Deep Jive Interests » Google OS

Google OS and The Privacy Issue: For Some, Google Is Quite Evil

Tony Hung — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 03:50:13 +0000

Nice pick up from the USA Today on privacy concerns regarding Google’s upcoming Google OS. In particular

Privacy advocates want more transparency from Google about how it plans to monetize the vast amounts of behavioral data it collects. Google could charge a pretty penny for this intelligence, which could help advertisers better target their pitches, says Court.

“Even though the company espouses that it doesn’t do evil, the potential for a lot of evil exists,” says Court. “It may start with simple ads you get based on whether you like soccer or baseball, but the evolution of being spied on, not only through your searches, but on all the files you create, that’s pretty frightening.”

At times like this, I like to remind myself that as tin-foil-y as privacy advocates sound (at times), Google has been known to add cookies that last 30 years long, was almost strong-armed by the government in handing over a ton of privacy related information, or how the Google van has been known to take photos of people without their specific consent. Yep … sometimes, I’d like to refer to Danny Sullivan’s seminal article which is only two years old, but details a great many “tipping points” towards malevolence since 2001.

Google OS’s Hardware Strategy?

Tony Hung — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:14:05 +0000

Perhaps the key to Google OS’s success is in this key statement that might have been overlooked yesterday:

Messrs. Schmidt and Page were also careful not to position Chrome as a competitor to Microsoft Windows. They argued that Chrome will expand the market for netbooks, rather than eating into Windows’ share of the netbook market.

Messrs. Schmidt and Page were also careful not to position Chrome as a competitor to Microsoft Windows. They argued that Chrome will expand the market for netbooks, rather than eating into Windows’ share of the netbook market.

Rather than the hubaloo around “of course Chrome is a competitor”, I find the more interesting statment the latter half of that statement — Google’s planning to expand the market for netbooks. I’ve no idea exactly how they’re going to get as-yet non-existent web-based operating system to drive the market for what is essentially a thin-client technology, but it does make you wonder about the growing relationship between Intel and Google … and it also makes you wonder exactly how important the hardware relationships it has with its other potential vendors, and how, precisely, this particular free OS pre-installed will be different (and *grow* a market segment) than the *other* free OS pre-installed.

Holy Moly! Google OS Lives! (… As A Net-Only Cloud-Based Linux-Based OS)

Tony Hung — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:29:29 +0000

You know, it figures 5 minutes after I pre-order Windows 7 (home premium, if you must wonder) off of Amazon.ca do I learn that Google OS is coming to netbooks far and yonder in the next few months. Google’s own blog has the details, but its purpose is to allow people to use their netbooks in a way that netbooks were (perhaps) always intended — as small devices that were fast, accessible, internet aware, and free of the constraints of the agonizingly long 5 minute boot. Its built on top of Linux, and allegedly will get folks on the net in seconds rather than minutes.

With the maturing of Google apps out of beta (just a few hours ago), and the announcement of Google’s own online OS just now, one wonders if the pieces are beginning to drop into place with respect to Google carving out its own niche — in earnest, this time — about the future of computing. Sure, there’s always going to be a place for a desktop OS, just like there’s always going to be a place for desktop applications. But in terms of The Future, one has to wonder where the proportion of where most people are going to spend there time — and productivity — lies.

I’ve written about the secret data centers and the dark fibre Google’s purchased over the years, and one wonders if this isn’t all part of one big plan that was conceived a long, long, time ago.

Today Google is about search.

Tomorrow … Google may allow others to own “Fun” (?) and “Social” (Facebook? Twitter?) … but its pushing to own Productivity (of which search is only one part) on these interwebs. Hopefully it’ll be as profitable as owning Productivity has been for Microsoft all of these years.