patrick.net

Odd how Google is positioned to be one of the major change-makers this century.

Microsoft was either a follower or an incompetent innovator during their day in the sun, 1995-2005.

I didn't see it during their IPO, but of course search is the key component of the web. So many people search for what to buy, so being the world's arbiter of that is worth trillions.

Tech IS going to change this century, and as long as the GOP is at war with science & R&D, it's going to have to fall on corporate america to innovate.

Self-driving vehicles, natural language processing / translation these are the big two. Wonder what else is coming down the pike. "Internet Everywhere" I guess.

BB said: Odd how Google is positioned to be one of the major change-makers this century.
It's like Madmen on steriods.
I read an interesting article yesterday that pointed out their dependence on a Google-centric Android as more and more computing goes mobile (aka smartphones). It's not clear Asia wants to play in their sandbox. See cyanogen (Chinese cellphones), Samsung's Tizen OS (smartwatch phone) and LGs WebOS smartwatch phone.

evil company that spies on everything you do: your searches, your location, every web page you view in chrome, all your photos and data and contacts from your android phone...

That's every company today. Well, most of them, anyway.

That's all about to end, as soon as the NSA stops, then all of their PARTNER tech companies wont have the basis, grounds nor the reason to do so with impunity from prosecutorial scorn.
Who knows perhaps a Rand Paul administrations DOJ will retroactively go after these Cloud companies and slap them the world largest civil suit for gathering and using information without their customers knowledge, consent, and in spite of browser and device settings that gave them a false sense of security when they were invoked.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/04/14/groups-push-to-end-nsa-spying-before-june/

anonymous says

Google isn't capable of linking to information within apps the way it can with websites, which makes searching through specific apps more convenient on mobile than it is to go to Google. The search giant has been fighting back, introducing new types of search that discourage linking out to other services, but on mobile, this may already be too late.

I used to be of the "Phhhhbt - apps'll only get so big - who needs an app for every single company and service?" school.

Not any more. Many things are way too easy on an App, as compared with a browser.

I suspect this is a growing vulnerability for Google.

In 2008, Google co-founder Sergey Brin revealed that his mother had been diagnosed with Parkinson's, and they shared a genetic mutation that increased his risk of getting the disease to between 20% and 80%. Since then, Mr Brin has been "in a position to fund and encourage research into this gene in particular, and Parkinson's in general."

Perhaps someone should Gmail him a link to the PatNet thread on Parkinson's Disease research...

anonymous says

In addition, the company says that as a part of their agreement with Google, sellers will be able to retain a license back to their patent.

This program looks like a good idea to mitigate Google's IP risk in an innovative way. Small companies that own patents can seldom afford to enforce them, so as long as they retain a license to their patent, they don't give up much by "selling" to Google. Meanwhile, Google gets a bigger portfolio that it can use to defend against patent trolls. The money goes to legitimate inventors, rather than trolls and litigation costs.

Went to a meet-up there yesterday. Nice space and good views but strangely boring place. No alcohol at the meet-up, which is unusual for sf tech talks.

This would definetly turn Hunters Point around!

Google's doodle today results from a contest:

"Ultimately, Sarah's doodle captured the best of everything we saw, representing values like diversity, inclusion and respect in an inspiring and creative image," Google's head of external affairs, William Floyd, said.
***
Inspired by the prompt, "What I see for the future ..." Sarah, 15, drew kids of various skin hues lined up with arms over each others' shoulders. Six of the eight wear T-shirts that together spell "Google," with religious and other symbols promoting equality and tolerance substituted for letters. The drawing also includes a child in a wheelchair and another holding a cane.

"My future is a world where we can all learn to love each other despite our religion, gender, race, ethnicity, or sexuality," Sarah said. "I dream of a future where everyone is safe and accepted wherever they go, whoever they are."

Sarah sounds charming but her doodle reflects a myth that Google is trying to promote. Gay and Muslim symbols are next to each other, but there are no Muslim countries where gay couples can get married or even live together openly without risking arrest. The religious symbols omit Buddhist and Hindu, suggesting perhaps a world where Muslims have finally killed those disbelievers, as Islam commands. Since Google and other western media companies appear determined to hypnotize westerners into accepting Islam, I can only hope they will someday also hypnotize Muslims to tolerate everyone else, but I doubt that would work, because Islam says what it says. Also, am I the only one who finds it odd that Google is promoting religion, anyway?

curious2 says

Also, am I the only one who finds it odd that Google is promoting religion, anyway?

No, I agree with you that this is odd.

It's a ridiculous contradiction to have the Muslim between a gay person and a Jew, because Islam commands the Muslim to kill them both:

The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdullah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (the Boxthorn tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews. (related by al-Bukhari and Muslim).Sahih Muslim, 41:6985, see also Sahih Muslim, 41:6981, Sahih Muslim, 41:6982, Sahih Muslim, 41:6983, Sahih Muslim, 41:6984, Sahih al-Bukhari, 4:56:791,(Sahih al-Bukhari, 4:52:177)

curious2 says

Sarah sounds charming but her doodle reflects a myth that Google is trying to promote.

Exactly. The doodle won because it whitewashes real problems, which is a bad thing because then those real problems aren't dealt with. That doodle is to religion and social issues what Driving Ms. Daisy was for race relations.

Oh, so that was the Coexist thing I saw.

Somehow SJWs took over academia, and have now taken over Corporations.

@Patrick, that theory about Identity Politics getting a boost by various state and non-state actors is looking more and more viable.

If they can fund Jackson Pollacks wall-staining...

WaPoIsHitler Lipsovitch says

Patrick, that theory about Identity Politics getting a boost by various state and non-state actors is looking more and more viable.

If they can fund Jackson Pollacks wall-staining...

Yes, I can believe it may well be true, because it so incredibly profitable to billionaires to get us all asking the wrong questions:

If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.

-- Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow

I don't get the Ace Tomato Co. cup though. What does it mean?

curious2 says

"Ultimately, Sarah's doodle captured the best of everything we saw, representing values like diversity, inclusion and respect in an inspiring and creative image," Google's head of external affairs, William Floyd, said.

The high school student who made the doodle got $30k for it as a college fund. The bad thing about this is that it sends the message to everyone that the way to make money is to confirm what people want to hear. That's actually one of the great problems of our time, the media simply selling people the images they want to see rather than reality.

rando says

I don't get the Ace Tomato Co. cup though. What does it mean?

It was the cover name for the "COMPANY" Chevy Chase and Dan Akroyd worked in "Spies Like Us"

Dan8267 says

The bad thing about this is that it sends the message to everyone that the way to make money is to confirm what people want to hear.

Or rather, the bad thing about this is that it confirms that the way to make money is to create what our corporate overlords like Google want the masses of people to see, to instruct them on "correct" thinking and feeling.

https://gettr.com/post/p1khrtna0d9

I didn't know that Google also has a financial interest in injecting people with toxxines:

curious2 says

Also, am I the only one who finds it odd that Google is promoting religion, anyway?

They aren't promoting religion. They are promoting a myth that they aren't an absolutely evil corporation. This is just PR nonsense, and I HIGHLY doubt it's authentic. Everything is PR managed.

Bellingham Bill says

Microsoft was either a follower or an incompetent innovator during their day in the sun, 1995-2005.

90% of Corporate Data runs through Microsoft SQL server. and even as much of the enterprise Servers are Microsoft Server or Azure cloud servers.
And if you are using a laptop or business desktop, chances are you are using Microsoft again.

Microsoft is bigger than ever, they just don't make a big deal over their Consumer OS anymore.

This is not a defense from a fanboy post, just the facts. People say Microsoft is a finished company or their glory days are behind them, fails to realize how prevalent MS really is.

Bellingham Bill says

Microsoft was either a follower or an incompetent innovator during their day in the sun, 1995-2005.

In the old days, Microsoft used its power to make loads of money. Google used its power for evil pretty much all along. Bill Gates has a number of personal projects now at remedying that lack of pure evil.