Slashdot Mirror
Actually, It's Google That's Eating the World
waderoush writes "An Xconomy column [Friday] suggests that Google is getting too big. When the company was younger, most of its acquisitions related to its core businesses of search, advertising, network infrastructure, and communications. More recently, it's been colonizing areas with a less obvious connection to search, such as travel, social networking, productivity, logistics, energy, robotics, and — with the acquisition this week of Nest Labs — home sensor networks and automation. A Google acquisition can obviously mean a big payoff for startup founders and their investors, but as the company grows by accretion it may actually be slowing innovation in Silicon Valley (since teams inside the Googleplex, with its endless fountain of AdWords revenue, can stop worrying about making money or meeting market needs). And by infiltrating so many corners of consumers' lives — and collecting personal and behavioral data as it goes — it's becoming an all-encompassing presence, and making itself ever more attractive as a target for marketers, data thieves, and government snoops. 'Any sufficiently advanced search, communications, and sensing infrastructure is indistinguishable from Big Brother,' the column argues."
How's their colony on LV-426 doing?
Go buy some GOOG stock and enjoy the ride....
Because Google IS SkyNet.
cut off the head of the snake
Why does every idiotic rambling monologue filled with vague predictions of doom based on the idea that Google is too successful have to be given a place on the front page?
Silicon Valley used to be a truly remarkable place. It was where industry and the future truly did collide head-on. And because of this, great things happened there.
Hewlett-Packard. Fairchild Semiconductor. Xerox PARC. Intel. Sun Microsystems. Cisco Systems.
Those were the kind of names we came to associate with very advanced technological achievement. They earned our respect with the tremendous advances they made.
But then something happened. Silicon Valley ceased to be about a productive, beneficial future. It became about a shitty, rotten future. It became about "social media". It became about advertising. It became about a disturbing level of data collection and mining.
The Silicon Valley of today is a mere shell of what it once was. Clad in fedora hats and rampant hipsterism, Silicon Valley of today is a sissified, degenerate place. Gone are the real scientists and engineers who advanced technology for all of mankind. Gone are their advances. Gone are the hope they brought.
I weep for Silicon Valley. It truly does make me quite distraught to think about what has happened to it. One of the greatest intellectual creations ever to existed has been crushed by men who wear tight jeans and glasses without lenses. It has been dragged through the mud by overweight, unshaven manchildren wearing stained shirts with shitty Japanese drawings on them. It has been shit upon repeatedly by self-styled "entrepreneurs" and "engineers" whose only talent is unjustifiable self promotion.
It is too late to save Silicon Valley. But other technologically-inclined regions should take note of what happened there. Keep away the hipsters. Keep away the bearded manchildren. Keep away the "entrepreneurs" and "engineers" who spew forth about Ruby on Rails. These people are an infection, and this infection will destroy even the most robust of technological and industrial communities. Do not let them ruin your community like they ruined Silicon Valley's.
"...the eve of Microsofts november? Where people, state, country and all of human world cried out havoc! God behave, its growing too big! Destroy the cancer show no mercy... as we are just and righteous to judge justice upon thee. Again we shall mount our horses, sharpen our swords and call for the holy crusade!" Sorry its sunday, I couldn't resist. If people notice just now then I doubt it will change a single thing. But hope remains, last of the curses in pandoras box!
It is rude to randomly redirect visitors to beta.slashdot.
Even more so because beta sucks.
Providing a hard to find opt-out, http://slashdot.org/?nobeta=1, just upgrades the aggravation level from "rude" to "insulting and infuriating".
The only acceptable option is, as always, opt-in.
I guess you need reminding. a lot.
You say this like it's a bad thing.
Sounds to me like freedom to try really crazy/cool ideas that may not be immediately financially viable.
Animosity towards Google is rising because Google is extending its data grabbing into other domains, and that prompts people to look for alternatives, even regarding Google's core selling point, web search.
Actually, i think Google knows that it is getting too big: the breakneck speed of acquisitions is the result of the intent, to get as big as they can before a more confining regulation sets in.
You're not alone.
As somebody who has worked in the software industry for decades now, I find it stunning that the Slashdot beta project has not been terminated yet. It's a failure in every single sense. The users here almost all absolutely hate it. It looks worse than the existing site. It functions worse than the existing site. I think it's slower than the existing site. There is so much wasted empty space. The fonts are harder to read. The discussion is much, much more difficult to follow. It's harder to post a comment. Being forced to use it unexpectedly affects users trying to use the existing site!
And those comparisons are to an existing Slashdot site that was Web 2.0-ified a while back, making it even shittier than the site that preceded it!
While we should be accustomed to social media web sites shitting all over their users with bad redesigns, Slashdot is really taking it a step beyond with this beta site. I can sincerely see a Digg v4-style disaster happening again if the beta site goes live, it's just that bad. The beta will drive away the few remaining users of value.
I sure hope that Slashdot does the right thing, and puts an end to this beta site project. Nothing good will come out of it, aside from lessons about what not to do. Everything about the beta site is just plain bad. Terminate the project, throw away the code, and move on. And do this well before the beta site ever replaces the current one!
has always been Data.
SV went from scientists and engineers selling a new product they invented to a bunch of dorks who are trying to get rich quick.
When I see someone with an over inflated ego call herself a JavaScript "Engineer" (engineer?! Oh, please!) who is has this incredible "innovation" (Just Another Fucking Social Media/Pimp Subscriber's Data for Ads and Marketing software), I just shake my head and see that SV has jumped the shark,
I AM seeing some incredible innovations in healthcare in ...wait for it ... India. American trained Indian doctors are giving superior healthcare at a fraction of the price to some of the poorest people on Earth. And the docs are STILL making a very nice living - if not more because of the processes they invented. Win/win!!
THAT is exciting and Innovative.
Big Brother can do no evil
This is what a successful mega-corporation does when opportunities for growth within its primary revenue stream stagnate, or at least taper off.
Good for consumers? Hardly. Competition, rather than consolidation, is generally in the better interest of the average buyer.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
These Guys Are Creating a Brain Scanner You Can Print Out at Home
- http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2014/01/openbci/
-- http://www.openbci.com/
-- https://github.com/OpenBCI
"Bootstrapped with a little funding help from DARPA â" the research arm of the Department of Defense â" the device is known as OpenBCI. It includes sensors and a mini-computer that plugs into sensors on a black skull-grabbing piece of plastic called the âoeSpider Claw 3000,â which you print out on a 3-D printer. Put it all together, and it operates as a low-cost electroencephalography (EEG) brainwave scanner that connects to your PC."
Archived: http://web.archive.org/web/20140113131516/http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2014/01/openbci/
Jury! Imagine the goodness to come from this.
Quietnet: Simple chat program using near ultrasonic frequencies.
"Simple chat program using near ultrasonic frequencies. Works without Wifi or Bluetooth and won't show up in a pcap.
Note: If you can clearly hear the send script working then your speakers may not be high quality enough to produce sounds in the near ultrasonic range.
Usage
run python send.py in one terminal window and python listen.py in another. Text you input into the send.py window should appear (after a delay) in the listen.py window.
Warning: May annoy some animals and humans."[1]
https://github.com/Katee/quietnet
[1] https://kate.io/
via: http://boingboing.net/2014/01/11/quietnet-near-ultrasonic-mess.html
mlk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs jfk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNSUuseNcOI
Never understood the appeal of Google to self proclaimed geeks.
Everyone is condemning the NSA snooping, but criticise Google, and hordes of Google sheep will try to hunt you down, down mod you into oblivion and kill you for blasphemy.
They use Tor, proxies and VPNs, yet use Google services and Android phones. They use adblock tools yet support the biggest ad company there is. It's pure schizophrenia.
And why? Because they are "open" ( except for all the good and important parts) and release some unimportant source code. It boggles my mind why so many are supporting Google.
And I haven't even mentioned the ever declining quality of their services yet.
Real-Time Face Substitution Will Hide You In The Scariest Way Possible
http://kotaku.com/real-time-face-substitution-will-hide-you-in-the-scarie-1496953478
"Audun Mathias Ãygard's creative experiment uses real-time facial recognition to hide your face in a webcam feed with different masks."
http://auduno.github.io/clmtrackr/examples/facesubstitution.html
If huge companies that are highly profitable don't spend and invest their money, how is that money ever going to get back into the economy? It seems to me that if giant companies like Google don't expand into other sectors of the economy then the only other alternative is for them to hoard immense piles of cash, which would keep that money from circulating in the economy, which would be a bad thing for the average person.
OpenBSD + Truecrypt + Rip Anywhere Mp3 player
##
Give me an MP3 player which has the following features:
1. OpenBSD
2. TrueCrypt - choice of encrypting all of device with 1st run and in settings
3. Rip from any device - an extension to the device (like the front part of ST:TNG ship's dish which separates for example) which allows CDs to be inserted and ripped on the fly without a computer connection, and the ability to plug into any electronic device which has the ability to contain audio files, scan for, and rip any audio files - all with the option to convert them to a format of your choosing
4. Complete support of as many audio/image/video codecs as possible.
5. Nothing about the device should be proprietary, neither hardware or software.
Before you say, "Why would you want to use a device with the MP3 format?" As #4 points out, and you should really know unless you're trolling, if you look at all of the MP3 players currently for sale, most support many audio, image (JPG and more) and sometimes several video formats.
'Anti-Propaganda' Ban Repealed, Freeing State Dept. To Direct Its Broadcasting Arm At American Citizens
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130715/11210223804/anti-propaganda-ban-repealed-freeing-state-dept-to-direct-its-broadcasting-arm-american-citizens.shtml
For decades, a so-called anti-propaganda law prevented the U.S. government's mammoth broadcasting arm from delivering programming to American audiences. But on July 2, that came silently to an end with the implementation of a new reform passed in January. The result: an unleashing of thousands of hours per week of government-funded radio and TV programs for domestic U.S. consumption in a reform initially criticized as a green light for U.S. domestic propaganda efforts.
Some dorks are hipsters. All hipsters are dorks. So what you and the GP are saying are both equally true.
Those "JavaScript engineers" you talk of are almost all hipsters (and thus dorks, too). The people involved with the pathetic modern "startups" you mention are also hipsters (and thus dorks, too).
Technical innovation will never come from people who are very concerned with how they dress, or with how they style their mustaches and beards, or with how obscure their music is, or with being "ironic" (whatever the hell that actually means).
there will be no revolt
there will be no resistance
they are moving us to a future where
implanted chips will be the norm
they will read and record our thoughts
and perhaps they will physically move us, too
and since they're working on removing memories
we won't remember what happened when they 'moved' us.
even the bible says there will come a time when people ...
will seek death but won't be able to find it
because THEY won't let you.
It's all downhill, folks, they want your brain
without enlisting in any force
and they will take us by force
yesterday the chip in the head people were crazies
now we have the reality, they just have to introduce it
they will seduce us into this electronic tattoo, pill swallow and monitor health, implantable chip and even stronger, more hideous technology in the name of many things, safety, health, entertainment, g00g1e gl4ss is the beginning. Soon they will say, "WHY AREN'T YOU WEARING ONE?" and you'll be forced to wear one like good old Wesley Crusher was.
freedom - it was good while it lasted.
and Apple too, to powerful with its digital music and its (gasp) Walled Garden.
Abusive definitely, their behaviour in the disgusting Book caper where they raised the price of Ebooks for none Apple users is something they continue to act unapologetic . The Control they have with Carriers forcing none Apple users again to pay for Apples products. I would argue their control of Digital music is still too high...fortunately the trend for that has dropped. As for the Walled garden thing...I am not really sure how it is related; The FSF protected Apple users from Apple!? allowing jailbreak to be legal again. Personally though I think people should be made aware of Apple abuses and alternatives exist.
Isn't this a Google Article?
Carriers.
Telcos and CableCos.
Now get off your ass and deal with that mess.
Who gets to define that? In a free market ( which no one in the world has one in reality.. some countries are closer than others, but none are true free-market ) the market should get to decide, not some dude writing a column.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
So it isn't grey goo after all, just goo.
They will grow far to large and bloated, people will call from them to be broken up, and the anti-trust lawsuits will follow. It seems to be a vicious cycle that every large American tech company goes through. In 20 years time we will start seeing the articles "How Google lost its mojo" and "Google strives to get back on top". Its inevitable.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -Carl Sagan
... that separates large governments and mega-corporations is intent. As events continue to demonstrate, neither's intent is benign, so it's kind of a toss up as to who is the bigger, badder brother.
Big brother is not a crazed dictator but a guy who just wants to sell you something.
Google have violated the tenet of doing one thing well. I can see how advertising and search are bedfellows, but the rest of it? Really?
As an old-school Unix chap, I still firmly believe that a program or entity should do one thing well. Let's face it, I wouldn't call round Noble Romans for a hamburger, I'd go for a pizza. I don't go down the pub for a massage, I go for a pint.
This "many irons in the fire" approach lends itself to doing nothing particularly well. Full stop.
Oh big deal. Search engines come and go. I have used Altavista for years. Nowdays I use Goggle, who knows what will I use next year lol..... doomsayers...
Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, aka 3M, and last time I checked they do more than just dig dirt these days.
because a company is too big.
Really? What are we all just apocalypse fanatics or something? How about we just calm down and live life as humans? Stop being afraid of the dark and enjoy your life.
-AC
six months later, after making it unusable by forcibly linking it with all their spyware.
Google has always been in the data business. Putting sensors into our homes fits perfectly into that business model.
or Time Warner... -thats- when i'll worry.
It's amazingly sad how far I had to scroll down in order to finally find someone who understood this. Google's business isn't web-search. It's advertising. The types of acquisitions that are "out of place" are things like their robotics acquisitions, certainly not home automation, travel, and social networking.
The problem with being big in the innovation world is how that affects the startup/venture capital market for other ventures. While anyone with a novel idea has to worry about the Googleplex paralleling their efforts, the other side of this coin is the payoff of acquisition. There is a market for your startup other than the cold, cruel world of having to run your own business for the rest of your life.
The big Google overhang of the innovation market doesn't seem to be as bad as the feared Microsoft shadow once was. There, if you didn't buy into Microsoft's vision of the world, they would very probably try to kill your venture off. And you had to explain your strategy for working around this to any VC firm you made a pitch to. Google (and Apple) don't seem to be pushing the market around to this extent. You want to build for the Android platform? Fine. Nothing wrong with an Apple, Windows, or even (shudder) a Linux version as well. If you are a business and you want a mix of desktops, no problem. There is no Windows volume discount that magically happens to kick in only when the last competing OS installation is carried off to the dumpster.
Google's size might harm their own innovation. But so long as they don't try to drag the rest of the market down to their level, that will only be their own problem to correct.
Have gnu, will travel.
ante hoc ergo non propter hoc.
and moved into research parks like Triangle Research Park (North Carolina, NC) and Cummins Research Park (Huntsville, AL).
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Rather than complain about Google's size, I'd love it if they would branch out into at least one more category - online auctions. They're the only company that I can think of that could seriously challenge Ebay, and Ebay needs challenging. Even from a privacy perspective, Google auctions would be superior: recall that Ebay publicly handed over all information on their users without a warrant and declared that any company which didn't do so was unpatriotic.
What is Xconomy and who cares? The summary's job is to convince us that an Xconomy article is worth reading. Was it written by a current Google C-level employee? What gives this column any merit at all?
Er, no. Go read a history of Google. The search engine came first and for several years they had no idea how to fund it at all. They sold search services to Yahoo and Netscape. They put their code in a box and tried to sell the Google Search Appliance. They did a bunch of other random things before they eventually tried out keyword based advertising. To say the search engine was a byproduct of a desire to serve ads just makes you look like an idiot who is making stuff up as you go along.
While I won (through no intentional action of my own) the first Google phone (a T-Mobile G1) at a conference I bought one of the first Firefox phones (a ZTE Open). Prior to this I had avoided switching phones or upgrading. I didn't want a phone that tracked me, that invaded my privacy more than all other cellular devices already do, etc.
The problem with the G1 was Google. Google's whole endeavor (and well known from the beginning) and business model has been advertising. It's no secret that this market highly values as much personal information as it can get in order to better target advertising.
The problem though with buying a G1 was not so much that it violated its users privacy. No. The problem was that it tied its products to other products and services and the risk of it becoming the only option (and a bad one at that).
It's the same reason I don't use gmail and never signed up no matter how good the deal seemed.
Why I went to the G1? Look at the options at the time and there were no good options. Windows Mobile? No way in hell. The iPhone? Again. No way in hell. Blackberry? ha. Ultimately I was forced into it because older devices become non-functional (batteries become too short lived) and the G1 was at least better than the competition in that there was a great deal of source code available. The problem was it wasn't and still isn't sufficient.
Why I bought the ZTE Open was it appeared to be a device that had an OS based on 100% free software minus the drivers for wireless. It's far from being a privacy friendly phone or a freedom respecting phone. However it is a step forward and I don't have to worry that it'll end up in a monopoly position. And quite frankly I wouldn't have as much of a problem with it if it did. I still use Firefox and it had become the standard. Despite stupid moves by the Mozilla foundation it's nowhere near as bad the competition (even at its near monopoly market point). If you look at the competition (Google Chrome and IE) both are much much worse (Chrome goes so far as to bundle non-free software and IE is non-free software!). Neither respect my freedom or privacy whatsoever.
Why the fuck is this untruth interesting? Google search engine was just a research project with no revenue to speak of. Thy had no revenue till they stole Overture's idea of showing advertisements along with search results. Yahoo went on to buy Overture and Google settled with Yahoo in 2004.
Google does a lot other things that could potentially bring in the dough without having anything to do with tracking and advertising. Unlike an iPhone or my USD 2.5K Windows laptop(changed to Fedora), my investment in Google when I use their search, chrome browser and Nexus phone is zero. I could move to competing products on a whim. But when I buy Apple, I can never think of using another app store legally. When I buy a decent laptop and want to avoid the Apple or Microsoft tax, it is next to impossible.
is a fake geek, a frat bro in disguise, go kill yourself in a hazing "accident" you google guzzling cunt
Wrong. Originally it was about search, and only search. You guys "THINK" you "UNDERSTAND".
Anyway, advertising only works if people see it. If you want people to see advertising, you must make a product they want to use.
to argue actual facts
we're here to tounge google's teat at any opportunity
don't worry guys, they aren't evil at all! not one bit
I didn't like Mcrosoft, after a while, on general grounds that they were abusive to their competitors. But I HATE Google on personal grounds. With Microsoft I could decide to not buy their products but not buying google isn't enough - the Google Fuckers won't leave anyone alone ... not ever.
They fly over my house taking pictures, they drive down my street taking pictures, they collect information on everyone and refusing to even use their "services" doesn't exempt you from their predation. They are like the ultimate pimp: they regard everyone in the world as their prostitute and you have basically NO say in the matter.
Google has brought a lot of good things to the internet but a lot of bad things to the world as a whole. It can be argued that if Google didn't prostitute you and your children someone else would but, you know, that's not really any excuse.
Evil is as evil does. Google is evil. We need to clean up our government. And we need to clean up, or shut down, Google.
Like eh.... a search engine?
Perl Programmer for hire
They are working hard to move on from "BigBrother" status to "skyNet" status.
Google is more correctly written as "Go Ogle".
How would you react to THIS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dWMIuipn_c
gosgog:
Used to be in the U.S., we had back in the 'Old Days'...ANTI -TRUST, it prevented the country being taken over by the Outrageously Wealthy having so much influence they could control all Congress & the Senate, because of the Money they poured in to Lobbying.....but as More and More Politicians became LAWYERS we have fewer but much bigger CORPORATIONS who really run the country and to a large extent the world....so today your INDIVIDUAL Voting has less and less effect & our POLITICIANS get richer & richer and so it goes!
Google's core business has always been about finding patterns in large amounts of data. Matching advertisements to users is just another form of pattern matching.