Comment Re:Google is not unique (Score 1) 222
The difference is, the corporate labs had lots of smart people and a funding parent company that were interested in the field they were researching. Bell was interested in solid state dohickeys to help them make a better telephone system.
Google is a web advertising company. With enough motivation and money they could hire alternative energy engineers and set up a productive lab and potentially make some breakthroughs, but not in a few years. And since it's Google, who can't even muster up the motivation to keep a web advertising project going more than a few years, they quit.