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Google Canceled the Launch of a Robotic Arm After it Failed the 'Toothbrush Test' (bloomberg.com)
Mark Bergen, reporting for Bloomberg: Google published research this week detailing how its software enables robots to learn from one another. To demonstrate, the company's scientists showed videos featuring robotic arms whirling inside its labs. Google's robotics group built those machines and wanted to sell them to manufacturers, warehouse operators and others. However, executives at Google parent Alphabet Inc. nixed the plan because it failed Chief Executive Officer Larry Page's "toothbrush test," a requirement that the company only ship products used daily by billions of people, according to people familiar with the situation.
Clearly if it has the word Google on it, it must be WEBSCALE!!!
Really, have an off-brand trade name for products that are niche industries if you've got the stink on for smaller products. Seriously, Google's scorched earth approach for lower performing products has affected my love for the company significantly over the last couple years. I'm VERY leery to try any of their new offerings, which is clearly a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Bye!
Why wouldn't Alphabet spin off a new company that they have a 40% stake in and let it fly?
It wouldn't be part of Alphabet, so the rules wouldn't apply.
If it fails, they can handle a little loss.
If it is a hit, they can make money from it without holding back on good ideas the world might be able to use.
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
There are huge industries built around things that fail the toothbrush test. Does Google not like getting a return on their investments?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Google is a little like 3M in that it's an internal project machine. They fostered a culture of internal innovation that wasn't dependent on deliverable products until a certain critical size is reached. When it gets there it gets evaluated to see if there's value in continuing it.
Sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes the answer is no.
I remind you that 3M rejected the idea of the Post-It and didn't fund it internally either, but they did fund the laser disk.
Except this is another example of how since the IPO they have become just another bloated shitty tech company.
Before the IPO Google was this great mad scientist of a company, throwing out all these wild ideas and new products and just letting the market see what stuck. I remember before Gmail many said having email as conversations was seriously stupid, that nobody would want to give up the letter formatting they were used to, but Google did it anyway...but that was then, this is now.
Sadly Google now seems no different than Apple and MSFT, more worried about keeping their position and buying lobbyists to get laws written for them than they are just doing what made Google great which was letting all these smart people come up with cool ideas and seeing what stuck. Maybe its inevitable, once a company grows beyond a certain size or goes public it has to become just another douchebag corp, but its still a shame that Google went from an almost Willy Wonka level of new and strange ideas to rigging search results to protect their political investment.
Oh and before anybody claims its being hypocritical since the video is on YouTube? Yeah...they demonitized the video so they took the ad revenue on a million hit video and kept it, thus punishing those who dare speak against them...but hey they didn't BAN it right?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.