The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Investor Alley => Topic started by: Bob W on April 01, 2015, 08:21:50 AM
-
I've been through LPs, Cassettes, 8 tracks, CDs, Mp3, and now the cloud. Gas was 16 cents a gallon when I was a kid. Time moves on and the past is often not a good indicator of the future.
My feeling is that Google may be the company creating the future we will live in relatively soon. (hell they own a big chunk of the present right now)
Of course Governments such as the US, China and Russia may dominate the AI field.
So what you think? Intel? Apple? Samsung?
What companies do you think will create and own the future? (I'm not talking niche players with interesting technology or ideas here)
-
Companies we haven't heard of yet. Because they don't exist. Probably biotech.
-
I'd love to see google fiber gain real traction and spread all over. Perhaps with the birth of another actual internet company, instead of all these cable companies offering garbage internet.
-
Companies we haven't heard of yet. Because they don't exist. Probably biotech.
Appears Google is already on this --
"In 2014, Google ($GOOG) poured more than one-third of its $425 million venture fund into healthcare and life sciences companies, lead investor Bill Maris told WSJ, up from just 9% in 2013. And, rolling into next year, Maris expects Google Ventures to maintain roughly the same dollar value and strategic focus."
http://www.fiercebiotech.com/story/google-ventures-splashes-life-sciences-its-425m-purse/2014-12-16
-
Companies we haven't heard of yet. Because they don't exist. Probably biotech.
Appears Google is already on this --
"In 2014, Google ($GOOG) poured more than one-third of its $425 million venture fund into healthcare and life sciences companies, lead investor Bill Maris told WSJ, up from just 9% in 2013. And, rolling into next year, Maris expects Google Ventures to maintain roughly the same dollar value and strategic focus."
http://www.fiercebiotech.com/story/google-ventures-splashes-life-sciences-its-425m-purse/2014-12-16
Google is in the position where they have essentially just one revenue source, and they really need to diversify away from it. Because who knows how long they can own online advertising. They are trying all kinds of interesting new R&D because they have all that cash and smart people. Nothing has worked out for them yet. But the driverless cars and other things could be huge later.
-
Companies we haven't heard of yet. Because they don't exist. Probably biotech.
Appears Google is already on this --
"In 2014, Google ($GOOG) poured more than one-third of its $425 million venture fund into healthcare and life sciences companies, lead investor Bill Maris told WSJ, up from just 9% in 2013. And, rolling into next year, Maris expects Google Ventures to maintain roughly the same dollar value and strategic focus."
http://www.fiercebiotech.com/story/google-ventures-splashes-life-sciences-its-425m-purse/2014-12-16
Google is in the position where they have essentially just one revenue source, and they really need to diversify away from it. Because who knows how long they can own online advertising. They are trying all kinds of interesting new R&D because they have all that cash and smart people. Nothing has worked out for them yet. But the driverless cars and other things could be huge later.
I pretty much figured out they have my number when last night I was on line reading about AI. I thought to myself "I think I'll turn on the Roku and see what TED Talks I can find" Damned if the youtube channel wasn't already presenting me with the exact TED Talk I was looking for. Scary shit! So really while google may have revenue from advertising what is probably most valuable for them now is what they know about all or our digital lives.
I do agree that many of their ventures seem pretty far fetched and are unprofitable at the moment. I think that is the price of buying the future. I'm guessing that there aren't a lot of companies actively buying and inventing the future.
http://thenextweb.com/google/2014/01/27/google-is-reportedly-acquiring-artificial-intelligence-firm-deepmind-to-aid-its-robotics-project/
http://www.zdnet.com/article/google-launches-quantum-processor-artificial-intelligence-project/#!
-
I think it depends on what you mean by own the future. My guess is that certain companies will continue to own small chunks.
Tech is so difficult to predict. Things can change rapidly.
If the question is changed to which large tech companies have the most growth potential, it's a little easier for me to conceptualizer and comment on.
For large tech companies with market caps > $100 billion I feel as though the theme will be the greater the focus, the greater potential for growth.
Apple will continue to grow and in my belief has the most potential of all.
Facebook has also done a great job of focusing and has done well as a result. The risk here is if startups start having down rounds. What will this do to paid growth through app installs, etc.
Microsoft seems to be gaining focus and it will be interesting to see they can start having some success and growth stories. Until I see it, I will remain skeptical yet optimistic.
Google. I love the company but I feel like they are trying to take on too much. If they could focus, I would imagine they will do well but if they continue to try to take on everything, then they'll be moving inches in a hundred different directions.
Intel: if they can execute well in the mobile space, they will have a chance at growth. Otherwise probably more of the same.
Samsung: once again, a company trying to do a lot. I'll talk briefly about their mobile segment. We'll see what happens here. They need to create a hit product that can attract large margins. If they can't do this, then I don't think their mobile segment will do well. Probably their best bet is on displays and memory. I feel like if they focused a lot more there they'd see better results.
-
It will be Lithium-Ion Battery Maker Sakti3
-
Tell us more about Satki3
-
My money is (literally) on Apple. The vision of a single OS governing every activity, from waking you in the morning to driving you home in the evening is something that has massive. Their massive and growing market share will ensure that they are uniquely positioned to act on that potential.
-
Couldn't agree more Chuck.
It will be interesting times with Apple over the next few years. They are making great progress as a company, especially in China. In China, the iPhone 6 is the best selling phone and they have nearly 30% of the market in urban areas and 10% overall. There is plenty of room for growth. Overall in the world, they have nearly 12%, so plenty of room for growth. They still have healthy margins, so I can imagine this will continue to contribute to an amazing bottom line.
The introduction of the watch will be interesting and I can foresee Apple Pay continuing to gain traction.
iOS remains the preferred development platform for several reasons, one of which is much easier testing. I can see Android having more problems in this area due to the wide array of device types as well as the proliferation of different Android versions and forks.
CarPlay will be interesting although I don't know how much this will help growth because I haven't done my research.
There is still plenty of upside with Apple. More than all of the others combined.
-
Not sure if we will see any major disruptors in the way the winners of the internet explosion have been (Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alibaba etc).
But if you go with the notion that 5% of new technology each decade appears to be essentially magic compared to what came before, you have to accept that we really have no idea what that 5% will be. Lots of small startups and tech companies think they have it figured out, and a couple of them will be right.
I'm curious to see what it is. My 5 year old was born around the same time as the tablet computer, and using it is somewhat comparable to walking and talking for him - totally normal. My great grandfather, a successful farmer who retired in 1947, could not grasp why I would want to use a computer, or what I might use it for. I wonder what newfangled things my grandkids will be using that boggle our minds completely.
I suspect it will either be an offshoot of computing, or from some other field, or possibly a hybrid of our rapidly expanding computing power combined with biotech or some other unexpected thing.
-
Not sure if we will see any major disruptors in the way the winners of the internet explosion have been (Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alibaba etc).
But if you go with the notion that 5% of new technology each decade appears to be essentially magic compared to what came before, you have to accept that we really have no idea what that 5% will be. Lots of small startups and tech companies think they have it figured out, and a couple of them will be right.
I'm curious to see what it is. My 5 year old was born around the same time as the tablet computer, and using it is somewhat comparable to walking and talking for him - totally normal. My great grandfather, a successful farmer who retired in 1947, could not grasp why I would want to use a computer, or what I might use it for. I wonder what newfangled things my grandkids will be using that boggle our minds completely.
I suspect it will either be an offshoot of computing, or from some other field, or possibly a hybrid of our rapidly expanding computing power combined with biotech or some other unexpected thing.
To give you a hint, in less than 10 years cloud linked computers will be inserted in your ear cartilage and charge off your body. (or something like that) They will cost 20 bucks and be available everywhere. I just paid $100 for a phone that has more computing power than the entire world the day I was born.
I've been watching too much TED about AI and the exponential growth of technology. Exponential thinking is interesting.
So for example the human Genome project took 15 years -- by year 7 they were 1% complete. Some people said the projections were off and it would take 700 years at that rate. What they didn't understand that the exponential growth at 1% indicated the project was half over and that turned out completely true.
So technologies that are 1% today may be 100% in 7 years.
Google is jumping on those in an array of fields. None are profitable now and many are at the 1% stage. Fast forward 7 years and many of them will be off the chart. And it will all seem to happen in an instant.
Take AI for instance - One day it won't be working so well and then "singularity" will be reached. Within 24 hours the intelligence will go from equaling that of the entire human race to one million times that. Amazing shit really.
-
If we are discussing disruptive technology, versus disruptive companies, I think the next huge thing is fairly obvious: Self Driving Automobiles.
Imagine what will change: Trucking as an industry will not exist, because trucks driven by machines don't need to sleep or eat, and so will run 24 hours a day (trucking now is limited by the number of hours truckers can legally drive without stopping). Taxis will become an automated service, as will busses, making both much cheaper. Drunk driving will be something people read about in history books or hear about from their grandparents.
This will affect the workforce in huge ways, and cause lots of political upheaval. Taxi and Trucker unions will fight the DoT sign off on this tech for years, but after it's adopted for private use it's only a matter of time. This will make goods at large stores much cheaper, because transporting goods is often more expensive than the goods themselves to a wholesaler. It will make cab and bus costs trivial.
Everyone will be driven everywhere and will hear from old timers how when they were kids only rich people had that luxury.
-
That is a good one on the self driving cars. That of course is a short interim stop before advanced 3d printers eliminate the need for most trucking.
-
That is a good one on the self driving cars. That of course is a short interim stop before advanced 3d printers eliminate the need for most trucking.
Honestly, I don't think 3D printing will ever be the way most of our goods are produced. It's a slow and energy intensive process: raw materials have to be melted and then extruded bit by bit at a small scale. Most parts can be made in a more energy-efficient manner using more traditional manufacturing processes. Also, you can't 3D print a circuit board or a car or anything else that has to be made of many different materials, so even if individual parts were all made with 3D printers there would still need to be facilities to assemble the finished goods. Self-driving cars actually help the economics of centralized production because you retain the economies of scale involved with building lots of the same thing in one place while eliminating much of the cost involved in transporting the finished product to different locations.
I could be proved wrong about all this, but that's how I see it right now.
-
Not sure if we will see any major disruptors in the way the winners of the internet explosion have been (Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alibaba etc).
But if you go with the notion that 5% of new technology each decade appears to be essentially magic compared to what came before, you have to accept that we really have no idea what that 5% will be. Lots of small startups and tech companies think they have it figured out, and a couple of them will be right.
I'm curious to see what it is. My 5 year old was born around the same time as the tablet computer, and using it is somewhat comparable to walking and talking for him - totally normal. My great grandfather, a successful farmer who retired in 1947, could not grasp why I would want to use a computer, or what I might use it for. I wonder what newfangled things my grandkids will be using that boggle our minds completely.
I suspect it will either be an offshoot of computing, or from some other field, or possibly a hybrid of our rapidly expanding computing power combined with biotech or some other unexpected thing.
To give you a hint, in less than 10 years cloud linked computers will be inserted in your ear cartilage and charge off your body. (or something like that) They will cost 20 bucks and be available everywhere. I just paid $100 for a phone that has more computing power than the entire world the day I was born.
I've been watching too much TED about AI and the exponential growth of technology. Exponential thinking is interesting.
So for example the human Genome project took 15 years -- by year 7 they were 1% complete. Some people said the projections were off and it would take 700 years at that rate. What they didn't understand that the exponential growth at 1% indicated the project was half over and that turned out completely true.
So technologies that are 1% today may be 100% in 7 years.
Google is jumping on those in an array of fields. None are profitable now and many are at the 1% stage. Fast forward 7 years and many of them will be off the chart. And it will all seem to happen in an instant.
Take AI for instance - One day it won't be working so well and then "singularity" will be reached. Within 24 hours the intelligence will go from equaling that of the entire human race to one million times that. Amazing shit really.
I read somewhere that "Moore's Law" will fail sometime around 2020. This is because the size of transistors will rapidly approach that of single atoms. We'll need a way to push past that boundary first.
To be truthful, AI scares me (must be all those Terminator, Alien, Matrix type movies).
-
Can't help but think biotech at a level we can hardly even imagine, will be our not so distant reality... Super micro machines to fix what ails us or repairs us at the nano level. No more shotgun style prescriptions/therapies; rather precisely tailored treatments/drugs based on your unique chemistry/DNA and diagnosis. Truly amazing robotic surgery, far better, less invasive testing and diagnostics, incredible prosthetic devices/new eyes just like OE/hearing... Awe inspiring treatments and managements for pain, brain trauma, paralysis, cancer.
Also think carbon nano tube tech will be blockbuster, and applied in countless ways. Exponential growth, fueled and funded by Google, Apple, Intel, and many others yet to be discovered, will be the vanguard of this next quantum shift. Just the same, old school tech (read infrastructure) will have to be dealt with... Kinda hard to conger up H2O in a desert, I'm sure Canada would love to pipe water into the Golden state, along with all of us having a better grid, bridges, roadways... Also as mentioned, we are PATHETIC with regard to the internet; paying $45/mo for 15 meg download, dealing with a monopoly? Christ, can you even get speeds that slow in a lot of Europe/Scandinavia/Japan/S. Korea? My ISP's "bargain" speed is 3 megs down for I think $25/month. PATHETIC!
-
Also Batteries and solar energy are improving rapidly to the point of being viable alternatives. This will give us unlimited energy. Who can imagine what new technologies will spring up from that?
-
Self-driving cars are extremely interesting. I also see it going into trucking first and then into consumer. It will take a lot of time to prove safety and I'm sure there will be a lot of bumps along the way. At some point, we'll have the first traffic accident caused by a software defect. The taxi use case is really interesting and I think the company that masters this along with realtime logistics will be huge, although a long way off. Thinking about it in these terms makes Über's current market cap of $40 billion seem cheap. Once again, a long way off. My bet is on the company that masters the logistics algorithms though rather than the company that creates the self-driving cars (although they could be the same thing).
Biotech has a lot of potential, but the difficulties are always: 1) it takes massive initial investment and 2) Long regulation lead times since everything needs to be extensively tested.
Battery and alternatives are interesting but also take a lot of testing to make sure safety issues are addressed. The technology once developed, is largely commodity, so I don't see there being a company being a huge winner here. Even the largest battery companies today have relatively modest market caps comparatively. Same for solar. In terms of the transformative nature of the technology though, it has huge potential.
Anyway you look at it, exciting times ahead!
-
Oh yeah and with regard to broadband, in the near term, millimeter wave mobile broadband could be very interesting.
Gigabit speeds over the air.
-
Electric cars are already here and relatively affordable. I have 2, and they are cheaper (total cost of ownership) than my cheap gasoline cars were. It will take maybe 20 years before the average person realizes how great they are, batteries get even cheaper, and the vehicle fleet turns over enough for them to be 50% of cars on the road. And in 20 years they will be self-driving too. Imagine as we get to almost no oil consumption for motor vehicles. That could dramatically change geopolitics. All the countries in the Middle East and Africa that are unstable because of their oil wealth might finally be able to develop normally. We wouldn't have more wars for oil.
-
Electric cars are already here and relatively affordable. I have 2, and they are cheaper (total cost of ownership) than my cheap gasoline cars were. It will take maybe 20 years before the average person realizes how great they are, batteries get even cheaper, and the vehicle fleet turns over enough for them to be 50% of cars on the road. And in 20 years they will be self-driving too. Imagine as we get to almost no oil consumption for motor vehicles. That could dramatically change geopolitics. All the countries in the Middle East and Africa that are unstable because of their oil wealth might finally be able to develop normally. We wouldn't have more wars for oil.
+1
-
It would be awesome if self driving cars came to be. If applied wisely, it could drastically reduce auto related fatalities. Right now, they are at a record low in America but are still above 30,000 lives per year. That's like five 9/11 incidents every year.
-
I read somewhere that "Moore's Law" will fail sometime around 2020. This is because the size of transistors will rapidly approach that of single atoms. We'll need a way to push past that boundary first.
To be truthful, AI scares me (must be all those Terminator, Alien, Matrix type movies).
I joined Intel in 1984, I can tell you that Moore's Law was always 5 years away from failing. Now that doesn't mean it can't in the future, and it fact it will if companies like Intel, and Samsung stop investing in process technology and such. But I will say that I don't stay up at night worrying that is going to fail any time in the future. That said it has been slow form a doubling in transistor count every 18 months to 2 year and now to a bit over that.
I wasn't scared of AI in the past, but I will say that when genius like Elon Musk, Steve Hawkings, and Bill Gates all say we should be concerned I pay attention.
-
One thing that may make Moore's law less relevant is the fact that fewer and fewer computational tasks are gated by the maximum computational capacity of an individual CPU. Overall computational capacity and the ability to parallel process make it less relevant. An example would be Google's Big Query. Without parallel processing, how long would we have needed to wait for Moore's Law to make this possible? It's the parallel processing and process distribution that's the real magic behind it and will make any slow down in Moore's Law less relevant.
WRT electric cars. Agreed that it will be awesome once they start growing more popular. However, it probably won't change geopolitics materially due to a couple of reasons. The U.S. only imports 14% of its oil from gulf states. This will likely continue to decline over the years. U.S. shale producers have made some incredible advances over the past 10 years. As a result, the U.S. is on track to become one of the largest, if not the largest oil producers in the world within the next couple of years.
-
One thing that may make Moore's law less relevant is the fact that fewer and fewer computational tasks are gated by the maximum computational capacity of an individual CPU. Overall computational capacity and the ability to parallel process make it less relevant. An example would be Google's Big Query. Without parallel processing, how long would we have needed to wait for Moore's Law to make this possible? It's the parallel processing and process distribution that's the real magic behind it and will make any slow down in Moore's Law less relevant.
The exponential growth in computing power has been solving a lot of problems for us. Mostly making raw power cheap. A lot of the AI-type applications being discussed on the thread are more problems of developing the right algorithms and data structures than they are of computational power. Sure, the problems get simpler if we could instantly have a billion times greater computational power, but even that isn't enough to model a single human brain given current technology and medical understanding of how the brain operates. These other problems are the limiting factors in AI right now, and will take humans to solve them.
WRT electric cars. Agreed that it will be awesome once they start growing more popular. However, it probably won't change geopolitics materially due to a couple of reasons. The U.S. only imports 14% of its oil from gulf states. This will likely continue to decline over the years. U.S. shale producers have made some incredible advances over the past 10 years. As a result, the U.S. is on track to become one of the largest, if not the largest oil producers in the world within the next couple of years.
The global oil market is more than the US. Every country uses oil. Anywhere less oil is used becomes a decrease in global oil consumption, a decrease in global oil price, and less money going to corrupt regimes financing themselves from a country's natural resources. The US could become a net exporter, EU could become neutral, Japan and China are also moving to electric. All the oil-dependent nations would be less prone to the "Resource Curse".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
http://www.nber.org/papers/w15836
-
Ah yes, other countries definitely. I was thinking primarily of US foreign policy and fighting for oil. Certainly other countries will still have issues due to the reasons you mention. While a move to electric will help this, there will still be issues with natural resources since today most electricity is generated from natural resources. Renewables in the US including hydro (not sure other country's stats) accounts for about 10% of electrical production. The remaining 90% comes from coal, etc. A push to more renewables would cause an increase in demand for rare Earth minerals of which are mined in many countries affected by the resource curse.
Maybe we'll find out that the most transformative technology, and the one that breaks the resource curse cycle, will be asteroid mining.
-
If I had to bet on one company, it would be Apple. But if I had to pick between Apple and the field, I'd pick the field.
-
Electric cars are already here and relatively affordable. I have 2, and they are cheaper (total cost of ownership) than my cheap gasoline cars were. It will take maybe 20 years before the average person realizes how great they are, batteries get even cheaper, and the vehicle fleet turns over enough for them to be 50% of cars on the road. And in 20 years they will be self-driving too. Imagine as we get to almost no oil consumption for motor vehicles. That could dramatically change geopolitics. All the countries in the Middle East and Africa that are unstable because of their oil wealth might finally be able to develop normally. We wouldn't have more wars for oil.
Electric cars are dirtier than gasoline cars until solar hits in a big way. If you plug your electric car into an outlet, you're getting your power from a COAL power plant. (Coal currently accounts for 70% of all CO2 emissions from US generated power.) All you did was move your pollution from your exhaust pipe to the power plant (only coal is many times worse for the environment than gasoline.)
SOLAR plus electric cars are the actual winning combination.
-
Electric cars are already here and relatively affordable. I have 2, and they are cheaper (total cost of ownership) than my cheap gasoline cars were. It will take maybe 20 years before the average person realizes how great they are, batteries get even cheaper, and the vehicle fleet turns over enough for them to be 50% of cars on the road. And in 20 years they will be self-driving too. Imagine as we get to almost no oil consumption for motor vehicles. That could dramatically change geopolitics. All the countries in the Middle East and Africa that are unstable because of their oil wealth might finally be able to develop normally. We wouldn't have more wars for oil.
Electric cars are dirtier than gasoline cars until solar hits in a big way. If you plug your electric car into an outlet, you're getting your power from a COAL power plant. (Coal currently accounts for 70% of all CO2 emissions from US generated power.) All you did was move your pollution from your exhaust pipe to the power plant (only coal is many times worse for the environment than gasoline.)
SOLAR plus electric cars are the actual winning combination.
Actually, even if 100% coal power is used to generate the electricity that the car uses, an electric car causes the emissions of slightly less CO2 than similar gasoline-powered cars. But coal is less than half of US electricity generation and has been declining steadily for years. In some parts of the country, like California, an electric car is much cleaner than even a Prius. In Georgia, the mix is something like 1/3 each of gas, coal, and nuclear, so the emissions are better than the average car. And as more renewable energy is brought online, electric cars get even cleaner. California is on pace to hit 33% electricity generation from renewable sources by 2020, and has a goal of 50% by 2030.
http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/images/2014/08/electric-cars-global-warming-emissions-fact-2.jpg
http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_vehicles/smart-transportation-solutions/advanced-vehicle-technologies/electric-cars/emissions-and-charging-costs-electric-cars.html#.VSMvFvl4pcQ
http://content.sierraclub.org/EVGuide/myths-vs-reality
http://www.afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric_emissions.php
You're on track with solar. Solar panels are actually getting cost competitive with gas and coal, and installations are increasing around the nation. Electric cars are going to get even cleaner. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/15/rising-sun/
-
Though I currently own zero GOOG last I checked, I don't see any company in the next 50 years replacing Google. I'm not sure why Apple is getting mentioned as they don't really compete with Google. Google is synonymous with a great universal browser, search, maps, email, and online video. Apple is not synonymous with any of those. My opinion is that self driving cars will neither make or break Google. They will not grow another 20% because of their self driving car segment. I could be totally wrong, but I just don't see it scaling quickly enough or having the same margins or exponential growth as online advertising.
Their business model is very diversified if you ask me. Yes, their primary revenue source is ads, but they basically own the infrastructure that 99% of people use when browsing the web. Again: search, maps, video, etc.
I don't see Google falling from the top online advertising platform in terms of revenue and volume no more than I see any company replacing Walmart, or JPMorgan going out of business anytime soon.
Facebook has reached critical mass to actually stick around, but they will be gone long before Google. Also, the fact that Yahoo is somehow still around leads me to believe Google will literally be here until the end of America.
-
So Yeah, obviously I agree with some points on Google dominating.
I am a bit surprised that Apple has been mentioned as I assumed their best years were behind them. Samsung is pretty much kicking their ass on every front.
Still you gotta admire Apple. Not so much a tech company as a brand marketing company with very fat margins. I think as long as they can stick to their aspirational appeal they'll own a share of the market.
My daughter (the one who drinks half cups of Starbucks and is 80K in student loan debt) actually says to me Sunday ---"I really want an Apple TV." No shit, she actually said that. Of course she was wearing her Nikes and a North Face jacket drinking a cup of Starbucks while eating organic strawberries when she said it.
I'm pretty sure these aren't even manufactured yet or ever will be. So that is the power of the brand. On the other hand Samsung makes about 50 TV models, 80 phones, 25 tabs.
"Samsung Electronics displaced Apple Inc. as the world's largest technology company in 2011 and is a major part of the South Korean economy. In June 2014 Samsung published the Tizen OS with the new Samsung Z.
Samsung Electronics has been the world's-largest memory chip maker since 1993. In 2009 it started mass-producing 30 nm-class NAND flash memories.[74] It succeeded in 2010 in mass-producing 30 nm-class DRAMs and 20 nm-class NAND flashes, both of which were the first time in the world.[75]"
Not a Samsung ad, just saying.
-
Take AI for instance - One day it won't be working so well and then "singularity" will be reached. Within 24 hours the intelligence will go from equaling that of the entire human race to one million times that. Amazing shit really.
Wait But Why recently published an excellent two-part article on this:
The AI Revolution (http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html)
-
Though I currently own zero GOOG last I checked, I don't see any company in the next 50 years replacing Google. I'm not sure why Apple is getting mentioned as they don't really compete with Google. Google is synonymous with a great universal browser, search, maps, email, and online video. Apple is not synonymous with any of those. My opinion is that self driving cars will neither make or break Google. They will not grow another 20% because of their self driving car segment. I could be totally wrong, but I just don't see it scaling quickly enough or having the same margins or exponential growth as online advertising.
Their business model is very diversified if you ask me. Yes, their primary revenue source is ads, but they basically own the infrastructure that 99% of people use when browsing the web. Again: search, maps, video, etc.
I don't see Google falling from the top online advertising platform in terms of revenue and volume no more than I see any company replacing Walmart, or JPMorgan going out of business anytime soon.
Facebook has reached critical mass to actually stick around, but they will be gone long before Google. Also, the fact that Yahoo is somehow still around leads me to believe Google will literally be here until the end of America.
Agree with this post. Google is so much broader reaching than Apple. Apple is essentially a device company. Google reaches out much wider than that, so I do agree they have a much greater likelihood in being able to shape the future mainly because of the one thing they have substantially more of than anyone, including Apple: data.
-
I'm a bit surprised on the Samsung optimism. I don't share the same view. They've had five straight quarters of declining profits, their overall market share is decreasing (for mobile share), they are getting their butts kicked in China by low cost hand set carriers and on the high end by Apple. Their margins on their handsets are tiny (relative to Apple). Since 2/3 of their operating profit comes from handsets, I'm not sure how this could be considered a success story. For them to turn this around, they're going to need to find a segment that they can own. Maybe part of the problem is that they are trying to compete in all segments at once. In a way, it reminds me a little of Nokia. Nokia tried to segment the market and make a phone for everyone.
Apple on the other hand makes an exceptional product demands incredibly high margins. They control the entire ecosystem which allows them to ensure a level of quality on the end-to-end experience. They are kicking butt in the high end in China. They also make a non-trivial amount on the App Store, media.
Are you sure your daughter wasn't talking about the AppleTV (apple.com/appletv) and not a physical TV?
-
What about quantum computing? Supposedly it can hack and crack anything in the world, the sheer power of it would tear anything today to shreds. Quantum computing would make having privacy protection useless maybe?
-
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/514846/google-and-nasa-launch-quantum-computing-ai-lab/
-
Electric cars are dirtier than gasoline cars until solar hits in a big way. If you plug your electric car into an outlet, you're getting your power from a COAL power plant. (Coal currently accounts for 70% of all CO2 emissions from US generated power.) All you did was move your pollution from your exhaust pipe to the power plant (only coal is many times worse for the environment than gasoline.)
SOLAR plus electric cars are the actual winning combination.
Actually, even if 100% coal power is used to generate the electricity that the car uses, an electric car causes the emissions of slightly less CO2 than similar gasoline-powered cars. But coal is less than half of US electricity generation and has been declining steadily for years. In some parts of the country, like California, an electric car is much cleaner than even a Prius. In Georgia, the mix is something like 1/3 each of gas, coal, and nuclear, so the emissions are better than the average car. And as more renewable energy is brought online, electric cars get even cleaner. California is on pace to hit 33% electricity generation from renewable sources by 2020, and has a goal of 50% by 2030.
http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/images/2014/08/electric-cars-global-warming-emissions-fact-2.jpg
http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_vehicles/smart-transportation-solutions/advanced-vehicle-technologies/electric-cars/emissions-and-charging-costs-electric-cars.html#.VSMvFvl4pcQ
http://content.sierraclub.org/EVGuide/myths-vs-reality
http://www.afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric_emissions.php
You're on track with solar. Solar panels are actually getting cost competitive with gas and coal, and installations are increasing around the nation. Electric cars are going to get even cleaner. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/15/rising-sun/
Coal is 40% of US generated power, but accounts for 70% of all power generation emissions. It is significantly dirtier than gasoline. Your Sierra Club link also states this -- in Western states which have more renewable generated power, electric cars are cleaner. In areas that still have significant coal plants, a hybrid is cleaner. Since the national average is 40% coal, and Georgia is 30% coal, an electric car in Georgia is probably worse than a hybrid.
You can offset this by buying renewable power generation (if your power company and state allows this), or by plugging in a solar panel. But MORE THAN HALF of Americans (55%, according to your first link) live in an area where an electric car is worse than a gasoline car.
-
Electric cars are dirtier than gasoline cars until solar hits in a big way. If you plug your electric car into an outlet, you're getting your power from a COAL power plant. (Coal currently accounts for 70% of all CO2 emissions from US generated power.) All you did was move your pollution from your exhaust pipe to the power plant (only coal is many times worse for the environment than gasoline.)
SOLAR plus electric cars are the actual winning combination.
Actually, even if 100% coal power is used to generate the electricity that the car uses, an electric car causes the emissions of slightly less CO2 than similar gasoline-powered cars. But coal is less than half of US electricity generation and has been declining steadily for years. In some parts of the country, like California, an electric car is much cleaner than even a Prius. In Georgia, the mix is something like 1/3 each of gas, coal, and nuclear, so the emissions are better than the average car. And as more renewable energy is brought online, electric cars get even cleaner. California is on pace to hit 33% electricity generation from renewable sources by 2020, and has a goal of 50% by 2030.
http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/images/2014/08/electric-cars-global-warming-emissions-fact-2.jpg
http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_vehicles/smart-transportation-solutions/advanced-vehicle-technologies/electric-cars/emissions-and-charging-costs-electric-cars.html#.VSMvFvl4pcQ
http://content.sierraclub.org/EVGuide/myths-vs-reality
http://www.afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric_emissions.php
You're on track with solar. Solar panels are actually getting cost competitive with gas and coal, and installations are increasing around the nation. Electric cars are going to get even cleaner. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/15/rising-sun/
Coal is 40% of US generated power, but accounts for 70% of all power generation emissions. It is significantly dirtier than gasoline. Your Sierra Club link also states this -- in Western states which have more renewable generated power, electric cars are cleaner. In areas that still have significant coal plants, a hybrid is cleaner. Since the national average is 40% coal, and Georgia is 30% coal, an electric car in Georgia is probably worse than a hybrid.
You can offset this by buying renewable power generation (if your power company and state allows this), or by plugging in a solar panel. But MORE THAN HALF of Americans (55%, according to your first link) live in an area where an electric car is worse than a gasoline car.
It sounds like we agree that we'd prefer renewables to coal. But the UCS link says that throughout the country electric cars are better than most gasoline cars, and at worst are the same as a Prius. It's due in part to the fact that internal combustion engines only harness about 20% of the energy in the gasoline to move the car forward. And then a lot of that energy is wasted through braking and not recaptured. The good news is that as the grid gets cleaner (which it will slowly), electric vehicles get cleaner too--even if they are already on the street. Gasoline vehicles just stay the same or get slowly dirtier.
-
[snip]
-
Samsung doesn't have much brand power. It produces products in many different product lines. But nearly all of those product lines are highly competitive, low-margin, near commodity type items. Giant HDTVs? Very low margin. Even cell phones are somewhat commoditized. The difference is that Apple as been able to differentiate itself in the minds of consumers for decades. They put out a product and everyone wants it. They put out a minor upgrade and everyone wants it. There's a psychological moat of brand power there. They have to maintain that, but it's hugely valuable while they can keep it. They can sell a phone for $600 that cost them $200 in development and manufacturing cots. Samsung does not have that.
-
Samsung doesn't have much brand power. It produces products in many different product lines. But nearly all of those product lines are highly competitive, low-margin, near commodity type items. Giant HDTVs? Very low margin. Even cell phones are somewhat commoditized. The difference is that Apple as been able to differentiate itself in the minds of consumers for decades. They put out a product and everyone wants it. They put out a minor upgrade and everyone wants it. There's a psychological moat of brand power there. They have to maintain that, but it's hugely valuable while they can keep it. They can sell a phone for $600 that cost them $200 in development and manufacturing cots. Samsung does not have that.
From our discussion so far I'm assuming both Apple and Samsung are out as far as creating the future. A brand does not a future make. And I don't really see cell phones, TVs, data mining, tablets and wearable toys as futuristic items. They are pretty much the present. I agree that many electronic products are now commoditized. In the midterm future one can easily imagine standard cell phones being practically disposable and selling for under $10. Same with tablets and to some extent with most screens. (If I paid $100 for my Motorola Republic smart phone I'm guessing that in 2-3 years a similar model will cost $50 and within 6 years they will be $25)
But really who will lead the biotech, nanotech, Energy, AI revolution that is sure to come? I'm not that familiar with various companies so this is a question I don't have a good idea about. I indicated Google because they seem to have tons of cash, a leading name and to be putting money into lots of fields that appear to have no immediate share holder value but have potential huge future value.
Here are some quick blurbs on Google that don't even cover self driving cars and quantum computing.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/10/google-buys-lift-labs-in-further-biotech-push/?_r=0
http://www.seobythesea.com/2015/03/google-files-patent-wearable-anti-cancer-technology/
http://www.google.com/green/energy/investments/
-
From our discussion so far I'm assuming both Apple and Samsung are out as far as creating the future.
...
But really who will lead the biotech, nanotech, Energy, AI revolution that is sure to come? I'm not that familiar with various companies so this is a question I don't have a good idea about. I indicated Google because they seem to have tons of cash, a leading name and to be putting money into lots of fields that appear to have no immediate share holder value but have potential huge future value.
Here are some quick blurbs on Google that don't even cover self driving cars and quantum computing.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/10/google-buys-lift-labs-in-further-biotech-push/?_r=0
http://www.seobythesea.com/2015/03/google-files-patent-wearable-anti-cancer-technology/
http://www.google.com/green/energy/investments/
I think we agree. It's hard to predict the future. But if it looks like the past (as it occasionally does), Google may be the Xerox or the AT&T that is funding the PARC or Bell Labs that creates technology that becomes unbelievably transformative. In those cases, it was other companies that saw the technology, recognized it as valuable (while Xerox and AT&T did not), and turned it into revolutionary products--some of which I'm using right now. It may be Google that sees something of value and capitalizes on it. It may be someone else.
But the big changes are probably going to come from somewhere unexpected. Some people in another field doing something totally under the radar that seems kind of out there and maybe boring. Then someone else sees it, has a vision, and brings it over into a new application that we can't imagine.
-
From our discussion so far I'm assuming both Apple and Samsung are out as far as creating the future.
...
But really who will lead the biotech, nanotech, Energy, AI revolution that is sure to come? I'm not that familiar with various companies so this is a question I don't have a good idea about. I indicated Google because they seem to have tons of cash, a leading name and to be putting money into lots of fields that appear to have no immediate share holder value but have potential huge future value.
Here are some quick blurbs on Google that don't even cover self driving cars and quantum computing.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/10/google-buys-lift-labs-in-further-biotech-push/?_r=0
http://www.seobythesea.com/2015/03/google-files-patent-wearable-anti-cancer-technology/
http://www.google.com/green/energy/investments/
I think we agree. It's hard to predict the future. But if it looks like the past (as it occasionally does), Google may be the Xerox or the AT&T that is funding the PARC or Bell Labs that creates technology that becomes unbelievably transformative. In those cases, it was other companies that saw the technology, recognized it as valuable (while Xerox and AT&T did not), and turned it into revolutionary products--some of which I'm using right now. It may be Google that sees something of value and capitalizes on it. It may be someone else.
But the big changes are probably going to come from somewhere unexpected. Some people in another field doing something totally under the radar that seems kind of out there and maybe boring. Then someone else sees it, has a vision, and brings it over into a new application that we can't imagine.
Yeah, I'm old enough to remember that Microsoft didn't even realize the internet was coming and basically ceded a lot of stuff it could have had to others.
Then there is Facebook (why didn't Google think of that? YouTube - Why didn't google think of that?)
It appears that companies have a difficulty thinking of great ideas more than once or twice for some odd reason.
Of course lots of folks are thinking of nano, bio and energy so I think the "owning" the right companies will be a big deal.
The way the exponential growth of AI is apparently structured (if you believe the experts who have been right for the last 20 years) a 1% completion is half way there and within a really, really short period of time it will go from a cool useful thing to "the" thing.
So whoever has the handle on that will win a huge deal. I'm guessing most likely that it will be the US Government who will lead this in partnership with some of the big players. At very least the US military industrial complex will get their hooks into asap.
The AI can be very scary stuff.
-
I wouldn't count Apple out of the whole "future" thing. They made the home desktop affordable, the mp3 player popular, the smartphone mandatory, the tablet marketable...
I mean, really.
-
So Yeah, obviously I agree with some points on Google dominating.
I am a bit surprised that Apple has been mentioned as I assumed their best years were behind them. Samsung is pretty much kicking their ass on every front.
Huh? In what way is Samsung beating Apple?
Still you gotta admire Apple. Not so much a tech company as a brand marketing company with very fat margins. I think as long as they can stick to their aspirational appeal they'll own a share of the market.
My daughter (the one who drinks half cups of Starbucks and is 80K in student loan debt) actually says to me Sunday ---"I really want an Apple TV." No shit, she actually said that. Of course she was wearing her Nikes and a North Face jacket drinking a cup of Starbucks while eating organic strawberries when she said it.
I'm pretty sure these aren't even manufactured yet or ever will be. So that is the power of the brand.
Uh.. Apple TV has been around for over 8 years. Since before the iPhone.
http://store.apple.com/us/appletv
You may need to ask your kids (or Google) about the latest technologies. ;)
I agree that Google has a head start in most areas over most companies, but I also agree "the field" has a better chance, as does "company not yet invented." But Google's doing a damn fine job of creating the future.
Surprised I haven't seen Amazon mentioned (a brief footnote aside).
-
I think it's a bit of a mistake to label Apple as a just a brand marketing company. They do everything they focus on extremely well. Brand marketing is certainly the most visible, but they are probably one of the best in supply chain management as well (if not the best). Their products are incredible and at their core, they may be more of a usability company than anything. It may be easy to think that people want them just because the marketing is awesome (which it is), but that's not the only reason. Everything about their products is through end to end, but at the core is making sure the products are more usable than anything else. They also do platforms extremely well. iOS is unquestionably the best mobile platform out there. Ask a mobile dev which platform they'd rather develop on and you'll get a consistent answer. This has created a network effect of increasing developers and users on iOS and has resulted in a handsome profit for Apple.
On of the key strengths of Apple is focus. They don't try to do everything. They pick a few things and then they do them better than anyone else out there. This is why their market cap has doubled over the past four years, while other companies at the $300 billion market cap level have remained relatively flat. You simply can't be the best at everything. You need to choose. Choosing is hard and nobody wants to do it. It requires extreme discipline.
I think this is why I wouldn't mention Amazon. They are certainly one of the most ambitious companies on the list but they are trying to do everything rather than just focus on their strengths. Their online business is exceptional. AWS is insane. Their warehousing technology is incredible. Their customer service is in its own category. Where they have been having problems is product/market fit for their hardware/software products. This should help illustrate how phenomenal Apple is that they are able to execute and create products like no other company. Amazon's phone sold an estimated 25k units along with an estimated $400MM write off.
Amazon is one exceptional company and I feel as though if they could focus their efforts, they'd be that much more formidable.
I feel like there a natural tendency to think that a company will have a breakthrough technology that will change everything and will reap all the benefits, but that's only one part of the equation. There are several other questions that are equally if not more important, such as will it meet the customer use case better than anything else and how will the company handle distribution? There are so many companies with exceptional products and exceptional products that fail or can't get traction because they can't distribute the product in a cost effective manner.
There's also somewhat of a myth with first mover advantage. There is a tendency to think that the first company with the product will be the company that takes all. This is frequently not the case. Google wasn't the first search engine. In fact, the space was arguably crowded when they entered, but they invented the Page Rank algorithm which drastically improved search results, but they didn't have a way to monetize the traffic until they replicated Overture's pay per click ad bidding platform. Before that, their business model was selling search devices for corporate networks (IIRC).
Even relatively straight forward use cases that seem completely obvious to an entire industry can be incredibly difficult to gain adoption.
Take Google Pay. for example. There had been several in the industry that had been claiming that NFC was the next big thing for such a long period of time. Pay with your phone. Who wouldn't want that? Apple was arguably late to the game on this one in terms of the NFC hype cycle.
Who do you think will win a bigger portion of the payments space? Google or Apple?
I love the discussion by the way. Great thread and some very insightful comments.
-
From our discussion so far I'm assuming both Apple and Samsung are out as far as creating the future. A brand does not a future make.
...
Yeah, I'm old enough to remember that Microsoft didn't even realize the internet was coming and basically ceded a lot of stuff it could have had to others.
Microsoft was obviously aware of the internet and much of its potential. Precisely because they wanted to be the gatekeepers of the internet, they infamously bundled IE with Windows and successfully crowded out Netscape. In fact, building a moat through aggressive tactics that many considered monopolistic was a key ingredient to both their success and eventual decline. Fortunately for them a few key products have held up, particularly in the business space, and continue to be cash cows.
But Apple is very different from Microsoft. Thedudeabides is right that one key ingredient in their success is their focus. They look at every major product from just about every angle possible before it goes to market (with a few exceptions on the software side). While they may not seem like players in the fields you mentioned, they have the track record, logistical capabilities, and financial resources to be major players in any of them. In my opinion, to dismiss their past success as branding and to lump their future potential with other gadget companies is a little silly.
-
Another company that has huge potential: Über.
An incredible amount of focus for this company and they are absolutely relentless.
Some will raise eyebrows at their current valuation, but the numbers that I've seen that are public are crazy and make me realize they are not far off.
They have a crazy mission too. They want to make Über cheaper than owning a car. Who knows if they will be able to achieve that. However what would happen if Über was able to secure 1% of the personal transportation market? I don't know what that would equate to from a market cap perspective, but considering that Amazon owns about 1% of retail and Google owns about 1% of the total advertising market, it would be an undeniably large market cap.
There is a network effect with Über as well. More riders attract more drivers, more drivers means better service which attracts more riders, which then attracts more drivers. The network effect makes their business more and more defensible. The riders go where the drivers are and vice versa. Anyone competing with them would have to pay massive customer acquisition costs to get app downloads, drivers, etc.
All the while, Über is building a realtime logistics system which is also highly defensible. Where do we predict that riders will be? How do we distribute cars so that a given wait time for a customer is minimal. These are hard problems and Über is solving them incredibly well.
Über also released ÜberPool in SF, which helps match riders not only with a driver but also with other riders. Each rider pays a flat rate for anywhere in SF ($7). This sheds a bit of light on what is possible with a realtime logistics system.
Also, speaking of self-driving cars, who do you think will be one of the first to jump on this opportunity? From Über's perspective, it would require very little change. Instead of a driver manually confirming that they will pick up a fare, Über's systems would automatically dispatch. Of course, that is a long way off. There is so much room for growth even before then.
It's always hard to say what will happen to a company that is so young and doesn't disclose many numbers publicly, but wow they have potential.
-
I think it's a bit of a mistake to label Apple as a just a brand marketing company. They do everything they focus on extremely well. Brand marketing is certainly the most visible, but they are probably one of the best in supply chain management as well (if not the best). Their products are incredible and at their core, they may be more of a usability company than anything. It may be easy to think that people want them just because the marketing is awesome (which it is), but that's not the only reason. Everything about their products is through end to end, but at the core is making sure the products are more usable than anything else. They also do platforms extremely well. iOS is unquestionably the best mobile platform out there. Ask a mobile dev which platform they'd rather develop on and you'll get a consistent answer. This has created a network effect of increasing developers and users on iOS and has resulted in a handsome profit for Apple.
This is absolutely true. Design was Jobs's obsession. Design/usability is the reason they have the great brand and diehard followers.
There's also somewhat of a myth with first mover advantage.
Yes, like I mentioned with Xerox PARC, they created some breakthrough ways to interact with computers. But it was Jobs's insight that design and usability were crucial to making them something more than a hobby for techie nerds, and into something beautiful he could sell to millions. Being the first mover is really important for things with network effects. But your product has to be good enough that people will start to actually adopt it in order to take advantage of being the first mover. Myspace had a lot of people on it, but Facebook was a more attractive product to many people.
-
Another company that has huge potential: Über.
An incredible amount of focus for this company and they are absolutely relentless.
Some will raise eyebrows at their current valuation, but the numbers that I've seen that are public are crazy and make me realize they are not far off.
They have a crazy mission too. They want to make Über cheaper than owning a car. Who knows if they will be able to achieve that. However what would happen if Über was able to secure 1% of the personal transportation market? I don't know what that would equate to from a market cap perspective, but considering that Amazon owns about 1% of retail and Google owns about 1% of the total advertising market, it would be an undeniably large market cap.
The only way this happens is if Über is running self-driving cars. The only way they make that happen is by partnering with a much larger firm who can provide the cars.
-
From our discussion so far I'm assuming both Apple and Samsung are out as far as creating the future. A brand does not a future make.
...
Yeah, I'm old enough to remember that Microsoft didn't even realize the internet was coming and basically ceded a lot of stuff it could have had to others.
Microsoft was obviously aware of the internet and much of its potential. Precisely because they wanted to be the gatekeepers of the internet, they infamously bundled IE with Windows and successfully crowded out Netscape. In fact, building a moat through aggressive tactics that many considered monopolistic was a key ingredient to both their success and eventual decline. Fortunately for them a few key products have held up, particularly in the business space, and continue to be cash cows.
In 1995, Microsoft launched "The Microsoft Network," or MSN. Their objective was to take on AOL, the dominant online provider at the time, and be the service provider for business. When asked why business would not use the Internet instead of paying for a subscription service, they were befuddled. Bill Gates wrote his famous "Internet Tidal Wave" memo, and all Microsoft products suddenly started getting web enabled. MSN quickly morphed from being a dial-up service, to being an umbrella for Microsoft online products and services.
Microsoft, having been caught by surprise by the success of the web, had no web browser product. They licensed the product from Spyglass, promising them a percentage of their sales. They then gave the product away. Spyglass got a percentage of 0. By giving away the browser, Microsoft prevented Netscape from ever charging for theirs. (All this came out in the Anti-trust trial and the Spyglass lawsuit)
So yes, I also remember when Microsoft didn't realize the web was coming. They reacted quickly once they did, but their competitors were more nimble.
The lesson is that it is very, very difficult for technology companies to maintain dominance. Leadership rotates. Apple was a surprise because they dominated the personal computer field in the 70's, got unseated by IBM, and are now back in a leadership role as a dominant company.
It's fun to watch, but these days, I watch from the sidelines. I don't place bets anymore.
-
Take AI for instance - One day it won't be working so well and then "singularity" will be reached. Within 24 hours the intelligence will go from equaling that of the entire human race to one million times that. Amazing shit really.
Wait But Why recently published an excellent two-part article on this:
The AI Revolution (http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html)
Yep, came here to post this link. One of the most eye- and brain-opening things I've read in the past year.
Essentially it shows that a bunch of smart people seriously believe that a world-changing, potentially humanity-destroying (or humanity-saving) dislocation is coming, probably within our lifetimes, whether we want it or not. It's something that could easily make all our long-term planning and saving utterly pointless, and a clear example of why Berstein believes that "depriving ourselves to boost our 40-year success probability much beyond 80% is a fool’s errand" (http://www.efficientfrontier.com/ef/901/hell3.htm).
For any company that intends to own the future, I think they at least need to be aware of the concept of Artificial Super-Intelligence today.
Über also released ÜberPool in SF
What? It's "Uber". They're an American company, not a German one, nor are they a heavy metal band. No one says "I'm gonna take an Uueber".
-
What? It's "Uber". They're an American company, not a German one, nor are they a heavy metal band. No one says "I'm gonna take an Uueber".
Heh, yeah sorry. No idea why I put an umlaut in.
-
Another company that has huge potential: Über.
An incredible amount of focus for this company and they are absolutely relentless.
Some will raise eyebrows at their current valuation, but the numbers that I've seen that are public are crazy and make me realize they are not far off.
They have a crazy mission too. They want to make Über cheaper than owning a car. Who knows if they will be able to achieve that. However what would happen if Über was able to secure 1% of the personal transportation market? I don't know what that would equate to from a market cap perspective, but considering that Amazon owns about 1% of retail and Google owns about 1% of the total advertising market, it would be an undeniably large market cap.
The only way this happens is if Über is running self-driving cars. The only way they make that happen is by partnering with a much larger firm who can provide the cars.
Maybe. I guess it depends on whether or not self-driving is a feature or a product in and of itself.
My guess is the former rather than the latter. But I haven't done much research in this area and have not thought too much about how and why that would be the case.
-
The lesson is that it is very, very difficult for technology companies to maintain dominance. Leadership rotates. Apple was a surprise because they dominated the personal computer field in the 70's, got unseated by IBM, and are now back in a leadership role as a dominant company.
It's fun to watch, but these days, I watch from the sidelines. I don't place bets anymore.
It's a good lesson. These titans of industry--who created the industry really--can't see what the next big thing is, and lose out on hundreds of billions of dollars as a result. If they can't see it, how can you and I know which are the right companies to bet on? If I'd bet on Apple in the 80's or 90's, I wouldn't have been betting on the iPhone--that would have just been a nice surprise.
-
Another company that has huge potential: Über.
An incredible amount of focus for this company and they are absolutely relentless.
Some will raise eyebrows at their current valuation, but the numbers that I've seen that are public are crazy and make me realize they are not far off.
They have a crazy mission too. They want to make Über cheaper than owning a car. Who knows if they will be able to achieve that. However what would happen if Über was able to secure 1% of the personal transportation market? I don't know what that would equate to from a market cap perspective, but considering that Amazon owns about 1% of retail and Google owns about 1% of the total advertising market, it would be an undeniably large market cap.
The only way this happens is if Über is running self-driving cars. The only way they make that happen is by partnering with a much larger firm who can provide the cars.
Maybe. I guess it depends on whether or not self-driving is a feature or a product in and of itself.
My guess is the former rather than the latter. But I haven't done much research in this area and have not thought too much about how and why that would be the case.
In order to get the service cheap enough and have ubiquitous availability and get people even more comfortable with it, it would need to be autonomous. You need to cut out the cost of the driver and the surge pricing (to some extent), and have the vehicles always out waiting for people. And I would be much more comfortable ordering one if there wasn't the human element involved. Maybe because I'm antisocial. Maybe because I'm paranoid. I paid more to drive myself and park at the airport when going out of town for a long trip because I didn't want to have some driver see me get in the car with a suitcase, clearly leaving my house empty. If it was automated, I wouldn't have that fear. There have been some limited issues with drivers committing crimes against passengers too.
-
Maybe. I guess it depends on whether or not self-driving is a feature or a product in and of itself.
My guess is the former rather than the latter. But I haven't done much research in this area and have not thought too much about how and why that would be the case.
That's a great point. The "self driving" part of the equation will be trivial for automakers to add to their existing vehicles, once the technology is ready for prime time. Maybe the first gen of self driving cars will be a product in and of itself, but after that Ford, Chevy, Toyota, etc will be making them in large numbers.
They might license a technology from Google or the like, but once the tech is out there, it won't be constrained to one manufacturer.
-
Important note to everyone who thinks Google or Apple "own the future": So did Atari, Commodore, Pitney-Bowes, Nortel, and Research in Motion.
(If I wasn't an index investor, personally my money would be on Raspberry Pi owning the future. ...At least for a little while.)
-
The future is most definitely not the past -- If it were, I would be consulting a dictionary every time I manually typed a letter, using correction fluid, before I mailed in these posts. I would also be calling you up on my rotary dial party line at $5 per minute long distance. (I survived these dark age times!)
Since tech is essentially an exponential thingy it is just damn near impossible to wrap ones head around. The implementation is so much slower than the invention at this point that that adds another layer of fog.
Ear cartilage implanted phone/computers will be available in a few years. But I see very few people actually using blue tooth ear phones at this point even though that has been with us over 12 years.
Driverless cars and trucks probably safely feasible in 3 years but politically implemented when?
So if we have (and I'm sure we will) Super Duper Duper AI computing capability readily available on the cloud to any and everyone we might just see it being used for hologram porn 80% of the time.
But without a doubt those folks who own the SDDAI at first will reap huge $ selling the access. And then in 1 year everyone will have access to AI for like $25 a month.
Can you imagine what will happen with ISIS has AI in their pocket? They'll be designing super microweapons on day one. Biological and nano weapons of all sorts.
Shit I'm scaring myself now!
-
So if we have (and I'm sure we will) Super Duper Duper AI computing capability readily available on the cloud to any and everyone we might just see it being used for hologram porn 80% of the time.
When they figure out "Super Duper Duper AI" I am dropping a huge wad of money to invest in RealDoll.
-
So if we have (and I'm sure we will) Super Duper Duper AI computing capability readily available on the cloud to any and everyone we might just see it being used for hologram porn 80% of the time.
But without a doubt those folks who own the SDDAI at first will reap huge $ selling the access. And then in 1 year everyone will have access to AI for like $25 a month.
Can you imagine what will happen with ISIS has AI in their pocket? They'll be designing super microweapons on day one. Biological and nano weapons of all sorts.
Shit I'm scaring myself now!
You're scaring yourself, and I think you're still seriously underestimating "SDDAI" (Artificial Superintelligence, or "ASI", in the AI research community). If created, it's unlikely anyone will be able to "own" ASI, and it's just as likely to control/destroy/turn-into ISIS as ISIS is to control it.
Again, from the Wait But Why article (http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html) (everyone should really read the entire thing):
(note: AGI=artificial intelligence as smart as a human, ASI=artificial superintelligence beyond human understanding)
There is some debate about how soon AI will reach human-level general intelligence—the median year on a survey of hundreds of scientists about when they believed we’d be more likely than not to have reached AGI was 2040—that’s only 25 years from now, which doesn’t sound that huge until you consider that many of the thinkers in this field think it’s likely that the progression from AGI to ASI happens very quickly. Like—this could happen:
It takes decades for the first AI system to reach low-level general intelligence, but it finally happens. A computer is able to understand the world around it as well as a human four-year-old. Suddenly, within an hour of hitting that milestone, the system pumps out the grand theory of physics that unifies general relativity and quantum mechanics, something no human has been able to definitively do. 90 minutes after that, the AI has become an ASI, 170,000 times more intelligent than a human.
Superintelligence of that magnitude is not something we can remotely grasp, any more than a bumblebee can wrap its head around Keynesian Economics. In our world, smart means a 130 IQ and stupid means an 85 IQ—we don’t have a word for an IQ of 12,952.
What we do know is that humans’ utter dominance on this Earth suggests a clear rule: with intelligence comes power. Which means an ASI, when we create it, will be the most powerful being in the history of life on Earth, and all living things, including humans, will be entirely at its whim—and this might happen in the next few decades.
If our meager brains were able to invent wifi, then something 100 or 1,000 or 1 billion times smarter than we are should have no problem controlling the positioning of each and every atom in the world in any way it likes, at any time—everything we consider magic, every power we imagine a supreme God to have will be as mundane an activity for the ASI as flipping on a light switch is for us. Creating the technology to reverse human aging, curing disease and hunger and even mortality, reprogramming the weather to protect the future of life on Earth—all suddenly possible. Also possible is the immediate end of all life on Earth. As far as we’re concerned, if an ASI comes to being, there is now an omnipotent God on Earth
-
Important note to everyone who thinks Google or Apple "own the future": So did Atari, Commodore, Pitney-Bowes, Nortel, and Research in Motion.
(If I wasn't an index investor, personally my money would be on Raspberry Pi owning the future. ...At least for a little while.)
Yeah anyone who's heavily invested in Apple alone (as opposed to heavily exposed through an index fund or sector ETF) might want to make sure they don't have their blinders on. You could start with this rather interesting article:
I Quit: What Really Goes on at Apple[/quote]
(http://roadlesstravelled.me/2015/04/06/why-steve-jobs-motivated-me-to-quit-apple/)Sixteen hour days are filled with meetings after meetings followed by more meetings. Whilst this is somewhat standard in most organisations, meetings at Apple wreaked of toxic agendas designed to deliberately trip people up, make fools of the less respected and call people out. Team spirit is non existent as ‘internal customers’ attack individuals and push agendas that satisfy their morning egos. Hours upon hours were wasted in meetings to prepare for meetings in preparation for other meetings to the point where little work actually got done.
-
Sid, thanks for that link. Seems like anyone working at Apple should be saving every penny and looking for other work. They most pay really, really well. Steve Jobs always seemed like a douche to me.
-
Important note to everyone who thinks Google or Apple "own the future": So did Atari, Commodore, Pitney-Bowes, Nortel, and Research in Motion.
(If I wasn't an index investor, personally my money would be on Raspberry Pi owning the future. ...At least for a little while.)
There are lessons to be learned from each of the companies you mention. If your argument is that Apple or Google is making the same mistakes as any of these companies, it would be great to hear your argument. From what I know of the companies that failed, I don't see either company making the same mistakes, but maybe I'm missing something.
Raspberry Pi isn't publicly traded, so not sure how you'd invest. Even if it were, I don't think it'd be a good investment. They are made of commodity components that could easily be replicated.
-
Important note to everyone who thinks Google or Apple "own the future": So did Atari, Commodore, Pitney-Bowes, Nortel, and Research in Motion.
(If I wasn't an index investor, personally my money would be on Raspberry Pi owning the future. ...At least for a little while.)
Yeah anyone who's heavily invested in Apple alone (as opposed to heavily exposed through an index fund or sector ETF) might want to make sure they don't have their blinders on. You could start with this rather interesting article:
I Quit: What Really Goes on at Apple (http://roadlesstravelled.me/2015/04/06/why-steve-jobs-motivated-me-to-quit-apple/)
Sixteen hour days are filled with meetings after meetings followed by more meetings. Whilst this is somewhat standard in most organisations, meetings at Apple wreaked of toxic agendas designed to deliberately trip people up, make fools of the less respected and call people out. Team spirit is non existent as ‘internal customers’ attack individuals and push agendas that satisfy their morning egos. Hours upon hours were wasted in meetings to prepare for meetings in preparation for other meetings to the point where little work actually got done.
[/quote]
Haven't read the article yet. But I think any large organization has too many meetings, and meetings to plan for other meetings. Internal competitiveness can vary a lot. I think the higher up you go in any large organization (and the farther away from people doing the actual work), the more meetings you have. People higher up are making decisions based on information, and perform coordinating activities. That requires some exchange among people.
-
This just in --- Apple came out with a watch today! $300 - 17K.
That is so weird because I don't know anyone who wears a watch?
-
Wait But Why recently published an excellent two-part article on this:
The AI Revolution (http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html)
Yep, came here to post this link. One of the most eye- and brain-opening things I've read in the past year.
Thank you Pedestrian and skyrefuge for posting and recommending this article. I'm only two-thirds of the way through so far (because it immediately became obvious that this article deserves a proper, undivided-attention read, not a Smartphone Age multitasking-skim-read), but to say it is eye- and mind-opening is a gross understatement. When I first learned about nanotechnology (and the fact that serious thinkers believe the possibility of realizing it is science fact and not science fiction) in college 15 years ago, the potential for humanity's achievement of true godlike powers in the relatively near future astounded and frightened me. But the shit this article describes takes it to a vastly higher level.
We all like to think of ourselves as enlightened for having woken up from (or never having succumbed to) the consumerist Matrix that the rest of humanity in the developed world is still plugged into. But this article really puts into perspective the shallowness of that outlook: if the viewpoints described in the article (which happen to be held by some of the smartest people on the planet who are the most informed about this topic) are anywhere in the ballpark of being correct, then we're all walking around with our eyes shut to the true possibilities (and perhaps catastrophes?) on the horizon on an exponentially more fundamental level.
-
This AI article is also blowing my mind, and has me evaluating just how linearly my thinking is. To link this back to early retirement, for planning purposes I generally guess that I'll live to be between 85-95 because that's what I see in my family tree plus 5-10% extra due to medical science magic.
But if something truly disruptive happens that allows us to regularly live to 100-150, all of my planning and Trinity study reading goes out the window. What's the safe withdrawal rate for a 100 year retirement?
-
This AI article is also blowing my mind, and has me evaluating just how linearly my thinking is. To link this back to early retirement, for planning purposes I generally guess that I'll live to be between 85-95 because that's what I see in my family tree plus 5-10% extra due to medical science magic.
But if something truly disruptive happens that allows us to regularly live to 100-150, all of my planning and Trinity study reading goes out the window. What's the safe withdrawal rate for a 100 year retirement?
3% should last fairly indefinitely. And if you start with a 4%, you'll very likely be under 3% at some point. (Actually, I wonder if someone could calculate the odds on that).
But then you run into Berstein's "any success rate > 80% is basically meaningless" point.
With that much upheaval, does money even matter? Who knows. You may still be thinking too linearly.
-
This AI article is also blowing my mind, and has me evaluating just how linearly my thinking is. To link this back to early retirement, for planning purposes I generally guess that I'll live to be between 85-95 because that's what I see in my family tree plus 5-10% extra due to medical science magic.
But if something truly disruptive happens that allows us to regularly live to 100-150, all of my planning and Trinity study reading goes out the window. What's the safe withdrawal rate for a 100 year retirement?
3% should last fairly indefinitely. And if you start with a 4%, you'll very likely be under 3% at some point. (Actually, I wonder if someone could calculate the odds on that).
But then you run into Berstein's "any success rate > 80% is basically meaningless" point.
With that much upheaval, does money even matter? Who knows. You may still be thinking too linearly.
If I hadn't mentioned it already -- thanks to you arebelspy for originally referring me to wait but why which was the impetus for this thread.
Liner vs. exponential thinking is indeed the problem. The world, economics, capitalism, production may be so drastically altered in the relatively near future that we can't presently understand it. Who knows the concept of countries and political parties may evaporate in just a few months.
-
If I hadn't mentioned it already -- thanks to you arebelspy for originally referring me to wait but why which was the impetus for this thread.
(https://i.imgur.com/Kd5hoKT.gif)
Wait But Why has lots of other mindblowing and/or interesting posts as well. Not in the same genre (AI), but still very worth reading.
-
And if you start with a 4%, you'll very likely be under 3% at some point. (Actually, I wonder if someone could calculate the odds on that).
I was thinking we could figure this out by using cFIREsim's "Retire Again & Again" spending plan as a crude tool, by setting the "Threshold for Spending Increase" to 33.33% (which is how much your portfolio would have to rise in order to bump you from a 4% WR to a 3% WR, all calculated in inflation-adjusted terms), and then counting how many lines in the graph get a spending bump at some point in their trajectory out of the total number of lines.
But I just did this (using cFIREsim's default settings for everything else), and it looks like only 1 out of 115 cycles got a spending bump. The answer can't be that the historical odds of going from a 4% WR to a 3% WR are only 1/115. I'm not sure if this is due to a flaw in my methodology, or a defect in cFIREsim (we already know that cFIREsim's "Retire Again & Again" calculation doesn't seem to be working properly, because it only ever generates one spending bump instead of ratcheting up every time the threshold is crossed, as discussed in this thread (http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/post-fire/if-(swrinflation-lt-4-of-stash-reset-to-4-spend-swrinflation)/msg611003/#msg611003)).
-
my knowledge of cFIRESim is not great as I've only used it a few times. But doesn't it do simulations based on real world data from the past? If that's the case, there are not going to be many test cases that can be run realistically with a 100 year timeframe.
-
The cFIREsim run above was testing for the number of historical cases that went from 4% to 3% in a 30-year period, and it gives the same answer for longer periods (which makes sense, since it's reporting only a single historical case where this happened). But I believe that answer must be wrong, so there must be a flaw either in the approach I'm using to answer the question or in cFIREsim itself.
-
A company nobody has mentioned that could do a lot with driverless transportation: UPS. They already have Orion, an AI to calculate efficient routes for deliveries. Also maybe Nvidia, since GPUs are providing lots of efficient parallel computational power. Maybe also Amazon, since they've got to be interested in cutting shipping costs, and maybe they can do it with automated [drone/car/truck/butler-bot].
In general, it sounds like AI is likely the next tech boom. The phone and internet enabled faster and richer communication. To enrich the physical world, I think robots, drones, driverless cars/trucks, etc. powered by AI will be the next big thing.
A lot of tech advancements has always given me the impression that it is taking on the roll of an automated servant that humans can buy once and then just feed them electricity.
-
This just in --- Apple came out with a watch today! $300 - 17K.
That is so weird because I don't know anyone who wears a watch?
You will soon. Every single model is sold out through June. That includes the gold one.
-
This just in --- Apple came out with a watch today! $300 - 17K.
That is so weird because I don't know anyone who wears a watch?
You will soon. Every single model is sold out through June. That includes the gold one.
Sheeple be crazy. We spend 20 years realizing that watches are stupid now that there are clocks everywhere and don't wear them anymore. Then Apple and their marketing tell us we gotta have one, even if we don't know what it does. It's Apple and therefore by definition is cool, so get out your Visa.
-
This just in --- Apple came out with a watch today! $300 - 17K.
That is so weird because I don't know anyone who wears a watch?
You will soon. Every single model is sold out through June. That includes the gold one.
Sheeple be crazy. We spend 20 years realizing that watches are stupid now that there are clocks everywhere and don't wear them anymore. Then Apple and their marketing tell us we gotta have one, even if we don't know what it does. It's Apple and therefore by definition is cool, so get out your Visa.
It could be easy to dismiss if you think of it as just a watch whose only function is to tell time. However, if you think of it as a computer on your wrist with a display and a host of biometric sensors, linear actuators that can produce haptic feedback, a GPS, accelerometers along with an API that can be used by developers to create apps, then the reason someone might want one become a little more apparent.
The technology along with the we ability unlock new functionality and make existing use cases much easier:
Telling time
--------------
Current: pullout your phone and look at screen
Watch: look at wrist
Reading a Message
--------------
Current: Pullout phone, read message on home screen
Watch: Look at wrist
Meeting Notification
--------------
Current: Vibration on phone, pullout phone to view meeting location
Watch: Haptic vibration; look at watch
Monitor Steps
--------------
Current: Variable depending on device but most likely push a button to see step indicator
Watch: Use glance on watch or use haptic vibration
Navigate to a location
--------------
Current: Pull out phone, unlock screen or use Siri, pull up maps app, enter location, use map app with phone out to navigate
Watch: Tell Siri location. Look at screen to navigate or navigate entirely with haptic feedback
Payments
Current: pull out phone or wallet, use phone or items in wallet to make purchase
Watch: verify purchase on watch
These are everyday use cases. Is it necessary? No. Does it simplify the use cases? Absolutely. Each user problem it eliminates a step and makes it easier.
These use cases are for the default feature set (and there are more). Imagine what will happen when a developer community is unleashed on it. Great things will happen.
One of the best things about it I think is the haptic feedback. It will make the technology we use today more discreet. Haptic feedback will help enable this.
So, I don't think it's marketing alone, although it will certainly help. I think a lot of people will view the watch as making current user problems easier and more streamlined.
How will it be received? I don't think we know yet, but it will be interesting to watch unfold (no pun intended).
-
I have this sneaking suspicious that Google tends to be a little too early with most of their tech. About a generation or lifecycle ahead of the curve when the timing just isn't right. I see this in robotics, in wearables, in the autonomous car too. Apple understands how important the product/market fit and timing are better than any other company out there. There's a great saying in investing that goes something like "being too early is often indistinguishable from being right".
Google is still 90%+ dependent on advertising and eyeballs which can change in a heartbeat. They've yet to prove that they can deftly move from one paradigm shift to the next whereas Apple has almost started all of them.
Where I think Apple is has an advantage is they view themselves as a "personal computing" company. They're not beholden to a particular form factor or function or platform, and have deftly navigated the evolution of computing from PC > Internet > Mobile Devices. And now we see them laying the groundwork for Healthcare, Fashion, Transportation, and Banking. While these industries have implemented technologies (getting on the web, using software to streamline operations, etc), "personal computing" has yet to really make inroads here.
There are opportunities for personal computing in Fashion and Healthcare (Apple Watch) that didn't previously exist. It's just starting to impact transportation (Uber, Maps, Autos), and same goes for Finance/Banking (ApplePay). We're seeing all these industries gently being pulled into the orbit of personal computing for the first time, and while Apple may not emerge as the sole victor, I cannot think of any company better positioned.
Just playing the odds, and I think Apple has the leg up. Not saying I'm guaranteeing it or anything, but if I had to bet on one company, it'd be Apple.
*disclaimer: I've worked for both Apple and Google
-
^^ Great insights. Thanks!
-
If I hadn't mentioned it already -- thanks to you arebelspy for originally referring me to wait but why which was the impetus for this thread.
Ah, thanks for pointing that out. Here is ARS's original post linking to the Wait But Why AI articles, with subsequent discussion, which is probably a better place to continue this line of conversation or learn more (I think I'd stopped reading that thread after the first page!):
http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/robots-and-their-impact-on-the-future/msg541618/#msg541618
-
Important note to everyone who thinks Google or Apple "own the future": So did Atari, Commodore, Pitney-Bowes, Nortel, and Research in Motion.
(If I wasn't an index investor, personally my money would be on Raspberry Pi owning the future. ...At least for a little while.)
There are lessons to be learned from each of the companies you mention. If your argument is that Apple or Google is making the same mistakes as any of these companies, it would be great to hear your argument. From what I know of the companies that failed, I don't see either company making the same mistakes, but maybe I'm missing something.
That is my argument--you won't "see" them making mistakes. None of the companies I listed saw their mistakes coming either. ...Until they did.
Raspberry Pi isn't publicly traded, so not sure how you'd invest. Even if it were, I don't think it'd be a good investment. They are made of commodity components that could easily be replicated.
I know. I meant "my money is on" as in I think that they could be a winner. (I was also being a little facetious.) They also make an OS for their boards. And they just became the biggest selling UK computer manufacturer ever. My point was, Apple people could eventually switch to Raspberry and then say, "We knew it was the future all along. It won't fail." IT is completely unpredictable at this point. Even Nintendo could have a huge comeback. The Nintendo NES is really the only gaming system I can think of where people get tears in their eyes reminiscing about it. Nintendo could come back someday on sentiment alone. Sony for the moment has spanked Microsoft's bum in the gaming arena. (This is after people said years ago that Microsoft was clearly going to win the console wars.) ...But they're still not making any money. But maybe they will eventually? Remember that Apple started with PCs, then went to nothing for a really long time, then to just music players, then back into everything else.
http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/17/raspberry-pi-sales-pass-5-million/ (http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/17/raspberry-pi-sales-pass-5-million/)
-
I have this sneaking suspicious that Google tends to be a little too early with most of their tech. About a generation or lifecycle ahead of the curve when the timing just isn't right. I see this in robotics, in wearables, in the autonomous car too. Apple understands how important the product/market fit and timing are better than any other company out there. There's a great saying in investing that goes something like "being too early is often indistinguishable from being right".
Google is still 90%+ dependent on advertising and eyeballs which can change in a heartbeat. They've yet to prove that they can deftly move from one paradigm shift to the next whereas Apple has almost started all of them.
Where I think Apple is has an advantage is they view themselves as a "personal computing" company. They're not beholden to a particular form factor or function or platform, and have deftly navigated the evolution of computing from PC > Internet > Mobile Devices. And now we see them laying the groundwork for Healthcare, Fashion, Transportation, and Banking. While these industries have implemented technologies (getting on the web, using software to streamline operations, etc), "personal computing" has yet to really make inroads here.
There are opportunities for personal computing in Fashion and Healthcare (Apple Watch) that didn't previously exist. It's just starting to impact transportation (Uber, Maps, Autos), and same goes for Finance/Banking (ApplePay). We're seeing all these industries gently being pulled into the orbit of personal computing for the first time, and while Apple may not emerge as the sole victor, I cannot think of any company better positioned.
Just playing the odds, and I think Apple has the leg up. Not saying I'm guaranteeing it or anything, but if I had to bet on one company, it'd be Apple.
*disclaimer: I've worked for both Apple and Google
I think Google tries to do too many things at once, and they don't focus enough leaving openings for others to take their technology and one up them.
Compared to Apple who excels at taking other products and turning them into really great products. They're not always the first to something, they just do it better than everyone else.
-
Interesting and shows we really have no clue about the future:
Best selling PC of all time: Commodore 64
Best selling game console of all time: Sony PlayStation 2
Largest technology company by revenue: Samsung
Top-selling mobile phone of all time: Nokia 1100
-
That is my argument--you won't "see" them making mistakes. None of the companies I listed saw their mistakes coming either. ...Until they
I know. I meant "my money is on" as in I think that they could be a winner. (I was also being a little facetious.) They also make an OS for their boards. And they just became the biggest selling UK computer manufacturer ever. My point was, Apple people could eventually switch to Raspberry and then say, "We knew it was the future all along. It won't fail." IT is completely unpredictable at this point.
Maybe. I think asking if they saw it coming is a very different question than could they have seen it coming. Blackberry is a great example. Apple enthusiast sites were talking about rumors of a phone in 2005. They presented evidence such as patents filed, domain names registered and public job listings for wireless engineers. Did Blackberry see this? Could they have seen this? Did they have meeting to talk about "What if they do? What does that mean to us if they are right in their thesis?" I'm not sure. Could they have? Absolutely. I'm not arguing they should have seen it coming, or didn't see it coming, but rather, it would have been possible to have considered it at the time because there was evidence available.
With regard to Raspberry, there's a reason why they are the largest computer manufacturer of all time to come out of the UK. That's because the UK isn't known for manufacturing computers. They've sold 5MM units? Apple sold 10MM units of the iPhone 6 in the first weekend it was on sale. One could argue that Apple already has a product similar to Raspberry Pi in small form factor: the Apple TV. They sold over 10MM units in 2013 alone and generated over $1B in revenue from it (likely excluding ancillary media sales).
Samsung does have higher revenue, but when you look at net income, it's an entirely different story. Look at # of employees of Samsung vs. Apple as well. It takes a lot of employees to produce so many different product lines. If a company can focus on a few product lines and execute on them such that they can demand much higher margins, then your net income will be much higher than the company that executes on a different strategy.
-
Driverless cars and trucks probably safely feasible in 3 years but politically implemented when?
Driverless trucks in 3 years? LOL.
The Self-Driving Google Car May Never Actually Happen (http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2014/10/google_self_driving_car_it_may_never_actually_happen.html)
MIT roboticist John Leonard [...] who does not expect a full self-driving car in his lifetime (he’s 49).
[...]
The mapping system isn’t the only problem. The Google car doesn’t know much about parking: It can’t currently find a space in a supermarket lot or multilevel garage. It can't consistently handle coned-off road construction sites, and its video cameras can sometimes be blinded by the sun when trying to detect the color of a traffic signal. Because it can't tell the difference between a big rock and a crumbled-up piece of newspaper, it will try to drive around both if it encounters either sitting in the middle of the road. (Google specifically confirmed these present shortcomings to me for the MIT Technology Review article.) Can the car currently "see" another vehicle's turn signals or brake lights? Can it tell the difference between the flashing lights on top of a tow truck and those on top of an ambulance? If it's driving past a school playground, and a ball rolls out into the street, will it know to be on special alert? (Google declined to respond to these additional questions when I posed them.)
[...]
Raj Rajkumar, director of autonomous driving research at Carnegie-Mellon University [...] adds that the Detroit carmakers with whom he collaborates on autonomous vehicles believe that the prospect of a fully self-driving car arriving anytime soon is "pure science fiction."
-
Driverless cars and trucks probably safely feasible in 3 years but politically implemented when?
Driverless trucks in 3 years? LOL.
The Self-Driving Google Car May Never Actually Happen (http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2014/10/google_self_driving_car_it_may_never_actually_happen.html)
MIT roboticist John Leonard [...] who does not expect a full self-driving car in his lifetime (he’s 49).
[...]
The mapping system isn’t the only problem. The Google car doesn’t know much about parking: It can’t currently find a space in a supermarket lot or multilevel garage. It can't consistently handle coned-off road construction sites, and its video cameras can sometimes be blinded by the sun when trying to detect the color of a traffic signal. Because it can't tell the difference between a big rock and a crumbled-up piece of newspaper, it will try to drive around both if it encounters either sitting in the middle of the road. (Google specifically confirmed these present shortcomings to me for the MIT Technology Review article.) Can the car currently "see" another vehicle's turn signals or brake lights? Can it tell the difference between the flashing lights on top of a tow truck and those on top of an ambulance? If it's driving past a school playground, and a ball rolls out into the street, will it know to be on special alert? (Google declined to respond to these additional questions when I posed them.)
[...]
Raj Rajkumar, director of autonomous driving research at Carnegie-Mellon University [...] adds that the Detroit carmakers with whom he collaborates on autonomous vehicles believe that the prospect of a fully self-driving car arriving anytime soon is "pure science fiction."
I agree this is far more than 3 years away. But unless Leonard is planning to die before 70, I would be surprised if he didn't see a car that was fully capable of driving itself. Whether it's legal to do so is a different issue.
-
I'm also another skeptic of some timelines I've heard on driverless vehicles.
For the reasons mentioned, it would be difficult to handle a variety of driving conditions which would make tasks like interstate trucking difficult.
Solving many of the driverless car problems at scale could make it difficult to roll out for consumer and a variety of commercial use cases.
However, what about the use cases that don't have any of the aforementioned issues? Do these exist? What about driverless forklifts or something along those lines? They could work in a more controlled environment, which would eliminate the mapping issues. I have no idea if this would actually be feasible, I bring it up mostly to ask if there are other use cases that could be solved before everything has to be solved. My guess is it's possible.
Also, I'm not sure some of the other issues could be solved relatively easily. It's conceivable that an individual could rely on other data collected by other cars and devices (phones and other devices with accelerometers) to aggregate and more accurately depict real time road conditions. Each time a connected device travels a road, the information about the road improves.
One issue I haven't heard a lot of talk about is liability. Who is responsible if there is a crash? What happens when a driverless car collides with a car with a driver? What happens when there is a death? What happens when there is a new update rolled out with a massive bug? How is insurance handled? Who is the insured? Is it the software company?
These problems aren't intractable, but they need to be worked through. My guess is that they will not be solved within the next three years.
However, if a use case can be identified where the problem set is smaller, we should see more rapid progress.
-
Google is a really forward looking company; gets my vote, among tech companies, to affect most people's lives in the future. It aims for mass adoption of its products. Android is 80% of smartphones, enabling even more and more people, internet access. Google's moonshots keeps it on the bleeding edge. If Microsoft's Window's victory in personal computing enabled it to become the dominant tech company for decades, Android and Search will enable Google to stay in the forefront for years to come.
-
However, what about the use cases that don't have any of the aforementioned issues? Do these exist?
Currently some caravans of semi-automated trucks are being tested in wide-open states like Nevada, where the computer keeps them inches from each others' bumpers in order to cut wind resistance and improve fuel mileage.
(Sorry for the off-topic diversion, I know the thread is about specific companies.)
-
Google is a really forward looking company; gets my vote, among tech companies, to affect most people's lives in the future. It aims for mass adoption of its products. Android is 80% of smartphones, enabling even more and more people, internet access. Google's moonshots keeps it on the bleeding edge. If Microsoft's Window's victory in personal computing enabled it to become the dominant tech company for decades, Android and Search will enable Google to stay in the forefront for years to come.
None of these "moonshots" are even close to being in the public's hands at this point, let alone viable products. What if one of moonshots just becomes another commodity? It's hard to predict what will become the next trend, let alone which will become one that creates a Fortune 50 company. CD manufacturing was on the bleeding edge at one point, but no company made a killing off of it; it was simply a commodity product.
-
I'm also another skeptic of some timelines I've heard on driverless vehicles.
For the reasons mentioned, it would be difficult to handle a variety of driving conditions which would make tasks like interstate trucking difficult.
Solving many of the driverless car problems at scale could make it difficult to roll out for consumer and a variety of commercial use cases.
However, what about the use cases that don't have any of the aforementioned issues? Do these exist? What about driverless forklifts or something along those lines? They could work in a more controlled environment, which would eliminate the mapping issues. I have no idea if this would actually be feasible, I bring it up mostly to ask if there are other use cases that could be solved before everything has to be solved. My guess is it's possible.
Also, I'm not sure some of the other issues could be solved relatively easily. It's conceivable that an individual could rely on other data collected by other cars and devices (phones and other devices with accelerometers) to aggregate and more accurately depict real time road conditions. Each time a connected device travels a road, the information about the road improves.
One issue I haven't heard a lot of talk about is liability. Who is responsible if there is a crash? What happens when a driverless car collides with a car with a driver? What happens when there is a death? What happens when there is a new update rolled out with a massive bug? How is insurance handled? Who is the insured? Is it the software company?
These problems aren't intractable, but they need to be worked through. My guess is that they will not be solved within the next three years.
However, if a use case can be identified where the problem set is smaller, we should see more rapid progress.
This is why I think Google will suffer from being too early. Autonomous cars will happen. It's just a matter of when. But I think people get too confident in their ability to predict future events. Like in investing, we simply do not know what the future will hold, and if/when a particular event will occur. We can make guesses, but they're only that. Google may well have the self driving car "figured out" in 3 years, but it may take another 20 to get the public, lawmakers, Dept of Transportation, infrastructure, etc to match. At that point, Google could be out of business for all we know.
There are now rumors of Apple getting into building a car and I see them taking a slightly different approach. Even though it seems a foregone conclusion that the self driving will be a reality some day, Apple doesn't know when this will be. So in the meantime, they just release this incredible electric car, with technological bells and whistles (think Tesla, but with tighter iOS integration, etc), that still requires a human driver. Apple can keep load the thing up with sensors and advanced technology so when the time is right for self driving cars, they just push out a software update. Sounds farcical? This is exactly what Tesla plans to do this summer.
This is why my money is still on Apple. They've proven they're great at skating to where the puck is going to throughout the movements and changes in the industry. Google skates to be right in front of the goal, hoping they'll get the chance to tap the puck in, but never really knowing if/when it will come to them.
I truly admire and respect Google for taking the big gambles, but I just fear they're too early most of the time.
-
The way our patent system works, it helps to be "too early."
-
...
However, what about the use cases that don't have any of the aforementioned issues? Do these exist? What about driverless forklifts or something along those lines? They could work in a more controlled environment, which would eliminate the mapping issues. I have no idea if this would actually be feasible, I bring it up mostly to ask if there are other use cases that could be solved before everything has to be solved. My guess is it's possible.
Google would be 20 years late on this type of factory automation... Think Amazon's material handling system. Because it's so controlled, and processes don't change day to day, you can do much simpler systems where you bury wire in the floor or overhead. The complexity between an automated forklift going 5MPH in a factory and an automated car going 70MPH on a road is several orders of magnitude.
-
Intel anyone?
-
Intel anyone?
No. Definitely not them.
-
I still think it's something biotech related, and will come from a company we haven't heard of yet. Some of the giant companies we've discussed may continue to exist for a long time and do lots of interesting stuff. But the true paradigm shifts are things no one was expecting. They seem to happen in very small firms.
-
If you're looking at biotech, there have been two breakthroughs recently regarding Alzheimer's, and both show a ton of promise to either slow the disease to a crawl, or even cure it outright. The patent holders of these breakthroughs could make enormous quantities of money if their treatments realize their potential.
As is, between that and 3D printing of organs, you could see (healthy, independent) lifespans extend well beyond 100 years on average.
-
I wish Google the best, they do seem like a good company.
Fifteen years ago though, we were worried about Microsoft.
100 years ago it was Standard Oil.
150 years ago it was the Railroad Tycoons.
It's probably not different this time, companies are run by fallible humans. It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future*. Cyberdyne though, I'm not so sure about. :)
* Yogi Bera
-
If you're looking at biotech, there have been two breakthroughs recently regarding Alzheimer's, and both show a ton of promise to either slow the disease to a crawl, or even cure it outright. The patent holders of these breakthroughs could make enormous quantities of money if their treatments realize their potential.
As is, between that and 3D printing of organs, you could see (healthy, independent) lifespans extend well beyond 100 years on average.
There is so much room for improvement is so many areas of medicine. We really know so little about our bodies. And the brain in particular. There are huge opportunities for breakthroughs, a GIANT amount of money to be made, and the prospect of saving your own (or a loved one's) life. Advances will come. They probably won't be owned by Google.
-
I wish Google the best, they do seem like a good company.
Fifteen years ago though, we were worried about Microsoft.
100 years ago it was Standard Oil.
150 years ago it was the Railroad Tycoons.
It's probably not different this time, companies are run by fallible humans. It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future*. Cyberdyne though, I'm not so sure about. :)
* Yogi Bera
Funny Yogi quote! It appears Standard oil (founded 1870) and the railroads have done pretty well. I'm guessing anyone who owned and kept $10 worth of Standard Oil in 1870 would be worth millions today.
So are you saying that Google is the standard oil or railroad of today? I think there is some truth to that. Google was founded in 1998, so only 83 years to go until age 100. Even if Google just sticks to its knitting, it is hard to imagine a serious challenger to their model.
Amazingly, 75% of the world population now has cell phones! Wow. About 2 billion of those are smart phone users of which Android dominates 81 percent of world smartphone market. So in as little as 3 years we could see 6 billion people using a google product 10 times per day.
-
I know. I meant "my money is on" as in I think that they could be a winner. (I was also being a little facetious.) They also make an OS for their boards. And they just became the biggest selling UK computer manufacturer ever. My point was, Apple people could eventually switch to Raspberry and then say, "We knew it was the future all along. It won't fail."
http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/17/raspberry-pi-sales-pass-5-million/ (http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/17/raspberry-pi-sales-pass-5-million/)
Apple already "use" raspberry pi. It's just an arm chip on a board. That's what the iphone and ipad is. So not sure what you mean. And the Rpi OS is just an arm fork of debian.
Now people are speculating that Apple will switch from x86 to Arm for the mac as well, but I consider that rather unlikely. And if they do it won't be a bit deal since anyone who wants a real computer will have to go elsewhere (i.e. x86 PCs). Apple will just trade the professional customers for more casual customers. The professionals will still have to buy PCs, just somewhere else.
edit: I use the correct definition of PC; personal computer. A mac is a PC.
-
1. Apple-- they are an unstoppable force. For the next 5 years at least. Apple watch is sold out-- proving the doubters wrong once again.
2. Disney-- they get their own outline.
a. THEY OWN STAR WARS
b. THEY OWN STAR WARS
c. They own ESPN
d. They are building a Disney land in China. China has a billion people. Disney land in China. Again in China.
e. Every movie they have made still sells at full price. Jungle Book is $25 and they made that shit in the 60's. And people still buy it.
f. They own ABC15
g. Its up 13,676% from its opening price and its still going. I made 12.6% in one month. Last month if I remember right.
3. PAH because their CEO came out and said his stock was going to be $200. That took balls and Im betting on it. They have a cash flow model and that works.
4. Ford because despite popular opinion they have watched everyone else die and they are still here.
5. Lack of sleep has VOIDED this comment
6. Dreamworks-- they are an upcoming Disney
7. ESCA-- because they are the only publicly traded archery stock. They own Bear, and that is bad ass.
It doesn't take numbers to recognize greatness
-
1. Apple-- they are an unstoppable force. For the next 5 years at least. Apple watch is sold out-- proving the doubters wrong once again.
2. Disney-- they get their own outline.
a. THEY OWN STAR WARS
b. THEY OWN STAR WARS
c. They own ESPN
d. They are building a Disney land in China. China has a billion people. Disney land in China. Again in China.
e. Every movie they have made still sells at full price. Jungle Book is $25 and they made that shit in the 60's. And people still buy it.
f. They own ABC15
g. Its up 13,676% from its opening price and its still going. I made 12.6% in one month. Last month if I remember right.
3. PAH because their CEO came out and said his stock was going to be $200. That took balls and Im betting on it. They have a cash flow model and that works.
4. Ford because despite popular opinion they have watched everyone else die and they are still here.
5. Lack of sleep has VOIDED this comment
6. Dreamworks-- they are an upcoming Disney
7. ESCA-- because they are the only publicly traded archery stock. They own Bear, and that is bad ass.
It doesn't take numbers to recognize greatness
If this was intended as a satire of clueless armchair stock-pickers, then bravo!
If not, uh........
-
Oh come on, point #5 was gold!
It worked so well it even made my cat rich.
(https://i.imgur.com/zjSyGU0.gif)
-
1. Apple-- they are an unstoppable force. For the next 5 years at least. Apple watch is sold out-- proving the doubters wrong once again.
2. Disney-- they get their own outline.
a. THEY OWN STAR WARS
b. THEY OWN STAR WARS
c. They own ESPN
d. They are building a Disney land in China. China has a billion people. Disney land in China. Again in China.
e. Every movie they have made still sells at full price. Jungle Book is $25 and they made that shit in the 60's. And people still buy it.
f. They own ABC15
g. Its up 13,676% from its opening price and its still going. I made 12.6% in one month. Last month if I remember right.
3. PAH because their CEO came out and said his stock was going to be $200. That took balls and Im betting on it. They have a cash flow model and that works.
4. Ford because despite popular opinion they have watched everyone else die and they are still here.
5. Lack of sleep has VOIDED this comment
6. Dreamworks-- they are an upcoming Disney
7. ESCA-- because they are the only publicly traded archery stock. They own Bear, and that is bad ass.
It doesn't take numbers to recognize greatness
If this was intended as a satire of clueless armchair stock-pickers, then bravo!
If not, uh........
Seems like as good a place to hang your hat as any other. I like the Disney thinking in particular. One often hears the word content thrown around and I assume Disney has content by the truckload.
I'm not putting them down as owning the future but they sure have a heck of a franchise.
-
Disney is an entertainment force. THE entertainment force. It isn't just Star Wars.
It's Pixar. It's Marvel. It's ESPN.
That, right there, is walking men (and many women) from cradle to grave with entertainment.
-
I do use humor to make serious points because serious is just so boring.
Dont underestimate Star Wars with 3 new movies coming out and a butt load of toys. It's the #2 movie franchise of ALL TIME. It will pass James Bond in the next couple of years.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jakel11/the-highest-grossing-movie-franchises
-
I wish Google the best, they do seem like a good company.
Fifteen years ago though, we were worried about Microsoft.
100 years ago it was Standard Oil.
150 years ago it was the Railroad Tycoons.
It's probably not different this time, companies are run by fallible humans. It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future*. Cyberdyne though, I'm not so sure about. :)
* Yogi Bera
Funny Yogi quote! It appears Standard oil (founded 1870) and the railroads have done pretty well. I'm guessing anyone who owned and kept $10 worth of Standard Oil in 1870 would be worth millions today.
So are you saying that Google is the standard oil or railroad of today? I think there is some truth to that. Google was founded in 1998, so only 83 years to go until age 100. Even if Google just sticks to its knitting, it is hard to imagine a serious challenger to their model.
Amazingly, 75% of the world population now has cell phones! Wow. About 2 billion of those are smart phone users of which Android dominates 81 percent of world smartphone market. So in as little as 3 years we could see 6 billion people using a google product 10 times per day.
I could imagine Google being the standard oil. The railroad barons (plus banks and steel) colluded and practically owned the US until the Teddy Roosevelt busted up the trusts, so eventually a countervailing force arose.
But yeah, Google could do very well. I doubt they'd own the future, but they're doing a great job getting us there.
-
Speaking of busting up the trusts, this just in:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/04/15/business/international/google-expected-to-face-antitrust-charges-in-europe.html?referrer=
-
Even if Google just sticks to its knitting, it is hard to imagine a serious challenger to their model.
I do love the use of that phrase in context. Sticking to knitting. Excellent.
-
APPLE
Apple is the best at making A LOT of money form whatever they do.
We already forgot about the iPod and how much it made. Sure, looks puny compared to iPhone, iPad, etc. but was the every of every tech company 10 years ago. TV. Cars. Health. Apple executes very well and focuses on return. Stock currently undervalued.
GOOGLE
Google has A LOT of talent. And they are bold but not crazy. Betting on the future require a bit of insanity. So far, Google has not been good at making money on their ventures - other than advertising.
ELON MUSK
Now this guy is absolutely insane. When he announced building rockets, Mars, blah, blah everyone wrote him off as a nut case.
Well, he has executed well. Who knew? Now he is into cars. And he actually makes money. Tesla valuation is nearing Ford and GM. What will happen when they start mass producing vehicles? Ever drive a Tesla? Take a test drive then make a judgement.
He also is huge in Solar with SolarCity.
Bold & Insane & Visionary & Great execution = Huge business.
FACEBOOK
Does anyone actually like Facebook? Nuff said.
-
Even if Google just sticks to its knitting, it is hard to imagine a serious challenger to their model.
I do love the use of that phrase in context. Sticking to knitting. Excellent.
W became curious if I used that idiom correctly in this context so I looked it up -- (I think I spent too much time on the grammer Nazi thread?)
stick to your knitting ----
"if a person or company sticks to their knitting, they continue to do what they have always done instead of trying to do something they know very little about He believes the key to a company's success is to stick to its knitting rather than trying to diversify. "
I'll have to use that one more often. Thanks
-
Thanks for bringing Elon Musk into the conversation. Apparently he is a genius in leveraging and executing. He appears especially adept at leveraging Government money. That is a good thing because "gimme a lever and I can move the world," and the US Government has lots of money that needs to be leveraged.
But he may not be the right guy for AI according to this quote ----
"With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon," Musk said last week at the MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics Department's 2014 Centennial Symposium. "You know all those stories where there's the guy with the pentagram and the holy water and he's like... yeah, he's sure he can control the demon, [but] it doesn't work out."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IBM or GE or Cray or HP haven't had a lot of play yet on this thread. IBM may positioned to develop AI given their super computing history.
Largest Supercomputer Vendors
IBM 153 Cray Inc. 62 HP 179 (units in service)
They appear to have over 80% of the supercomputing market.
Let's not forget the Chinese either. They are like a USA government except more focused and dedicated to owning the future. They also are skilled at stealing everyone else's work. My guess would be that there are well over 100K top Chinese tech scientists dedicated to AI. That is kinda scary. So let's say, if the Chinese are 1% at AI, according to exponential progress norms, they are only 7 years from AI. (this unfriendly foreign control may be why Musk and Gates are leery of AI?)
A simple command of "AI -- Please shut down all computer systems, internet, radio and power in the US" might possibly be executed in mere hours.
-
W became curious if I used that idiom correctly in this context so I looked it up
As long as we're on the topic of use of language, I have to ask: was the "W" a typo or a way of referring to yourself in the third person? "W" is pretty far from "I" on the keyboard...
-
W became curious if I used that idiom correctly in this context so I looked it up
As long as we're on the topic of use of language, I have to ask: was the "W" a typo or a way of referring to yourself in the third person? "W" is pretty far from "I" on the keyboard...
. I have no idea? I like the third person concept though. Perhaps I am developing a weird slice of ego from spending too much time on this forum? I'll have to explore that when our friends visit this weekend. "W thinks I should'nt have another beer. But screw W, I'm having one anyway"
-
I think AI is fascinating so I just wanted to post this article. It's a really well done piece covering a lot of the issues surrounding AI.
http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html
My favorite facet of AI, and I can't remember if it is from this article or a different one, is that we do not really understand what human intelligence is or how it works, so it is almost impossible to say how close or far we are from recreating it in a machine.
-
I think AI is fascinating so I just wanted to post this article. It's a really well done piece covering a lot of the issues surrounding AI.
http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html
I was going to post a sardonic reply, but I just don't have the heart. Scroll up a bit and you will see this article has already been posted and discussed in a fair amount of detail in this very thread. We are all guilty of the minor sin of failing to read the entirety of tome-length threads before posting in them, but before posting something like that it's always a good idea to do a cursory check to see if someone else has beaten you to it :-) Welcome to the forums!
-
Thanks for the post Magrien, that is a great link!
-
So it was. Sorry brooklynguy, I guess reading really isn't what it used to be.
http://www.themorningnews.org/article/binge-reading-disorder?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=email
Sent from my iPhone
-
So it was. Sorry brooklynguy, I guess reading really isn't what it used to be.
http://www.themorningnews.org/article/binge-reading-disorder?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=email
Sent from my iPhone
Now that is a nice link. But crap now I have a new disorder to ad to my litany of diagnosable issues.
-
Now that is a nice link. But crap now I have a new disorder to ad to my litany of diagnosable issues.
Ha! You crack me up Bob.
-
So it was. Sorry brooklynguy, I guess reading really isn't what it used to be.
http://www.themorningnews.org/article/binge-reading-disorder?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=email
Sent from my iPhone
Now that is a nice link. But crap now I have a new disorder to ad to my litany of diagnosable issues.
Don't worry; according to that article you'll probably forget that you read about it at all by the end of the day. :)
-
So it was. Sorry brooklynguy, I guess reading really isn't what it used to be.
http://www.themorningnews.org/article/binge-reading-disorder?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=email
That article was great, and very appropriate for this thread -- what are the chances the population will wake up en masse to the consequences our internet- and smart phone-induced binge-reading and multi-tasking proclivities are having on our collective mental well-being and therefore abandon our internet overusage in favor of paper books and time for quiet reflection, thereby denying Google ownership of the future?
-
So it was. Sorry brooklynguy, I guess reading really isn't what it used to be.
http://www.themorningnews.org/article/binge-reading-disorder?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=email
That article was great, and very appropriate for this thread -- what are the chances the population will wake up en masse to the consequences our internet- and smart phone-induced binge-reading and multi-tasking proclivities are having on our collective mental well-being and therefore abandon our internet overusage in favor of paper books and time for quiet reflection, thereby denying Google ownership of the future?
Is there a number lower than nil?