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It's already bad enough that my toddler can order photo canvases of a picture of himself getting ketchup out of the fridge via the Google Photos app. (He even c

It's already bad enough that my toddler can order photo canvases of a picture of himself getting ketchup out of the fridge via the Google Photos app. (He even chose expedited shipping . . . to our old address!) Fortunately we got a refund from customer service the first time. The second time, I saw the email soon enough to cancel within the 2 hour deadline. (This was after removing all our payment info from the phone, which was the only way I could see to enforce that he couldn't do it again, but then someone made a payment and ended up saving the payment method again.) I feel like it's only a matter of time before it happens again; at least the address is correct now so we'd actually receive the item if we were unable to cancel/refund.

nine_k 3y ago
Stop. Do you mean that the fridge has Google Photos app running? Or do you mean that your phone is not locked when given to the enterprising toddler in question?
- PebblesRox 3y ago
  Sorry for the confusion, the fridge was just part of the photo he was looking at. We gave him the phone to look at photos, thinking he couldn’t make too much trouble with that app. But while looking at a photo of himself with ketchup, he managed to complete the ordering process for ordering a photo canvas - a feature of the photos app I had always ignored until I saw the email that the order had shipped.
  - nine_k 3y ago
    Marvel now at the streamlined ordering process, which even a toddler can complete successfully and in no time!
- joseda-hg 3y ago
  I recently came across a review of a Samsung Smart fridge made by a non tech influencer, some of the things that grabbed my attention were: - The fridge had both front and back cameras - It had a microphone - It could play music, which maybe was important if you considered it for a glorified kitchen tablet - It could install regular android apps - It could sync photos and notes - It was compatible with the Uber app, so I have to assume you could actually have payment info in there I have never bought a nice fridge and I will go out of my way to avoid pointless smart, so it really came as a surprise to me, but the situation seems posible and probably will happen to someone at some point
  - utucuro 3y ago
    The listed features are interesting, probably useful for a fridge IF by back camera, a camera that can show me the inside of the fridge is meant - I'd love being able to access that during shopping trips. The rest are all potentially useful as well, but more important than any of these are security and longevity - a flagship phone from Samsung gets something like 5 years of updates if I recall right, and those updates are prioritized according to how premium the phone is - how far down the list are fridges? I would definitely want my fridge to last longer than 5 years and NOT be a security risk in my network.
    - joseda-hg 3y ago
      Yes, back camera allowed to view remotely the contents of the fridge and was able to be accessed from any smartphone connected Apparently fridges get at a minimum 2 years of updates with Samsung, but after that no updates are guaranteed
smohare 3y ago
[dead]
kristopolous 3y ago
I'm a big believer that toddlers are a large contribution to behavior analytics and dictate modern design by analytics. They're the ones that will click on ads and "browse" a site. They interact in a much richer way than I do. I've often heard that a sites most "active" users seem to be women in their mid 30s. That's because those stats include the woman and the toddlers she hands the phones to. I've been frequently flabbergasted how these obvious observations come across as novel to people I talk to, as if 2 year olds have their own email address and password. I even heard someone say unboxing and cartoon videos "somehow" are popular among women in their 30s. I mean come on now...
- bheadmaster 3y ago
  > I'm a big believer that toddlers are a large contribution to behavior analytics and dictate modern design by analytics. Holy shit, you just blew my mind. This explains so much of the mainstream internet's degeneration into a family-friendly dumbed-down version of it. The dangers of having big corporations raising a new generation of people (instead of their parents doing it) are even more concerning. I bet that's the exact reason we are moving towards a woke authoritorian dystopia.
  - kristopolous 3y ago
    That's not really what I meant. I was talking user flow, CTA placement, sizing, color, presentation medium (such as video versus text), length of text content (toddlers find lots of words less attractive than colorful drawings and big letters), ad placement and design, recommendation algorithms biasing towards repetition, whimsical animal and "America's funniest home videos" style content, animations, bright colors, things like that. All these techniques capture the attention of children who then get miscategorized as their parents. What you're talking about is companies trying to maximize their customer base by trying not to offend or alienate people. That makes things less direct, more bland and less specialized. That's because there's been efforts to decrease localization of international marketing and expand customer bases. Starbucks, for instance, is so boring because it's identical in every country and thus caters to the sensibilities of everyone. They avoid shapes, flavors, numbers and colors that are off-putting in other cultures and use ingredients that can be globally sourced. That's just international industrial capitalism trying to be efficient. The real problem is suburbia has been robbed of local color and all you have left there is Starbucks. It's a soulless corporate wasteland that totally sucks. I agree. That's a city planning and urban development problem.
schmorptron 3y ago
I wouldve just had them change the shipping address, that sort of album / canvas is the stuff you as parents will be cackling over for decades to come :D
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  Assuming it doesn't completely blank out or disintegrate by then. When it comes to durability, I have little trust in companies today, and the quality of techniques and materials they use - not in a hyper-optimized economy we have now. Especially when we're talking about prints ordered through a button in an app made by an advertising company, one that wants you to stay subscribed to their digital playground (instead of focusing on physical ownership of media, such as photo albums), one "products" (services, really) have a half-life on the same order as digital print/ad shops. Nah, the very presence of this "feature" actually pushed me away from Google Photos. In a perfect world, it would make sense. In the real world, it's just first-party user interface spam.
- PebblesRox 3y ago
  Unfortunately it was too late to change the address by the time I discovered it, but we, uh, actually did order our own copy (from a much cheaper photo place) and it's currently hanging on the wall in our kitchen.
fennecfoxy 3y ago
I'm curious, how is your toddler using the Photos app? I won't launch into a spiel about giving devices to young children as I'm not a parent myself and never will be (rainbow month yeeeah boi) But I do find it interesting to compare with my own upbringing. Seems kids are given relatively unfettered access to phones/tablets these days, proper ones with a regular OS. I suppose the upside is learning/becoming familiar tech stuff sooner, downside as they enter tween/teen years is probably social media :(
- PebblesRox 3y ago
  We definitely relaxed our standards for kid #2 compared with kid #1 in terms of phone time. Mainly he would watch photos and videos of himself and his big brother. We did not install any kid-specific apps and did not allow YouTube at that age. He did enjoy Wordle - at his peak he knew how to type in around 8 different valid five letter words, which I thought was pretty impressive at age 2! His favorite was TRAIN.

nine_k 3y ago

Stop. Do you mean that the fridge has Google Photos app running? Or do you mean that your phone is not locked when given to the enterprising toddler in question?

PebblesRox 3y ago
Sorry for the confusion, the fridge was just part of the photo he was looking at. We gave him the phone to look at photos, thinking he couldn’t make too much trouble with that app. But while looking at a photo of himself with ketchup, he managed to complete the ordering process for ordering a photo canvas - a feature of the photos app I had always ignored until I saw the email that the order had shipped.
- nine_k 3y ago
  Marvel now at the streamlined ordering process, which even a toddler can complete successfully and in no time!
joseda-hg 3y ago
I recently came across a review of a Samsung Smart fridge made by a non tech influencer, some of the things that grabbed my attention were: - The fridge had both front and back cameras - It had a microphone - It could play music, which maybe was important if you considered it for a glorified kitchen tablet - It could install regular android apps - It could sync photos and notes - It was compatible with the Uber app, so I have to assume you could actually have payment info in there I have never bought a nice fridge and I will go out of my way to avoid pointless smart, so it really came as a surprise to me, but the situation seems posible and probably will happen to someone at some point
- utucuro 3y ago
  The listed features are interesting, probably useful for a fridge IF by back camera, a camera that can show me the inside of the fridge is meant - I'd love being able to access that during shopping trips. The rest are all potentially useful as well, but more important than any of these are security and longevity - a flagship phone from Samsung gets something like 5 years of updates if I recall right, and those updates are prioritized according to how premium the phone is - how far down the list are fridges? I would definitely want my fridge to last longer than 5 years and NOT be a security risk in my network.
  - joseda-hg 3y ago
    Yes, back camera allowed to view remotely the contents of the fridge and was able to be accessed from any smartphone connected Apparently fridges get at a minimum 2 years of updates with Samsung, but after that no updates are guaranteed

smohare 3y ago

[dead]

kristopolous 3y ago

I'm a big believer that toddlers are a large contribution to behavior analytics and dictate modern design by analytics. They're the ones that will click on ads and "browse" a site. They interact in a much richer way than I do. I've often heard that a sites most "active" users seem to be women in their mid 30s. That's because those stats include the woman and the toddlers she hands the phones to. I've been frequently flabbergasted how these obvious observations come across as novel to people I talk to, as if 2 year olds have their own email address and password. I even heard someone say unboxing and cartoon videos "somehow" are popular among women in their 30s. I mean come on now...

bheadmaster 3y ago
> I'm a big believer that toddlers are a large contribution to behavior analytics and dictate modern design by analytics. Holy shit, you just blew my mind. This explains so much of the mainstream internet's degeneration into a family-friendly dumbed-down version of it. The dangers of having big corporations raising a new generation of people (instead of their parents doing it) are even more concerning. I bet that's the exact reason we are moving towards a woke authoritorian dystopia.
- kristopolous 3y ago
  That's not really what I meant. I was talking user flow, CTA placement, sizing, color, presentation medium (such as video versus text), length of text content (toddlers find lots of words less attractive than colorful drawings and big letters), ad placement and design, recommendation algorithms biasing towards repetition, whimsical animal and "America's funniest home videos" style content, animations, bright colors, things like that. All these techniques capture the attention of children who then get miscategorized as their parents. What you're talking about is companies trying to maximize their customer base by trying not to offend or alienate people. That makes things less direct, more bland and less specialized. That's because there's been efforts to decrease localization of international marketing and expand customer bases. Starbucks, for instance, is so boring because it's identical in every country and thus caters to the sensibilities of everyone. They avoid shapes, flavors, numbers and colors that are off-putting in other cultures and use ingredients that can be globally sourced. That's just international industrial capitalism trying to be efficient. The real problem is suburbia has been robbed of local color and all you have left there is Starbucks. It's a soulless corporate wasteland that totally sucks. I agree. That's a city planning and urban development problem.

schmorptron 3y ago

I wouldve just had them change the shipping address, that sort of album / canvas is the stuff you as parents will be cackling over for decades to come :D

TeMPOraL 3y ago
Assuming it doesn't completely blank out or disintegrate by then. When it comes to durability, I have little trust in companies today, and the quality of techniques and materials they use - not in a hyper-optimized economy we have now. Especially when we're talking about prints ordered through a button in an app made by an advertising company, one that wants you to stay subscribed to their digital playground (instead of focusing on physical ownership of media, such as photo albums), one "products" (services, really) have a half-life on the same order as digital print/ad shops. Nah, the very presence of this "feature" actually pushed me away from Google Photos. In a perfect world, it would make sense. In the real world, it's just first-party user interface spam.
PebblesRox 3y ago
Unfortunately it was too late to change the address by the time I discovered it, but we, uh, actually did order our own copy (from a much cheaper photo place) and it's currently hanging on the wall in our kitchen.

fennecfoxy 3y ago

I'm curious, how is your toddler using the Photos app? I won't launch into a spiel about giving devices to young children as I'm not a parent myself and never will be (rainbow month yeeeah boi) But I do find it interesting to compare with my own upbringing. Seems kids are given relatively unfettered access to phones/tablets these days, proper ones with a regular OS. I suppose the upside is learning/becoming familiar tech stuff sooner, downside as they enter tween/teen years is probably social media :(

PebblesRox 3y ago
We definitely relaxed our standards for kid #2 compared with kid #1 in terms of phone time. Mainly he would watch photos and videos of himself and his big brother. We did not install any kid-specific apps and did not allow YouTube at that age. He did enjoy Wordle - at his peak he knew how to type in around 8 different valid five letter words, which I thought was pretty impressive at age 2! His favorite was TRAIN.