Mitsubishi Breaks Up Famous Computer Science Lab 86
Andrew Koyfman writes "Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories is falling apart. Top researchers and scientists are being poached by the competitors, including BAE, Adobe, and others. The lab was responsible for much breakthrough research in the areas of computer vision, computer graphics, AI, and machine learning. They were the first group to develop the Diamond Touch table, an early precursor to Microsoft's Surface Computing. Now it looks like the famous lab will be no more, at least not in their original glory."
Early precursor (Score:4, Insightful)
Keep in mind (Score:5, Informative)
Ms said that the table was a vast step forward. They did not say that they developed it. Just that they are going to build them.
Re:Keep in mind (Score:4, Insightful)
Media Center isn't that bad.. my complaint is that they didnt' spend enough time with support for capture devices and the the genral dvr stuff.. but as a "Media center PC" it isn't that bad.. then again not alot of home users have their computer connected to their TV....
Re:Keep in mind (Score:4, Insightful)
This is basically true, however the idea behind an "innovative" product is nothing without an implementation. There was nothing especially amazing about the first iPod that Apple released - it was just another MP3 player - except for the software. The iPod's user interface was what set the device apart. In the same manner, Microsoft's implementation of the Surface UI (written completely in C# and WPF - Microsoft's own products) is, from what I've seen, very impressive. And yes, as with any UI concept the basic idea has long been discussed and long been in development by a lot of different people.
Once these tables are more readily available I anticipate seeing some cool new ways to interact with them using F/OSS software. Regardless of how much you might dislike Microsoft, they are one of the few entities that have the capital to bring a device like this to the market. However, once it's out, there is nothing stopping people from digging in and finding other great things you can do with it (see the original Xbox and all the great software now available for it).
And just to preempt the comment I'm sure is coming: I'm sure the tables will have some form of DRM or hardware locking in place. Unfortunately Microsoft will see this as the only way to protect their investment; however, there are a lot of very smart people out there, and if the tables do become popular and more of a commodity item the preventative measures Microsoft puts in place will be blown away - just like every other artificial restriction to date has.
A pity MS don't do better things (Score:2)
That is very true. Unfortunately that is not what they do with their fantastic resources. Rather than try make things better by putting their efforts into improved products, they seem to put their efforts into gaining marketshare through destructive behaviour. Look at Zune and Vista. Look at WinCE.
Imagine how cool computing could be if MS instead put their efforts into competing by making better pro
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In 2001, Stevie Bathiche of Microsoft Hardware and Andy Wilson of Microsoft Research began brainstorming concepts for an interactive table. Their vision was to mix the physical and virtual worlds to provide a rich, interactive experience.
So are they exaggerating their creative role, or are you exaggerating how much insider info was "stolen"?
Only Monopolies can Afford Pure Research (Score:3, Interesting)
In the USA, the only industrial laboratory that still does significant pure research is Microsoft Research. It enjoys an ann
Re:Only Monopolies can Afford Pure Research (Score:4, Interesting)
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you must be on crack, plenty of companys do shitloads of research in different fields in an effort to invent the next big thing.
Re:Only Monopolies can Afford Pure Research (Score:4, Informative)
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Basic research is probably what is meant here. Without this sort of research, many bits of technology we take for granted today might never have been invented. The laser, to give one simple example (yes, from AT&T Bell Labs no less), was in the beginning a technology that had no useful application. If we had none of this kind of pure/basic research, and only research based on finding stuff that could be immediately productized, the laser might never have been discovered, or delayed for decades or mor
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What about the blue LEDs and violet solid-state lasers invented by Shuji Nakamura of Nichia, a company that was hardly a monopoly colossus astride the world?
Plenty of folks in industry do basic research. I should know, I help build their research tools, and help turn their discoveries into products. It isn't somehow polluted or cheating just because they hope it is useful, and know how to actually make it worthwhile.
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If you can immediately turn it into a product, it does not qualify as basic research. You can't turm f=ma into a product. And t-shirts don't count :).
Evolve or die... (Score:5, Insightful)
Coming up with a table computer is really not cutting edge - even before Microsoft stole the idea.
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Re:Evolve or die... (Score:5)
The real problem (as I understand TFA) wasn't that the lab wasn't creating marketable product - but that the lab's director (amazingly!) believed it wasn't really his responsibility to conduct research that would lead a marketable product.
And before anyone brings up Bell Labs... Don't. A great deal of mythology has grown up over the years about the basic research performed there. The fact that the majority of the basic research was intended as a prelude to applied research and eventually technology or products that Ma Bell could use or sell has been obscured by this mythology.
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Which has precisely nothing to do with anything, besides being wrong. Of course research costs mattered - even Ma Bell's budget was not infinite.
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Any other company investing in non-patentable research might as well just hand over the cash to their competitors which would steal the discoveries in any case.
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That would be filed under 'assumption', not 'fact'. Especially considering that a) Ma Bell was in a lot of businesses where they weren't a monopoly, b) even in telephony they were only an effective monopoly not a full monopoly, and c) being a monopoly doesn't mean much when you can't charge what you want to.
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Good, now finish that thought...
Would YOU do the work if some stranger could collect all of your paychecks? Would YOU date a girl and give her the attention and presents if another guy takes her to the altar (or bed)?
Then why would any company (non-monopoly) invest in basic research?
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*Sure* it's a great time to be in research. Just not if you want to do basic research that creates new indus
Many MERL projects have appeared on Slashdot (Score:5, Informative)
And this [slashdot.org] and this [slashdot.org].
And this [slashdot.org].
All of your examples show why they were shut down (Score:4, Interesting)
In an era when Nintindo has passed Sony in market cap, it pays to focus your research efforts on areas relevant to your core competencies rather than blue-sky research into market segments where your presence is negligable.
Hell, even the classic example of Xerox PARC is one of a brilliant organization whose parent company was woefully unable to commoditize the ideas there (their GUI licensing deal in exchange for Apple stock is among their few commercial successes).
Publically held corporations exist to make stockholders money, not to do research "because it's cool." Period.
Re:All of your examples show why they were shut do (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:All of your examples show why they were shut do (Score:4, Informative)
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Even though the US forceably broke up the Zaibutsu after the war, the affiliations are still strong (Keiretsu). The reason Mitsubishi Bank (now Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi after they merged with Tokyo Citybank) is one of the worlds largest banks is that all the Mitsubishi companies still do all their banking there.
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Note that it's now "Mitsubishi-Tokyo UFJ Bank" because a couple of years ago The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi merged with UFJ bank, which was itself the result of the merger of a bunch of smaller banks (including the quite large Sanwa bank).
It seems only a matter of time before there's only one bank in Japan, with
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They do [m-pharma.co.jp].
Automotive Core Competencies (Score:3, Interesting)
There is a huge problem in the automotive embedded software industry having to do with reliability and productivity. I think a streamlined Merl has an opportunity to do extremely well in this area if they put their minds to it. I understand Mitsubishi is a member of JASPAR, the Japanese consortium funded by the likes of Toyota, Nis
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Whether the company applies all that neat-o stuff and makes money on it is not a fa
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Yah, like Microsoft, right?
Cool company versus Microsoft:
I'm not sure what your point is. Microsoft does far, far more "because it's cool" basic research than Apple does, while Apple makes money for their stockholders. And I'm saying that as an Apple fan (and stockholder).
Trusting Corporations for Research (Score:5, Insightful)
A significant number of these types of labs, doing pioneering work under the name of a parent company, have been gutted with the intent of making them more "product focused" with the intent of converting brain power straight into $$$.
Well, here's a news flash - that's not how real research (as opposed to product development) works. With research into new stuff, you DON'T KNOW what you will find or what it will be worth. NO ONE does, BY DEFINITION.
A corporation can only do this type of work when a) they have a decades long focus and b) have sufficient profit margins to soak up the cost of research without immediate returns. That's a rare situation, and it's becoming rarer in a more competitive world economy.
Rather than bemoan this behavior (after all, money making is at the heart of commerce) we should be funding basic research at universities at much higher levels. Funding at universities has gotten tough enough that they will undertake a wide variety of investigations for commercial companies just to pay the bills. This makes them de-facto corporate research labs, and takes away time from their exploration into the unknown. Grad students become extremely cheap labor for companies, just indirectly.
Right now, it won't matter commercially. Product cycles don't get impacted by long term research for years or decades, so for a while we won't see this problem. But it's going to hurt us in the end. As products stagnate, foreign plants will catch up and learn how to produce at higher quality. They will begin to match or even exceed the performance of existing outputs domestically, and we will not be able to compete because there will be nothing in the long term pipeline that might convince people to stay with us.
Pure Research HAS A POINT. Even if the profound social and philosophical questions surrounding the pursuit of knowledge for its own stake don't register, it can also be viewed as a long term investment in our future. Balance sheets and profit statements do not define the whole of human existence, nor do the look far enough ahead to see long term consequences.
Again, it is unrealistic to expect this of businesses - that is not how the system is encouraged to behave. However, the government SHOULD be thinking about these issues. They need to be funding a LOT of basic research into all manner of alternative energy science, and the more basic science behind it - and thats actually a more practically centered goal. Truly BASIC research into the unknown, with no end game in mind, seems to be a tough sell nowadays.
Corporate research works ONLY when the long term is viewed as Very Important. It's dangerous to trust to that in an uncertain amd extremely competitive market.
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Without pure research, you're condemned to copying -- and following -- the research results of others. How can you possibly get ahead with that formula?
Imagine if you managed to acquire a name like Sir Tim Berners-Lee as part of your operation, perhaps as a "Fellow". You wouldn't get much value having him improve the bits of technology that make up the Internet, lots of people are alread
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Hypertext has a history going
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Re:Trusting Corporations for Research (Score:4, Insightful)
Pure research is not only academia's burden (at least in CS). Young faculty care about getting tenure, so they don't do a lot of research with a long term vision. This is something they get to do after they get tenure (when they are often past their prime, burned-out and effectively retire). Also, reputable CS depts will not risk hiring a quirky new person but instead try to get the student of a well-known professor in an established field. This results into placing some really exciting researchers in the corporate world where they do just fine because labs like MERL have (or had) a 10-20 year horizon. Given the long horizon and the fact that corporate researchers don't have to constantly look for funding, take care of students, teach, participate in career-building meetings, etc; corporate labs can provide an excellent place for basic research.
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...a large percentage of academic researchers are the types of people who are only in academic research because companies won't hire them for any position worth taking.
What are you basing this on? Have a look at the people at M.I.T., Princeton etc? All the top schools have very bright people doing research there. I think you'll find that a lot of people stay in academia because they don't what to be told how to focus their research efforts by some manager.
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Re:Trusting Corporations for Research (Score:4, Insightful)
First, the government derives its resources (i.e. funds) from compulsory payments backed up by threat of coercion (i.e. taxes). There are some countries which run businesses or have national resources to sell, but unless your country is swimming in oil then it is hard for the government, being inefficient at running such concerns, to earn a substantial portion of money from those activities which means that taxes are the rule of the day. Taxes are a good thing when they are used to fund those narrowly defined and specific activities delegated to them by most democratic governments which includes keeping the peace, enforcing the laws, and protecting everyone from coercion and threat thereof in their everyday lives (to the extent that such protection is possible anyway, it is never absolute). What is wrong with using compulsory contributions to fund basic research you ask? Well that leads me into my second point.
Everyone disposes of their money in such a way as to derive the maximum amount of gain, whether that is saving and investing for gain of wealth or spending the money in the ways that make us the most happy (i.e. maximizing one's marginal utility). Now obviously not everyone is happiest with the same things so people, left to their own devices, tend to spend, save, or invest their money in a wide variety of ways and that is good.
You might really enjoy donating time or money or resources to open source projects or other organizations which do things that you feel are important enough to warrant your money and that is fine and good. However, one cannot force another to spend *his* money, or more precisely to spend it for him, in ways that you and everyone else might think is better for him without trampling the notions of self determination, pursuit of happiness, and freedom from tyranny as set down in the Constitution of the United States. I may not like the fact that some people spend money on cigarettes for example, but I would not begrudge them their right to spend their money on them if that is what makes them happy.
There are other ways to fund research besides government grants backed up by taxes. Universities have long been the beneficiaries of grants from the estates of deceased alumni, corporate grants, and other tax deductible and charitable giving. There are probably non-profit organizations out there that engage or fund, through grants, pure research or "interesting" projects which advance the human condition or have the potential to do so despite the fact that they are not immediately profitable or concrete in their applications.
I agree with you that pure and basic research are worthy activities, but I do not support spending the public money (i.e. taxes) on these activities, however noble they may be, because they do not fall within the strict responsibilities of limited government.
NOTE: By way of fairness I should probably say that I am not in favor of the government doing or funding much of anything besides legislation in support of applying and maintaining the powers and responsibilities defined in the Constitution (i.e. legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government), law enforcement and national defense (i.e. protection against coercion through violent force at personal and national levels).
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One can, and one does. This is just like compelling people to fund and serve in the military. If we're attacked, then the individually optimal thing is to run away and let the other citizens fight. The only way of defending ourselves is to compel everybody to ass
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you and your kind think that they have some inherent right to anything.
i have got news for you: you have no inherent rights at all. no right to earn wealth, no right to keep wealth, no right to be protected, no right to live at all.
all rights you have are the rights the society is willing to rent you. taxes you pay are the rental fees for the right to live in the society, the right to be protected by the society, the right to earn wealth
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i have got news for you: you have no inherent rights at all. [..] all rights you have are the rights the society is willing to rent you. taxes you pay are the rental fees for [rights]
That's a very dubious line. While I accept that no-one has inherent rights, to tie legal rights to the payment of taxes is the thin end of a very large and dangerous wedge.
(Also, before I go further, we should remember that the term "rights" is used both for moral rights and for legal/practical rights. The former would ideally lead to the latter, but they're not the same thing, and it helps to keep discussion clear if we know which w
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i am sorry i had to bring money to that equation, i also value human and civil rights a lot, but some ultra-egoists cannot understand it the other way. what i have tried to describe was pretty much the social contract of hobbe
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but then again in any halwfay free country they can do the choice someday
That doesn't make sense. Everyone has to obey the law (and receive its protection, whether they like it or not) of the country they live in. There's no choice in the matter.
If you mean moving to another country, saying "in any halfway free country" doesn't make sense, since they'd no longer be living in that country. And they don't have an automatic or guaranteed right of residency elsewhere.
i am sorry i had to bring money to that equation, i also value human and civil rights a lot, but some ultra-egoists cannot understand it the other way.
That as may be- but by making it into a simple issue of money, you're reducing it to their level and almost negat
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Goddamit, I'm old (Score:2)
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Where? Cambridge, Palo Alto, or Paris?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Equipment_Co
This is a _good_ thing (Score:2)
Everyone has talents of value to others.
Just for the record... (Score:1, Interesting)
MS 'Surface' table has nothing to do with touch. Below the glass 'surface' are five cameras - the device is simply a motion detector wired to a PC.
so what? (Score:2)
The Diamond Touch table itself is symptomatic, since MERL didn't invent the concept either, and since it seems pretty clear that such a device does not have a significant market at
A serving of bias, anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)
So, TFA was written on the basis of a lengthy evening tirade by a disgruntled former employee. To their credit, they also interviewed the current CEO, who presented the alternate point of view -- that there was a gradual reorg in pursuit of a better ROI for the parent company.
I fail to see how this equates to "Mitsubishi breaks up MERL." MERL continues to exist. In fact it's a disservice to the newly hired researchers to assume that the "new" MERL can only be a shadow of its former self. Sometimes new people and fresh ideas are a good thing.
There is also a snide element of bias in the article against the "Japanese-style management" -- assumed to be something so horrible that researchers need to be "shielded" from it. While frustrating for some folks who can't bridge the cultural gap, this maligned "Japanese management style" is the same one that brought us innovations we take for granted today, in areas like automotive quality, 3G/4G cellular, the Wii user interface, CCDs and LCDs, and of course hentai anime.
In any case the news itself is interesting, but I'm not sure there is any need to portray it as the end of the world or something...
MERL made some neat toys. (Score:2)
I forget whether I offered to play with alpha-test hardware, or he offered to let me, but anyway I wound up with a little circuit board with an A.R. chip on it, a 9V battery connector wired in, and a DB-9 serial port. Cabled it to my laptop, used gph
I worked for Joe Marks at MERL (Score:1)
Joe is a very impressive man--he can spot talent a mile away. The people gathered together at the offices in Cambridge were extremely good at what they do. I was lucky enough to have Micheal Mitzen
Scientific Research is Dead (Score:2)
Let me give you an example: Debugging. Ugh! It's rigorous and plodding. But with Faith-based Programming, close your eyes, concentrate and when you
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One cannot simply close their eyes, open them, and announce the problem is gone; one must close their eyes, recite the appropriate ritual no less than four times, then open their eyes and announce that the problem is no more.
If everyone listened to heretics like you, nothing would work and the world would fall apart. I've reported you to the Ministry of Truth so your lies will not continue.
Meh (Score:2)
Hope you like your current product lines, 'cause you'll be stuck with them for a while. Corporate R and D cuts are great for eliminating product migration roadmaps.
not to its former glory? (Score:2)
Cyber-punk story (Score:1)
Early precursor?? 20-year-old technology!! (Score:1)
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nostalgia is always fun but not always realistic (Score:2)
Another R&D lab down (Score:2)