These companies have super talented engineers and can afford to invest in skunkworks projects like these when they can’t find any suitable options in the market.
More like "super talented engineers" will keep increasing cost of such projects until they get told this stuff doesn't generate revenue/cost cutting is happening, so work more on ad tech, leave or find external free labor("community") to maintain it.
Colonialism? Take the Falkland Islands as a small example. Ever since the British won the war in 1983 all inhabitants were automatically granted British Citizenship, hence no need for a separate passport.
It's all shaders! That's why they take up so little memory space.
Here's a video where IQ explains how to "model" a greek temple using this technique: https://youtu.be/-pdSjBPH3zM?t=303
> Where Unity beats Godot is in the "Triple I" and "Double A" categories, as it has better 3D/performance features, tooling and add-ons
While this is true it does come with a big caveat. Every single AA developer has had access not only to the Unity source code, but in some instances also to Unity employees who became directly embedded in the production cycle.
There’s a GDC presentation from the team behind Ori and
The Blind Forest where they talk about how some Unity devs were flown to Austria to help out with custom tooling. Playdead also has a really nice blog where they talk about all the changes they had to make to the engine in order to achieve good lighting performance/fps for Inside.
https://blog.playdead.com/articles/inside_presentations/insi...
I’m sure that if the Godot foundation had enough resources at hand then you would also see more games like Cuphead and the ones previously mentioned above.
This so called “sweet spot” comes at the cost of billions of dollars in operating losses and layoffs at Reality Labs year after year. The worst part is that Meta is merely licensing the Ray-Ban form factor and this also comes at a hefty price tag. Specially if other companies such as Google enter a bidding war to snatch that exclusivity away from them.
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/07/31/metas-reality-labs-posts...
> This so called “sweet spot” comes at the cost of billions of dollars in operating losses and layoffs at Reality Labs year after year
Yes, it has cost them billions of dollars (ongoing) to develop their AR/VR tech. You can definitely criticize that, but this spending is defensive. If Facebook (Meta) doesn't own at least some market share in a future device, that is an existential threat to them. How much did ATT cost Facebook? [1] Answer: north of $10 billion in 2022. But note: it's actually a reduction in Facebook's revenue by that amount, so in the fullness of time, the total damage is much worse.
> Ray-Ban
Facebook has multiple form factors. They have VR quest (3). They have AR glasses. I don't expect Ray-Ban to capture Facebook/Google's margin here, and Facebook would be able to build first party AR glasses if they wanted. You use Ray-Ban to sell v1 and then you make v2 good enough that it sells itself.
All of this seems tangential to my complaint that I would love an incredibly high res and reasonably hackable VR screen.
Point taken! I would only add that Ray-Bans have become somewhat of a timeless fashion icon and this isn't something that you can easily replicate no matter how much R&D money you have at your disposal. (Just look at how goofy Snap's Spectacles are in comparison)
Google has a Creative Lab which employs a handful of creative coders who primarily work with emerging tech on experimental projects. They also offer a one year paid fellowship to young grads to join their labs in either NY or London: https://www.creativelab5.com/
Creative coding is everywhere these days. From the parametric architecture of Zaha Hadid and MAD architects to procedurally generated furniture designs and jewelry. https://n-e-r-v-o-u-s.com/projects/
The big players in this field are actually Optitex and Gerber AccuMark. Lookup any pattern making job from the likes of adidas, Patagonia or Arc’teryx and they require knowledge in one of those two.
The reason why CLO is becoming so popular in recent years is because they’ve been really smart about striking partnerships with fashion schools and offering their software at steep student discounts. I once tried to get a price quote from a regional Optitex rep and they just shrugged me off because they only deal with BIG companies.
If there ever was an industry ripe for disruption it would be fashion. The incumbents have been resting on their laurels for decades so it’s nice to see upstarts like CLO trying to apply the Final Cut Pro formula to dethrone them.
This is probably a dumb question, but am I correct in assuming that Gerber Scientific (which I think is responsible for AccuMark), Gerber knives, and Gerber baby products are all from completely unrelated companies? Or is there some long-ago connection between them?
> it’s nice to see upstarts like CLO trying to apply the Final Cut Pro formula to dethrone them.
Except Final Cut Pro died because they rested on their laurels and got their lunch eaten when Apple finally licensed ProRes. So it's not really as good of a comparison as one might think
> How do these managers get jobs in these big name companies?
Nothing is very far from what I would consider a "big name company" They are actually a really small joint venture between Carl Pei and Teenage Engineering. This whole iMessage fiasco is exactly why I have such a hard time taking Carl seriously in anything he does. He seems more concerned with creating hype through smoke and mirrors than in releasing anything truly innovative and substantial.
> They are actually a really small joint venture between Carl Pei and Teenage Engineering.
That's just 'Nothing' the company making the phone, but the iMessage for Android app was built by Sunbird, a different company. It's written in the article.
Agree that these companies are more like Juicero, built on hype and false trust to sell mediocre products that aren't special.
It is a big name company though. Not a lot of companies have access to a supply chain and logistics to design and ship products like they do worldwide.
Worldwide? Nothing Phone 1 wasn't even available for purchase in the U.S and I've yet to see any of their other products being sold throughout latam. They operate like the infamous street fashion brand Supreme with limited "drops" in carefully chosen markets to generate hype through manufactured scarcity.
LOL you can find lots of small companies in China you have never heard of that make (better) phones and ships to dozens of countries. Nothing isn't any better than those companies other than marketing.
These companies have super talented engineers and can afford to invest in skunkworks projects like these when they can’t find any suitable options in the market.
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