I agree, though I'm not sure if this is a possibility with a single set of tracks.
Aside from bart or muni in the tunnel, I found the fastest public transportation in SF was the various limited or express buses that go from the richmond to downtown. They make very few stops and move quickly.
The thing is, the express buses can easily pass the slower regular bus that make every stop. That wouldn't be possible with the streetcars, which I think would have to be all or nothing.
Aside from disruption, these tools augment/enhance/enrich their users life in a meaningful way.
Not to mention enlarging the pool of students these academic institutions draw upon and finding additional channels to generate revenue. A rising tide effect perhaps.
The challenge that Android faces is that multiple versions of software/hardware are available to purchase at the same time. While Apple only has one version of the iPhone in stores.
I hope Android succeeds to keep Apple innovating and honest.
Android's challenge vis-a-vis the iPhone will be that Google doesn't know a lot about consumer electronic devices, and the wireless carriers don't know a lot about consumer software. Apple is among the best at both.
I certainly would be hesitant to just email them a business plan...While Google itself might not "steal ideas"; What's to prevent an engineer at Google from culling through great ideas and starting up his/her own company?
These concerns are overblown. Reminder: Ideas are worthless. Implementation matters. Business plans are dime a dozen.
Furthermore google knows that such an event would kill their credibility as a VC instantly and hurt the Google brand as a whole due to the motto violation.
I can't think of an idea or business-plan that could possibly be worth that risk, therefor I assume google will take proper care of confidentiality.
I've been reading comments on the Google Ventures launch on HN, TechCrunch, CNet and others........the general tone is ugly. Why is it that Google was beloved as a young, underdog company but after it achieves what we all strive for....true global impact....people become skeptics and, almost, root for their demise? Human nature or something more?
Simple answer: absolute power corrupts absolutely.
We all like the cool kids from Google. What is starting to scare some (and soon more) is the power that Google has. With no counter-powers. Google needs to think about a better, more sustainable, implementation of their do-no-evil brand.
Having an ombudsman, at the VP level, to which any "citizen" can go and object, would be a start. Think of it as the supreme court of Googlers. With transparent complaints and answers from humans.
It would cost a little bit of money, but it would go a long way to building long-term trust in the company. If Google doesn't come up with their own counter-power, someone else eventually will and Google won't like it!
Well, in theory we already have the counterweight, it's called government and it's supposed to protect us from evildoers.
In practice our governments are unfortunately struggling to adapt to this whole "globalization" thing where multi-national corporations are alarmingly ahead in most regards.
So far not many of the corps have abused their power in truly damaging ways (apart from evading taxes and the occassional uncomfortable law) but I do agree that this is a worrying tendency. It might even be part of the cause for the current meltdown.
But in the longterm I'm actually less worried about google here. Not because of their motto but simply because they're a rather small fish when you compare them to some of the energy-multis who operate at petrodollar scales.
An Ombudsman at every large corp is not the solution either way. That would just become another sock puppet on their salary-list.
The only cure seems to be global regulation of the financial sector - a subject that you don't hear much about in the middle of all these bailout discussions...
Muni needs to reduce the number of stops a bus/train makes.