'm sure AR will be back eventually, maybe all the factors align next time.
Announcement?
>I'd imagine that we'd all be wearing AR glasses by now.
Am I the asshole here for being happy that future never came to pass?
People are already zombies addicted to their phones, tracked and monetized to hell by advertisers, so I feel like gluing it to their eyes with cameras constantly scanning everything they look at, is some dystopian nightmare I never want to see.
Am I the asshole here for being happy that future never came to pass?
People are already zombies addicted to their phones, tracked and monetized to hell by advertisers, so I feel like gluing it to their eyes with cameras constantly scanning everything they look at, is some dystopian nightmare I never want to see.
I think that content producers are very interested in technology that closes the analog hole more and more. The first step were streaming services so that you would not be able to own content anymore. The second step is wide adoption of technology that gets closer and closer to your brain. First there were cinemas then TVs then smartphones then AR glasses and in the future there will be DRM enabled brain implants so that you are personally locked out if you don't pay these companies. And over time, people will get used to it more and more. Just like today you have to pay 6 different subscriptions to watch the movies you like. Or install spyware if you want to play a game you paid for.
It sure might be a dystopian hellhole. But at least some shareholders got rich.
It sure might be a dystopian hellhole. But at least some shareholders got rich.
What's worse, same as with most emails going through google and people tagging each other on photos, you can be as savvy as you want and your image will be on other people's video feed all the time.
I would be very surprised if this weren't the case within 5-10y tops.
There were some decent use cases I've heard off; supplier compliance got quite big during Covid and AFAIK stayed big. Instead of flying out a team to inspect a factory, just ask someone to walk around the factory wearing Glass. Zero notice, much less chance to cheat, waaaay cheaper. That and documentation lookup should have made for decent enterprise sales. Probably not big enough to satisfy the big G.
Why can't you just make the person wear a GoPro or some kind of live camera? I'm sure there are other solutions cheaper than Google Glasses for this.
It's not that it's "not good enough" it's that it doesn't solve any real problems. I used to work at an agency with vertical dedicated to immersive tech. We did a ton of experimentation, prototyping and building demo experiences for AR visors and lots of related devices. Companies paid us loads of money to build glitzy experiences and come up with clever uses for their tech. We made a lot of neat gimmicky things that were fun for a minute or two but nothing that anyone would ever want to deploy at scale. Phone-based AR is basically already deployed at massive scale and we haven't seen any followup to Pokemon Go in over 5 years. AR just isn't a useful idea. Maybe another order of magnitude improvement in the visual quality and battery life would breath new life, but otherwise it's just a dead end.
Side note: As a marketeer I feel Google need to lay off 'the next big thing' launches. Set up some alpha/labs environment so tech interested people can go there and not allow launches til products hit a critical user number.
Credibility and excitement for Google launches is massively reducing ever since the G+ debacle and something, I feel at least, they should try to get back.
Credibility and excitement for Google launches is massively reducing ever since the G+ debacle and something, I feel at least, they should try to get back.
Google Glass, Google Car, Google Plus...
Its always the same pattern. A lot of pre-release advertisment, followed by a release of a beta version and another press release declaring the end of the product.
At this point, I wouldn't adopt any Google offering because I sort of expect by default it will go away in 6 months or 12.
Its always the same pattern. A lot of pre-release advertisment, followed by a release of a beta version and another press release declaring the end of the product.
At this point, I wouldn't adopt any Google offering because I sort of expect by default it will go away in 6 months or 12.
Google Car as in Waymo? Isn't that still growing and getting expanded? Obviously self driving is harder than everyone thought, but its not abandoned by any means.
I still don't understand why everybody thought self-driving was so easy. It was clearly always going to be decades, not years for them to be ready for the mass market but so many people were acting like normal cars were already obsolete.
As far as I understand it, "everybody" was manipulated into thinking it is around the corner by media babbling about the new exciting developments from high profile companies like Google. It rememeber that time quite vividly. It was around 2014, when my not-so-tech-informed friends started to tell me that in a few years, I will be able to own a self-driving car, me being blind and all that. I was telling everyone that they have been over-stimulated by media, and they mostly didn't want to believe me, because, you know, it is so much easier to believe the latest hype...
And now, roughly 10 years later, there is no real self-driving car in sight, which is a good thing IMO.
To me, it looked like Google and other SV companies were using the media to hype up the self-driving car thing to get VC money for these projects, which are obviously long term, that is where we agree....
And now, roughly 10 years later, there is no real self-driving car in sight, which is a good thing IMO.
To me, it looked like Google and other SV companies were using the media to hype up the self-driving car thing to get VC money for these projects, which are obviously long term, that is where we agree....
Not to mention that 10s of thousands of people die from automobile accidents every year, so even if it was dead-simple it would still require a lot of scrutiny and a conservative approach to making it mainstream. And it's nowhere near dead-simple.
I think Google actually got it right for how hard it is. They've pumped billions of dollars into it and their vision was always long term, and they decided to completely skipping the dangerous L2-3 "immediate driver attention may be required at any time" phases. Compare to other self driving tech which is promoted way too early, and only L2-3.
This device had a 4 years of updates which is more than what a Pixel phone would get.
Isn’t that exactly not the case here? This product existed for over a decade.
The Glass Enterprise Edition 2 came out in 2019.
I must have missed that, me not being a company and all that.
All I remember was a lot of glass hype, followed by the message that Google has actually stopped selling glass for "normal" customers...
So at least in my world, the pattern still fits.
All I remember was a lot of glass hype, followed by the message that Google has actually stopped selling glass for "normal" customers...
So at least in my world, the pattern still fits.
In other words, Google Glass still existed.
Not even a SINGLE mention of North glasses in this thread. [0] Highly likely the reason for closing this down since they already have the IP and technology.
So why would Google want to run two teams (Glass and North) in parallel when they can discontinue Glass and merge both teams into one? It would be news if they closed down their newly acquired AR glasses by North [1], but they are still in the AR glasses race.
[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/30/google-acquires-north-augmen...
[1] https://9to5google.com/2022/05/11/google-ar-glasses-translat...
So why would Google want to run two teams (Glass and North) in parallel when they can discontinue Glass and merge both teams into one? It would be news if they closed down their newly acquired AR glasses by North [1], but they are still in the AR glasses race.
[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/30/google-acquires-north-augmen...
[1] https://9to5google.com/2022/05/11/google-ar-glasses-translat...
North is really a footnote. It acquired the Intel Vaunt [0] tech and patents and tried to bring it to market[1]. It failed to do so and was acquired for a little bit less than it raised [2], suggesting Google only valued the patents. The company failed to retain talent and trimmed it's workforce aggressively before the acquisition.
[0] https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/5/16966530/intel-vaunt-smart...
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/17/18144221/north-focals-in...
[2] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-a-vision-fa...
[0] https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/5/16966530/intel-vaunt-smart...
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/17/18144221/north-focals-in...
[2] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-a-vision-fa...
My point is, Google Glass has been replaced by North's AR glasses technology. Whatever happened to North when it was an independent business is not Google's problem.
It would be a total failure for Google if they discontinued all their AR glasses products; signalling their exit from the AR glasses race in general. Thanks to that acquisition, that is not the case.
It would be a total failure for Google if they discontinued all their AR glasses products; signalling their exit from the AR glasses race in general. Thanks to that acquisition, that is not the case.
> My point is, Google Glass has been replaced by North's AR glasses technology.
Intel's tech. And it hasn't replaced it.
No announcements as of yet for their future roadmap. We don't know if it'll replace or supplement the in-house tech Google has. All we know is they are shutting down their existing sales channel for AR glasses. It's impossible to buy a pair with either tech on it at the time.
For all we know, they could bundle these patents and sell them to Samsung or Xiaomi or any other OEM.
Intel's tech. And it hasn't replaced it.
No announcements as of yet for their future roadmap. We don't know if it'll replace or supplement the in-house tech Google has. All we know is they are shutting down their existing sales channel for AR glasses. It's impossible to buy a pair with either tech on it at the time.
For all we know, they could bundle these patents and sell them to Samsung or Xiaomi or any other OEM.
I really hope Apple can do something interesting with AR. I've tried all the major AR things (HoloLens, HoloLens 2, MagicLeap) and tons of the "smart glasses" and there's so much room for improvement.
Somewhat related, a question for HN people:
Is there a product — perhaps some kind of goggles — that I can wear on my face which will simulate the experience of watching a big television? I don't want virtual reality or augmented reality or anything like that.
I just want to be able to sit on a long-haul flight and isolate my eyes and ears in such a way that it feels like I'm sitting alone in a dark room watching a movie. The movie should play from my iPhone.
Is there a product — perhaps some kind of goggles — that I can wear on my face which will simulate the experience of watching a big television? I don't want virtual reality or augmented reality or anything like that.
I just want to be able to sit on a long-haul flight and isolate my eyes and ears in such a way that it feels like I'm sitting alone in a dark room watching a movie. The movie should play from my iPhone.
How would having the feeling of watching a movie alone in a dark room while actually sitting on an airplane not be a form of virtual reality?
I've seen many of these clever VR headsets do extra stuff that I don't care about, like allow you to look around a virtual cinema or see other virtual people who might want to virtually watch a movie with me or some nonsense.
I don't want any of that. As the adjacent commenter surmised, I just want a television strapped to my head. I don't want other tourists in my peripheral vision, or screaming babies in my ears.
Also ideally I'd like to be able to watch a movie with my head at any angle. As I understand it, some (most?) VR headsets will keep the movie screen in the same place, so if you recline your seat and your eyes are pointed more towards the ceiling, the headset allows you to look at the ceiling of the virtual room you're in. I don't want this.
I don't want any of that. As the adjacent commenter surmised, I just want a television strapped to my head. I don't want other tourists in my peripheral vision, or screaming babies in my ears.
Also ideally I'd like to be able to watch a movie with my head at any angle. As I understand it, some (most?) VR headsets will keep the movie screen in the same place, so if you recline your seat and your eyes are pointed more towards the ceiling, the headset allows you to look at the ceiling of the virtual room you're in. I don't want this.
> I've seen many of these clever VR headsets do extra stuff that I don't care about, like allow you to look around a virtual cinema or see other virtual people who might want to virtually watch a movie with me or some nonsense.
That's kind of the selling point of a VR headset, yes. That's the sort of functionality that got most people interested in it.
> I don't want any of that. As the adjacent commenter surmised, I just want a television strapped to my head.
This product category has existed for decades, eg:
https://www.amazon.com/I-O-Display-iTheaterN-I-Theater-Displ...
It should be possible to find an HDMI version somewhere.
I don't think they ever got any traction, because this particular use case is so limited, but I'm sure they can still be found somewhere (try ebay, or look for cheap chinese brands taking advantage of interest in VR)
That said, IMO the best solution available is the Quest 2. I don't think you'll just find another headset that's going to be affordable and have a good image quality. The hardware in it is excellent.
It does all the VR stuff you don't want, but all you seem to need is a video playback app that will make sure to keep the image in front of your face regardless of head position.
You won't have company if you don't want it to, the included app simulates an empty cinema except for yourself in it.
That's kind of the selling point of a VR headset, yes. That's the sort of functionality that got most people interested in it.
> I don't want any of that. As the adjacent commenter surmised, I just want a television strapped to my head.
This product category has existed for decades, eg:
https://www.amazon.com/I-O-Display-iTheaterN-I-Theater-Displ...
It should be possible to find an HDMI version somewhere.
I don't think they ever got any traction, because this particular use case is so limited, but I'm sure they can still be found somewhere (try ebay, or look for cheap chinese brands taking advantage of interest in VR)
That said, IMO the best solution available is the Quest 2. I don't think you'll just find another headset that's going to be affordable and have a good image quality. The hardware in it is excellent.
It does all the VR stuff you don't want, but all you seem to need is a video playback app that will make sure to keep the image in front of your face regardless of head position.
You won't have company if you don't want it to, the included app simulates an empty cinema except for yourself in it.
This seems similar to what you're looking for:
https://www.makeuseof.com/goovis-lite-review-cinema-hmd/
https://www.makeuseof.com/goovis-lite-review-cinema-hmd/
VR headsets have a scene and use head tracking to make the scene appear stationary.
I guess they want to feel like a TV is strapped to their head instead.
I guess they want to feel like a TV is strapped to their head instead.
Nreal Air is one. Others are launching too. Without the AR parts it is lighter. Works well as plain monitor without any support software. Only slight problem I have with this is it heats up a bit.
I've seen a few adverts for the Nreal Air, and it does look interesting. For $380 though I'd like to try them once before buying (and I don't trust the impartiality of any YouTube review people). Do you know if it's possible to try them anywhere?
They don’t even ship where I am. I had to go through postal proxy. If you write some questions I will try to answer them later plus my own comments about any caveats I have found. I think Android is the ideal pairing, using the special software as well. But I only want them as dumb monitor, possibly connected to a keyboard computer to try a new form factor.
I have them, they're great. It's like wearing glasses that are 1cm further from your face. It is not something that blocks your lower field of view, which hurts complete immersion.
Forgot to mention it needs a couple of adapters to connect it to iPhone.
Any VR headset will do that; I know you said no VR but get over that. VR headsets are a head mounted display & audio tech that you can buy. (see e.g. https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-stream-movies-in-vr/)
This used to exist, in the 90s (!), in the form of the Sony Glasstron.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasstron
They stopped making them at the end of that decade.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasstron
They stopped making them at the end of that decade.
[deleted]
Take a look at this: https://vimeo.com/798231818/660e3a441c?embedded=true&source=...
It was quite hard for me to follow what this product is or what it is for. It felt more like watching the opening credits of a James Bond movie than a video showing me what product I should buy and why.
It also says it isn't actually available for purchase yet.
It also says it isn't actually available for purchase yet.
You can get "headsets" that your phone slots into for less than $50. Pair it with some decent headphones.
This is essentially what I'm looking for, but I'm struggling to find a specific product to buy. It seems all of my searches turn up results where I need some dorky hand-held controllers, or I need to be connected to a big gaming PC, or that it's a simple headset but the iPhone doesn't actually fit in it.
Do you know any that will fit an iPhone 13? I have some decent noise-cancelling headphones already.
Do you know any that will fit an iPhone 13? I have some decent noise-cancelling headphones already.
Sorry, I'm on Android and haven't used such a headset in a few years.
That's what Quest2 is. You even don't need an iPhone. It's standalone.
You probably don't want to wear a Quest for a full long-haul flight. They're not that comfortable, even with third-party straps.
There's also the whole thing where Quest 2 is quite a bit worse than Quest 1 in some aspects that relate to comfort, such as the lack of precise eye distance settings.
There's also the whole thing where Quest 2 is quite a bit worse than Quest 1 in some aspects that relate to comfort, such as the lack of precise eye distance settings.
This is why Google Cloud has no chance against the OpenAI and Microsoft partnership. Google kills products randomly, has no clear direction or mission, and it’s business suicide to trust them for any core functions of your product.
Whereas Microsoft will support you for decades and is a very safe bet for your business.
Whereas Microsoft will support you for decades and is a very safe bet for your business.
Now watch apple trigger red alerts in Google's and Samsung's HQ by releasing their AR glasses.
As much as i hate Apple products, I can't deny that most of the time they are the leaders and the rest are just copies.
As much as i hate Apple products, I can't deny that most of the time they are the leaders and the rest are just copies.
> that most of the time they are the leaders and the rest are just copies.
Apple is almost always a follower and rarely an innovator. They take something that exists, and polishes it. They are very successful at it, but a leader definitely not.
Apple is almost always a follower and rarely an innovator. They take something that exists, and polishes it. They are very successful at it, but a leader definitely not.
It sounds like that is dead in the water for the next decade... I predict that work will continue at other startups and will be acquired in the future by Apple.
Leaders when they are releasing ar glasses well after other major players have? Microsoft will be on their third iteration by the time Apple releases theirs.
Mainstream leader*
I actually thought that the enterprise use case would survive when coupled with computer vision applications like for surgery assistance or manufacturing assembly line QA. RIP
Glass seemed so far ahead of it's time when one considers how much microsoft is investing into augmented reality and hololens.
I'm not sure Microsoft is investing all that much at the moment:
https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/01/21/ms-layoffs-effect...
https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/01/21/ms-layoffs-effect...
Glass was nothing like Hololens. It was basically a smart watch in the corner of your vision.
Hololens is full 3D AR. Much more impressive. The only issue with Hololens was it had a really tiny field of view.
Hololens is full 3D AR. Much more impressive. The only issue with Hololens was it had a really tiny field of view.
Looked pretty good actually:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IK-zU51MU4
I had Glass in 2014 and I used it a bit but people continually bothered me when wearing it so I retired it after a couple of weeks. Couldn't do half the stuff the Enterprise edition apparently could.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IK-zU51MU4
I had Glass in 2014 and I used it a bit but people continually bothered me when wearing it so I retired it after a couple of weeks. Couldn't do half the stuff the Enterprise edition apparently could.
The physics behind Glasses style augmented reality are impossible (or at least 50 years away), so the industry is moving towards MR mixed reality. Bigscreen VR's recent glasses show where things are headed - Micro OLED displays and smaller form factor.
Speculation: Google is consolidating talent and doubling down on an internal VR/MR headset and metaverse to compete with Apple. It will be tethered to a "Puck" that runs android and clips to your belt or is in your pocket. It will be an important moonshot for AI, metaverse, and virtual Office.
YouTuber Sadley It's Bradley is a great follow for Optics and inside baseball of this space.
Speculation: Google is consolidating talent and doubling down on an internal VR/MR headset and metaverse to compete with Apple. It will be tethered to a "Puck" that runs android and clips to your belt or is in your pocket. It will be an important moonshot for AI, metaverse, and virtual Office.
YouTuber Sadley It's Bradley is a great follow for Optics and inside baseball of this space.
I'm sorry, but glasses style augmented reality is already possible. 50 years is even too long of a time span for when AR glasses are attractive enough to the general public enough to reach >1B users.
A line of text floating in your view is doable.
Seeing 3D renderings in a dark environment with 30 minutes of battery is doable.
The original vision of augmenting human vision without a bunch of caveats and limitations is not doable today.
Spectacles by Snap is a cool accomplishment, but mostly the form factor is useful for recording video form a human's perspective and not augmenting one's vision.
The original vision of augmenting human vision without a bunch of caveats and limitations is not doable today.
Spectacles by Snap is a cool accomplishment, but mostly the form factor is useful for recording video form a human's perspective and not augmenting one's vision.
You can do world locked 3D renderings in an lit inside room and have more a few hours of battery life. Yes here are limitations, but all technology has limitations. As time passes we will make them better and better. There is a bar we will have to pass before they become attractive to regular people and I'm not claiming we are there yet.
Why not open source the hardware design, BOM, software and dump it on GitHub?
Because it's not a self-contained thing. Any cloud-device is integrated to back-end servers. Which at google means linked and locked into all kinds of internal things which are not open.
Why would they? Just to be nice? Since when do large companies give things away?
What left out there similar to this?
I want to provide remote instruction and see through a user's eyes to help them fix/debug hardware. 2D AR is good enough.
Hololens is winding down. What's the next best thing?
I want to provide remote instruction and see through a user's eyes to help them fix/debug hardware. 2D AR is good enough.
Hololens is winding down. What's the next best thing?
Magic Leap? I haven't looked at it much to be honest they're far too expensive for me to play with.
If you have a money printer it's hard to care about other things.
Absolutely. Google products are not their primary business. These are corporate hobby project that keep the engineering plankton busy.
If I were to get one of these on ebay or somewhere used, is there any sort of dev ecosystem available if I wanted to hack around on them? Or are they pretty locked down?
I have one of the original ones, and I will admit: for a dev-focused person, you could see A LOT of potential. But, now it is quite an ordeal to get things up and running... if you want to experiment with that kind of interface, something tells me you are better off buying an nreal or something like that and having an actual functional and supported device + something you can potentially hack on.
Is anybody surprised about Google discontinuing services instead of maintaining them, or god forbid improving them?
It’s very simple; is it an ad? No? Then Google will scrap it.
It’s very simple; is it an ad? No? Then Google will scrap it.
Google could spinoff those products and services. Some are probably unnoticeable at Google's scale and not enough employees want to tie gheir careers to them. However some of them could stand on their own legs if owned by a smaller company fully dedicated to them. A way to spin them off is to sell them to somebody. Did that ever happen and did any company ever offer to buy a part of Google?
The Google apologists here usually say "they only kill consumer proudcts, they wouldn't do that for enterprise products", but here we are. I hope that doesn't look equally dismissive, but it's time that everyone realize Google is willing to kill almost any product that's not making enough profit.
Figured that they'd hop on the techno-utopian bandwagon that's currently being pushed and double down on bringing the glassholes back instead. People are also seem more desensitized to privacy concerns nowadays, so they might have a chance of bringing the ubiquitous AI-enabled surveillance to the masses.
I'd love to see a product that fills the "Google Glass: The Good Parts" niche. As much as I was on team "don't film me at the bar" when Google Glass was announced, there really IS the kernel of a neat idea there. Maybe it's just not possible to get the good parts without enabling the bad.
There was a Black Mirror episode about (iirc) contact lenses that offered always-on, high fidelity recording. They were used to turn people into self-survelliance machines with no privacy, whose every experience was subject to review. I suppose any time a thought along the lines of "I'd like that thing from Black Mirror, but..." occurs, it's worth stopping to wonder if you've missed the point. I digress.
I've had dozens of times in life where I wished I essentially had a dashcam for my face. It's such an appealing idea to be able to share "Let me show you just what I saw, as I saw it." Not all the time, but sometimes. And not with everybody, just with some people. The last time this desire occurred to me was during an early morning seven hour car + train + plane + bus + bike + (gratuitous) ferry + walk journey I was taking from North Georgia to Midtown Manhattan. Aside from the intentional bonanza of modes of transport, there are a ton of amazing vistas along the way; going from the woods in moonlight, rounding the curve to come into Atlanta lit up at night, seeing the sun come up over the clouds, the view of Manhattan on the final approach into LGA, etc. As it stands today, at points where I'm not biking or driving, I'll get out my phone to take a picture. "Look, here are three pictures I took" doesn't actually communicate what I want to communicate though. What I would really like is seven hours of footage, mostly played back at 50x speed, but slowing to closer to real time at the interesting parts. When those interesting parts are panoramas, those are the places I'd get out my phone for a picture today. There'd also be parts where nothing individually was particularly picture worthy (say, biking down Ditmars Blvd), but in toto it might be interesting to people.
What I wish I had was something natural-ish looking (i.e. I don't want to take a video of what I see on this trip, not of people staring at a camera rig I'm wearing while trying to take a video of what I see on this trip), in a form factor that I can safely wear and passively use while biking and driving. It would also need the ability to capture seven plus hours of good looking video. And also somehow privacy respecting and not dystopic.
There was a Black Mirror episode about (iirc) contact lenses that offered always-on, high fidelity recording. They were used to turn people into self-survelliance machines with no privacy, whose every experience was subject to review. I suppose any time a thought along the lines of "I'd like that thing from Black Mirror, but..." occurs, it's worth stopping to wonder if you've missed the point. I digress.
I've had dozens of times in life where I wished I essentially had a dashcam for my face. It's such an appealing idea to be able to share "Let me show you just what I saw, as I saw it." Not all the time, but sometimes. And not with everybody, just with some people. The last time this desire occurred to me was during an early morning seven hour car + train + plane + bus + bike + (gratuitous) ferry + walk journey I was taking from North Georgia to Midtown Manhattan. Aside from the intentional bonanza of modes of transport, there are a ton of amazing vistas along the way; going from the woods in moonlight, rounding the curve to come into Atlanta lit up at night, seeing the sun come up over the clouds, the view of Manhattan on the final approach into LGA, etc. As it stands today, at points where I'm not biking or driving, I'll get out my phone to take a picture. "Look, here are three pictures I took" doesn't actually communicate what I want to communicate though. What I would really like is seven hours of footage, mostly played back at 50x speed, but slowing to closer to real time at the interesting parts. When those interesting parts are panoramas, those are the places I'd get out my phone for a picture today. There'd also be parts where nothing individually was particularly picture worthy (say, biking down Ditmars Blvd), but in toto it might be interesting to people.
What I wish I had was something natural-ish looking (i.e. I don't want to take a video of what I see on this trip, not of people staring at a camera rig I'm wearing while trying to take a video of what I see on this trip), in a form factor that I can safely wear and passively use while biking and driving. It would also need the ability to capture seven plus hours of good looking video. And also somehow privacy respecting and not dystopic.
I should add that to my list of cancelled products:
https://albertcory50.substack.com/p/when-talent-is-not-enoug...
explains how this happens (Hello, McKinsey!)
https://albertcory50.substack.com/p/when-talent-is-not-enoug...
explains how this happens (Hello, McKinsey!)
Maybe there are literally no customers left for this, so it doesn’t matter, but calling it “Enterprise” and then killing it with six months of follow-on support…that is not a good look.
I, for one, am happy that this failed for Google, and will be even happier if it would fail for Meta.
Whenever this tech matures (and it will eventually), I rather it not be done by the company whose only goal is to capture even more data about you (and whose OS will be full of other, 3rd party, spyware).
If done by a startup, there is a chance, however tiny, that they can create enough market that a non spyware version of AR glasses will be available for those that want it.
If Google or Meta (or MS) create the AR glass first, they will somehow promote a unhealthy walled in network, and people will not even understand what is wrong till after the next Holocaust.
Whenever this tech matures (and it will eventually), I rather it not be done by the company whose only goal is to capture even more data about you (and whose OS will be full of other, 3rd party, spyware).
If done by a startup, there is a chance, however tiny, that they can create enough market that a non spyware version of AR glasses will be available for those that want it.
If Google or Meta (or MS) create the AR glass first, they will somehow promote a unhealthy walled in network, and people will not even understand what is wrong till after the next Holocaust.
The sad thing is this isn't even that hot of take given what happened with Facebook and the genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar...
so all 3 enterprises had to give up their hardware?
I will never use Google products again.
It's hard to believe that there were people wearing these in public at one time.
haha well they did get that cool nickname
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone, and another one gone, Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone, and another one gone, Another one bites the dust
Everybody on here seems to be talking about the Google perspective, but what about the people and companies who were using the product? How do they feel? What is their take on this?
Must be weird.
Must be weird.
- Build new shiny thing -> promoted
- Support shiny thing -> it's not difficult, everyone can do it
This type of culture is influencing future direction of Google products, they put together awesome team, solve problem and get from 0 to 1, then team moves on, others don't have incentive to make 1 to 100.
I feel like, if this was a startup which highly depends on the success of product for their existence they could have pivoted or come up better ideas for adoption. Maybe, Magic Leap was that company, or they got too much investment and thought they will exist for a quite while