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compare this launch to a SpaceX launch, or an Apple event. it looks like a required university course at 8am. the background is not of the greatest resolution.

compare this launch to a SpaceX launch, or an Apple event. it looks like a required university course at 8am. the background is not of the greatest resolution. the presenters are deadpan. the crowd is, less than enthusiastic. last thought, google just went all in on the business model of "eroding personal privacy" to "capture value to increase shareholder value". the presenters are continuously driving home the point that the "google assistant is at the center of it all". there is zero pretension of your data remaining your data. HN is constantly having spirited conversations around Snowden and related revelations, but then seems to give a pass or benignly ignoring google's steady erosion of user privacy.

fixermark 10y ago
1) It's a desired erosion of user privacy. Services the phone can access inter-operating to make them easier to use is a feature, not a bug. What would the alternative solution be to synchronize data and understanding of user intention across multiple devices and interface layers? 2) What makes you think the data is no longer "yours?" Unless you mean "Not yours as soon as it gets shipped to a Google server," in which case that's always been true of data sent to Google---do you consider Gmail "Not yours?"
- throwaway98237 10y ago
  1) "desired" by some. not by all. not by me. i didn't mean to suggest it is a bug. i agree it is a "feature". some people may not be interested in certain "features". and to suggest that there are not many alternate solutions to a centralized synchronization solution with google at the center of it all is to either a) be blind of some of the most important IT developments in the works as well as some very established technologies or b) to simply be putting forth an argument based on the logical fallacy of a false dilemma 2) "my data" is converted to "our data", where "our" is understood to be the user, google, and anyone google "partners" with under the ToS. to the things i value, that is an important distinction. let's consider: nudie photos, dishing ish on friends, personal IP, company IP, etc. no longer mine, now ours. important distinction.
  - fixermark 10y ago
    To (1), I'd be excited to hear some alternatives that can provide equivalent tightly-integrated feature sets.
    - throwaway98237 10y ago
      https://arkos.io/ https://arkos.io/ https://www.seafile.com/en/home/ https://www.seafile.com/en/home/ https://syncthing.net/ https://syncthing.net/ https://owncloud.org/ https://owncloud.org/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Whisper_Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Whisper_Systems ...just to name a few off the top of my head. I agree that the excellent integration that Google or Apple products provide is not seen through the entire ecosystem of these other products, but it's being worked on and, to me at least, the progress being made is impressive.
      - fixermark 10y ago
        That's a good suite of software. But until and unless it has a personal assistant riding atop it that can couple world-class speech recognition (not just word recognition, but actual phrase semantics comprehension) with a knowldge graph to get from concept to concept, with the ability to smoothly move between pieces of data stored in those myriad services and systems, it's not really in the same league as what Google is trying to do with Assistant. I'm just not sure how one gets to where Google is on this without, for example, several human-decades worth of actual voice samples from "in the field" to train a multi-stage voice recognizer against, or an entire Internet's worth of search data and signal on how people navigate through and associate that data to build something like a knowledge graph. These may not be systems that can be open-developed into existence without a huge donation of data, money, mindpower, or all three.
eitally 10y ago
I love that you used a throwaway for this. I think it's perfectly reasonable to have this reaction, but it's also perfectly reasonable to allow the kind of data sharing Google (and others) require in order to provide "intelligent" assistance. I don't think it's reasonable to bring out the pitchforks every time a company requires user data in order to provide an arbitrary service that would be otherwise impossible.
- throwaway98237 10y ago
  fair enough assumption :) but i actually plan on using this one going forward. i lost the password for my normal handle, which is "JustUhThought". finally decided it was time to get an account for which i had the password. thought a "throw away" handle was nifty, because others might assume i was being more "honest" due to to the cloak of a throw-away, and so more likely to take my comment at face value. i agree that it is perfectly reasonable as a product. however, this is there entire business model. it is why they provide free storage for photos. it is why they want to get hardware into user's hands. it is why they do not provide end-to-end encryption for their communication apps. to me that is a distinction with a difference. it is a philosophy, not a product. and as i see our society marching into the future with a technological infrastructure at it's core built on the philosophy that it is ok to erode personal privacy for the benefit of the private corporation, i worry. i think we should all get out an protest. but not with pitchforks. i'm a strong believer in public discourse, public disobedience, peaceful protect, constructive criticism, and constructively building alternatives.
  - eitally 10y ago
    I get you, but I philosophically disagree and personally place significant value on the benefits I, as a consumer, receive from "intelligent" services. I also completely understand your POV re: erosion of privacy, and that's a-ok, too. Speaking as a googler, though, I think you attribute far too much to malice when what from their POV are stepwise improvements to consumer services. But yes, unless things change at the macro level, we're pretty quickly moving into a future ruled by corporations: health, energy, technology, etc, and that is scary.
norea-armozel 10y ago
I have to agree since it seems it's not about say owning your data and controlling how it's transformed for your purposes but more for Google and other corporations to consume that data to sell to their actual customers (advertisers, govts, whatever). This was inevitable, to be fair, since how do you get people to manage their own data these days? The fact most non-technically inclined people refuse to a use a desktop/mobile email client or host their own sites even when it's easier than ever to do both shows that the bad guys already won. No one wants privacy in the strictest sense. Hell, look at the robbery of Kim Kardashian for the most extreme example of this absurd openness. It's probably why I still use pseudonyms that don't tie back to my legal name, only because I do fear I might set off some jerk and be hounded or worse. Yet everyone and their mother seems to be ready to embrace the panopticon that's come where everyone can see what everyone else is doing (minus govts, corporations, and paranoid jerks like me).

fixermark 10y ago

1) It's a desired erosion of user privacy. Services the phone can access inter-operating to make them easier to use is a feature, not a bug. What would the alternative solution be to synchronize data and understanding of user intention across multiple devices and interface layers? 2) What makes you think the data is no longer "yours?" Unless you mean "Not yours as soon as it gets shipped to a Google server," in which case that's always been true of data sent to Google---do you consider Gmail "Not yours?"

throwaway98237 10y ago
1) "desired" by some. not by all. not by me. i didn't mean to suggest it is a bug. i agree it is a "feature". some people may not be interested in certain "features". and to suggest that there are not many alternate solutions to a centralized synchronization solution with google at the center of it all is to either a) be blind of some of the most important IT developments in the works as well as some very established technologies or b) to simply be putting forth an argument based on the logical fallacy of a false dilemma 2) "my data" is converted to "our data", where "our" is understood to be the user, google, and anyone google "partners" with under the ToS. to the things i value, that is an important distinction. let's consider: nudie photos, dishing ish on friends, personal IP, company IP, etc. no longer mine, now ours. important distinction.
- fixermark 10y ago
  To (1), I'd be excited to hear some alternatives that can provide equivalent tightly-integrated feature sets.
  - throwaway98237 10y ago
    https://arkos.io/ https://arkos.io/ https://www.seafile.com/en/home/ https://www.seafile.com/en/home/ https://syncthing.net/ https://syncthing.net/ https://owncloud.org/ https://owncloud.org/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Whisper_Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Whisper_Systems ...just to name a few off the top of my head. I agree that the excellent integration that Google or Apple products provide is not seen through the entire ecosystem of these other products, but it's being worked on and, to me at least, the progress being made is impressive.
    - fixermark 10y ago
      That's a good suite of software. But until and unless it has a personal assistant riding atop it that can couple world-class speech recognition (not just word recognition, but actual phrase semantics comprehension) with a knowldge graph to get from concept to concept, with the ability to smoothly move between pieces of data stored in those myriad services and systems, it's not really in the same league as what Google is trying to do with Assistant. I'm just not sure how one gets to where Google is on this without, for example, several human-decades worth of actual voice samples from "in the field" to train a multi-stage voice recognizer against, or an entire Internet's worth of search data and signal on how people navigate through and associate that data to build something like a knowledge graph. These may not be systems that can be open-developed into existence without a huge donation of data, money, mindpower, or all three.

eitally 10y ago

I love that you used a throwaway for this. I think it's perfectly reasonable to have this reaction, but it's also perfectly reasonable to allow the kind of data sharing Google (and others) require in order to provide "intelligent" assistance. I don't think it's reasonable to bring out the pitchforks every time a company requires user data in order to provide an arbitrary service that would be otherwise impossible.

throwaway98237 10y ago
fair enough assumption :) but i actually plan on using this one going forward. i lost the password for my normal handle, which is "JustUhThought". finally decided it was time to get an account for which i had the password. thought a "throw away" handle was nifty, because others might assume i was being more "honest" due to to the cloak of a throw-away, and so more likely to take my comment at face value. i agree that it is perfectly reasonable as a product. however, this is there entire business model. it is why they provide free storage for photos. it is why they want to get hardware into user's hands. it is why they do not provide end-to-end encryption for their communication apps. to me that is a distinction with a difference. it is a philosophy, not a product. and as i see our society marching into the future with a technological infrastructure at it's core built on the philosophy that it is ok to erode personal privacy for the benefit of the private corporation, i worry. i think we should all get out an protest. but not with pitchforks. i'm a strong believer in public discourse, public disobedience, peaceful protect, constructive criticism, and constructively building alternatives.
- eitally 10y ago
  I get you, but I philosophically disagree and personally place significant value on the benefits I, as a consumer, receive from "intelligent" services. I also completely understand your POV re: erosion of privacy, and that's a-ok, too. Speaking as a googler, though, I think you attribute far too much to malice when what from their POV are stepwise improvements to consumer services. But yes, unless things change at the macro level, we're pretty quickly moving into a future ruled by corporations: health, energy, technology, etc, and that is scary.

norea-armozel 10y ago

I have to agree since it seems it's not about say owning your data and controlling how it's transformed for your purposes but more for Google and other corporations to consume that data to sell to their actual customers (advertisers, govts, whatever). This was inevitable, to be fair, since how do you get people to manage their own data these days? The fact most non-technically inclined people refuse to a use a desktop/mobile email client or host their own sites even when it's easier than ever to do both shows that the bad guys already won. No one wants privacy in the strictest sense. Hell, look at the robbery of Kim Kardashian for the most extreme example of this absurd openness. It's probably why I still use pseudonyms that don't tie back to my legal name, only because I do fear I might set off some jerk and be hounded or worse. Yet everyone and their mother seems to be ready to embrace the panopticon that's come where everyone can see what everyone else is doing (minus govts, corporations, and paranoid jerks like me).