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Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) to join SRI International
- osnium123 3y agoWill this mean that PARC will transition towards doing more government funded research? SRI is pretty heavily funded by the government as far as I know.
- rchiang 3y agoThe Morningstar article had a few more details that I couldn't find anywhere else: "As part of the donation, Xerox will enter into a preferred research agreement, called the Technology Exploration and Innovation Program, in which SRI will provide contracted research and development services to Xerox and its clients. Through the collaborative program, Xerox and SRI will identify topic areas relevant to Xerox’s core print, digital and IT Services business, with the final goal of creating proofs-of-concept and roadmaps to implementation. Xerox will also retain a branded Innovation Hub at PARC to host meetings, demonstrations and annual conferences for its clients." It's unclear what the size of this revenue stream is compared to SRI's current revenues.
- jameshart 3y agoTIL there is an investment oriented news site called https://morningstar.com https://morningstar.com. Was struggling to figure out why the Communist Party of Great Britain’s newspaper (https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/ https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/) would have relevant coverage of this topic. Although I suppose the machinations of the Silicon Valley/US government research establishment have probably been of intense interest to international socialism since the 1960s..
- gumby 3y agoPARC has been doing government funded research from the beginning (ARPA); after they were semi-spun off from Xerox they were primarily funded the same as SRI: government grants and corporate contracting.
- usr1106 3y agoAs a software engineer since the 1980s, of course I know (Xerox) PARC. But am I the only one for whom SRI does not ring any bells? I'm confident Wikipedia can tell me more, but if they don't tell in their press release I would claim they might overestimate their "brand".
- jeron 3y agoSRI is Stanford Research Institute, which was established by the trustees of Stanford University in 1946 [0] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRI_International https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRI_International
- drfuchs 3y agoBut, just as with IBM and NCR, “SRI” is now just a 3-letter non-acronym, that officially doesn’t stand for anything.
- usr1106 3y agoanymore, you mean. Knowing history is good and so are mnemonics.
- drfuchs 3y agoMy “is now” indeed means “was, but no longer is.” So, no SNAFU; it’s OK.
- drewda 3y agoAnother example: What used to be called the Stanford Linear Accelerator is now officially just "SLAC" (as the university holds trademark for "Stanford" and didn't want to share with the US Department of Energy)
- retrocryptid 3y agoIn the old days we used to call community colleges "Junior Colleges." The first time I came out to the valley I noticed a university there called "Leland Stanford Junior University" and assumed it must be a Junior College associated with Stanford University. So yes, they need all the help they can get with naming things.
- strangeloops85 3y agoI think Xerox has been trying to unload PARC for a while, and this just seems like a way for them to do it and get a tax write-off since it's a 'donation'. PARC has already been doing a lot of government contract work, and I've seen teams from PARC and SRI compete for certain programs, so there's definitely synergy there. But I think PARC was historically more commercially oriented than SRI, so there will be some cultural differences internally. Over time Xerox has gone quite far from where it was when PARC was founded and I think internal support for it had weakened a lot. The bigger problem both orgs have historically had is on compensation and retaining talent. A lot of people tend to leave or get poached by major companies and their R&D units - lots of former PARC folks at X, and lots of former SRI folks across various robotics companies.
- rchiang 3y agoXerox went through the process of making PARC a wholly-owned subsidiary in 2002 (which is around the time the parc.com domain was created to replace the parc.xerox.com subdomain). This was presumably as part of trying to sell of PARC, in part or as a whole. Xerox's revenue has been slowly declining over that time (~$15B from 2002-2009, ~$20B 2010-2013, ~$10B 2014-2019, ~$7B 2020-2023). There's likely a few business-related reasons they are doing this donation now.
- nickt 3y agoTalking of registering domains, xerox.com was the 7th registered .com, and SRI was the 8th - less than a week apart in January 1986. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_oldest_currently_registered_Internet_domain_names https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_oldest_currently_r...
- rbanffy 3y ago> I think Xerox has been trying to unload PARC for a while I wonder why some corporations don't see the value of R&D, or even "incidental" R&D, when you develop something revolutionary while you work on something profitable.
- VagueMag 3y agoFor something of its size and influence very few people have heard of SRI, but it comes up frequently in 'noided online discussions about the overlap between Silicon Valley and military/intelligence. A lot of the things that PARC was credited with creating in the first place were really dreamed up at SRI, so it makes a certain sense for them to be merging: https://squamuglia.wordpress.com/2017/04/16/67/#more-67 https://squamuglia.wordpress.com/2017/04/16/67/#more-67 https://squamuglia.wordpress.com/2017/04/22/yes-kids-cookie-monster-is-a-psyop/ https://squamuglia.wordpress.com/2017/04/22/yes-kids-cookie-...
- technothrasher 3y agoWhen I hear SRI, I always think of the parapsychology research they did for 20 or so years from ~1970-1990 and their huge clash with the newly founded skeptical organization CSICOP (now CSI) in the late 70's.
- bhk 3y agoYeah, I wonder how much money they milked out of the DoD on remote viewing and stuff like that.
- rbanffy 3y agoUltimate respect to anyone who manages to be paid by the DoD to get high on LSD.
- VagueMag 3y agoMy favorite explanation for the remote viewing stuff is that it was cover for advanced spy satellite imagery and transmission. Explaining away new capabilities you want to keep unknown to the world as "magic." https://twitter.com/mmabeuf/status/1371213766734573569?t=lrW1aSV7hhZ8OHLA-7tSWg&s=19 https://twitter.com/mmabeuf/status/1371213766734573569?t=lrW... The other theory I've encountered is that it was cover for ongoing mind control research after MKULTRA had to be wound down.
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- eichin 3y agoPARC and SRI in the news? what is this, 1993? am I going to see a DECWRL announcement next?
- retrocryptid 3y agoHP could probably make some cash by reconstitution WRL and spinning it off.
- DonHopkins 3y agoI wonder if DECWRL's giant megawatt transformer is still entombed under the sidewalk in Palo Alto, and if the daily special includes fried fish, and the rancid grease has returned again. https://milk.com/wall-o-shame/bucket.html https://milk.com/wall-o-shame/bucket.html
- xhkkffbf 3y agoOne of the great Silicon Valley stories-- before the place got tooo fancy.
- 1letterunixname 3y agoMy UUCP mail spool just caught up. I missed the sales at BEST and Service Merchandize, and dammit, I had coupons to redeem.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- musicale 3y agoThe whole is lesser than the sum of its parts.
- retrocryptid 3y agoOof. Unkind. Hopefully not accurate.
- robert-graham 3y agoRemember that SRI is a patent troll. They are non-practicing entity. They don't build the things they "invent". They instead write patents then extort the people who do build things. I say this from personal experience. I created many inventions in "intrusion detection", spent years in data centers making theory work in practice. SRI sued me using vaguely worded patents. It's a harsh accusation, but objectively true. They never built a commercial intrusion-detection product, but they did sue people.
- mlyle 3y agoAll academic and research institutes tend to accumulate patents and weaponize them. It's not fair to characterize SRI as a "non-practicing entity". Aside from all the things they build for defense / NSF, they did invent this thing called "Siri" that a lot of people use. > They never built a commercial intrusion-detection product No, but they did give away things like Bothunter away (which is admittedly HIDS). I'm sympathetic to the argument against patents, etc. I was your competitor in the IDS space and also made a very fast IDS and exited, and also was harassed by people without a product in the market (over sending TCP RSTs to close connections, of all things, where there was loads of prior art).
- AlbertCory 3y ago"patent troll" -- I hate those as much as you do, but I wouldn't call SRI one. All patents have the broadest language the lawyers could get through the PTO. Wow, do the lawyers over on Reddit hate this! In the Appendix, you can follow the progress of a recent Facebook patent: https://albertcory50.substack.com/p/lets-vote-on-it https://albertcory50.substack.com/p/lets-vote-on-it I do tend to be inflammatory at times /s
- AlbertCory 3y ago"non-practicing entity" usually means some company that's only formed to sue people, and has no other business. After it's collected the money, it goes out of business, so there are no assets to recover from them. Often their "office" is just a PO box in East Texas. SRI is a real research entity. I know someone who worked there, and he's not a lawyer. That doesn't make them any more admirable, of course.
- kepler1 3y agoSomehow, I see 2 empty campuses merging to sell off their real estate value that is currently worth more than any new intellectual property being produced.
- aoki 3y agoThe PARC campus is part of Stanford Research Park, so no.
- retrocryptid 3y agoYes. Because employees are clamoring to return to the office.
- 1letterunixname 3y agoSRI was Stanford University affiliates' dodge around the school's charter to work to work on MIC projects such as work for DARPA. Not quite RAND but still not saints.
- jelliclesfarm 3y agoSRI completely developed Abundant Robotics..the first apple harvester robot. It was the only one of its kind. But American VCs ..being who they are … do not consider real Ag worthy and let it die. Abundant Robotics went bankrupt and went into liquidation..the last I heard, their IPs sold to a small Chinese led incubator. SRI has its fingers in a lot of pies..including surgical robotics.