Julius Skrrvin
I be winkin' through the scope
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/a-microsoft-star-goes-to-google/?ref=technology
SEATTLE — Blaise Agüera y Arcas, a respected engineer and software designer at Microsoft, has left the company to join its rival Google.
Mr. Agüera y Arcas was involved in a variety of development projects at Microsoft including some on augmented reality, wearable computing and natural user interfaces. He was a top figure in the development of Microsoft’s Bing Maps service.
Johannes Simon/Getty Images for Hubert Burda Media Blaise Agüera y Arcas
One of the most recent efforts he oversaw at the company was a new version of Photosynth, a service for creating immersive, 3-D panoramas.
Mr. Agüera y Arcas will work on machine learning at Google, according to several people with knowledge of his plans, who asked to remain anonymous because news of his hiring had not been publicly announced.
In a brief telephone conversation, Mr. Agüera y Arcas confirmed he had left Microsoft to join Google, but declined to comment further.
Adam Sohn, a spokesman for Microsoft, said, “He was a great colleague and we wish him the best in his future endeavors.”
People leave Microsoft all the time but defections of prized personnel to Google are a sore spot for the company because of the intensity of the companies’ rivalry. Microsoft sued Google after Google hired Kai-Fu Lee, a Microsoft vice president at the time, to run its research facility in China. The companies settled the case in 2005.
In court filings related to that lawsuit involving Mr. Lee, a now much-recited anecdote emerged about Microsoft’s reaction to the defection of another Microsoft employee — Mark Lucovsky, a distinguished engineer — to Google in 2004. Mr. Lucovsky, in a declaration in the case, said that Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, threw a chair across the room when Mr. Lucovsky told him he was leaving for Google. Mr. Ballmer also disparaged Eric Schmidt, then Google’s chief executive, with a string of expletives, according to Mr. Lucovsky’s declaration.
Mr. Agüera y Arcas’s profile in tech circles got a lift in 2007 when he delivered a well-received talk at the annual TED conference. He came to Microsoft through its acquisition of his start-up, Seadragon Software, in 2006.
SEATTLE — Blaise Agüera y Arcas, a respected engineer and software designer at Microsoft, has left the company to join its rival Google.
Mr. Agüera y Arcas was involved in a variety of development projects at Microsoft including some on augmented reality, wearable computing and natural user interfaces. He was a top figure in the development of Microsoft’s Bing Maps service.
One of the most recent efforts he oversaw at the company was a new version of Photosynth, a service for creating immersive, 3-D panoramas.
Mr. Agüera y Arcas will work on machine learning at Google, according to several people with knowledge of his plans, who asked to remain anonymous because news of his hiring had not been publicly announced.
In a brief telephone conversation, Mr. Agüera y Arcas confirmed he had left Microsoft to join Google, but declined to comment further.
Adam Sohn, a spokesman for Microsoft, said, “He was a great colleague and we wish him the best in his future endeavors.”
People leave Microsoft all the time but defections of prized personnel to Google are a sore spot for the company because of the intensity of the companies’ rivalry. Microsoft sued Google after Google hired Kai-Fu Lee, a Microsoft vice president at the time, to run its research facility in China. The companies settled the case in 2005.
In court filings related to that lawsuit involving Mr. Lee, a now much-recited anecdote emerged about Microsoft’s reaction to the defection of another Microsoft employee — Mark Lucovsky, a distinguished engineer — to Google in 2004. Mr. Lucovsky, in a declaration in the case, said that Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, threw a chair across the room when Mr. Lucovsky told him he was leaving for Google. Mr. Ballmer also disparaged Eric Schmidt, then Google’s chief executive, with a string of expletives, according to Mr. Lucovsky’s declaration.
Mr. Agüera y Arcas’s profile in tech circles got a lift in 2007 when he delivered a well-received talk at the annual TED conference. He came to Microsoft through its acquisition of his start-up, Seadragon Software, in 2006.
im surprised there's not some kind of conflict of interest clause or whatever its called when you go to a rival
the future of technosorcery is going to be scary. Imagine Google says, we have created our own army. like I robot and tries to take over friends. I guess at that point they'll b coopted by the military. Theres no way technosorcery like this wont be coopted and applied to military.