Google Is Working On a Recall-Like Feature For Chromebooks, Too (pcworld.com) 47
In an interview with PCWorld's Mark Hachman, Google's ChromeOS chief said the company is cautiously exploring a Recall-like feature for Chromebooks, dubbed "memory." Microsoft's AI-powered Recall feature for Windows 11 was unveiled at the company's Build 2024 conference last month. The feature aims to improve local searches by making them as efficient as web searches, allowing users to quickly retrieve anything they've seen on their PC. Using voice commands and contextual clues, Recall can find specific emails, documents, chat threads, and even PowerPoint slides. Given the obvious privacy and security concerns, many users have denounced the feature, describing it as "literal spyware or malware." PCWorld reports: I sat down with John Solomon, the vice president at Google responsible for ChromeOS, for a lengthy interview around what it means for Google's low-cost Google platform as the PC industry moved to AI PCs. Microsoft, of course, is launching Copilot+ PCs alongside Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite -- an Arm chip. And Chromebooks, of course, have a long history with Arm. But it's Recall that we eventually landed upon -- or, more precisely, how Google sidles into the same space. Recall is great in theory, but in practice may be more problematic.) Recall the Project Astra demo that Google showed off at its Google I/O conference. One of the key though understated aspects of it was how Astra "remembered" where the user's glasses were.
Astra didn't appear to be an experience that could be replicated on the Chromebook. Most users aren't going to carry a Chromebook around (a device which typically lacks a rear camera) visually identifying things. Solomon respectfully disagreed. "I think there's a piece of it which is very relevant, which is this notion of having some kind of context and memory of what's been happening on the device," Solomon said. "So think of something that's like, maybe viewing your screen and then you walk away, you get distracted, you chat to someone at the watercooler and you come back. You could have some kind of rewind function, you could have some kind of recorder function that would kind of bring you back to that. So I think that there is a crossover there.
"We're actually talking to that team about where the use case could be," Solomon added of the "memory" concept. "But I think there's something there in terms of screen capture in a way that obviously doesn't feel creepy and feels like the user's in control." That sounds a lot like Recall! But Solomon was quick to point out that one of the things that has turned off users to Recall was the lack of user control: deciding when, where, and if to turn it on. "I'm not going to talk about Recall, but I think the reason that some people feel it's creepy is when it doesn't feel useful, and it doesn't feel like something they initiated or that they get a clear benefit from it," Solomon said. "If the user says like -- let's say we're having a meeting, and discussing complex topics. There's a benefit of running a recorded function if at the end of it it can be useful for creating notes and the action items. But you as a user need to put that on and decide where you want to have that."
Astra didn't appear to be an experience that could be replicated on the Chromebook. Most users aren't going to carry a Chromebook around (a device which typically lacks a rear camera) visually identifying things. Solomon respectfully disagreed. "I think there's a piece of it which is very relevant, which is this notion of having some kind of context and memory of what's been happening on the device," Solomon said. "So think of something that's like, maybe viewing your screen and then you walk away, you get distracted, you chat to someone at the watercooler and you come back. You could have some kind of rewind function, you could have some kind of recorder function that would kind of bring you back to that. So I think that there is a crossover there.
"We're actually talking to that team about where the use case could be," Solomon added of the "memory" concept. "But I think there's something there in terms of screen capture in a way that obviously doesn't feel creepy and feels like the user's in control." That sounds a lot like Recall! But Solomon was quick to point out that one of the things that has turned off users to Recall was the lack of user control: deciding when, where, and if to turn it on. "I'm not going to talk about Recall, but I think the reason that some people feel it's creepy is when it doesn't feel useful, and it doesn't feel like something they initiated or that they get a clear benefit from it," Solomon said. "If the user says like -- let's say we're having a meeting, and discussing complex topics. There's a benefit of running a recorded function if at the end of it it can be useful for creating notes and the action items. But you as a user need to put that on and decide where you want to have that."
Oh no! It's spreading! (Score:3)
Someone needs to find a way to kill this before it takes over everything. It's getting to be like Kudzu.
Re:Oh no! It's spreading! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Oh no! It's spreading! (Score:2)
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ChromeOS is Linux.
Re: Oh no! It's spreading! (Score:2)
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Linux is not ChromeOS, and a "feature" like that would be a major event is the distribution wars.
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What good fortune that I do not use that Windows-inspired PoS.
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Let's sic the movie industry on the copyright violator.
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Someone needs to find a way to kill this before it takes over everything. It's getting to be like Kudzu.
It makes me wonder if there isn't some formal push from "above" over this. I would assume government mandate. Which wouldn't surprise me in the least. Our government, and it's hardly the only one, is obsessed with cataloging our every move these days "for our own good." Security theater has been climbing and climbing since 9/11, and it seems some won't be happy until we are literally watched every second of every day. Why wouldn't that extend into the digital realm? It wasn't possible a while back, but now
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Looks like all the creeps think they now have a valid pretext...
Well... (Score:2)
I don't have the energy.
This is too close to Veriato. (Score:4, Interesting)
This, and Recall, are way too close to Veriato. But Veriato's worse because it hides like a virus, and the admin has to whitelist it for whatever AV you're using. It did more than screenshots, it was screen vids, keylogger, word filter, etc etc.
Employers use Veriato to snoop on the employees. Some years ago I was tasked with running a Veriato environment for a client, and .. I had to shower with kerosene and wirebrush to feel clean any time I touched it.
I slightly exaggerate for comedy, mind you. But I did feel very dirty any time I had to do work on this system.
Now.. Recall, and Memory will do this for everyone. No micromanaging, mistrusting asshat required.
What a magnificent, bright future we face. One inch closer to a Panopticon.
Re:This is too close to Veriato. (Score:5, Interesting)
I worked for an environment that used a product similar to that. They MITM-ed all SSL transactions, and smart browsers like Firefox with their own key store, wouldn't be able to connect out without accepting the MITM key.
Well, they got hacked. The appliance that had all that data, where they had a year's worth of random stuff stored including employee bank data? All on the dark web. It was an absolute shitshow. All company secrets, all Git code, you name it, as the snoopware ran everywhere, was made public. Same with credit card numbers, SSNs, and everything else. The regulating body didn't even investigate because the company was able to blame it on the software and not processes.
Snoopware needs to be classified as company top secret... but nobody ever does.
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You're basically describing every "Internet Security Appliance" ever from evil companies like Blue Coat, Cisco and Fortinet. (And probably many more.)
Memory? (*sigh*) (Score:4, Interesting)
Google's ChromeOS chief said the company is cautiously exploring a Recall-like feature for Chromebooks, dubbed "memory."
Like that won't be confusing for the many, many -- too many -- people that already don't understand the difference between RAM (aka memory) and disks.
Just put a "G" in front Google and call it Grecall, or be honest and call it something like Telemetry Treasure Trove.
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There are many more relevant names they could give it. Here are some suggestions:
Ccurtaintwitcher
StalkerWare
PrivacyKiller
ILikeToWatch
RightsRaper
Feel free to add additional ones below.
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Patches the privacy clown (Score:2)
Mandatory software (Score:3)
The biggest problem here is companies making things like this a mandatory part of the OS. If Recall was optional - only install it if you want it - there would be no huge backlash, and everyone would be happy.
As a bonus - companies like Microsoft could gauge how popular a feature was. 80% adoption? Continue it, enhance it, make more like it. 10% adoption? Kill it off and move the dim bulb who thought of it to another division.
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They know that if was opt-in, no one would opt in.
Remember, they just look at you and see a cow with dangling udders waiting to get milk. They don't ask for your opinion, neither are they afraid that you will run away. They just want to make sure that they can milk as much as possible from you, preferably before the end of the fiscal quarter.
Re:Mandatory software (Score:4, Funny)
They know that if was opt-in, no one would opt in.
I would opt in.
I spend 20 minutes every morning looking for my glasses. This would be a godsend.
But disabling location history (Score:2)
May be that's why they no longer need location history. They will have "everything history" available. (If not - seems like a bit of contradiction in intentions to me)
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Location history won't be gone, it will just be stored on your device, instead of in the cloud. https://www.howtogeek.com/goog... [howtogeek.com]
Same as my browser history (Score:2)
"... decide where you want to have that."
And, I can decide to delete that, same as deleting my browser history, right?
One More Reason to Switch to Linux (Score:3)
These invasions of our privacy may be the best reason yet to abandon Microsoft and Google and switch to Linux. Linux is not perfect but it is not watching you and taking notes constantly -- and then reporting home to its bosses.
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This may even be in breach of human rights: (emphasis mine)
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 12 reads: "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks."
Clearly recording everything you do on your computer without clear prior consent as a default setting is in violation of this.
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This may even be in breach of human rights: (emphasis mine) Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 12 reads: "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks."
Clearly recording everything you do on your computer without clear prior consent as a default setting is in violation of this.
The decision was made some time ago that it's not *your* computer. For some reason, and I have yet to wrap my head around how or why, but these companies have decided that *THEY* own the computers we buy and we only use them at their discretion. And some folks just fall right in line with that. I've even had some younger folks argue with me that these companies have a natural right to exercise control over the systems. Why? Because.
I'm baffled by it, but it's hardly the only thing about this world that make
Solving a problem they created (Score:5, Insightful)
So think of something that's like, maybe viewing your screen and then you walk away, you get distracted, you chat to someone at the watercooler and you come back. You could have some kind of rewind function, you could have some kind of recorder function that would kind of bring you back to that.
If everyone's memory and thought processes weren't thoroughly fragmented by social media, randomly inserted advertising, reliance on search engines, increasing reliance on "AI", and computer-assisted interruptions from email, Teams, and the like - then maybe they wouldn't have the attention span of goldfish. Then they might not need the 'help' of Big Tech spyware to remember where they were and what they were doing five minutes ago.
Big Tech are the equivalent of drug pushers, getting people hooked on their products and doing everything possible to keep them dependent. And they're moving everything to The Cloud so they have total control over the supply of what they are delivering.
We need a new update of an old meme: "I'm from Big Tech, and I'm here to help". Fuck Google. Fuck Microsoft. Fuck Facebook, X-Twit, Adobe, HP, and all the rest of the scum-sucking parasitic brain-devouring independence-stealing leeches at the top of the corporatist oligarchy-in-the-making.
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In principle it would be nice to have an AI research assistant. Instead of making notes and organizing them at the end, I'd just turn it on and start doing research. It would make notes and accept my comments, and at the end summarize them accurately. All this would be done locally.
Nothing like that exists, and probably won't in the foreseeable future. Current AI is not trustworthy when it comes to accuracy or identifying important factors. Amazon review summaries are a great example of that, often missing
And suddenly... (Score:2)
I'm really happy they stopped updating my venerable ASUS C302!
Apple? (Score:2)
Is Apple going to join this bandwagon too? :P
Can't be local on a chromebook (Score:4, Insightful)
Ive made my decision. This is the last straw. (Score:2)
This is crossing the final line for me.
I'm not buying or using any more Microsoft, Google or Apple anything.
I'm switching everything to only Linux appliances. The hardest thing will be a truly good phone (from what I can find, pinephone pro seems the most useful but it's still a very long way away from feature-competitive, but maybe I can make it work at least for me).
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As someone who knows Computers ... (Score:2)
... and how they are properly used, I fundamentally don't even get the premise. The entire job of a computer is to memorize, organize and store my work. Exactly in the way and manner that I see fit, and nothing else.
So what's the point? And why, oh why, isn't this just some system-wide event sourcing and logging thing that I can enable or disable as I see fit? Apple has time-machine and that feature is all and everything an end user could want from a solution like this.
I just don't get the noise and the hyp
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You know how every Windows user has memorized procedures to click through series of windows in order to do what they want?
Now there will be a model where you can verbally tell it to do that, and because it's learned the meaning of every GUI element and button on the screen, it will go do that.
And you might say, "Well why don't you just add an API to do this properly. And there already is one, so use it. Duh."
Well this model is going to learn how to automate _everything the user does via keyboard and mouse_.
Race to the bottom (Score:2)
Someone creates a mostly useless, dangerous and/or counterproductive "feature". In order to be seen as competitive and innovative, competitors are forced to follow suit. The end result is that everyone provides some version of that "feature". At the cost of probably vast amounts of energy required (which currently translates into more CO2 into the atmosphere) and probably ridiculous storage requirements. Plus battery life on your device goes down as it keeps tracking and transmitting all this stuff. Plus al
Please, Microsoft, patent this (Score:2)
If Microsoft patents this, and makes sure this is a Windows only feature, then we'll have another 20 years of time to think of a response. On top of that, all the malware exploiting this can be matured so wonderfully we'll have millions of examples why this is a an astronomically bad idea by the time the patent has become invalid. Thus it'll achieve two ends: 1) droves of users leaving Windows because of this astronomic stupid; and 2) an example to everyone that this is a REALLY stupid idea.
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You can only specific specific technologies.or methods.
You can't patent something as general as the idea to store everything ever.
I mean no matter how distasteful and "open secret" it is, actually Google, Microsoft, Meta etc have already been doing exactly that for decades anyway.