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Going All-Google To Replace Your PC and TV Service
GMGruman writes "James Curnow writes 'Google's vision of computing involves tossing your PC or Mac and moving to a cloud-centric, all-Google ecosystem. Call it the Googleplex: a mix of the Chrome OS-based Chromebox PC or Chromebook laptop, one or more Android tablets — perhaps a 10-inch model for work and a 7-inch Nexus 7 for entertainment on the go — and a Nexus Q home entertainment system that you control via an Android device.' So he takes the 'Googleplex' for a test drive to see how well it delivers on the Android/Chrome OS vision."
But what about throwing xbmc or MythTV onto an old (or cheap new) box with a couple of huge drives (HDTV's being glorified monitors and all)?
... for advertisers.
But then the content would be cached in a large cheap local buffer, and not streamed from the cloud over bandwidth-constrained wired or wireless connections. Not only would MAFIAA not approve, but Google/Doubleclick wouldn't get analytics/metrics.
You didn't think that the availability of cheap general-purpose computing hardware was supposed to benefit the consumer, did you?
Buy whatever electronic devices I find favorable, and configure them however the fuck I want.
That way I can avoid their "ecosystem", with its inherant vendor lock in, and pervasive bullshit entirely!
As a consumer, that sounds far more desirable.
However, I do see where other normal consumers may fall victim here, since getting all the equipment and services from a single company should (theoretically...) make setup and use easier.
Personally though? When I plop down on the couch to veggify some braincells, I want a few annoyances as possible, which mans the equipment has to do whar *I* want, and not what a bunch of shyster lawyers in hollywood, and a bunch of beancounters in the bay area google HQ want.
If that means DIY home theater with MythTV and a raid array, so fucking be it.
Google would like you to believe in a world where you get all of your media from their devices across the Internet. Unfortunately, that just doesn't work in the real world. The little old lady next door has already been hit with insane overage charges by AT&T because she dared to watch Netflix. Follow the Google vision and your overages will not only include things like Netflix but will include your own movies and even music unless you have an uncapped provider who you can believe will stay uncapped (AT&T only announced the caps last year). Maybe in Kansas City where Google offers fiber and doesn't impose monthly limits this would be a good thing, but not in the rest of America where our government grants monopolies to service providers but lets them chip away at the service rather than building out their networks.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I fear a world run by google and apple. They are both companies with a shiny outer layer and a dark dark underneath that won't be clear until it's too late to do anything about it.People need to remember that (especially google) the people using their services are not their customers, and that google doesn't owe them one thing. They will use every method at their disposal to be able to charge more for whatever advertising/marketing/human sorting they are working on that day. Nothing is free, you pay one way or another. Wether you pay with money or with your personal information, it's just the same.
Mean what you say...say what you mean.
I don't like using software that depends on online connections to operate. Connections are not fast enough or reliable enough. Nor are they secure. Compute Locally.