Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google and Ambient Computing

stratechery.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 106 posts

Re: Google and Ambient Computing

#71

Post by hanselot »

godelski wrote: post #31
gambler wrote: post #14

A handful of oligopolies coercing me to use overcomplicated always-connected gadgets that are orchestrated by "AI" that I don't control, can't train, and whose main objective is to manipulate my behavior and siphon as much of my private info to its corporate master as possible. All of this to solve "problems" that I never had, while a choir of corporate shills drones on and on that problems I actually have are not re…

Don't forget that you pay them for the privilege of using such devices.

Introducing Google Think. Are you tired of going through life questioning everything and forming your own opinions? With our suite of brain filtering equipment we can remove all the offensive noise from your life. Tired of that racist coworker always making homophobic sexist jokes? Now you don't need to even know when they offend you! Try replacing them with one of our friendly SFW LGBTPYQT personalised artificial reinforcement filters and never face adversity again! Preorder now and gain a 20 year's supply worth of credits you already agreed to in this servitude contract with the Google Unilateral Learning and Analytics Library or GULAG for short. Whoever said being a slave in our data-crunching zoo had to be bound to a physical location when all your friends help us harvest data on you too.

Re: Google and Ambient Computing

#72

Post by J5892 »

whazor wrote: post #56
mey wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://killedbygoogle.com/ I am rather curious about Stradia's longevity.

Stadia will be a free gaming service next year. If they launch a free to play game, people will switch internet provider for it.

I would happily switch my internet provider for it.

I would switch my internet provider for literally anything.

The problem is I live in the country's main technological hub (the bay area), and I fucking can't. It's infuriating.

Re: Google and Ambient Computing

#73

Post by 0xffff2 »

cmroanirgo wrote: post #52
amelius wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it time that Google grows up and becomes a true tech company? I consider products containing adware to be "half-broken" and I don't understand how Google engineers can feel proud of their work. As an engineer I want my work to be paid for because my users like my products, and I certainly wouldn't want any of my work to be used to serve anyone other than my users.

Considering the thread about Google's Soli [0] has a huge number of votes, there's a clear sign that many are still heavily plugged into the borg. I'd suggest that even more would disagree with the suggestion that Google isn't a real tech company. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21269877

The topic might be heavily upvoted, but the overall sentiment in the comments in notably negative.

Re: Google and Ambient Computing

#74

Post by m463 »

VikingCoder wrote: post #25
phkahler wrote: post #9

Google is failing to organize the world's information in a way that is useful to me. I wanted to look up how to split a NURBS surface in half. You know, the math behind computing the new point and weights. All I got was a bunch of stuff from CAD vendors talking about how to manipulate NURBS in their own tools. Since then, I've seen more of this trend. It's hard to find information about how anything works now because…

Splitting a NURBS surface "in half" is an insanely complicated operation, and the way you do it almost certainly depends on your intended use case. If you can't find a library (or engine) in your domain that has the operation, then you're kind of S.O.L., and have to start from first principles. I don't blame commercial results and SEO for this. It's not like you used to be able to see a menu of rich choices for this,…

A better example would probably be to search for a way to fix something on your car. The results are overwhelmingly skewed towards selling you the part vs instructions.

Re: Google and Ambient Computing

#75

Post by mark_l_watson »

gambler wrote: post #14

A handful of oligopolies coercing me to use overcomplicated always-connected gadgets that are orchestrated by "AI" that I don't control, can't train, and whose main objective is to manipulate my behavior and siphon as much of my private info to its corporate master as possible. All of this to solve "problems" that I never had, while a choir of corporate shills drones on and on that problems I actually have are not re…

Perhaps that is true with Google’s products. As some else here said, they should grow up and figure out a business model that does not requires collecting so much data. I would prefer to pay them in cash than with my information.

For ambient computing, my favorite things are my Apple Watch and iPods. True enough, using Siri and these devices is using black box devices, but for now I am OK with them. I trust Apple, for now.

Re: Google and Ambient Computing

#76

Post by amelius »

dvdbloc wrote: post #55
amelius wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it time that Google grows up and becomes a true tech company? I consider products containing adware to be "half-broken" and I don't understand how Google engineers can feel proud of their work. As an engineer I want my work to be paid for because my users like my products, and I certainly wouldn't want any of my work to be used to serve anyone other than my users.

Do you have an example of a “true tech company”?

SpaceX, Intel, Microsoft, Nvidia, ...

Re: Google and Ambient Computing

#77

Post by m463 »

Kiro wrote: post #45

People really hate Google here. Look at this thread and the other about Soli. Not a single positive comment about Google. No wonder Google engineers have stopped posting on HN. Maybe Google truly is evil but I fail to see it personally.

It's a symptom of an underlying problem.

- companies used to respect us.

- computers used to belong to us.

The equation changed when companies found a way to charge advertisers big money by inverting these equations.

Google is just the poster child for all this, but there are lots of other players that have cashed in.

Re: Google and Ambient Computing

#78

Post by m463 »

gambler wrote: post #14

A handful of oligopolies coercing me to use overcomplicated always-connected gadgets that are orchestrated by "AI" that I don't control, can't train, and whose main objective is to manipulate my behavior and siphon as much of my private info to its corporate master as possible. All of this to solve "problems" that I never had, while a choir of corporate shills drones on and on that problems I actually have are not re…

But "ambient computing" sounds so pleasant, so friendly.

It sounds like walking through a forest of ferns.

Re: Google and Ambient Computing

#79

Post by amelius »

petra wrote: post #57
amelius wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it time that Google grows up and becomes a true tech company? I consider products containing adware to be "half-broken" and I don't understand how Google engineers can feel proud of their work. As an engineer I want my work to be paid for because my users like my products, and I certainly wouldn't want any of my work to be used to serve anyone other than my users.

Adware based products win in the marketplace. Google can't change that. At least the money from those adware products goes toward deep tech r&d. It could be worse.

Unless one day they take it a step too far, and the entire tracking-based monetization scheme is banned by the government or the EU. I hope they have a backup plan other than lobbying in the opposite direction.

Re: Google and Ambient Computing

#80

Post by basch »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #75
gambler wrote: post #14

A handful of oligopolies coercing me to use overcomplicated always-connected gadgets that are orchestrated by "AI" that I don't control, can't train, and whose main objective is to manipulate my behavior and siphon as much of my private info to its corporate master as possible. All of this to solve "problems" that I never had, while a choir of corporate shills drones on and on that problems I actually have are not re…

Perhaps that is true with Google’s products. As some else here said, they should grow up and figure out a business model that does not requires collecting so much data. I would prefer to pay them in cash than with my information. For ambient computing, my favorite things are my Apple Watch and iPods. True enough, using Siri and these devices is using black box devices, but for now I am OK with them. I trust Apple, fo…

You think they could save some money offering people a yearly "no ads" plan, across all google properties and any site with doubleclick and ads words. Very strange that they only offer paid plans for office productivity, youtube, and backups.

It would be even cooler if a certain percentage of the rate was a "designate your target" that allowed you to directly fund things like google reader etc.

It's also kind of crazy they dont have some kind of pricing sheet that shows me all the subscriptions available to me, along with some bundle options. I have to search out each product to see its price. It's like they dont want me to look for ways to give them money.

Post reply on HN