When you look at PARC's contributions (laser printer, bitmap graphics, GUI/windows/icons, WYSIWYG editor, Ethernet, OOP, MVC) or those of Bell Labs (transistor, laser, information theory, Unix, C & C++, radio astronomy), we haven't seen anything comparable from Google's Advanced Technology and Projects program. We can give them another 20-30 years and reassess, but so far, it's not there. Most of the projects have been announced with great fanfare and then quietly scrapped, or are solutions that haven't found problems.
PARC and Bell Labs were at the right place and right time to make fundamental contributions in the nascent areas of digital computers, software, and digital communications. They caught that wave perfectly. Now we're searching a similar revolutionary technology that will open the floodgates of innovation, but it's not apparent yet. Machine learning and AI? If that pans out, Google Brain/DeepMind would be well situated.
PARC and Bell Labs were at the right place and right time to make fundamental contributions in the nascent areas of digital computers, software, and digital communications. They caught that wave perfectly. Now we're searching a similar revolutionary technology that will open the floodgates of innovation, but it's not apparent yet. Machine learning and AI? If that pans out, Google Brain/DeepMind would be well situated.