Comment by dntrkv | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dntrkv | Hacker News Reader

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They are not really competing in all of those industries, they might have a crazy project they are attempting, but they aren't really competition.

Auto industry? I'm assuming you mean self driving cars, which, at this point, are still in the concept phase. Space industry? Did I miss something, is Google launching rockets?

There are many other companies that are way more diversified than Google.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Electric

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_Corporation

Plus, expanding into a wireless carrier makes way more sense for Google than any of their other ventures. One of the limiting factors of internet use in the first-world is terrible carriers with data caps.

Well, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt are both involved in Planetary Resources[0]. They are actively doing stuff even now[1] (their product is the Arkyd in this case). Not quite officially Google, but I can see where people would assume so.

[0]-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_Resources

[1]-http://www.miningweekly.com/article/planetary-resources-laun...

> still in the concept phase

Multiple generations of prototypes and hundreds of thousands of miles driven is well past the concept phase.

This just comes down to your definition of concept. I consider a prototype as a concept car that exists to show the feasibility of the concept but it has a ways to go before it is ready for production.

That makes sense. I would consider a concept to be an idea or a plan, not a working product.

Unless it's raining

Chaebol are a whole 'nother level of diversified. Samsung sells smartphones and theme parks and ships and insurance and ...

Satellite photography appears in Google Maps, so rockets are needed at some point.

Actually, they already launched a GeoEye-1 satellite on September 6, 2008 at 11:50:57 a.m. PDT.

"Google, which has its logo on the side of the rocket, has exclusive online mapping use of its data."

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeoEye-1

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