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Google in, Google out

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Re: Google in, Google out

#21

Post by Mathnerd314 »

supremesaboteur wrote: post #7
Mathnerd314 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more of a general Luddite / anti-tech paradigm. Historically, strange things were dangerous and/or poisonous. Tech people probably recognize these devices from science fiction books / movies / stories, so they don't get scared, but the rest of the world has no context to place them in and hence treats them like unexploded ordnance.

There are many problems with Google's dominance. 1. The Filter Bubble. The idea that you can be shut in your own bubble, not being exposed to new ideas or ideas that contradict your own, is pretty bad 2. The idea that a for profit company becoming the arbiter of truth ( with noble intentions of fighting 'fake news' etc ) is also pretty bad. It can be used for political or economic gain 3. The company has a largely ho…

> filter bubble

That just means you've got to proactively seek out new ideas you're uncomfortable with, and be mindful that not everything can be found on Google. It's not a reason to use a crappy search like Yahoo or Bing (which only indexes 1/10 of the pages Google does: http://www.worldwidewebsize.com/).

> a for profit company becoming the arbiter of truth

Wikipedia is more of an arbiter of truth than Google; so far Google has limited itself to indexing information rather than summarizing or categorizing it.

> predatory pricing etc

Free is predatory? I guess they should be paying users to search, like Bing? http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/get-paid-search-bing-rewards-pr...

Re: Google in, Google out

#22

Post by mirekrusin »

pacala wrote: post #5
MrQuincle wrote: post #2

> And yet. Like every I/O attendee I received a free Google Home device as part of the I/O experience. (I attended as an engineer, not as press.) But I don’t want one; I’ll be giving mine away. Sorry, Google. It’s not that I mistrust you. It’s just that I don’t want to have to trust any profit-driven megacorporation quite that much. Not Apple, not Amazon, and not even you. It is very interesting to me why certain mic…

Always on cameras, always on mics, that's a new low even for Google. Technically they are not yet uploading everything into the cloud, but who in his right mind is trusting Google on privacy anymore? From Google Maps the other day "New! share your location with your friends for an hour". Oh, by the way, give Google Maps permission to always track your location, forever. Wtf. Camera and microphone on the mobile phone…

On somehow related note uber's location tracking when app is not used without an opt out option is the biggest wtf so far for me :( Why as an user I don't have ability to narrow it down to "when app is used only" is beyond me. It gives this weird feeling that you're just a bundle of a product and a consumer glued together to make few at the top rich.

It's funny because I believe that people would not mind sharing this kind of info if it gave the feeling of contributing to the community - to make the service better; to make the data available to researchers; to make it available to the user itself - i wouldn't mind to peek at data from last year to see how much of my life was wasted in transport, at work, how much time i spent in parks etc.

IMHO we'll need more and more openstreetmap/mozilla alikes. Modern AI had a good start but my fear is that's only because nobody was truly cashing on it yet, now you can feel it's closing more and more into black-boxes and benefits few black-box owners where data is flowing in.

Re: Google in, Google out

#23

Post by jlg23 »

MrQuincle wrote: post #2

> And yet. Like every I/O attendee I received a free Google Home device as part of the I/O experience. (I attended as an engineer, not as press.) But I don’t want one; I’ll be giving mine away. Sorry, Google. It’s not that I mistrust you. It’s just that I don’t want to have to trust any profit-driven megacorporation quite that much. Not Apple, not Amazon, and not even you. It is very interesting to me why certain mic…

> It is very interesting to me why certain microphones and cameras are fine, while others are not.

If you film yourself during sex that's one thing. If I film you during sex without your explicit consent that's a completely different thing.

> However, it is a no no to embed a cam in a pair of glasses. Building a mic into a speaker is not okay.

Building is not the problem, usage is. People don't complain about the new features but about the people who use them without consideration for others' privacy.

> I guess to have mics and cams in your car is fine as well.

No? Absolutely not. Neither is sending any data about my car to any other party (like manufacturer or insurance).

> I don't think it's about privacy, it seems to be about control. Where's the button on that thing!?

You are right if with "that thing" you refer to the user who is violating my privacy. Controlling my own devices is easy: The button is my wallet which simply does not open for devices that spy on me.

Re: Google in, Google out

#24

Post by techdragon »

MrQuincle wrote: post #2

> And yet. Like every I/O attendee I received a free Google Home device as part of the I/O experience. (I attended as an engineer, not as press.) But I don’t want one; I’ll be giving mine away. Sorry, Google. It’s not that I mistrust you. It’s just that I don’t want to have to trust any profit-driven megacorporation quite that much. Not Apple, not Amazon, and not even you. It is very interesting to me why certain mic…

I'm least offended by the door bell type devices. They are on the outside and offer no more information than someone could gain by snooping at my house from the street. The benefits of being able to pretend to be present at home when the doorbell is answered is significantly better security of my personal goods against casual burglary. The downside is someone could remotely harvest a profile and recordings of who enters and leaves my house, which can be viewed from the street and offers me no tangible loss of personal privacy over what someone who wanted to watch me could already do.

Re: Google in, Google out

#25

Post by Mathnerd314 »

pawadu wrote: post #10
Mathnerd314 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more of a general Luddite / anti-tech paradigm. Historically, strange things were dangerous and/or poisonous. Tech people probably recognize these devices from science fiction books / movies / stories, so they don't get scared, but the rest of the world has no context to place them in and hence treats them like unexploded ordnance.

Yes, but there are two problems with this particular company: 1. they have grown this mentality where they gather any data they can get their hands on - apologize only when/if caught red handed. (remember google street car password gathering?). 2. the more you use their services the more dependent you become. but google have shown zero care for individual consumers. (who do you call if gmail craps out on you?)

> data gathering

It's not really any worse an invasion of privacy than Snowden or Wikileaks. At least Google apologizes instead of going on about how information should be free.

> more dependent

Google actively reduces dependence, e.g. by their data takeout option. Obviously there's always going to be some switching cost but it's not like Google is a prison.

> Who do you call if gmail craps out

Well, if you have a SLA, you just call them on their 99.9% uptime guarantee: https://www.cnet.com/news/can-you-trust-your-business-to-goo... I guess if you're a consumer you don't get the same level of support, but it uses the same infrastructure so any problems will show up on the dashboard: https://www.google.com/appsstatus The reparations in all cases are limited to service credits, so you'd just be getting more free use of an already free service.

Re: Google in, Google out

#26

Post by shakna »

Mathnerd314 wrote: post #21
supremesaboteur wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many problems with Google's dominance. 1. The Filter Bubble. The idea that you can be shut in your own bubble, not being exposed to new ideas or ideas that contradict your own, is pretty bad 2. The idea that a for profit company becoming the arbiter of truth ( with noble intentions of fighting 'fake news' etc ) is also pretty bad. It can be used for political or economic gain 3. The company has a largely ho…

> filter bubble That just means you've got to proactively seek out new ideas you're uncomfortable with, and be mindful that not everything can be found on Google. It's not a reason to use a crappy search like Yahoo or Bing (which only indexes 1/10 of the pages Google does: http://www.worldwidewebsize.com/ ). > a for profit company becoming the arbiter of truth Wikipedia is more of an arbiter of truth than Google; so…

> so far Google has limited itself to indexing information rather than summarizing or categorizing it

Apart from Google's Instant Answers. Which have, in the past, captured misleading or flat-out wrong information.

> predatory pricing etc

See Firebase's recent price hike. [0]

Not all Google products are free, Google is not just a search engine. Some start off reasonable, you get invested, and then they suddenly become ridiculously more expensive.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14356409

Re: Google in, Google out

#27

Post by megablast »

mirekrusin wrote: post #22
pacala wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always on cameras, always on mics, that's a new low even for Google. Technically they are not yet uploading everything into the cloud, but who in his right mind is trusting Google on privacy anymore? From Google Maps the other day "New! share your location with your friends for an hour". Oh, by the way, give Google Maps permission to always track your location, forever. Wtf. Camera and microphone on the mobile phone…

On somehow related note uber's location tracking when app is not used without an opt out option is the biggest wtf so far for me :( Why as an user I don't have ability to narrow it down to "when app is used only" is beyond me. It gives this weird feeling that you're just a bundle of a product and a consumer glued together to make few at the top rich. It's funny because I believe that people would not mind sharing thi…

> On somehow related note uber's location tracking when app is not used without an opt out option is the biggest wtf so far for me

This is not true, at least for the iPhone.

Re: Google in, Google out

#28

Post by floatboth »

paradite wrote: post #14

On the topic of Google Lens, I don't really understand the hype around it. People are talking about how it is able scan a bar code of SSID and password to connect to router. Isn't that ancient technology? And for other uses like overlay maps info, aren't those just running standard CV/ML algorithms on their mega-servers plus simple integration with other apps in their ecosystem?

Yeah it's literally a relaunch of Google Goggles which worked on like… Android 1.x?

Re: Google in, Google out

#29

Post by afarrell »

MrQuincle wrote: post #2

> And yet. Like every I/O attendee I received a free Google Home device as part of the I/O experience. (I attended as an engineer, not as press.) But I don’t want one; I’ll be giving mine away. Sorry, Google. It’s not that I mistrust you. It’s just that I don’t want to have to trust any profit-driven megacorporation quite that much. Not Apple, not Amazon, and not even you. It is very interesting to me why certain mic…

> However, it is a no no to embed a cam in a pair of glasses.

If someone is holding a phone up and taking a photo of you to post online, you can object. If someone is wearing glasses with the little red indicator light turned off, you can't.

Re: Google in, Google out

#30

Post by jpalomaki »

paradite wrote: post #14

On the topic of Google Lens, I don't really understand the hype around it. People are talking about how it is able scan a bar code of SSID and password to connect to router. Isn't that ancient technology? And for other uses like overlay maps info, aren't those just running standard CV/ML algorithms on their mega-servers plus simple integration with other apps in their ecosystem?

If they open this to developers, it could be quite powerful and interesting feature. Point your phone to something, Google recognizes what's in the picture and makes this information available on platform. Applications can then be activated based on context and they can additional information to screen.

Of course things like this already exist, but my phone does not feel particularly "smart" when I need to be making the choices which app to use on which occasion. They could also tie in app discovery to this. "Hey, you are pointing at movie poster but don't have any related apps, would you like to see a list.."

The true power of this of course comes with the augmented reality headsets (Google Glass or whatever it will be in future). Maybe one reason for introducing it already now is to start collecting data. It is certainly interesting for Google to know what kind of things people are pointing their phones at in order to recognize things.

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