This isn’t a post about AI, and chatGPT has a very long way to go before it becomes factually useful, if you want to see a recent experiment I did with it, see this thread of mine on twitter. Until … Continue reading The Innovators Dilemma – Google
US Internet continues to be a problem, especially for small businesses, it’s a total ripoff. First up you have to deal with the sales charlatans, reading from a script, clueless about the technology. Todays first email included this classic: “I wanted to clear something up before processing the order. The quote was is for 50M which is 50 megabit not megabyte as I had stated earlier. “ CenturyLink VAR. Typically though, retail/consumer internet is sold as Mb(megabits), while it’s uncommon for commercial internet to be sold as MB(megabytes), it can be. After all, they sell you on a different class of … Continue reading Do you want bytes with that?
Google+ is what happens when you try to take on an incumbent, don’t communicate your vision, and then leave the rotting carcass to fester and be eaten by the maggots. In this case the maggots were a security vulnerability that exposed the private data of up to 500,000 users It turns out Google knew about the vulnerability back in March 2018, but decided not to disclose it as, as far they know, it hadn’t been exploited. If your data was upto date and complete, there was enough there to perform a rudimentary phishing attack. In my case, my phone number, … Continue reading Delete your Google+ profile
You’d think given the proliferation of voice activated home technology like Alexa, Siri, Google Voice Assistant, Cortana etc. we’d be on the home stretch for voice activation in cars, where distraction is a real life threatening problem. I don’t travel much now, I don’t drive more than 6k miles per year, which is a good thing based on today’s experience with Google. I’ll admit, I didn’t do any scientific research, I’ve no idea what other brands do, but I got stuck in traffic today heading into Boulder. I asked Google Assistant to read a web article from Vox. My Google … Continue reading Google and Voice
In the push-back over the Facebook privacy scandal, many are also asking questions about the data other platforms have. Many commentators draw a parallel to Google. For my part, this is valid at least as far as tracking, visiting locations etc. goes. Since I have a Google Phone, with a Google Fi service, and I use Google Maps, I pretty much expect them to track me. In addition, in my prior home I had Google Fiber, plus add in all the Youtube videos, if you watch movies or listen to music on Google Play; they have my calendar; all my … Continue reading The Data that Google has
and if it’s not, Google should be ashamed how poorly the program is being run. I’d exchanged my Nexus 5x phone earlier this year as I’d dropped it and the screen was broken. The replacement 5X showed up in a few days, but I never really spent any time customizing it, and hadn’t even loaded up a few key training apps. When the Pixel 2 was announced I figured I’d upgrade and then set that up with everything. The Pixel 2 had a decent trade-in and I figured as a non-working, semi-retired person that would be good to take advantage … Continue reading Google Pixel trade-in is a scam
Can’t say for a DVD, but smart TV’s are likely to go the way of 3D TV’s, they are here today and will be gone tomorrow Continue reading What is the advantage of Roku over smart tv or internet enabled dvd?
In tenuous link between my recent posts on automation, here and especially here, where back in November I discussed autonomous vehicles and their impact on employment. I also said: While many cities are salivating over the ability of self-driving, autonomous … Continue reading Giant fleet of small scheduling nightmares
I reported the Google typo yesterday and it has been fixed now, Mbps it is. No change to their “free” tier of service though, so 5Mbps it is. I got a lot of feedback on my “negativity” over this, both on the neighborhood forum, the comment below, and via personal email. And yes, being able to pay the $300 fee in installments is a good break. So it looks correct, 5Mbps while useful, really isn’t good enough for a family except for email, facebook and infrequent youtube/netflx. TWC offer a comparable 6/1Mbps plan for $29+modem/wifi, taxes fees. < Which is … Continue reading Google corrects typo
Well Google fiber is on its way, they’ve sprayed marked across our front yards this week ready to install the vaults, most people don’t understand these will be buried in your front yard, after all fiber optic cable isn’t your parents cable. In other news, Google have announced the Austin pricing and service speeds, and I have to say, it’s pretty disappointing really. First up as seen in this screen capture, their website lists speeds in Mpbs. I work in the tech sector, heck I used to be a networking specialist, I admit I have no idea what Mpbs is. … Continue reading Google fiber disappoints on price