Google Surpasses Apple as World's Most Valuable Company

[AxoNeuron]

People have always been stupid whether you tell them or not. When you bragged about how Google was not stupid enough to do what Apple is rumored to do, you yourself opened the discussion to the topic of stupidity.
I know my neural networks well enough and I'm not very impressed with them or any other AI topic. Research in artificial intelligence has always captured peoples imagination, but never lived up to the dreams. Meanwhile powerful handheld computers became real in the past eight years, because of what Apple started with the Newton and finished with the iPhone. ARM chip design and mobile OS design are boring beyond compare, but they solve problems and enhance peoples lives like nothing during my lifetime. Mobile is a story bigger than the Internet. Refugees use smartphones on their flight, neural networks not so much.
I feel confident to proclaim that real intelligence in artificial form does not exist and likely will never exist. Once you know how a chess computer works, it becomes way less impressive. It's all just deterministic programming. Same input, same output. AI software only mirrors the amount of intelligence the programmer put in it, it doesn't come up with a single original thought of it's own.
What else? My iPad has three million transistors and will be outdated by March 15.
You are infinitely far away from the intelligence of a three year old. Only in an environment, where everything is set and well defined AI can find a pre-programmed solution. This solution can be better than that of any human being. A chess computer can beat a grandmaster in a tournament, but when you ask the same program to play a game of solitaire, tetris or bomberman it does not compute. That is the opposite of intelligence.
That's just computing with massive amounts of data. Google does it every day. Intelligence is not about to find the best possible solution, intelligence is to find your way when there is no known path of how to come up with a solution to begin with. When I take your keys away, you will come though the door no matter what. Call your mom, grab an axe, climb through a window. You will find a way once you've identified the problem, because you have intelligence.
Yeah, we call them computers and they are not intelligent themselves. They are tools we humans use to execute our own ideas. Only a few dumb components to create a skateboard and what breathtakingly complex stunts a skateboarder can do with it.
Self-driving cars are easy once you've reduced the task to require no intelligence at all. Here's a list of self-driving subways. Should driving on streets require to find solutions to unforeseen problems, computers will never make it.
Jesus, Google needs to find a way to stop Samsung from forking Android and taking it into another direction, like Amazon did with Fire OS. Do you really think Google Now is the answer to the companies competitive problems?
Speech recognition even lags the intelligence to understand what I'm saying let alone what I mean. Human communication requires the context of a whole human life, history, community. Every single word carries dozens of ideas and concepts thought about since centuries. When I start to speak German, you won't understand a word and you are an intelligent human being. Siri times 100 is still stupid as ****. Any progress just shows how far away AI still is from accomplishing anything actually intelligent.

Your brain really is just a computer. Neurons receive inputs (via synaptic membranes) and depending on different factors the neuron will either fire or it won't. That's binary, a 1 or a 0, just like the transistors that your computer uses. Under the hood it's really nothing a computer can't do or simulate.

The first true 'hard' AI are not likely to be created directly by software routines. They're more likely to be enormous neurological simulations that evolve into sophisticated neural networks for doing things like speech recognition. They will likely just use electron microscopes to get detailed 3D maps of the brain, like Broca's area for speech, and simulate it in a computer.

DeepMind recently created a neural network that literally learns how to play most video games (even 3D games), and after a small amount of time can play it better than any human. The number of fields where humans can beat computers grow smaller every single day. We're reaching a time where it's not just clever programming tricks, computers will genuinely be more intelligent than we are, faster, and more knowledgeable. There's just not much left that computers can't do. Some day soon, even consciousness itself will be the domain of computers as well.

The idea that computers will never be able to be sentient is laughable to most legitimate neuroscientists, who realize that the brain is just a large and complicated neural network. The idea that computers cannot be sentient seems to rely on some spiritual belief which has absolutely zero evidence to support it. Not only will computers become sentient - it will happen in the near future too. Advances like quantum computing, etc. will bring it forth faster than most people realize, areas of tech that Google happens to heavily invest in.

THIS is the real future of tech. Research in areas like this are the reason Google/Alphabet is on top today, and it's the reason they'll stay that way long after Apple leadership has destroyed the company with their silly gaudy watches and disastrous cars.

 

[Max(IT)]

Your brain really is just a computer. Neurons receive inputs (via synaptic membranes) and depending on different factors the neuron will either fire or it won't. That's binary, a 1 or a 0, just like the transistors that your computer uses. Under the hood it's really nothing a computer can't do or simulate.

The first true 'hard' AI are not likely to be created directly by software routines. They're more likely to be enormous neurological simulations that evolve into sophisticated neural networks for doing things like speech recognition. They will likely just use electron microscopes to get detailed 3D maps of the brain, like Broca's area for speech, and simulate it in a computer.

DeepMind recently created a neural network that literally learns how to play most video games (even 3D games), and after a small amount of time can play it better than any human. The number of fields where humans can beat computers grow smaller every single day. We're reaching a time where it's not just clever programming tricks, computers will genuinely be more intelligent than we are, faster, and more knowledgeable. There's just not much left that computers can't do. Some day soon, even consciousness itself will be the domain of computers as well.

The idea that computers will never be able to be sentient is laughable to most legitimate neuroscientists, who realize that the brain is just a large and complicated neural network. The idea that computers cannot be sentient seems to rely on some spiritual belief which has absolutely zero evidence to support it. Not only will computers become sentient - it will happen in the near future too. Advances like quantum computing, etc. will bring it forth faster than most people realize, areas of tech that Google happens to heavily invest in.

THIS is the real future of tech. Research in areas like this are the reason Google/Alphabet is on top today, and it's the reason they'll stay that way long after Apple leadership has destroyed the company with their silly gaudy watches and disastrous cars.

Again reality check: as of today despite all the "experts " here, Alphabet isn't on top anymore....

 

[Radon87000]

Again reality check: as of today despite all the "experts " here, Alphabet isn't on top anymore....

That's because you are looking at the short term picture.Apple's innovation has run its course with thinner iPhones every year and battery cases and self driving cars.Alphabet has just begun its foray.I have said it before and I will say it again.Tim Cook is Apple's Steve Ballmer.Apple desperately needs a visionary at this point considering the iPhone has now started its decline

 

[Max(IT)]

That's because you are looking at the short term picture.Apple's innovation has run its course with thinner iPhones every year and battery cases and self driving cars.Alphabet has just begun its foray.I have said it before and I will say it again.Tim Cook is Apple's Steve Ballmer.Apple desperately needs a visionary at this point considering the iPhone has now started its decline

Ballmer only saw Microsoft sunk .... Under Tim Cook Apple growth. Ridiculous comparison in your daily job as serial detractor of Apple. iOS, iPhone and up to the CEO itself: you criticize EVERYTHING about Apple in every single thread you joined.
Apple like every other company can't please everyone. Different tastes, different products, different brands.
Apple isn't Tim Cook. He's the CEO. He has a talented team of executive officers....
Who is the "visionary" talented CEO of Google ? Sundar Pichai ? Lol at this....

 

[Gudi]

That's because you are looking at the short term picture. Apple's innovation has run it's course with thinner iPhones every year.

Miniaturization will never stop. The smartphone just started to become a useful computer and smartwatches are still decades away from it. Yet Apple is already dominating a product category, Android Wear tried to conquer with a head start.

Aphabet has just begun its foray.

It's Google, don't make me call it Alphabet, that name will never stick. Google never made a single dollar with me and the one service I registered to (Google Reader), they discontinued rather than making it payed. As far as I can see, Googles business model always involves to somehow make money with something you give away for free. Can that really work in the long term? I doubt it and as a investor, I like that overpriced hardware business of Apple much better.

 

[samcraig]

Miniaturization will never stop. The smartphone just started to become a useful computer and smartwatches are still decades away from it. Yet Apple is already dominating a product category, Android Wear tried to conquer with a head start.
It's Google, don't make me call it Alphabet, that name will never stick. Google never made a single dollar with me and the one service I registered to (Google Reader), they discontinued rather than making it payed. As far as I can see, Googles business model always involves to somehow make money with something you give away for free. Can that really work in the long term? I doubt it and as a investor, I like that overpriced hardware business of Apple much better.

Only advertising isn't going anywhere. So I'd say Google is poised to do quite well too. It doesn't have to be an either or. Both companies can exist and be very profitable. I find it amusing that people are debating success factors for the top two stocks. Both companies are doing very well obviously in regards to what people are investing in.

 

[Sill]

I'm still not following you.Google can still do everything its doing now and still reap profits from selling its apps and operating system.

You weren't clear on that. I thought you were choosing from other options like pay once or a subscription model. I didn't realize you were going to try a hybrid model. That would be even worse for them, from a PR position. It could be interpreted as desperate or even worse - predatory.

What the heck does FireWire have to do with an operating system that is being used with almost a 90% world market share of all mobile phones?

Apple had a hotly anticipated technology that was going to knock USB down. The throughput increase for the 1394 standard looked like it had no ceiling for several years (it did, but it didn't look like it would be saturated with any of the use cases back in the day). Apple went for what anyone would have thought was a reasonable licensing fee to recoup the hundreds of millions they'd spent on development. The manufacturers went insane with condemning it. How good of a time do you think Google would have with their vendors if they did the same thing? A dollar to Google doesn't translate to a dollar for the manufacturer that has to gather it. Nor does it translate into a dollar to the end user who has to pay that vendor for the device.

Google is already a monopoly with Android and has billions of users using it.there is is 100% free.you can go on there web page and down load all the binaries and make a home made Android box work.you have to side load its core services but the os is 100% free to download and make your own device or computer.

They are not a monopoly. A monopoly uses crony legislation to keep control of a given market. Android doesn't have that. What they do have is a cost invisible to the user, which is a quite brilliant model, despite being more than a little evil in its implementation.

Just go on eBay and look at the 1000s of clone Android USB media sticks for sale.

Because there is no front cost to the user. Watch how that changes when Google charges a license fee. Watch how their rep plummets when they start using BSA tactics on people.

Google can charge a license fee and millions of phones and oems would have no choice then pay up for it.

Oh, they'd have a choice alright. Just as Linux displaced Windows in corporate America, there would be a freeware or similar model phone OS that would come out. I'm pretty sure people are already working on it.

 

[Rogifan]

Yep.
That's a demonstration of how silly are threads like this, just a click bait.
Wall Street hysterical behavior is amusing....

As of this morning:

AAPL: $534B
GOOGL: $515B

But hey this is still a story b/c Apple is tapped out with no vision and Google has all these amazing things in the works that will bring revenue and profit growth as far as the eye can see. All Tim Cook can do is manage the decline of Apple. Gosh if only Steve Jobs hadn't been intent on having Apple die a slow death after he passed on (his ego could never handle Apple being more successful without him than with him) maybe he would have recommended someone other than a pencil pushing bean counter to run the company. /s

 

[Max(IT)]

As of this morning:

AAPL: $534B
GOOGL: $515B

But hey this is still a story b/c Apple is tapped out with no vision and Google has all these amazing things in the works that will bring revenue and profit growth as far as the eye can see. All Tim Cook can do is manage the decline of Apple. Gosh if only Steve Jobs hadn't been intent on having Apple die a slow death after he passed on (his ego could never handle Apple being more successful without him than with him) maybe he would have recommended someone other than a pencil pushing bean counter to run the company. /s

Indeed... Haters gonna hate, even in denial...

 

[Radon87000]

As of this morning:

AAPL: $534B
GOOGL: $515B

But hey this is still a story b/c Apple is tapped out with no vision and Google has all these amazing things in the works that will bring revenue and profit growth as far as the eye can see. All Tim Cook can do is manage the decline of Apple. Gosh if only Steve Jobs hadn't been intent on having Apple die a slow death after he passed on (his ego could never handle Apple being more successful without him than with him) maybe he would have recommended someone other than a pencil pushing bean counter to run the company. /s

Am I missing something?A quick Google search reveals this as the current figures

Apple Inc Mkt cap 523.9B
Alphabet Inc Class A Mkt cap 531.4B

 

[Max(IT)]

Am I missing something?A quick Google search reveals this as the current figures

Apple Inc Mkt cap 523.9B
Alphabet Inc Class A Mkt cap 531.4B

Find the error...
[doublepost=1454592006][/doublepost]Without using Google :

http://www.nasdaq.com/screening/com...stry=Technology&sortname=marketcap&sorttype=1

 

[Rogifan]

Am I missing something?A quick Google search reveals this as the current figures

Apple Inc Mkt cap 523.9B
Alphabet Inc Class A Mkt cap 531.4B

I got my numbers from yahoo finance searching on AAPL and GOOGL. As of 8:50 cst AAPL is $529B and GOOGL is $505B.

 

[topherdesign]

Archaic oil companies enabling shipping of product from China to your doorstep

Nope

 

[samcraig]

I got my numbers from yahoo finance searching on AAPL and GOOGL. As of 8:50 cst AAPL is $529B and GOOGL is $505B.

Thank yer for the daily update

 

[Uofmtiger]

I got my numbers from yahoo finance searching on AAPL and GOOGL. As of 8:50 cst AAPL is $529B and GOOGL is $505B.

I am waiting for the thread that says Google should now get out of the ad business to start concentrating on hardware.

 

[ani4ani]

....and there we all were, convinced that it didn't matter?

 

[alvindarkness]

Your brain really is just a computer. Neurons receive inputs (via synaptic membranes) and depending on different factors the neuron will either fire or it won't. That's binary, a 1 or a 0, just like the transistors that your computer uses. Under the hood it's really nothing a computer can't do or simulate.

The first true 'hard' AI are not likely to be created directly by software routines. They're more likely to be enormous neurological simulations that evolve into sophisticated neural networks for doing things like speech recognition. They will likely just use electron microscopes to get detailed 3D maps of the brain, like Broca's area for speech, and simulate it in a computer.

DeepMind recently created a neural network that literally learns how to play most video games (even 3D games), and after a small amount of time can play it better than any human. The number of fields where humans can beat computers grow smaller every single day. We're reaching a time where it's not just clever programming tricks, computers will genuinely be more intelligent than we are, faster, and more knowledgeable. There's just not much left that computers can't do. Some day soon, even consciousness itself will be the domain of computers as well.

The idea that computers will never be able to be sentient is laughable to most legitimate neuroscientists, who realize that the brain is just a large and complicated neural network. The idea that computers cannot be sentient seems to rely on some spiritual belief which has absolutely zero evidence to support it. Not only will computers become sentient - it will happen in the near future too. Advances like quantum computing, etc. will bring it forth faster than most people realize, areas of tech that Google happens to heavily invest in.

THIS is the real future of tech. Research in areas like this are the reason Google/Alphabet is on top today, and it's the reason they'll stay that way long after Apple leadership has destroyed the company with their silly gaudy watches and disastrous cars.

The problem is some dont peek outside the Apple bubble all that often. At this point, unless one has their head burried in the sand and has chosen to absolutely ignore an abundance of tech news in the past year they would know AI is big business.

When NVidia introduced Maxwell, they spent the majority of the night focusing on deep learning. Now with Pascal due, their first board is shown, not as a PC GPU, but a module for deep learning applications such as automated cars - with Telsa cars being heavily involved. Intel had their big push with the IDLF project, while Microsoft recently open sourced some of their work. Google brings on Kurzweil who is one of the biggest proponents for AI. It is everywhere, and i would be absolutely shocked if Apple isnt at the very least keeping tabs, if not looking into some future applications themselves.

Right now that person you have replied to a few times, has no issue calling everyone else "stupid", when they think there are real tangible future applications for the research. I just hope they are flexible enough in their thinking to realise the chance of Apple using deep learning, or other associated AI in one of their products in the near future is real - and in the case of any automated car, very likely.

 

[shk718]

I don't know where to start. Google is most definitely an AI company and the world's most advanced AI company at present. IBM is at best a distant second or third depending on what Palantir is really up to, same with Amazon and Microsoft. However, none of them operate at the scale Google operates.

Before you respond, I think it would be wise that you educate yourself on AI, Machine learning, and Algorithmic mining/munging. Look into items like TensorFlow, BigQuery, Dataflow and others. Educate yourself on "why" adwords is so dominant... you will find AI. Amazon powers a ton of the web via AWS... they are not sitting on their hands either. Azure from Microsoft and ConceptInsights from IBM are neat, but they don't hold a candle to Google's internal resources and, more importantly, it's talent pool.

How does one even quantify a statement like that? AI is in its infancy. Every major company is investing millions into AI research. W/O access to their labs how can you say one company is "orders of magnitude above its closest rival"? Lets cut back on the use of superlatives. We don't know what the budgets are nor do we know how far along each player is. We certainly don't have access to Apple's research labs. And again, how do you quantify that statement? % of business, % of research dollars, % of engineers, # of lines of code...??? One article I read stated that Google was maybe running 15% of its search's thru its AI engine http://www.wired.com/2016/02/ai-is-changing-the-technology-behind-google-searches/) a nice number but not the keys to the kingdom, yet. And who knows how accurate that number is or what types of searches it's referring to. You had better believe that if ad revenue decreases because of AI it will be heavily tweaked. Google like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and FB are all working hard on this new tech. There won't be one company who "wins", they will all use AI in a big way.

BTW Google just lost its crown of Wall ST.'s most valuable company because of AI (related to the retirement of their search guru and replacement by an AI guy).

 

[shk718]

All the criticism of Apple levied in this thread are still valid if they change back and forth 10 times. The crux of my arguments stem from the patterns Apple exhibit now and what that means going forward. Peak saturation in electronic gadgets, convergence of services related to said gadgets, and commoditization of the hardware sector in general. All that while staring at, what looks like, another massive recession. The strong dollar is going to make things even worse if that trend doesn't slow.

which is why they emphasized services in their conference call. You make it sound as if Apple is unaware of the trends in the industry they created. They knew iPods wouldn't continue forever so they branched into phones. The know computers won't be what they are now so they branched into iPads. They know iPhones will hit saturation at some point so that's why they're branching into services. They have a huge R&D budget, which grows every year. They bought a bunch of AI companies recently. They have proven themselves, time and time again, that they are one of the very few companies that's not afraid to change their business model - they're completely not afraid to cannibalize a successful product for a more successful one.

 

[Rogifan]

Thank yer for the daily update

I just find it highly amusing that since Google's earnings report and all the buzz about them over taking Apple as most valuable company the stock has dropped 7%. It was a major news story even though Google only overtook Apple for one day, if that.

 

[samcraig]

I just find it highly amusing that since Google's earnings report and all the buzz about them over taking Apple as most valuable company the stock has dropped 7%. It was a major news story even though Google only overtook Apple for one day, if that.

Oh you know I am just busting your chops. Most things - especially the stock market - are ephemeral

 

[Tragic Gnome]

Good news: iOS is OS X geared for touch. Go back and watch the keynote where Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone.

I like to do this from time to time. I miss Steve.

 

[Michael Goff]

I like to do this from time to time. I miss Steve.

He was quite the presenter.

 

[kdarling]

I just find it highly amusing that since Google's earnings report and all the buzz about them over taking Apple as most valuable company the stock has dropped 7%. It was a major news story even though Google only overtook Apple for one day, if that.

It's no surprise that the other way isn't news. One is a novel event, the other is not.

It's like when it snows in Florida. That's newsworthy (at least the first time each year). However, the regular weather coming back isn't news

 

[uid15]

MacSensationalistRumors "forgot" to append "... for a brief period of time" to the end.

Idiot "journalists"