A vacuum cleaner on a chip? A microwave oven on a chip? A large LCD screen on a chip?
I don't really get what you mean by "everything consumer is on a chip". Making LCD screens is quite hardware-y and I thought quite difficult to do well too.
Ok, stopping arguing gleefully with all-comers and going to bed depressed about the sorry state of humankind. And willing to vote for the death penalty should it come round again soon.
Let's go back to the 80's. Electronic products had to be done with lots of components. There were chips, but they did much less than what they do today.
Also, more mechanical parts (think VCR, Camcorder, etc)
So the real work was doing more with less components and good quality.
Today, with better chip technology and 'solidization' of technologies. (magnetic tape to flash memory, crts to lcds) today you can realistically have an LCD tv with only a couple of chips (apart from the power source, lcd panel and some other components like speakers and maybe the tuning part). There's nothing much to tweak. There's software, but that's increasingly commoditized as well.
And the japanese apparently can't innovate software-wise.
And the japanese apparently can't innovate software-wise.
I am going to be nit-picky, and go for
... Large Japanese conglomerates with contractural and social commitments to current and past employees, huge management layers ... apparently can't innovate software-wise.
Ruby probably counts as a plus in the innovation side.
(Look I know it was nitpicky and you did mean that anyway,
but this is HN, it is late, so I apologise )
Comments
A vacuum cleaner on a chip? A microwave oven on a chip? A large LCD screen on a chip?
I don't really get what you mean by "everything consumer is on a chip". Making LCD screens is quite hardware-y and I thought quite difficult to do well too.
Sometimes the world is too much.
I went off to look up magnetrons (you know, microwave is just a chip with a block of iron and wire)
Hit this on wikipedia:
The reference:http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=pHXdUbiRiA8C&pg=PA87&...
Ok, stopping arguing gleefully with all-comers and going to bed depressed about the sorry state of humankind. And willing to vote for the death penalty should it come round again soon.
More or less this
Let's go back to the 80's. Electronic products had to be done with lots of components. There were chips, but they did much less than what they do today.
Also, more mechanical parts (think VCR, Camcorder, etc)
So the real work was doing more with less components and good quality.
Today, with better chip technology and 'solidization' of technologies. (magnetic tape to flash memory, crts to lcds) today you can realistically have an LCD tv with only a couple of chips (apart from the power source, lcd panel and some other components like speakers and maybe the tuning part). There's nothing much to tweak. There's software, but that's increasingly commoditized as well.
And the japanese apparently can't innovate software-wise.
And the japanese apparently can't innovate software-wise.
I am going to be nit-picky, and go for
... Large Japanese conglomerates with contractural and social commitments to current and past employees, huge management layers ... apparently can't innovate software-wise.
Ruby probably counts as a plus in the innovation side.
(Look I know it was nitpicky and you did mean that anyway, but this is HN, it is late, so I apologise )