161–170 of 590 posts
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Yeah, motorola products have completely gone down the toilet after that acquisition. They were so great before with fast updates and a wonderful skin of android, and now they're either non-innovative or way too overpriced for the value.
You're being sarcastic right? Sorry if it's a dumb question.
Am I the only one who thought "well, good for the Nest guys" followed by "too bad, it looked like a good product"?
Really? $200 for a predictive thermostat, with a lame excuse to stream energy usage data and proximity data (Nest detects humans) out of your home? Id rather pay $99 to tell health insurance companies how often I exercise, live. You could get the same benefit from a device for $30 of electronics. It's an overpriced gimmick to justify another selling off of your personal data forever in exchange for nothing but some m…
Do they own patents or something? Because with a $10 android chip, any Chinese plant could churn out Nest clones in a few months.
Nest threw a lot of money at Home Depot, if the dedicated end caps I've seen for the last couple of years are any indication.
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After the whole PRISM/NSA/GCHQ scandal I think there were two roads to take: make your internet life as secure and private as possible (I tried this, it was boring and probably futile) or realise that keeping information private is only going to get more and more difficult. If you come to the latter realisation as I eventually did things like this might excite you. The more info Google has on me the more exciting and…
Instead of giving up altogether, I suggest a different approach: choose your enemies and compartmentalize your personal data. Stuff related to your personal life and your feelings? You probably can't keep it from the NSA, but you can keep some of it from Google and Facebook. Super secret work stuff (think airplane parts, not stealth mobile app startups)? Cryptography and all kinds of misdirection to throw off spies.…
My approach is based on thinking ahead and of the future benefits I might get from Google knowing my private information (Glass, Google Now etc). I never thought that "future hypothetical returns may be matched by improvements that don't require so many privacy invasions". You've gave me something to think about!
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What about the ability to know when someone is in your home and when someone is not? If Google records that data (say, to be able to provide you with a handy chart of your energy use and some ways to improve it), the potential I am more worried about is the fact that the data exists makes it possible to subpoena.
Exactly. I don't care if the government knows when I'm home (they can already figure that out), but imagine if Google's database of Nest info got leaked. Burglars could look at the database and say "Oh hey, look, no one's home right now."
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I'm not really worried about subpoena of my data- if the courts want it, they will get it. I'd be more concerned about what private companies are going to do with it. I know the gov't is the big bogeyman in most people's minds, but sometimes I swear private corps. have even less accountability than the gov't.
This all breaks down to one thing. The government can detain you indefinitely and is equipped to kill you. No private enterprise can do either of these things legally. The government holds deadly force. Private enterprise is going to do some horrifying things with your data, but barring a cyperpunk dystopia, it lacks the capability to end your life.
I for one see great areas of improvement and possibilities inside the common house. Not that I'd wire up every appliance with a Wi-Fi sensor, but some data can be useful, if only for safety (falling asleep with the oven on: here a sensor could cut the power at a certain condition, or trigger the fire alarm, or ring up the firefighters).
Or you left the house and realise you left some of the lights on, just tell the in-car console to open the domotics app, and tell it to shut the lights off.
And the smart fridge, if RFIDs or its successor ever become cheap enough to be able to be printed on a milk carton, you could have your fridge's contents with you wherever you go, just open the app, look what's about to go off, or have it remind you to get extra supplies when you're near a point of interest.
If they'll let me I'll hook up a Nagios server to my coffee machine.