<story><title>Google Labs no more</title><url>http://labs.google.com</url><text>No more cool apps that we can browse via google labs</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>machrider</author><text>Does anything remotely like Bell Labs exist today?  Is it simply not possible with everyone tightening their belts?&lt;p&gt;If you&apos;re unfamiliar with what came out of Bell Labs, check out this list: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_labs#Discoveries_and_developments&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_labs#Discoveries_and_devel...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Or is it the fate of software innovation that it is to be decentralized and happen in our spare time now?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ehsanu1</author><text>The Viewpoints Research Institute fits the bill: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vpri.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.vpri.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;They want to replace the entire software industry, since it&apos;s all a huge hack (especially the 100m+ SLOC codebases that are way too common). Goal: a full GUI system (from kernel to applications) in 20k SLOC. Take a look at the progress reports they&apos;ve made. They claim a 200 line TCP, 800 line graphics system (apparently comparable to Cairo), and lots of other neat stuff.</text></comment>
<story><title>Google Labs no more</title><url>http://labs.google.com</url><text>No more cool apps that we can browse via google labs</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>machrider</author><text>Does anything remotely like Bell Labs exist today?  Is it simply not possible with everyone tightening their belts?&lt;p&gt;If you&apos;re unfamiliar with what came out of Bell Labs, check out this list: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_labs#Discoveries_and_developments&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_labs#Discoveries_and_devel...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Or is it the fate of software innovation that it is to be decentralized and happen in our spare time now?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Homunculiheaded</author><text>I&apos;ve always felt BBN [1] was pretty close, not the size of Bell labs, but tons of really awesome research. They&apos;ve been purchased and sold many times (now with Raytheon) but they are the company behind the original arpanet and, despite many transitions, they&apos;ve always seemed to preserve their culture (Leo Beranek, nearly 100 now, still stops by from time to time) and passion for research .&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bbn.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.bbn.com/&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>