Well, that was all rather much. Google just held its keynote speech thing during the opening of the company's I/O conference, and they announced some pretty spectacular stuff. Aside from Android 3.1 for tablets and Android Icecream Sandwich which will unify the tablet and phone versions of Android in Q4 in 2011, Google announced an internet-based music service. And a video service. And an Arduino-based accessory development kit. And Android@Home. And an alliance of device makers and carriers to bring timely Android updates to devices for a minimum of 18 months.
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Member since:2005-07-22
Member since:2005-06-29
I'm curious, are you perhaps referring to the increasing trend of living our digital lives "in the cloud"? If so, I do share some of those concerns.
Specifically, I was awed and amazed at Amazon's Cloud Drive/Player feature at first, as most of my digital music purchases come from them. It's quite convenient to have the music I purchase automatically available on my Android phone, my laptop, my HTPC, etc. Then, because I purchased an MP3 album and turned on the Cloud Drive feature, I was awarded 20GB of additional storage.
My first instinct was to upload all of my online-purchased music from Amazon, iTunes and eMusic, as well as freebies downloaded from the (mostly indie) artists' websites I visit. Then I got to thinking about it; I had blazed right through the service agreement without really reading it. I did some research and I found that Amazon not only reserves the right to peek at your files, they also give themselves permission to disclose the data to third parties.[1]
Now, all the music I intended to store on the service is legally purchased from the above sources, and I had no intention of uploading all of the files I have ripped from my CDs as the CDs themselves are my backup. But after reading that article and remembering that eMusic in particular does not use any metadata to show the files are legally obtained, I realized my only proof of purchase lay with the providers' log files. Now, let's say Amazon decides to forward a list of the music files in "my" storage area to the RIAA. What is to stop them from suing me for each and every file there that wasn't purchased from Amazon itself? After all, the burden of proof is on me, not them, as the courts have so elegantly shown. eMusic might, might help me out -- of the ones I listed, they are the only provider that maintains a list of your purchases so you can re-download at will -- but what about the rest of them?
My point with all that is, what if Google's music service is no different? Why should we trust them just because they say they won't be evil? They've already failed that test several times in the past, especially regarding user privacy. I for one don't trust them any more than I do Amazon.
That's not to say I won't give the service a test run, using some mp3s of my own work (I'm an amateur musician, though not a good one). Let the RIAA sue me for storing my own independent recordings; I'd love to see how that turns out!
Anyway, I do see the value in some of the other technology announced by Google; I'm particularly interested in the Arduino-based accessory stuff and I'd be willing to give that a run as well. For all my years of hardware tinkering I've never messed around with that family of microcontrollers. I think it would be fun.
[1] http://www.zdnet.com/blog/networking/no-privacy-on-amazon-8217s-clo...
Member since:2006-02-15
I really, really doubt the burden of proof is on you. I could just barely accept that that was true in the US, but in any of the more civilized countries the burden of proof would be on RIAA/similar entities.
Now, here comes the tricky part which I am 100% certain RIAA/similar entities will use to their advantage: if your files have lines like "Ripped and uploaded by X" in their metadata then it's quite obvious it wasn't obtained in an "authorized" way. And I can bet that most people don't realize that most of such files do have exactly that kind of metadata tags in them. They'll just upload those files without thinking more about it, then RIAA/et. al. will check the metadata provided by Google, and POOF: you've just provided them the evidence they need against you.
As far as I know the metadata tags that indicate the file was downloaded from torrent sites or similar is more than enough to sue over in the US, but.. how about the rest of the world? After all, the files you have in your "locker" are accessible only to you, you aren't sharing them with anyone, so illegal distribution does not ever come in to play. And in many European countries you cannot be sued just for having such files in your possession, only for distribution of them. I predict that these RIAA and alike entities will try to sue and they will obviously try lobbying hard to get laws changed, but I'd say people are generally safe from them for now as long as they don't distribute the files to anyone else.
[Disclaimer: I ain't a lawyer so do not f*cking take anything I say as legal counseling or advice.]
Member since:2010-06-10
Well... I must be one of these "supposedly educated and intelligent people"... All in all I find these announcements rather positive.
These services, once again, tend to increase usability and quality of Googles products. It seems that all is built to interact with existing systems (also those from competitors) and to avoid Lock-in.
Maybe you could come down to the level of stupid people like me and also explain a bit your statement or was it simply an anti-Google rant?
Edited 2011-05-11 04:18 UTC
Member since:2005-09-10
These services, once again, tend to increase usability and quality of Googles products. It seems that all is built to interact with existing systems (also those from competitors) and to avoid Lock-in.
Maybe you could come down to the level of stupid people like me and also explain a bit your statement or was it simply an anti-Google rant?
He won't explain anything to you or to anyone. He is our local hit & run troll. Posts shit, people respond with reasonable counter points, he ignores them. Posts the same shit in other news (any news related to Apple or Google). He's the worst type of Apple fanboy. See for example: http://www.osnews.com/thread?471309
Edited 2011-05-11 08:42 UTC
Member since:2006-02-15
Member since:2010-03-08
Yeah, I know what you mean. This cloud thing scares me too. I hate the idea of relying on distant servers for accessing my music, my software, and in short my data. Of having a company own a large part of my life.
This is why I don't use iTunes, and when asked about DAP/Phones/whatever purchases, always suggest to buy UMS devices allowing software and data sideloading and backup. Unlike you. Strange, eh ?
No, if you want to accuse Thom of having some double standards, let's ask him why for some services being US-only is a fundamental defect which directly leads to failure in the long term, while for this Music Beta thing it's just "sad"...
Member since:2005-06-29
*bangs head on desk*
Fcuk me, I'm going to need a bigger desk for this.
Member since:2009-09-17
I kinda feel the backlash against the cloud by some in the tech world is overstating things themselves. Should people put everything on someone elses servers and not store anything locally? Hell no, you should have local copies of everything. But as people start using more and more devices, storing a copy of everything on each machine just isn't feasible. Naturally the solution is a good ol' client/server system. Except people don't want to administer their own severs, even among those who have the ability not everyone wants to do it themselves.
Is it any surprise then that people go to amazon, google or soon apple to do it for them. And no matter how many outages or misteps these services have people will keep coming back to them, because for most people it will still be better than doing it themselves.
Member since:2007-09-23
I love your thoughts on the music service.
I just recently released my own music player (http://www.stoffiplayer.com) where I have been thinking of doing the same thing Google is doing now.
I would love to hear about tips on how to beat them (or if I should integrate them).
What about:
* Not a company, but a non-profit organization, which donates all extra profit to charity
* Your data is encrypted and we cannot read it
* No ads... anywhere!
* Great tools for easy migration away from the service
Anything other suggestions?
:)
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Google added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.
"Android and iOS, the number one and number two ranked smartphone operating systems worldwide, combined for 92.3% of all smartphone shipments during the first quarter of 2013 as Windows Phone crept past BlackBerry for 3rd place. According to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Android smartphone vendors and Apple shipped a total of 199.5 million units worldwide during 1Q13, up 59.1% from the 125.4 million units shipped during 1Q12." Windows Phone doubles from a few to twice few, iOS loser market share as its growth is slower than that of the overall market. BlackBerry continues slide into irrelevance."According to the latest research from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies service, global Android smartphone profits reached US$5 billion in total during the first quarter of 2013. Samsung dominated and captured an impressive 95 percent share of all Android smartphone profits." Wow."During its Keynote today, Google announced new features coming to its flagship search function - you know, that thing we all started using Google for. VP Amit Singhal spent some time discussing what Google's search functionality will eventually morph into. Google's strategy is summarized by three words: answer, converse, and anticipate. Singhal explained that many of the pieces of these upcoming changes can already be seen in products that Google has recently introduced - namely, Google Knowledge Graph and Google Now, with perhaps a splash of Google Glass, too." I hold on to my hat every time Google changes Search. It's such a vital product in my daily life.
Member since:
2006-04-03
It's really quite funny that supposedly educated and intelligent people can't see where this is all heading. Sadly by time those people have that "uh-oh" moment, it will be far too late to do anything about it...
Edited 2011-05-11 00:02 UTC