Eric Schmidt: Our Perception of the Internet Will Fade 228
Esra Erimez writes: Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt on Thursday predicted a change in how we perceive the internet. Schmidt says, "There will be so many IP addresses, so many devices, sensors, things that you are wearing, things that you are interacting with that you won't even sense it. It will be part of your presence all the time. Imagine you walk into a room, and the room is dynamic. And with your permission and all of that, you are interacting with the things going on in the room."
If all goes well. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, without your permission, they are interacting with you.
Re:If all goes well. . . (Score:4, Interesting)
Or, without your permission, they are interacting with you.
This. Something major like this will happen long before it gets to the point Eric suggests and governments worldwide will come down hard. Chinese "code security audits" will be just the start.
Re:If all goes well. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Happens right now. Google gets your permission to vacuum the contents of Gmail, liberate data from your Android phone, and then somehow, removing "personal identifiable information", liberates this data and sells it to others, who reassemble the information.
Permission, I believe within this context, is another of Schmidt's reality distortions. The Internet of Crap will indeed require interactions, and they'll be two states for you to interact: by the facade of your permission, and by devices querying your to obtain metadata to interact with you and then send the results to some hadoop cluster in SeaLandia for, um, additional processing.
Re:If all goes well. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Think it's annoying when that one door at work won't open because cheapass RFID controller has a channel burned out that's supposed to trigger the solenoid? Imagine when your coffee maker won't work because it doesn't detect that you've gotten up and into the shower, or the HVAC doesn't kick on for the room you've just entered because the house computer didn't detect occupancy, or the surround sound system malfunctions and thinks there's a party, so it turns on the music loudly at 3am, or the fridge's inventory list gets corrupted and it reorders everything that you have in an already full fridge...
I expect the future to be more like Brazil than like Star Trek.
Re:If all goes well. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:If all goes well. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest problem with home automation is 'life happens', eventually you want to put things into a state that was never originally anticipated.
Maybe the computer thinks, windows are open = turn off HVAC, or switch to fan only etc. Trouble is grandma stopped by and burned her Christmas cookies, smells terrible in the house, you want the windows open but you want to also leave the heat on, so you don't freeze.
Now you have to go override some "smart" system some where. It all ends up being just as much work as turning things on and off by hand was in the first place.
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Interlocks like that should be reserved for life-safety conditions.
For example, your furnace starts spewing CO into your basement rather than sending it up the flue. Your basement should have a CO sensor with an external contact (not just an alarm), and that external contact should control a basement exhaust fan. (Alternatively, you could just turn on all of the bathroom exhaust fans in the house. It will work just as well. You'll save on installation of the basement exhaust fan, but the wiring is more diff
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Seems like using the manual override once in a blue moon to ventilate and stay warm would be less effort than using it every day for regular climate control. That's why most people have a programmable central heating system in western Europe, with override buttons for the rare occasions they are needed.
Re:If all goes well. . . (Score:4, Funny)
"I expect the future to be more like Brazil than like Star Trek."
You, sir, win teh internets for today!!
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I hope he doesn't drop it and break it, because I'm planning a long session of pr0n later toni... I mean gaming. Yeah, that's it - gaming.
Re:If all goes well. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
I've had one of my smoke alarms(the are brand new, and are wired to the house current) go off in the middle of the night. Scared the bejeezus out of me. I ran around at 3am looking for a fire that wasn't there, nor was there smoke... I am still wary of those things.
Events like that are just the tip of the iceberg if we give control of our homes over to nonsensical "smart" IoT devices. Bad updates, security issues, constant rebooting, replacements on backorder from a factory in China that is down because of an earthquake, botnets constantly banging on the door to take control, etc;
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You are afraid of smart devices because of bad experiences with dumb devices?
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That's still less annoying than when your ED-209 doesn't hear that you dropped your gun on the floor and is authorized to use physical force.
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I expect the future to be more like Brazil than like Star Trek.
Wait, as I live in Brazil, am I living inthe future allready?
I doubt you live in this one [filmsite.org].
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I completely agree. What hasn't happened is someone in politics being publicly humiliated by information that big data has collected. It'll happen and it'll be the fault of someone like Google. That will change things.
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I vaguely remember that during the nomination of Judge Bork to the SCOTUS, his video rental habits revelation spawned a law that forbids such things, but the details are eluding me.
But that's the US, and not the rest of the world, and is likely to be done eventually. The data is voluminous, the motives evil.
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I think we all inherently understand that this is the real power behind all the tracking, etc;, so that in the future those holding the dirt on
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Which is why it's a great idea to kill your cookies frequently. A few years from now, I'll find a thrift store with wearables, don some random ones, and freakout some database analysts.
Wow-- Ernie-- look at this! J Lo, Rod Canion, and Merle Haggard Jr are passing thru this train station! Look!
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There are well-known methods of avoiding browser fingerprinting, and supercookies are easily eliminated.
Hints: use multiple browsers; rename innocuous cookies to the filename of well-known supercookies, then use whatever is appropriate for your operating system to make the cookie R/O. Some of us don't use gmail (or google) at all, and many more use a separate browser for social media, sometimes several of them. It's also fun to go to the library and copy salient cookie files from their browsers (easily done
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You CAN'T opt-out of being tracked.
Yes, you can, at least with Google. Google provides opt-out tools, and they work. I know some of the engineers who work on opt-out and they're quite serious about ensuring that nothing identifiable gets stored about users who present an opt-out cookie. Any team that tried to work around opt out would be in trouble... and would get Google in trouble during its regular FTC privacy audits, pursuant to the consent decree Google signed.
(Disclaimer: I work for Google, but I don't speak for Google. The above rep
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I can see why this would be mentioned as a focus, but I can see this being the straw that breaks the camel's back.
It's one thing to at least require an agreement to let your privacy be violated in return for X functionality (sadly because there is no other option from how companies have designed it), but it's another to just do this outright.
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Or, without your permission, they are interacting with you.
And not only in Soviet Russia!
Switch off; turn on! (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine you walk into a room, and the room is dynamic. And with your permission and all of that, you are interacting with the things going on in the room.
Wow. Does he realize how completely out of touch with reality that sounds? He says *imagine* when in the future, with [my] technology, you will be able to "interact with the things going on in the room."
NEWS FLASH! I can now, Eric Schmidt. And anyone can. All you have to do it turn off your cell phone and begin interacting!
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I think he's trying to look more at the psychology behind it. Where people are so used to technology that it's not only an extension of themselves, it's physically and psychology apart of them.
You are right though, it is kind of now with the younger generations and cell phones.
Re:Switch off; turn on! (Score:5, Interesting)
what he's really envisioning is the panopticon, and Google gets to be the warden.
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Yeah this is the dream of a sociopath who imagines himself a god, and I'm not even using hyperbole.
Does it scare you that such a person has so much power already? Because it scares me.
Re:Switch off; turn on! (Score:4, Funny)
Can we change the Slashdot-icon for Google into the panopticon?
https://magemistress.files.wor... [wordpress.com]
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Imagine you walk into a room, and the room is dynamic. And with your permission and all of that, you are interacting with the things going on in the room.
Wow. Does he realize how completely out of touch with reality that sounds? He says *imagine* when in the future, with [my] technology, you will be able to "interact with the things going on in the room."
NEWS FLASH! I can now, Eric Schmidt. And anyone can. All you have to do it turn off your cell phone and begin interacting!
Cell phones come with an off button now? When did that happen?
Re:Switch off; turn on! (Score:4, Funny)
With most modern cell phones, the off button can be difficult to find. However, if you use a 10-pound sledgehammer on the phone, you can be certain that it's been pressed.
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Guess I have to tidy up.
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*Wears augmented reality goggles*
*Comes home*
*Drops keys somewhere*
later:
"Google: Where's my keys?"
with permission, you are interacting with the room (Score:5, Insightful)
What happens when two people enter the room, and they have different preferences?
Spouses already fight about the thermostat; who's preference is "the house" going to pick?
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I imagine it will be resolved the same way that fights over the TV and computer work. Either you compromise, or buy two.
Cue joke about two houses being kinda expensive...
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Two houses walk into a bar. Bartender says, "Aren't you guys kinda expensive?"
You didn't say it had to be a good joke.
Re:with permission, you are interacting with the r (Score:5, Funny)
"Spouses already fight about the thermostat; who's preference is "the house" going to pick?"
The one who named his dog "Sudo"
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It will display the temperature preferred by the woman, but control the air handler based on the man's preference. Because the man wrote the software for the thermostat.
At least that's how mine works.
The idea of "with your permission" is a joke (Score:5, Insightful)
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You can tell he's not even thinking about permission as something that could be absent: "And with your permission and all of that" is as irreverent as it can be. He mentions permission only to shoot down any attempt at bringing the topic up in earnest.
Yawn ... (Score:5, Informative)
Yawn, whatever there, Eric ... more bullshit futurism about how the wealthy will live.
I don't think people really want the internet of things, and every time someone says "ZOMG, look at teh future" I mostly think they're talking out of their ass.
It makes a great sales pitch, but generally futurists are snake oil salesman and marketers claiming their pet technology will change the world, but which would require zillions of dollars and some massive fundamental changes to everything around us.
And the rest of us will have plain old lamps and sofa which aren't telling everything to Google about our daily lives.
The petty ramblings of billionaire technologists really is mostly drivel.
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Futurists tend to be right about technology but far too optimistic about the economy, causing their technically accurate predictions to fall flat on their faces.
Likewise, IoT is simply too expensive to take off any time soon. These devices need to be in the single-digit prices to make sense to the average joe, and they're currently in the triple-digits.
Re:Yawn ... (Score:4, Insightful)
That's kind of my point ... most of the stuff I see from futurists assumes we have the resources and luxury to start everything from scratch to build the thing of the future.
The city of the future where everything glows, is connected, and is awesome? Yeah, right, we'll start all of our cities from scratch just for your magic technology. More accurately, you have the slums where this isn't, and the shiny new stuff where the rich live.
Same for this. Does he really think people are going to replace every damned thing in their lives so that it can be automated and interconnected? I'm sorry, but only a moron believes that. If I want to "interact" with my lamp I can walk over to the damned thing.
The entire article is pipe-dreams from Google, Facebook, Yahoo and others about how they're going to usher in a marvelous new future and make use of our data.
I'm afraid my answer to those entities is "go fuck yourself", because having "clear, pragmatic, market-based regulation" is code for "how can corporate douchebags guarantee access to our data for their own ends and profits while ensuring they don't have pesky laws which limit what they can do".
I'm afraid these entities are the last ones I'd entrust with my data, or to be driving the conversation about the limitations which need to be placed on them.
So, as I've said all along ... Internet of Things is designed to benefit the corporations who think it's great, is predicated on us all paying tons of money to buy crap which has this enabled, with the implicit assumption this is what the rest of us want, and that somehow this actually benefits us.
And, as usual, I find myself thinking I don't think this benefits me at all. It's just more apps and cell phones, and pointless tracking and analytics to allow asshole billionaires like Schmidt to buy another fucking yacht.
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Who will install/manage/update/troubleshoot an army of IoT(crap) devices in someones house?
Who?
Sure, some duechebag home automation company, or even Google, but there you have it, in addition to the initial cost, you will have a monthly fee for support, ugrades, etc;
More bills for the average American who lives paycheck to paycheck. You know, the people who eat crap food just so they can continue to pay for cable tv and internet...
Who does Schmidt think he is talking to
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These devices need to be in the single-digit prices to make sense to the average joe, and they're currently in the triple-digits.
Even then, I'm not sure they make a whole lot of sense. I mean Wifi LED lightbulbs are not all that much more expensive than normal LED lightbulbs of comparable power. Apart from the first 20 minutes of screwing around dimming and undimming it and changing the colour from the sofa, I honestly can't see that I'd really care about having them. I mean that sort of thing doesn't fulf
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Well, OK, but that's pretty unusual. I like everyone else I know personally has light switches in individual rooms. Also in the UK a 3A lighting spur wouldn't require additional inspection.
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Your bigger problem isn't going to be lighting which could be rewired without tearing up the whole house but that any receptacles up there are probably on shared circuits with the rooms below, so when someone trips a breaker below the fucking AV setup goes dark too.
Your easiest solution is to just add a subpanel up there and power the room off the subpanel.
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Most futurists are actually usually wrong about how technology goes. I'd love to see this mythical futurist that you speak of.
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Yawn, whatever there, Eric ... more bullshit futurism about how the wealthy will live.
Nah, assuming the whole thing doesn't collapse into one big shitstorm before then, eventually everyone will live like this because it will be stupid cheap. Sure, a Philips Hue starter set may cost a Benjamin, but perfectly good IR-controlled lights (not as good, mind you, but good enough to be useful) are available for five bucks. Now, do the math and figure out that in ten years, or maybe fifteen, we'll have networked color-changing LED lights for five bucks a pop. They don't even need bidirectional commun
Re:Yawn ... (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, I'm long since past the point where I fetishize technology. In fact, it often bores me to death, because it seems like it's technology for the sake of technology and doesn't add value to my life -- just clutter.
I don't carry a smart phone ... well, I do, but it hasn't got a data plan. It gets used to send text messages mostly. It has wifi, but it's mostly off.
I don't see personal value in controlling my lights from my smart phone -- or, for that matter, lights which change color. And definitely not color changing lights which are networked and talking to my smart phone.
Color changing networked lights connected to my smart phone learning my habits and schedule, reporting that upstream to google and doing who knows what else that it's not telling me about and signalling to my fridge that the butter should be softened because I might be home soon ... well, I'm afraid you've lost me at that point.
In fact, I find the prospect downright creepy.
Sorry, but I don't see my mission in life as owning every conceivable piece of technology and integrating it so tightly into my life that a power outage is going to leave me in the fetal position in the corner as I suddenly am disconnected from the world and can't turn on the lights.
So, I'll sit on my front porch shaking my first at you guys and your doo-dads and focus on things which don't end up with me having a chip implanted up my ass which lets the toilet seat know to start pre-warming because the frequency of sphincter contractions indicates an impending poo, and tells google to give me ads for toilet paper because I'm running low.
I'm afraid I simply don't care enough to play that silly game. :-P
Not get off my damned lawn!!
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Yeah, it all sounds pie-in-the-sky future-y until it's present-y.
I have an app on my phone that gives me up-to-the-minute weather radar. I don't look outside to see if it's going to rain on my walk back to my car anymore (besides, my office is interior. I'd have to walk alllllll the way past the cube farm to get to a window...). Better still, I live in an area prone to tornados. The app has push notifications, and when there's a tornado warning in my area it gives me the "emergency broadcast" crackle. That
Re:Yawn ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Why wouldn't you want to be able to be informed as to what everything in your house is doing
Are you fucking kidding me? Really?
People don't give two shits about that sort of thing.
People(consumers...) want things that are RELIABLE and CONVENIENT. They don't care how many loads a week they've done in their dishwasher or that they can remotely change their lights in the downstairs bathroom to purple...
Repeat after me: RELIABLE and CONVENIENT.
That is what people want in appliances, etc;
Anyone who deals with the hassles of home wifi and configuring home routers, etc, in addition to the usual pc/table/phone issues, upgrade and configuration hassles knows the IoT is a CF waiting to happen.
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It's not even a great sales pitch, I have zero interest in what my toaster has to say.
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The toys of the rich become the tools of the poor, when given enough time. Yes, the rich will get all this stuff soon, but eventually, if successful, they will become so cheap everyone will have (or be able to have, should they wish) one.
Anyone who is enthusiastic about something might overemphasise its abilities, especially if they are trying to sell it. If you know that you won't get quite so offended or surprised by these pitches not precisely panning out in the long run, saving us from having to read
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I'm sure you said the same thing about cell phones in the 80s. Internet in the 90s. etc...
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Well, the in 80s I was mostly in elementary/middle school. In the 90s I was working in the tech industry. But I've been using the internet long enough to have used bang path addressing and UUCP and the like.
I don't simply dismiss all technology out of hand -- I actually do look at to see if it adds any benefit to my life.
And, in this case, I conclude the Internet of Things is crap, and Eric Schmidt is full of shit -- everything he says is the delusional ramblings of a billionaire who expects to make money
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For the most part, the necessary tech artifacts you're talking about already exist. You can already order a mesh-routed, IPv6 aware radio IC for pretty cheap (6LoWPAN [wikipedia.org], example part by TI [ti.com]). It's been 4 years since
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An attitude that's good for his business (Score:2)
Verizon's UIDH tracking... (Score:2)
...with your permission and all of that...
It does not appear that the internet providers are all that concerned about obtaining the users' permission to track them.
.
Coming from a google exec, the statement is laughable, and ominous.
Lip service, Eric Schmidt can go fuck himself (Score:5, Interesting)
And with your permission and all of that
Could you be more of an asshole?
First off, when did Google start asking permission BEFORE it just did privacy invading shit?
Second, how many times have you (Schmidt) basically said you didn't give a fuck about peoples privacy or their wishes and that you were going to get your way eventually anyway?
Lets be realistic here Schmidt, you don't mean a word of what you just said. What you mean is that you want devices in every room analyzing everything everyone does in an attempt to figure out how to sell them to advertisers for a higher rate. THAT IS WHAT YOU MEAN.
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Eric Schmidt, you are the worst person in the world!
Very high-flying (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Says who? Why? What if we don't want to? (Score:3)
Who asked for this?
The industry eagerness to bug and track everything is universal. Why? The first answer is always: money. The second, and most accurately stated: power. Knowing where everyone is, and what they are doing, is power. But that power is not for schmucks.
Pity we didn't have this universal eagerness to limit population growth, or control suburban land conversion, or to colonize free space with habitats. But power over others? No fucking limits.
Power, by the way, means Occupies are impossible to pull off. Protests. Contrary political movements, ultimately. Other words, any challenge to seated power is gonna be nearly impossible.
Hell, in England, they're already starting dossiers on kintergarteners. Just monitor what they read and do all their lives, and soon there won't be a population that even thinks of rebellion of any sort. Or could talk about it without systems monitoring and integrating the information for future suppression. And yes, I'm aware that that sounds "paranoid". But once again, I'm not predicting, I'm telling you what's already happened.
To take this back to the point of the article, there is no WAY that this eagerly sought supersaturated net of bugs - and that's what they are - will not be used for surveillance and control. I really don't need to know what is in my refrigerator that much.
Behold! The future is now! (Score:5, Insightful)
I can already interact with things in the room. When I want the lamp to come on, I walk over and turn a little knob. When I want the TV to come on, I press a button on a remote. Behold! The future is now!
Eric Schmidt is fading (Score:3)
Soon you'll have to Google him.
No thanks. (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been in the tech world since the 80s and I'm not finding this vision of the future enticing at all. Now fully in middle age, I'm starting to regret the days and years of my life that have been wasted staring into a monitor or playing with the next gadget. I'm not convinced that having the internet seamlessly integrated into my life would be a desirable thing. I'm discovering that there's more pleasure and contentment in the reality that exists outside of the world of pervasive connectivity. I don't want to be constantly "interacting" with devices, nor do I want Mr. Schmid's company to have more opportunities to analyze my behavior and target me with more marketing messages.
Embrace the analog world.
Re:No thanks. INDEED (Score:3)
Because once you pass the half way point, you realize you need to start eliminating the trivial and the bullshit big time, as there is little time left.
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while that may sound a little bleak, it's true. It's also true when you're in your 20's, you just don't realize it yet.
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I split the difference I want my world to work for me. I do not want others to see me as data to be sold and traded. To that end my home automation is local, it sources data externally for weather forecasts and the like. I want the lights to come up and light the room to my preferred levels when I walk into a room. For my music choice to follow me about. For my door to unlock when I get home. I want to track my power usage with a good amount of detail, already finding that there is value in this data
My Prediction (Score:2)
Whenever someone tries to predict the direction technology will take, they always miss the not-as-obvious-at-the-time revolution in technology that makes society take a sharp turn. In the 70's, a prediction wouldn't have included personal computers in everyone's home. In the 80's, it wouldn't have predicted the Internet. The 90's wouldn't have predicted the rise of smartphones or social media. Of course, all of these developments seem obvious in hindsight.
My guess is that something will come out that wi
Invisible Technology and things to keep in mind (Score:4, Interesting)
Hill points out that one of the times we actually do notice technology is when it breaks. He also has a rather clever blog, Revealing Errors [revealingerrors.com], in which he and other contributors "reveal errors that reveal technologies" so as to learn how they affect our lives.
Borgs (Score:2)
And the future of humanity will be to be Borgs, always connected to the global network, without individuality and everything public, people is not resisting this change enough, and not is not futile. Not a nice future.
Just what we need (Score:2)
Rooms full of stuff that yell "Eat Me!" and "Drink Me!".
But I doubt that you'll be shrinking from any of those.
Truly visionary (Score:2)
In the future you will... (Score:2)
In the future you will die.
LOL, have you even met a child? (Score:5, Insightful)
Their first hint that the internet is a thing that you have to think about was when they got wifi devices and tried to use them in the car as we drove away from the house.
Before they made that realization, it was just something that things did. Part of the expected infrastructure of existence.
Sounds like Sun's Java Ring all over again... (Score:2)
http://www.javaworld.com/artic... [javaworld.com]
picture
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi... [wikimedia.org]
Is this the world we want? (Score:3)
Control over our own residence, etc is to be given over to Google or whoever. Really? Could this be any more wrong. Wrong on so many levels and in so many ways that I need not explain them all. Common sense shows us what a CF this idea really is.
I don't want a smart home.
I don't want a smart car.
And with your permission and all of that,
What a joke...
As others have pointed out, "all of that" will be having this nonsense foisted on us without any real choice.
I don't want to have to pay for this, to monitor it, to have to constantly upgrade it, etc;
Look at the sad state of security with home routers, wifi, etc.
Do we want to have our oven, fridge and toilet be connected to the internet?
Comcast says Eric Schmidt is nuts (Score:2)
Comcast pledges to keep the internet at the forefront of people's minds.
Welcome to the party (Score:2)
Marshall McLuhan was talking about this stuff in the late 60s when talking about how we lose perception of our context. “We don't know who discovered water, but we know it wasn't the fish.” I highly recommend "Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man"
People have a hard time understanding the methodology of the probe v.s. the argument but if you can wrap your head around it, it is a breathtaking vision.
It even talks about online news feeds like Slashdot..again in the 60s.
There is another book
Eric Schmidt is not the most technically savvy CEO (Score:2)
http://www.dailydot.com/politi... [dailydot.com]
Now imagine the room gets hacked... (Score:3)
And all the things in the room start attacking you! Or spamming you with ads. Or demand a ransom in Bitcoins before they let you leave.
Not Enough Resources to Make Reality (Score:3)
It's really great that someone can get press for shooting rainbows out his behind (yes, you too, Elon).
The reality is that this is still science fiction-- and may forever be. If we were to make a genuine internet of things, the use amount of plastics, rare metals, and toxic batteries would need to be absolutely immense. Like, apocalyptically immense.
This fantasy world that Schmidt presents is one of extravagant waste and irrationally exuberant spending that it can only be done for one reason-- PR for new or continuing tech. He's probably just out pounding the drum for Android-based smartphones and their "potential" to be used as life-control devices.
"And with your permission and all of that" (Score:3)
Hahaha, you can just hear the disdain and scorn in his voice. He might as well have just said "and all of that other privacy bullshit"
He's wrong (Score:2)
and taking quite some bullshit. Oh well, news at 11.
"...with your permission..." (Score:2)
Pervasive Networks (Score:2)
Pervasive Networking will become like electricity and only be noticed when it is absent.
Don't really need it (Score:2)
A lot of the things they are proposing I don't really need. I don't need my dishwasher or laundry machine to tweet me when they are done. Why? Because I run them in the middle of the night when the electricity is cheaper. I don't care when they finish. Besides if I did care they have this feature called a beep or chime. The Nest had a bit of attraction to me until I found out that all of the information was being sent to a central server. Surely processors are powerful enough that the predictions cou
And all requiring updates (Score:2)
Schmidt is scary (Score:3)
I am continually amazed that every time Schmidt talks about the internet, he says something that is simultaneously very creepy and very scary.
Sorry, Schmidt, there is literally no way in hell that I'm going to allow all these devices in my home to talk to the internet. The risks are simply far too high, from corporate and governmental surveillance all the way through the risk of being hacked, and there is almost no benefit in exchange.
Re:Middle Eastern Terrorists and NEST (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's not underestimate the real power of data. Look at targeted advertising. It was really creepy a few years ago, wasn't it? Back when Target notified a teenage girl's family that she was pregnant (with helpful "she might like this" emails) before she told them? Ever wonder why that stuff doesn't happen so much anymore? It's because the advertising agencies know that it's super creepy so now something like 90% of ads are intentionally random. But they still get the 10% right.
You suggest the thermostat temperature alone may pique the interest of various surveillance agencies. I know you think you're joking, but this may be the one point of data they need to make an otherwise suspicious individual statistically significant. And don't make the mistake of thinking human beings are the ones suggesting what data is suspicious in what ways. The key to the entire data mining explosion is that when you have enough data about everything, you can set up an algorithm to figure out the statistical connections. Maybe it's really only suspicious if the thermostat is set 2 higher on Tuesday from 3am-4:45am. And 99% of the time that happens, it's because of a specific crime in progress.
We live in an age where we have been mostly liberated from the tyranny of humans trying to make those kinds of connections. Finally, with enough data about an individual, the computer knows what you're doing. The danger, of course, is still that humans will use that knowledge toward the wrong ends. First and foremost is the likelihood that human agents will abuse their power. Second is the likelihood that they will willfully misinterpret the results. And third is that they will almost certainly use the data to enforce existing rules rather than to analyze the actual social impact.
We have good reason to fear the invasion of our privacy. We have better reason to fear that anything else will truly understand what we are doing and why. We have the greatest reason to fear that this power will belong not to robot overlords but to people still bound by our legacy of rules instituted before this power existed.
Re: (Score:2)