Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google in, Google out

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 135 posts

Re: Google in, Google out

#81

Post by aiiane »

cf wrote: post #35
jankey wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, you can review and delete everything here: https://myactivity.google.com/myactivity?restrict=vaa&utm_so... (I work for Google)

Sure, but is it actually deleted? Or is this still stored somewhere in Google ready to be retrieved if needed?

It's actually deleted, though it can take some time for deletions to propagate through various Google systems and backups - we can't violate the speed of light and​ we wouldn't want a bug in the deletion code to result in a catastrophic loss of things users wanted us to keep.

Re: Google in, Google out

#82

Post by scholia »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #59
mwexler wrote: post #47

It is interesting that of the 5, Microsoft is still in the mix. Look back 10 years, or 20 years, and ask which companies you would have thought would also be present. MS may have made the list, but wouldn't a lot of others as well? Apple is also surprising, but then again, that's what they were so good at. You expect someone to come out of nowhere, but MS just keeps on chugging when so many others failed out.

Microsoft's scale and early dominance gives them incredible staying power. Apple, at this point, too. Huge companies have the money to coast by in mediocrity for years, and can simply buy assets to fill in gaps in their product line. Don't have a chat app? Buy one. Don't have machine learning yet? Buy a couple of those too. Even if a company like Google lost most of it's income overnight, it could coast for years on…

> Huge companies have the money to coast by in mediocrity for years, and can simply buy assets to fill in gaps in their product line.

True, though IBM may now have spent too long coasting by in mediocrity...

Re: Google in, Google out

#83

Post by aiiane »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #44
jankey wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, you can review and delete everything here: https://myactivity.google.com/myactivity?restrict=vaa&utm_so... (I work for Google)

Note that if you opt out of Google keeping this history, I believe Google still keeps all your voice recordings, you just lose the ability to review and "delete" them, and they aren't tied to your account anymore. This is one of the crazier notions I've seen in a privacy dark pattern: "Let us track you or we'll keep your data forever".

Source?

Re: Google in, Google out

#84

Post by maccard »

thesuitonym wrote: post #50
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…

>Camera and microphone on the mobile phone activate when I press the button to activate them. Allow me to put on my tinfoil hat for just a moment and remind you that, should Google want to, they could just turn on your microphone and camera without letting you know. Would they? Probably not, but they certainly could, and unless you're in the habit of regularly checking your network traffic, you wouldn't know.

Not if you don't use Android.

Re: Google in, Google out

#85

Post by ghughes »

hagakure0c wrote: post #61

What we need more of is something like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (Regulation (EU) 2016/679). Right now, Google, Facebook et al are luring their users deeper and deeper into their ecosystem by promising them a better future, which will never happen, the only thing that is happening are consumers handing over more of their personal data hoping tech will make good on that promise. https://en.wikipedi…

The maximum penalty for violating the GDPR is 4% of worldwide turnover. Possibly stupid question: I keep hearing that this is considered a "high" penalty, but if you're Google or Facebook and this (or any) regulation substantially threatens your bottom line to the tune of more than 4%, wouldn't you just eat it like a tax?

Re: Google in, Google out

#86

Post by scholia »

buro9 wrote: post #11

> They don’t just want to remake the world in their image. They want to remake our individual lives. Each Stack — bar Facebook, for now — offers the same awkward bargain: commit wholly & wholeheartedly to our ecosystem, and we will better your life. And it just might work, if any of the newer Google experiences worked on all Google accounts. My experience as a Google Apps / G Suite user, is that few to none of the ne…

> Each Stack — bar Facebook, for now — offers the same awkward bargain: commit wholly & wholeheartedly to our ecosystem, and we will better your life.

However, the stacks (ecosystems) need not be mutually exclusive. For example, Microsoft's ecosystem includes dozens of apps for iOS and Android, and it has supported Macs for as long as Apple. It also has Linux options for Windows 10 and Azure.

Apple mainly supports Apple hardware, but it still has iTunes and iCloud support for Windows.

Re: Google in, Google out

#87

Post by Sargos »

buro9 wrote: post #11

> They don’t just want to remake the world in their image. They want to remake our individual lives. Each Stack — bar Facebook, for now — offers the same awkward bargain: commit wholly & wholeheartedly to our ecosystem, and we will better your life. And it just might work, if any of the newer Google experiences worked on all Google accounts. My experience as a Google Apps / G Suite user, is that few to none of the ne…

Looking at it from an engineering and legal perspective each one of Google's products and new features is a minefield of new and un-proven tech that would be outright dangerous to enable for a work or education account (which you have even though you originally had it for personal use and it was grandfathered in). They do slowly roll out features as they mature and the legal implications are ironed out but Apps accounts are never going to be bleeding edge and for good reason.

Re: Google in, Google out

#88

Post by euyyn »

pacala wrote: post #70
fixermark wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, how do you see technology advancing to the Star Trek-esque voice-activated computer interaction without always-on microphones?

This is not a technological issue. This is a policy issue. The total size of Wikipedia text is 12 GB. The total size of a state-sized chunk of maps.me is under a GB. The total memory of an iPhone is 32GB - 256GB. I can store the entirety of Wikipedia + the entire geographical data of my state and neighbouring states on my mobile phone and have a Star Trek-esque voice-activated computer interaction without ever upload…

Good luck asking Wikipedia what's the weather today, what's your first meeting in the morning, and which route of your commute has less traffic at the moment.

Re: Google in, Google out

#89

Post by Sargos »

hagakure0c wrote: post #61

What we need more of is something like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (Regulation (EU) 2016/679). Right now, Google, Facebook et al are luring their users deeper and deeper into their ecosystem by promising them a better future, which will never happen, the only thing that is happening are consumers handing over more of their personal data hoping tech will make good on that promise. https://en.wikipedi…

Your premise is flawed. My future is already better than when I started using Google. It promised me a better future and I have already received the benefit and there are many, many more benefits coming in the future. I no longer have to buy and maintain my own hardware for my files. I don't have to worry about losing my precious photos in a fire. I have found better restaurants by allowing my preferences to be known.

So they are not just gathering data and providing hope. There are tangible benefits today.

Re: Google in, Google out

#90

Post by ocdtrekkie »

scholia wrote: post #82
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft's scale and early dominance gives them incredible staying power. Apple, at this point, too. Huge companies have the money to coast by in mediocrity for years, and can simply buy assets to fill in gaps in their product line. Don't have a chat app? Buy one. Don't have machine learning yet? Buy a couple of those too. Even if a company like Google lost most of it's income overnight, it could coast for years on…

> Huge companies have the money to coast by in mediocrity for years, and can simply buy assets to fill in gaps in their product line. True, though IBM may now have spent too long coasting by in mediocrity...

I don't know, Watson is actually one of the most publicly-recognized names in the AI game. If they leverage that correctly, there's a lot of opportunities there.

Especially since most people who want to use AI would view Google as a competitor because of the number of services it operates, and IBM is more likely to support someone's desire for on-premises solutions. (The on-site enterprise solutions Google had for search and Earth, for comparison, have been recently discontinued.)

Post reply on HN