Books are typically quite a bit out of date if it's a rapidly progressing field.
More stuff ends up in journal articles, but about a year or so behind the actual work, and at a level of detail which is often problematic to reproduce. You typically have to treat it as a reverse engineering problem - but once you know the core ideas, that's often possible.
Then there's the mountain of "trade secrets" which never get published anywhere. A lot of compelling work in e.g. graphics falls under this case - although you might see a demo and overview at SIGGRAPH.
Publishing tends to be a net positive for serious commercial research work, even if the release has to be delayed. It's a solid process for documenting internal knowledge. It's also one of the main things that's going to interest other researchers in working for you.
More stuff ends up in journal articles, but about a year or so behind the actual work, and at a level of detail which is often problematic to reproduce. You typically have to treat it as a reverse engineering problem - but once you know the core ideas, that's often possible.
Then there's the mountain of "trade secrets" which never get published anywhere. A lot of compelling work in e.g. graphics falls under this case - although you might see a demo and overview at SIGGRAPH.
Publishing tends to be a net positive for serious commercial research work, even if the release has to be delayed. It's a solid process for documenting internal knowledge. It's also one of the main things that's going to interest other researchers in working for you.