News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Google and Ambient Computing by mark_l_watson on Wednesday October 16, 2019 @05:01PM (#21275638)
Perhaps that is true with Google’s products. As some else here said, they should grow up and figure out a business model that does not requires collecting so much data. I would prefer to pay them in cash than with my information.

For ambient computing, my favorite things are my Apple Watch and iPods. True enough, using Siri and these devices is using black box devices, but for now I am OK with them. I trust Apple, for now.

Re:Google and Ambient Computing by basch on Wednesday October 16, 2019 @05:36PM (#21276082)
You think they could save some money offering people a yearly "no ads" plan, across all google properties and any site with doubleclick and ads words. Very strange that they only offer paid plans for office productivity, youtube, and backups.

It would be even cooler if a certain percentage of the rate was a "designate your target" that allowed you to directly fund things like google reader etc.

It's also kind of crazy they dont have some kind of pricing sheet that shows me all the subscriptions available to me, along with some bundle options. I have to search out each product to see its price. It's like they dont want me to look for ways to give them money.

Re:Google and Ambient Computing by pas on Wednesday October 16, 2019 @06:11PM (#21276520)
The minute they put prices on their products managers, engineers, users and everyone will go crazy to game the system.

I'm not saying it cannot be done well, but there's certainly an overhead if you have to be explicit about what costs how much to whom.