Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are setting aside their bitter animosity to back a new Internet research laboratory aimed at helping entrepreneurs introduce more groundbreaking ideas to a mass audience.
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Sun Microsystems Inc. also is joining the $7.5 million project at the University of California, Berkeley. The Reliable, Adaptive and Distributed Systems, or RAD, lab was scheduled to open Thursday and will dole out $1.5 million annually over five years, with each company contributing equally.
Staffed initially by six UC Berkeley faculty members and 10 computer science graduates, the lab plans to develop an array of Web-based software services that will be given away to anyone who wants it.
In other news, Yahoo plans to open a NY-based research center, and Google’s expanding in Pittsburgh (via SEW, near CMU).
So 3 of the Big Boys are stumping the equivalent of angel capital from petty cash and we’re supposed to be grateful? Pitiful gesture. But maybe not so pitiful.
My understanding is that some VCs on Sand Hill Road are forking out up to a whole $25K to get in on Web 2.0 Series A funding. They can’t get rid of the money they do hold having raised millions in the expectation of having to fund another Amazon.com.
Maybe the 3 Big Boys are getting in, while the apparent price of innovation remains low. It won’t last.
I think these modest funding gestures are sincere but I hope they don’t effectively stave off serious competition by sucking talent away from other startups.
Throwing some bones out to hungry engineers and users lessens “wildly clever innovation” threats to the status quo.
RAD Lab for search with Google and MSFT behind it. As if Berkley did not have enough corporate ties.
What exactly is Internet search and further deeper development of it? I enjoy reading encyclopedias – know why? Because although each thing begins with the letter “E” every page offers something I did not know. Emu then Emerald. I would not know the adaptation of the emu, using it as a source of high protein meat and being farmed, if it was not for an encyclopedia and by internal curiosity.
With search through Google or anything else the results are only returned based on your internal inquiry. Search only helps answer questions based on predetermined thoughts in your mind. It fuels deeper understanding of topics not more diverse knowledge.
In undergraduate studies why did I have sociology, entomology and chemistry all in the same semester. It wasn’t because I searched for those classes, but because it is important to engage a mind in learning, hearing, and opening to new ideas – not solely searching about topics already common to you.
Search and social networking are going to eliminate Jeopardy champions because there will not be a well versed generalist (great table conversationalist no matter the crowd) but only specialists on topics.
if yahoo do this, it is very interesting for all yahoo-users and for yahoo self too