41–50 of 87 posts
Isn't this what QR codes on signs were supposed to do? You don't need an "app" just to talk to some retail thing. Many retail apps are a dodge to get inside your phone and snoop around, acquire your contacts list, and track where you are.
I like the idea, but the first version seems quite limited. It is more of a GPS based webapp discovery tool. You click on the button, the app sends your GPS coordinate to the main server, which returns all useful webapps in the neighborhood. I think that using NFC chips, which are extremely cheap, is very appropriate here. Use case: You point your phone to the vending machine/renting car and the respective webapp is…
NFC is tough because you have to be within about an inch of it to get a reliable connection. For the use cases of a parking meter or vending machine it works, but for a bus stop or store it becomes yet another thing to stand in line for.
Isn't this what QR codes on signs were supposed to do? You don't need an "app" just to talk to some retail thing. Many retail apps are a dodge to get inside your phone and snoop around, acquire your contacts list, and track where you are.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>How do I know the item listed as "Bus Stop" is actually the bus stop, and not someone's malicious Raspberry Pi hidden in the bush next to it? The same way you know that top search results are accurate for a given word/phrase. As stated multiple times throughout the introduction[1] the solution for filtering out spam will probably have an implementation similar to internet search engines. [1]: https://github.com/goog…
How do I know the top 100 items listed as "Bus Stop" aren't someone's malicious raspberry pi hidden in the bushes, spitting out hundreds of URLs and varying the signal strength so they appear to be coming from different locations and...wait a minute. I think my phone just got DOS'ed.
The writeup indicates the beacons run in broadcast mode. I think it would be good if there were also a discovery mode where the client could ping devices and they could respond. This would be good for a few use cases, including “private” devices like things in your home. These devices could be configured to only respond to certain clients.
For home devices, another feature that would be nice is if the device could use http-over-BLE to service the web request itself. The device would run a small web server and the web page on the client would be the user interface for the device. For home automation there are these complicated specifications for different device types, but HTML is the perfect interface to run any device.
Meh, we need AI to understand API interfaces automatically and can communicate together seamlessly, without any hard coding. That's when device to device integration gets REALLY interesting. Wait, isn't this just bluetooth + web?
I agree with that statement in general, but I don't see what it has to do with Google's Physical Web proposal/idea. You'd want what you describe even in a world with only traditional networked computers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>How do I know the item listed as "Bus Stop" is actually the bus stop, and not someone's malicious Raspberry Pi hidden in the bush next to it? The same way you know that top search results are accurate for a given word/phrase. As stated multiple times throughout the introduction[1] the solution for filtering out spam will probably have an implementation similar to internet search engines. [1]: https://github.com/goog…
How do I know the top 100 items listed as "Bus Stop" aren't someone's malicious raspberry pi hidden in the bushes, spitting out hundreds of URLs and varying the signal strength so they appear to be coming from different locations and...wait a minute. I think my phone just got DOS'ed.
> "The number of smart devices is going to explode (...)" But why? Why are you/they so sure? Why do we assume that humans will just appropriate any kind of technology thrown at them? I assume this comes from educated tech guys, who are thorough with their work, tools and respective usage. How can they be so lighthearted with the premises which relate to human usage of technology?
I'm not sure what you mean by "appropriating technology". The number of smart devices is going to explode because we want to automate all the things, and collect lots of data. It'd be great if I could ask my stove what food I've eaten this month, how healthy it was, how expensive it was, maybe even tell it to start preparing dinner at a certain time. The way to do that is to put a computer in everything.
Isn't this what QR codes on signs were supposed to do? You don't need an "app" just to talk to some retail thing. Many retail apps are a dodge to get inside your phone and snoop around, acquire your contacts list, and track where you are.
Yep, this is just QR codes made better. It's similar to pet microchip implants too. The only app you need is one that knows how to listen for the signals and point you in the right direction when you choose to visit one.
I also don't see at all how this is better than a QR code on a physical object, other than that it's invisible - which is itself not great, since unless you allow these things to be intrusive and pop up something on your phone when you get too near to one (no thanks), there's no built-in call to action. You'd basically need a sticker on everything supporting this that says, "I support Physical Web!"... in which case you might as well have a QR code.