The process of designing and manufacturing the Pixel will have taught Google a lot about the hardware business - and with products like Google Glass on the horizon, that knowledge could prove very useful.
In little more than a decade, the country has become by far the biggest producer in the world of every industrial commodity from steel to glass to cement, and the finished products it exports to other countries are gradually matching and surpassing the sophistication of items produced indigenously in those countries.
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The end markets for its glass products include solar panels, wind turbines and geothermal energy systems.
The next step for Google is the world of ubiquitous computing with products like the soon-to-be released Google Glass.
Monti killed that deal on a theory called conglomeratization: By buying a maker of machinery that produces rival plastic bottles, Tetra Laval could in a few years leverage its lead position in cartons to also control plastic alternatives (glass bottles and tin cans are the packaging products still out of Tetra Laval's reach).
However, the new Google Glass is a stand for something distinctly Google (though there are competitor products already on the market).
"We were leaving a lot of money on the table, " says Russell Glass, vice president of products and marketing.
Eastman Kodak, once a pioneer in traditional film cameras, ended up in bankruptcy after more than a century in business, while Corning keeps on going churning blockbuster products like the fiber optic cable and flat glass.
"This year at CES, Corning will demonstrate its industry leadership in specialty glass and fiber optic technologies with the introduction of two products designed to enhance and extend the capabilities of consumers' favorite devices, " said Wendell P.
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The Quinn Group gradually expanded, supplying other building products, glass and plastics, and eventually moved into insurance, hotels and property development.
The problem with the current situation is that in return for the convenience of Facebook, or your iPhone or your Google Glass, you give up control of the data that you produce using these products.
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But few new products have captured the imagination of the tech-minded such as Google Glass, an eyewear-like headset that offers augmented-reality images as well as basic smartphone-like features.
Now that Google Glass and Oculus Rift have entered the zeitgeist, might we start to see VR and AR products popping up on every street corner?
Farlow's Scientific Glassblowing makes the glass organs and vascular models used by medical-device manufacturers in preliminary testing to determine whether their products will work in real-life situations.
Among the products it is showcasing at Computex is a new generation Ultrabook that features a sleek, glossy glass case, as well as a new model of its widely praised Transformer tablet.
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