Not a lot of screen real estate for ads on a Nest...
Well in addition to the color LCD, they do have speakers so Google could do audio ads. Also, Google+ checkins when you walk into your house and G+ status updates when you adjust your temperature would increase the G+ 'active user' count for them.
Also, I could definitely see myself buying Lord of the Rings in the Google Books store and reading it on the Nest.
This could provide the ideal way of monetizing this platform in the future.
Google Voice is effectively a dead product, isn't it? Doesn't seem that favorable to me.
I use it every single day. I wouldn't call it dead. We'll see if Google tries to wholly replace it with hangouts. I wouldn't be mad unless it were missing features.
Dead from a development perspective. I've had the same bug on the android client where voicemails play the first second or so and then stop, requiring me to click play again.
Do you really think burglars could not get their hands on leaked government agency database? This is just another excuse to throw feces at Google, and HN commenters just don't miss any possible opportunity to do that.
strawman and goalposts. PP said google's database, not government databases. google data breach in last 30 days: http://money.cnn.com/2013/12/04/technology/security/password... inside job at home security company in last year: http://www.wbng.com/news/state/198129651.html
Calling that a Google data breach is a pretty big misrepresentation; keyloggers installed on user machines collected passwords typed into a number of websites, including Google's.
(disclaimer: I work for Google, have no special knowledge of the incident in question)
I thought "Good for the Nest gu...HOLY CRAP GOOGLE PAID $3.2 BILLION FOR A THERMOSTAT COMPANY"
Actually believe it or not but this is a very very expensive acqu-hire. First engineer on the IPhone team? Father of the IPOD? given the size of the smartphone industry and given what apple has become because of the iphone one could argue that the dude is worth half a billion.
I'm wondering if you expect him to design (Android) phones, where his talent would indeed be able to scale and justify the price — or do you see Google hiring him to lead a domotic division, and his price is based on Nest gorgeous, but not as-iconic products (yet)? Or is my distinction irrelevant in 2014, the year of wrist-servers?
I'm ok with that. My issue with Google isn't Single-Sign-On, it's forcing every product into a social-network mold. Although I'm a happy user of Facebook and Twitter, I think SV's social obsession has largely been fruitless. Social does not improve most products and can actually harm them. And now I'm worrying about how "social" is going to be slapped on to my fire alarm.
You missed my point. If apple controlled nest, you'd almost certainly only get notifications if you were using an idevice of some sort. Apple's terrible about working with others to create industry standards; the AppleTV for example would be a lot more useful if it used DLNA for streaming instead of Apple's proprietary format.
I think you're missing his/her point. The problem nostromo has is not proprietary formats but social networks. I think the worry is updates like "John Doe turned the temperature in his house to 75!" (and while that fear is overstated, it's not unreasonable to not want products that can detect the presence of humans in your bedroom connected to social networks).
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.
Wait until the day that Google announces that they're opening up their entire database of search histories in the name of transparency. It will be an opt-out initiative where those wishing to keep their data out of the open will have to pay a monthly "processing and maintenance fee" to "manually" remove your entries from the database.
Please, please Google... don't spam me about starting a Google+ account when I'm just trying to turn the temp down a few degrees. I beg you.
And I beg all HN users to stop doing Google+ jokes as they're just as unfunny as they're unoriginal.
I'm not convinced they're as much jokes as real concerns by people who have already been burned by this (see: YouTube -- I'm not going to argue about whether or not G+ integration has made these products better, but it's not unreasonable to not want your real-name associated with comments you made under a pseudonym, and to be so annoyingly pestered to do so!)
Considering they have revenue & a business model - it's more palatable than snapchat getting offered 3B by FB in cash & turning it down.
Anything is more palatable than that spectacular, cosmic-scale, epic failure.
My opinion of SnapChat is that it's not worth much because the founder lacks empathy — although the execution and success were (lucky and) impressive. Facebook on the other hand is a company I admire.
I see why you'd see one trying to control the other and being rejected as a failure, but I actually felt relieved that nastiness hasn't be rewarded now, hoping they'll pay soon (and not so surprised by SnapChat's arrogance).
Please don't include decimals on that kind of number, it's intellectually dishonest.
Perhaps you should step away from your PC for a bit? Christ. Arguing that somebody shouldn't expand a large number because you personally now perceive this number differently and therefore it is intellectually dishonest is a bit of a squirrely argument, don't you think? We're all capable thinking humans here. That isn't to say that smart people cannot be swayed with rhetoric and such, but don't you think that the sam…
$3.2M would be a truckload of money too, but on a Google scale, "This number is really enormous!" is a weak argument. $3.2B is less than 1% of their market cap. Relative terms are much more important than "how many zeros"; why, just recently, Google took a $150M loss in Q3'2012 on the Motorola division. They aren't afraid of 9-figure losses. Thus (IMO) $3.2B being a large number has little bearing on whether or not Google would be willing to take a writedown on Nest, for the right reasons.