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Check Out All The Things Google Has Bought Lately.

  • Thread starter Thread starter DannyDeVito
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DannyDeVito

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The one that worries me is now they are getting out of the net search realm and literally interacting with your home system.

Their Nest acquisition is a scary one.




Google just made a big, bold acquisition, scarfing up red-hot home-automation gadget company Nest for $3.2 billion.
Nest was founded by the guy who designed Apple's iPod. Nest products look like Apple products. Nest products are beloved by people who love Apple products. Nest products are sold in Apple stores.

Nest, in short, looked like a perfect acquisition for Apple, which is struggling to find new product lines to expand into and has a mountain of cash rotting away on its balance sheet with which it could buy things.


But Apple didn't buy Nest.

Google did.

And this appears to continue a pattern in which — in the bitter head-to-head battle between Apple and Google — Google is fixing its weaknesses (hardware) much faster than Apple is fixing its own weaknesses (software and services).


At first glance, in other words, it appears that Google's aggressiveness has once again caught Apple snoozing. And now a company that looked to be a perfect future division of Apple is gone for good.


Nest, of course, isn't the only company that Google has snapped up lately.


Kim Bhasin of the Huffington Post just tweeted this list of "things Google has bought lately," which is from Wikipedia. As you can see, over the past year, Google has bought no fewer than 21 companies. In addition to home automation products, Google has bought and is now developing and/or selling, among other things...


  • Humanoid robots
  • Traffic detection software
  • Airborne wind turbines
  • Computer vision
  • Robot arms
  • Robot wheels, and
  • Gesture recognition technology


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https://www.businessinsider.com/google-acquisitions-2014-1
 
It's scary, isn't it?! Check this one out:

Sony launches smartband with life-logging app

LAS VEGAS: Sony is delving further into the wearable computing market with SmartBand, a waterproof wristband that tracks everything from daily physical activities and nightly sleep patterns to how much you've socialized with friends.

The sensor-packed band has no display and interacts wirelessly with an Android smartphone or tablet through an app called Lifelog. It keeps a daily record of activities and recommends actions for the future.

SmartBand also informs its wearer of incoming calls and messages by vibrating. Users listening to music can use it to play, pause or skip tracks.

The band's core is removable and can be worn in various ways other than with the wristband. Sony announced SmartBand on Monday and said it would be available this spring, but didn't give pricing. Sony's SmartWatch retails for upward of $70.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1078961/sony-launches-smartband-with-life-logging-app

Do I want every action in my life to be tracked, recorded, and then predicted?? NO!! :shout:
 
I heard they want to buy Maple Leaf Sports Entertainment and dismantle all of it!
 
Today I noticed a little box on a Google ad that said I could change my ad preferences ... clicked and discovered they keep track of what kind of sites I access so they can post 'relevant ads' for me. What?? Then found this article ...


TORONTO - Canada's interim privacy commissioner says Google has been caught afoul of the law by displaying web ads linked to a person's health history.

An investigation led by Chantal Bernier, who has stepped in for outgoing privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart, backed up a man's complaints that he was seeing so-called behavioural advertisements based on his web browsing history. After searching for information about devices to treat sleep apnea, he began to see ads for those devices as he browsed the web.

While behavioural advertising is not illegal, Canada's privacy law does not allow consumers to be targeted based on "sensitive personal information," including a person's health.

While Bernier says Google's privacy policy outlaws displaying advertisements based on race, religion, sexual orientation or health, the Mountain View, Calif.-based company acknowledged that some advertisers using Google's ad-serving platform were not following the policy.

Google has pledged to upgrade the system that reviews ads for compliance, increase the monitoring of ads, and provide more information to advertisers and staff about the rules. "We've worked closely with the office of the privacy commissioner throughout this process and are pleased to be resolving this issue," said a Google Canada spokeswoman in a statement. The company, which declined an interview request, said it will implement these steps by June.

"We are pleased Google is acting to address this problem," Bernier said in a statement. "Most Canadians consider health information to be extremely sensitive. It is inappropriate for this type of information to be used in online behavioural advertising."




Oddly enough, I'm still not getting any ads regarding escorts, condoms, sex toys, etc. ... Hmmmmmm
 
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