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Googlebook

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Re: Googlebook

#521
HN always disappoints me with these kind of threads, with all the generic disappointment and Google scepticism dominating the conversation.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still disappointed. But mainly because it looks so superficial. I was trying to work out what's new and it just looks like an Android device (or Chrome? I can't tell) with some party trick Gemini features sprinkled on it. There isn't anything technically interesting here.

I'm still waiting for someone to ship a truly AI native device - something with the right sandboxing and UI layers to let an AI model truly understand and work with the device natively, but safely. The OS SDK itself should natively incorporate all these elements as first class primitives. And the model would be trained heavily to explicitly understand and work well with them.

Re: Googlebook

#522
The second feature shown in this global launch is ... widgets. Like, Windows Vista widgets. And then, I could also open phone apps but not on my phone but on my computer (because I'd want to do that) and then the remaining feature is file sync.

I am just lost. I wanna watch a documentary on how this kind of thing gets thought out and made and approved by a lot of people and then comes to being annouced as an actual hardware product.

Re: Googlebook

#523
post #342
post #305

Gross. This is just more proof that corporations simply don't know how to market AI. Everything is an ad for an ad at this point. The very first thing they show this new machine doing is helping people shop for clothes using AI. No one is doing that, these people don't exist. No matter how hard corporate America wishes they did. This is why AI doesn't sell. This is why companies like Microsoft and Dell are pulling ba…

> This is why AI doesn't sell My friend just bought a Pixel instead of an iPhone because it had better AI voice chat integration, he's non-technical and has been on iPhone as long as I remember

The Google voice chat integration in android auto is vile currently. You ask it to map something. The map spins up and adds the address quickly. Shortly thereafter, the Gemini agent asks you if you want it to plot the directions? And then it starts bothering you with extra questions like "want me to tell you the weather for your destination or figure out some fun activities?". No, leave me alone and do your job better, please.

Re: Googlebook

#524
post #305

Gross. This is just more proof that corporations simply don't know how to market AI. Everything is an ad for an ad at this point. The very first thing they show this new machine doing is helping people shop for clothes using AI. No one is doing that, these people don't exist. No matter how hard corporate America wishes they did. This is why AI doesn't sell. This is why companies like Microsoft and Dell are pulling ba…

Huh, I shopped for clothes using AI today. Not super relevant to the Googlebook ad, but in case the perspective is interesting to you: I'm quite tall (194cm) but not very wide, so I usually struggle with buying clothes online. I used AI to scrape a bunch of clothing stores to see whether they sold a men's shirt with an LT or slim fit size, in stock, and matching a particular vibe.

Wow, I’m in the same boat - do you mind sharing more about how you did it? I was thinking about that too (I’m 197cm) and would love to learn!

Re: Googlebook

#525
I used to use Chromebooks as a souped-up iPad with Linux terminal support.

They missed a great opportunity to create a special user interface experience supporting multiple tasks (e.g. Gemini-CLI, anti gravity, Gemini-chat, browser) while sharing the same context . It could have been an awesome developer device . Imagine virtual desktops all sharing the same context with various tools : Gemini-CLI working on infra and artifacts, Antigravity running development , Gemini chat generating graphics assets. Hardware enabled with special shared memory / NPU.

Instead, I see a Chromebook with the nagging MS Edge “right click for copilot”.

Re: Googlebook

#526
post #305

Gross. This is just more proof that corporations simply don't know how to market AI. Everything is an ad for an ad at this point. The very first thing they show this new machine doing is helping people shop for clothes using AI. No one is doing that, these people don't exist. No matter how hard corporate America wishes they did. This is why AI doesn't sell. This is why companies like Microsoft and Dell are pulling ba…

Only hackernews commenters know how to market AI, but they are too good to work for a trillion dollar corp

Re: Googlebook

#527

I think if I wanted a cheap laptop I'd probably get the macbook neo, and if i wanted a non-gaming expensive one i'd get a macbook pro. I really don't see the market fit for this, I guess the android integration. But my god, I'd die of cringe if someone asked me about my laptop and I had to say "googlebook". Believe it or not, these things matter a lot, particularly if you're trying to target a young audience.

What, you mean you don’t want to sound like a turkey when describing your computer to others?

Re: Googlebook

#528
post #305

Gross. This is just more proof that corporations simply don't know how to market AI. Everything is an ad for an ad at this point. The very first thing they show this new machine doing is helping people shop for clothes using AI. No one is doing that, these people don't exist. No matter how hard corporate America wishes they did. This is why AI doesn't sell. This is why companies like Microsoft and Dell are pulling ba…

Fwiw Amazon Fashion is a huge business.

Re: Googlebook

#529
post #305

Gross. This is just more proof that corporations simply don't know how to market AI. Everything is an ad for an ad at this point. The very first thing they show this new machine doing is helping people shop for clothes using AI. No one is doing that, these people don't exist. No matter how hard corporate America wishes they did. This is why AI doesn't sell. This is why companies like Microsoft and Dell are pulling ba…

I asked an LLM to research some clothing options just yesterday and it's done a great job putting together a list of brands and models with the specific parameters I wanted, very quickly.

Re: Googlebook

#530
post #305

Gross. This is just more proof that corporations simply don't know how to market AI. Everything is an ad for an ad at this point. The very first thing they show this new machine doing is helping people shop for clothes using AI. No one is doing that, these people don't exist. No matter how hard corporate America wishes they did. This is why AI doesn't sell. This is why companies like Microsoft and Dell are pulling ba…

I think CEOs are so drunk on the shareholder buzz for AI that they think this is also what the customer wants. I love integrating AI into products, but only in a way that is seamless. For example, I did my taxes recently and there was a button to upload my tax pdfs to do a best effort auto-fill of some forms on the tax website. No mention of AI even though AI was almost certainly used for that button, just a simple plain button.
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