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Google's Head of Research — We Don't Do Hardware
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Sep 14, 2007 01:02 PM
from the to-the-gmobile dept.
from the to-the-gmobile dept.
mr_sifter writes "In a recent, wide-ranging interview Google's Head of Research, Dr Peter Norvig, revealed the firm has no interest in developing its own hardware. (Except a phone, apparently.) Said Norvig, 'We want to work everywhere and be neutral. That neutrality is important.' Interestingly, Norvig is tough on where the company's priorities are at the moment, saying: 'I think there could be much better tools, we're [Google] still kind of isolated in what we do. You give us a question and we give you an answer ... We're really focused on either the five second-type question ... We don't really support the five month or the five year queries, the project or life-long goal.' He also talks about the importance of adding a narrative to search, mobile technology, and how Google's strong financials mean the company can run research in an unusual way."
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Oh no!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"I have a masters and I do not do hardware"
I'm curious what the hell that was even supposed to imply. Was he saying that hardware is relegated to BS and below, or PhD? And does he think that anyone's impressed by a masters' these days? They're usually no harder to get than a BS (or indicate that someone bailed on their PhD program).
Is that "do" as in "make"... (Score:3, Funny)
I remember another company once said this... (Score:3, Funny)
**looks at his co-workers X-box, microsoft mouse and microsoft joystick**
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Re:I remember another company once said this... (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
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Seriously, I have a MS-keyb+mouse set, and it's awesome. Probably one of the best keyboards I've had - only, as soon as I installed Vista, half the cool functions weren't available. Kind of embarassing, that.
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Too true. I have a first gen MS optical intellimouse that has seen 6+ hours of use per day for about 11 years now without failure. Hell the thing is so old that I didn't even dislike Microsoft when I bought it! Fortunately the logo rubbed off around 1999 and these days no one can recognise it.
In fact when it was new my top-end machine was a blistering 400mhz PII with 64mb of ram running Win95. Who the hell knew that that Microsoft could make anything
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Of course! (Score:4, Informative)
can i ask Peter Norvig a question? (Score:2)
seriously, do i not speak for the slashdot community when, considering this guy's resources and job description and everything else, i find my mind consumed with one concept?:
E-N-V-Y
does this guy not have the perfect slashdotter's job or what?
Even Google analogies break down somewhere (Score:2)
The Dr forgot to mention it's easier for cars to run over pedestrians and for wheelchairs to get stuck in transport grills like this guy [dhadm.com].
Steve Jobs loves the quote: (Score:2, Redundant)
--Alan Kay
Google does do hardware (Score:4, Interesting)
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/egr/408676278.html [craigslist.org]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Or were you trying to be funny?
This explains much (Score:2)
This quote explains much about Google's consistently unfocused progress with many applications remaining incompletely integrated with the others and often incomplete or in endless 'beta'. If I were an investor in GOOG, I'd be even more nervous now than before.
Don't believe this (Score:4, Insightful)
And short of horoscopes, they now do all of this.
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At the moment (iirc) their using off the shelf components bought in bulk to power their server farms. If you're buying anything close to the amount of hardware Google is using you need people who are well versed in the stuff in order to make the right architecture decisions. Otherwise you just get a huge 20+ geek argument about which Intel or AMD processor to use.
Hiring hardware testers is not the same
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Re:Google doesn't make hardware? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
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