Official Google Blog: An update from the Project 10^100 team
Update on 3/16: We will unfortunately have to delay announcing the top ideas for Project 10^100 for a while longer. We've never managed a project like this and it's taken more time than we ever imagined possible. We apologize for our over optimistic assumptions about how quickly we could analyze all the ideas that we've received, and thank everyone for their patience. We'll continue posting updates on Project 10^100 here.
Everybody is looking for a breakout. Something that would propel them to the greatest heights of their career, profession, calling, or even their love life.
As a simple guy, with no formal education in engineering, science, mathematics or so, my chances of winning this is quite low. To tell the truth, I flunked freshman math during college. Shameful eh?
Rather than complaining about Google's processing of the applications and demanding for closure I would say that maybe Google should just scrap the whole idea. What whole idea? Google's project 10 to the 100th.
Why?
Because it is seriously flawed. Google people even admitted to this saying:
"We've never managed a project like this and it's taken more time than we ever imagined possible. We apologize for our over optimistic assumptions about how quickly we could analyze all the ideas that we've received"
What did you guys expect? 10 million USD. That's a lot of money for you to spend on something that you are not sure about. Go spend it in Google Wave development, or cloud computing, anything than this humongous project.
I say "JUST SCRAP IT"
It doesn't end there. There are many good ideas submitted out there that I believe would benefit a lot of people. Maybe not the most number of people, but a lot of people nonetheless.
So, why did I say "JUST SCRAP IT"?
Well, because your process of selection is inherently flawed. An act of selflessness should not be enticed by the lure of money. There.
See the contradiction? If you don't, then, then, do me a favor, go to the nearest water cooler, grab a plastic cup, put some cold water in it, raise your hand which is holding the cup and pour it over your heads.
Of course you can expect a bajillion submissions from the internet.
Of course you can expect several well funded organizations submitting their ideas too.
Of course you can expect a million magnet motor, free energy, gadgets and what not to be submitted.
You guys at Google brought it upon yourselves.
Well, I am not really being productive here aren't I?
Here's my suggestion, since you now technically own all of these submissions I suggest that you do this:
Open Source them bloody all.
Yeah, give away all that you have taken.
Cram these 150,000 ideas and put them in a nice simple website for other investors to bank on - under an open source license. So, rather than making Steorn, or some obscure inventor, free energy fanatic, water engine, cold fusion, will change the world guy, 10,000,000 dollars richer, you have done the world a favor and opened the best possibilities for everyone who can bloody hell do something about it.
See, solves your selection process problem.
By the way, my submission is just a plain and simple water distiller that uses evaporation. In fact a small tribe somewhere in Africa has made a device for it. So if by any chance you guys do not heed my sagely advice and push through with your failed selection process - and if I do win, I'd say give the 10,000,000 to that tribe. They probably need it more than I do.
Cheers!
19 comments:
Yeah just open source it.
What about the 10 million? A cat got Google's tongue.
The people who submitted their ideas will not get any part of the prize money. Their ideas get backed by the funding, so no individual profits directly off of their submission.
In other words, people (myself included) were not submitting charitable ideas entrepreneurially, as you suggest, but, rather they actually were submitting them altruistically.
That being said, I agree with you that Google should provide an update.
Sorry I was offline for at least a week.
I like the a positive way of putting it.
In my own humble experience though, altruism does not exist. Everything and everyone is selfish.
I look at motive and see that selfishness. But I guess I am taking the "self" aspect too deeply.
Let's say Tom, isn't in it for the money - maybe he just wants to help humanity and that's a noble thing to do.
Let's say Tom wins the prize (of winning the project), but he doesn't get the money directly. In the process he will be adored and will be made instantly an internet hero.
Everybody wants to be a hero. What's in it for the hero?
Fame, adoration, respect, love, or maybe a spot in history.
Maybe that's still altruism, but me, personally as a human being, I view motive and the consequence of motive as the reason things move.
Monetary compensation almost always follow afterward.
Ohh yeah.. open source it.. why not.. I think those 150000 people will be really happy if ther ideas jst get open source...
Totally right!
But we don't need to beg google for it. We can do it ourselves.
We just need to create a web, and ask all the people to send us again their ideas. We will publish all of them, without any filter.
I'm contacting more people, if you want to help me, write me to:
opensource10tothe100 [[[AT]]] gmail.com
I say all those who submitted their ideas should file a class action suit against Google. If they won't communicate the timeline to the completion of their "contest", I am sure it violates at least California law. They should be held accountable no matter how "charitable" the intentions of this project were. I feel robbed of my submission and upset they won't communicate their intentions for releasing any additional information. Maybe they think we'll all go away and forget about it? How about just cutting a check to everyone that submitted anything and a listing of the submissions. Put it to bed already, Google!
Uh oh, somebody mentioned "class action lawsuit". Did you hear that Google?
Danny,
Why don't we open sourse it ourselves by posting our submissions on your website?
Here? On this blog? Well, I think a better site would be well suited for that.
Besides, we could face legal action ourselves since Google NOW TECHNICALLY OWNS all of the ideas we submitted.
I say it again, but I'm trying to build a site to publish all the ideas.
If somebody want to help, write me to:
opensource10tothe100 [[[AT]]] gmail.com
Hi Danny,
Regarding your 08 July 2009 comment about Google Technically owning our submitted ideas. The below copied paragraph is from the Google 10 100 Terms of Service. It looks like we still own our idea but grant Google the right to use it.
"As between you and Google, you retain ownership of any intellectual and industrial property rights (including moral rights) you have in and to your submission.
As a condition of participation, you grant Google, its subsidiaries, agents and partner companies, a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to use, reproduce, adapt, modify, publish, distribute, publicly perform, create a derivative work from..."
It was considered a "contest" which is subject to lawfull rules of engagement under most state laws. They can't change the rules of the contest after the fact, with no final outcome communicated. I certainly think that if it goes another 3 months without any communication to a resolution, we should all consider the suggestion made on July 7th. Where's the Media attention on this? I certainly think someone should be putting pressure on them in the media?
@ Anonymous 1 - Hi Danny,
Regarding your 08 July 2009 comment about Google Technically owning our submitted ideas. The below copied paragraph is from the Google 10 100 Terms of Service. It looks like we still own our idea but grant Google the right to use it.
"As between you and Google, you retain ownership of any intellectual and industrial property rights (including moral rights) you have in and to your submission.
As a condition of participation, you grant Google, its subsidiaries, agents and partner companies, a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to use, reproduce, adapt, modify, publish, distribute, publicly perform, create a derivative work from..."
>>>>>>That sounds a little bit like open source to me. So that's great, I doubt however that the submitters would willingly submit their idea to an alternative website for free.
@ Anonymous 2
"pressure from the media"
That sounds good. Pressure from the media would be good. But as of now I think this project is in the doldrums. It's about to reach a year and still no update yet.
This is becoming an embarassment to Google.
This project needs continuous work!
Wide Open World Security - An idea for "Google Project 10 to the 100th"
WOWS is an open society beyond politics with two main elements.
The first is delegations from different cultures, religions, international organisations, countries and companies*. The delegates work together continuously. The working process can be followed and observed by internet users around the world. Monitoring, observation is continuous during the working hours as in a "Big brother-show". A delay is used in the broadcast of the "show" for security reasons. WOWS uses a system similar to that of the free online dynamic encyclopaedia: Wikipedia, to improve the efficiency of work. The information base will be approved by delegates.
The other element of WOWS is the registered users who can access the database. The users also have a voting system through which they are able to determine (influence) the priority of a certain topic emerging during work.
http://wowsecurity.net
Hot off the wires:
http://project10tothe100now.org/
I think Google's committed an act of theft and deception with this project. They never intended to go through with it.
Google's in the business of converting good ideas into CFG (Cash For Google). What do you do when you run short on ideas? Easy. Steal some!
Google finally got into something it could not handle... reviewing contextual data on a massive scale! hahaha. Yeah... basic text searching is EASY, but context is way different than content. :)
Google 10^100 Project turns out to be a sham
Google said they would pick 100 ideas to put to a vote last year. They missed the dates again and again until finally last week they put up 16 general ideas for a vote. These weren't even ideas but rather general categories like:
Better education in Africa
Socially conscious tax policies etc.
What a sham. There was no transparency back to the original ideas, no recognition of submitters and they completely ignored the original terms that they published. In the end, Google got a huge amount of publicity and they just ignored what 150,000 people did.
Pathetic.
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