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Google's 'Project Tango' Smartphone Uses Apple's PrimeSense Technology

LordVic said:
Or, instead of looking at it with some sort of conspiracy thoery or malice, maybe Google does it because they are techno junkies and love trying out new thoeries and ideas, even if they dont necessarily have a viable monetary reward for such and are attempting to try new technologies for advancement sake and not pure profit (since they make profit elsewhere).

Where, Apple runs their tech advancement as a pure profit house. only things that are profitable are developed, and technologies that might actually make life better can be often ignored and forgotten by them since it's not profitable enough for their time and effort.

but no. Of course for you it's easier to believe Google is just a failure of a company and only does it for PR.

BTW, while google has had it's share of projects that go nowhere... Apple has their share of failures in the past as well...
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Or, you could see Apple as a company that creates many prototypes, but only releases products they feel are ready to the public. Do they make mistakes? Sure. But they don't release every half-cocked, hair-brained product to the public to see what sticks. This is one problem with Google (and in the past, Microsoft). You don't know which products they are going to try to stick with, so you end up with GoogleTV and the Kin smartphone, and possibly Google Glass that may or may not end up being a crappy head camera that, when worn, no one will actually talk to you.
 
kdarling said:
Cool. It's nice to see what companies are working on.

Even better, Google often lets ordinary people participate in their projects (like Glass).

I think that's terrific. Heck, wouldn't we all love it if we could try out Apple projects, even if they never see mass production?



Compared to sites like AI that post hate filled propaganda, MacRumors is the New York Times and Gandhi rolled into one.
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Maybe for you because you're a "device engineer for 30+ yrs." For the average consumer? Eh, just causes confusion for people who don't know a thing about technology over what's a finished product and what's a project. I've seen plenty of blogs running headlines suggesting that Google Glass was a finished product you could buy for $1,500 if you were lucky enough, when we all know this is just an extension of the Explorer program. You know what else would be great? If David Copperfield gave an in-depth explanation about his big magic tricks prior to performing them. Sort of ruins the whole magic thing though, doesn't it?

Apple (and many other companies who give a damn) keep big projects behind closed doors for a reason. Whether you agree with that as a "device engineer" is your choice, but there's certainly a reason for it.
 
More obsession over complicated scifi fantasy tech gimmicks that have little actual examples of practical and reliable execution in the real world. Buzzwords. That's all they are.

But when the tech industry is involved, that's all they DO. Apple discovered what people actually can use, and made it function reliably without all the crazy scifi fantasy gadget crap. They got lucky, too, but there was a clear vision involved and it was not a status quo mentality. iPhone came out, everyone else went "wait, what? That'll fail... Wait, what? That's what people want? Why didn't we think of that? Because we have our heads up our own tech industry butts blindly following the status quo. Time to change direction and not thank Apple for kicking us in the ass to move this industry the hell along..."

And what do we have post-Jobs? Is Apple headed back to "competing" the same way it did when it last had no vision (though Newton was the right direction at the wrong time, with the wrong marketing)...? I disliked Jobs as a person, but the computer industry (those who aren't arrogant mindless geeks) can thank his influences at Apple, in two different generations, for pushing crappy technology forward to where it started actually being useful to normal people. Or, mostly normal... ;-)

I don't worship Jobs. I'm sure I'd have hated him in person, and I will never want to work at Apple (or any of these monstrous corporations), but the scenario played out well for computer tech progress, and it's pretty clear Jobs' actions and attitudes were greatly involved in influencing this techno garbage to be turned into useful appliances most everyone can reasonably use. The elitist geeks can go prattle on to each other in their desire to keep technology in the hands of geeks (that's not smart, it's perpetually dumbed down), the real world doesn't care what they think. That includes me when I was a BeOS advocate (again, right product, wrong time): normal people didn't care because it wasn't presented to them.

Every industry goes through this process. It's just painful to see an industry laze around in its self-defeating arrogance as long as the computer industry has. It still has a long way to go.
 
pgiguere1 said:
You bought a specific BMW car, not the BMW company. If someone used your specific BMW car, it would be correct to say he used OldSchoolMacGuy's car.

Your analogy would work only if Apple bought specific PrimeSense products. They bought the whole company.
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Apple has no hand in making it. We don't call it a VW LP 610-4 even though VW bought Lamborghini.
 
iChrist said:
Thanks, for yet another car analogy that makes absolutely no sense in the context of the story. And surprise, you have a bmw. :rolleyes:

:apple:
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Well taking a look at your financials I see why you can't buy a BMW. Yes I have one along with a couple others. Would it have been better if I would have said Acura? You still would have been butt hurt.
 
pgiguere1 said:
I did read his comment. I'm pretty sure he was saying [The fact Google announces their project so much in advance] was mainly for PR, not [The fact Google makes those projects] was for PR. You answered as if he said the entire projects were for PR.

If your answer is "public testing", then the main goal of testing is to ultimately make a better product. If Apple makes worse products because of their type of testing (we have no clue if they really do), then that's their problem. But in no way does that explain the "Google is motivated by new ideas while Apple is motivated by profits only" statement you just pulled out. Like I said, those two things are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

How is the type of testing correlated to the motivations of a company?

I think the fact you perceive Google as much less profit-driven than Apple shows how effective their PR strategy is. Google somehow convinced you that their main goal is to make lives better, not profits, despite you not being able to logicially explain why. That's their goal from a PR perspective. And no, that's not malice or a conspiracy. That's just the definition of a corporation.
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Never said Googel was less profit driven company.

Google is absolutely profit driven.

Maybe it was my snarky tone (i'm not having a good day). Their modes of business are just different. I'm not implying one greater than the other.

Google does not aim to make large profit from hardware and their physical technologies. their primary profit is driven from the services and software driven side.

Apple is a hardware company first, and makes large profit from their hardware divisions first, where the software side is to support that.

Two different approaches. I am completely non-emotional to either. Both have merrits and are very valid.

Google is more willing to risk early product announcements and get it into lots of peoples hands because, even if a hardware attempt fails for whatever reason, they have their main profit generation side completely intact. Apple on the other hand cannot afford this risk, since the hardware is their primary profit.

again, non judgemental. But its what gives guys like the one i was responding to the impression that Google is in someway inferior and an implied bad company.
 
Millah said:
Maybe for you because you're a "device engineer for 30+ yrs." For the average consumer? Eh, just causes confusion for people who don't know a thing about technology over what's a finished product and what's a project. I've seen plenty of blogs running headlines suggesting that Google Glass was a finished product you could buy for $1,500 if you were lucky enough, when we all know this is just an extension of the Explorer program. You know what else would be great? If David Copperfield gave an in-depth explanation about his big magic tricks prior to performing them. Sort of ruins the whole magic thing though, doesn't it?

Apple (and many other companies who give a damn) keep big projects behind closed doors for a reason. Whether you agree with that as a "device engineer" is your choice, but there's certainly a reason for it.
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Did kdarling kick your dog? Wow. We're all posting on a tech forum. Of course we'd all love to get a peek at the inner skunkworks of tech companies. What the average consumer thinks is fairly irrelevant. What a tech enthusiast thinks is more relevant to the topic. As for blogs suggesting GG could be purchased for $1500, they were right. GG could be purchased from the website for 1 day only.

As usual for MR, analogy is not good. Not as bad as our horrible car analogies, but still not good.
 
kdarling said:
Cool. It's nice to see what companies are working on.

Even better, Google often lets ordinary people participate in their projects (like Glass).

I think that's terrific. Heck, wouldn't we all love it if we could try out Apple projects, even if they never see mass production?



Compared to sites like AI that post hate filled propaganda, MacRumors is the New York Times and Gandhi rolled into one.
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For $1500? Google didn't let anyone do anything but make fool out of themselves for spending a freaking $1500 to buy something Google already clearly said was not worth it at that price. I mean seriously, people claim Apple users are gullible for paying $1500 for a top of the line laptop. What then does that make of the Google gullibles who buy Google Glass?

As they say, a fool and his money are soon parted.
 
LordVic said:
Never said Googel was less profit driven company.

Google is absolutely profit driven.

Maybe it was my snarky tone (i'm not having a good day). Their modes of business are just different. I'm not implying one greater than the other.

Google does not aim to make large profit from hardware and their physical technologies. their primary profit is driven from the services and software driven side.

Apple is a hardware company first, and makes large profit from their hardware divisions first, where the software side is to support that.

Two different approaches. I am completely non-emotional to either. Both have merrits and are very valid.

Google is more willing to risk early product announcements and get it into lots of peoples hands because, even if a hardware attempt fails for whatever reason, they have their main profit generation side completely intact. Apple on the other hand cannot afford this risk, since the hardware is their primary profit.

again, non judgemental. But its what gives guys like the one i was responding to the impression that Google is in someway inferior and an implied bad company.
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Ah, I must have read you wrong. I thought you were saying Google were somehow less motivated by profits. I agree with you that those differences are in large part due to their business model and the risks associated with them.

I don't think that guy you replied to was really calling Google an inferior company though. He was just implying their announcement timing was motivated by PR. Even if that was true (we don't know), I don't think that would make Google an inferior/bad company.
 
LordVic said:
Never said Googel was less profit driven company.

Google is absolutely profit driven.

Maybe it was my snarky tone (i'm not having a good day). Their modes of business are just different. I'm not implying one greater than the other.

Google does not aim to make large profit from hardware and their physical technologies. their primary profit is driven from the services and software driven side.

Apple is a hardware company first, and makes large profit from their hardware divisions first, where the software side is to support that.

Two different approaches. I am completely non-emotional to either. Both have merrits and are very valid.

Google is more willing to risk early product announcements and get it into lots of peoples hands because, even if a hardware attempt fails for whatever reason, they have their main profit generation side completely intact. Apple on the other hand cannot afford this risk, since the hardware is their primary profit.

again, non judgemental. But its what gives guys like the one i was responding to the impression that Google is in someway inferior and an implied bad company.
Click to expand...

Yeah. Googles flagship hardware is $1,500 and is only available twice a year at best.
 
OldSchoolMacGuy said:
Well taking a look at your financials I see why you can't buy a BMW. Yes I have one along with a couple others. Would it have been better if I would have said Acura? You still would have been butt hurt.
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The fact you keep acting so smug ads credibility to his theory that your car analogy was motivated by the desire to name-drop, just saying. I wasn't sure you were pretentious judging by your first comment but I now am.
 
googles need to work on their basic first before they say anything.....for a start...get rid of google plus with youtube.
 
OldSchoolMacGuy said:
Typical MacRumors headline. Not really Apple technology other than Apple bought the business. It's like saying my car isn't a BMW but rather a OldSchoolMacGuy because I bought it.
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Not quite.

Unless you bought the rights to the BMW (brand and company) and added it to your fleet of cars and named it 'OldSchoolMacGuy'.

Then it would be like that.
 
OldSchoolMacGuy said:
Well taking a look at your financials I see why you can't buy a BMW. Yes I have one along with a couple others. Would it have been better if I would have said Acura? You still would have been butt hurt.
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http://theweek.com/article/index/248281/its-not-your-imagination-bmw-drivers-are-the-biggest-jerks
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/...giving-away-clues-about-your-personality.html
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/201...-a-study-suggests/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
http://www.autoevolution.com/news/bmw-and-prius-drivers-are-rude-studies-show-64997.html
while not purely scientific: https://www.google.ca/search?q=BMW+...j0j7&sourceid=chrome&espv=2&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8

there are THOUSANDS of these stories, articles and studies.


this is what they're referring too.

Dont be one of these guys

----------
ThisIsNotMe said:
Yeah. Googles flagship hardware is $1,500 and is only available twice a year at best.
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Incorrect
Google Glass is not their "flagship product". it is a beta product with no real manfuacturing force behind it.

if you know anything about economics and business you know that there is this real thing called "economies of scale".

Because Google does not opnly sell googl glass, as it is still yet a beta test platform, The production is very low volume, hence why they need to charge a very large amount for the technology. Liklihood is that google is not earning a cent of profit off these sales and are purely covering costs.

The reason for the most recent "Google day" and sale of Glass is because they want a greater audience for more testing.

They dont just give them away for free because they hope that if you're serious about plopping down $1500 investment into a beta platform, you will be serious about testing and actually using them.

If they were giving them away or selling them for $100, vast majority of users might just end up putting them on a shelf somewhere. And that doesn't help beta test things.
 
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newagemac said:
The problem people have with Google and their PR campaigns is that Google isn't actually bringing out any projects to make the world better, they are just talking about them. It's all still in the labs. Over the last 10-15 years, Apple has released iPods, iPhones, and iPads. Products that profoundly changed and made a difference in people's lives.

I haven't seen a single industry Google has completely revolutionized like the iPod, iPhone, and iPad in the same time frame.
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Geo-services based on Google Maps ? Google Street View ?

Unlike Apple Google's investing heavily in frontier research, which by nature leads to many projects without commercially viable results. Apple on the other hand is not doing frontier research at all, just some applied research and much engineering. Everything they do must be commercially exploitable. So there's no real inventions coming from Apple, just good engineering and some innovations.
 
Woyzeck said:
Geo-services based on Google Maps ? Google Street View ?

Unlike Apple Google's investing heavily in frontier research, which by nature leads to many projects without commercially viable results. Apple on the other hand is not doing frontier research at all, just some applied research and much engineering. Everything they do must be commercially exploitable. So there's no real inventions coming from Apple, just good engineering and some innovations.
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I love that term "frontier technology" and your post sums up the differences between the two companies very well.
 
Would be nice if Apple would dedicate a portion of the pixels on its camera sensor to the IR range so folks could make heat maps of their homes (to determine inadequate insulation or leaky windows) and industry could use IR emissions to evaluate products or plant equipment.

At the same time itight be interesting for the iWatch to incorporate a UV sensor to warn folks of sun exposure.
 
So What.

We need a new vision.
 

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