121–130 of 387 posts
Can't make good watch hardware OR software? Just buy part of Fossil and Fitbit to handle that.
Can't make good smart home devices to compete with Amazon's Ring or Simplisafe? Just buy Nest, Revolv, and a huge stake of ADT.
etc. etc.
I'm sure the sentiment here will be very much against this acquisition, but keep in mind that Fitbit was getting killed and would likely have gone out of business without this. It is tough for a company like Fitbit to compete with Apple & Samsung. This should lead to more competition by making it possible for Fitbit to compete with Apple. If it doesn't then the acquisition was a failure for Google anyway - Fitbit's c…
> Fitbit was getting killed and would likely have gone out of business If this is a reason for acquisition, then why wouldn't G*gle wait until they were "killed" so they could come in and buy their business for pennies on the dollar? We're fast approaching a dystopian Snow Crash world of all-powerful corporations, and you people are cheering it along. How can these both be true? - it's bad all US legacy media is owne…
Because what Google wants to buy is their marketshare and existing userbase. I very much doubt fitbit has any tech or products google couldn't make themselves in a few months. The longer fitbit sucks compared to their competition the lower that becomes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Fitbit was getting killed and would likely have gone out of business If this is a reason for acquisition, then why wouldn't G*gle wait until they were "killed" so they could come in and buy their business for pennies on the dollar? We're fast approaching a dystopian Snow Crash world of all-powerful corporations, and you people are cheering it along. How can these both be true? - it's bad all US legacy media is owne…
>If this is a reason for acquisition, then why wouldn't G*gle wait until they were "killed" so they could come in and buy their business for pennies on the dollar? Because what Google wants to buy is their marketshare and existing userbase. I very much doubt fitbit has any tech or products google couldn't make themselves in a few months. The longer fitbit sucks compared to their competition the lower that becomes.
More evidence that Google can't create any good, innovative products anymore - they just acquire them. Can't make good watch hardware OR software? Just buy part of Fossil and Fitbit to handle that. Can't make good smart home devices to compete with Amazon's Ring or Simplisafe? Just buy Nest, Revolv, and a huge stake of ADT. etc. etc.
I'm sure the sentiment here will be very much against this acquisition, but keep in mind that Fitbit was getting killed and would likely have gone out of business without this. It is tough for a company like Fitbit to compete with Apple & Samsung. This should lead to more competition by making it possible for Fitbit to compete with Apple. If it doesn't then the acquisition was a failure for Google anyway - Fitbit's c…
Fitness trackers are too basic. I can't wait to see if the Oneplus smart watch is any good. https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/22/22196180/oneplus-smartwa...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you against jail-time for all non-violent white collar crimes or just negligence in the realm of technology companies? Please don't assume that anyone with a different view hasn't considered the significance of their position.
Yes, I am against jail for non-violent crimes. I'm open to modern non-medieval ideas even for violent crimes. I don't have the answers there, but I wish there were more people caring about this. So far it seems to be only the far left (I don't consider that an insult) and anarcho-capitalists, but I wish more people that fall into the middle somewhere (like myself) would think about this. Usually people don't think ab…
There's a difference between non-violent crimes (white collar crimes usually) and victimless crimes (possessing a small amount of controlled substances).
I deleted my account and uninstalled the app a few days ago - just in time to prevent google from slurping up my health data. I purchased a Mi Band 5 for $35 which is a vastly better device than fitbit equivalents for a quarter of the price. You can use it without data being sent to the cloud if you use the open source package GadgetBridge.
Those products are awesome if you want a lower-end fitness tracker. Originally I bought a Mi Band 4 because I saw it reported itself as a bluetooth HR accessory, meaning you could get continuous heart rate on bluetooth if you paired your device -- whereas FitBit's protocol was encrypted and proprietary. Did some cool stuff with that (a shirt with an LED matrix screen that pulsed at the wearers heart rate!)
Wouldn't say the hardware is "vastly better", I found the continuous heart rate monitoring to be a bit sluggish -- i.e. it averaged out HR over a longer period than the fitbits I've had did, so you were less likely to detect the peaks and recovery periods during excercise. Otherwise it was much of a muchness, but cheaper. I imagine the cheaper HW probably meant corners were cut with the sensors and firmware, but being hardly the athlete I didn't care outside of heart rate sensing.
[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mc.miband1...
pixel watch coming soon?