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Comment by martythemaniak | Hacker News Reader

I think Google has a kind of purpose and drive which will take it very very far.

They want to "organize the world's information", but that's less than half the story - an even bigger challenge is making all this information not only understandable and usable to humans but making it all work seamlessly together - a monumental task they are barely getting started at.

Unrelated (but necessary) they also seem to be doing very well at the organizational aspect of absorbing new ideas and companies and integrating them into themselves.

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Don't forget the work on self-driving cars. Once that becomes more commonplace technology, I think you'll see the stock increase dramatically. Every industry with the logistics of moving stuff from point A to point B not on rail could eventually be affected by the work they are doing. Once you can automate that you've effectively reduced tons of problems to automated packet-switching.

And Glass, and Fiber, and Android, and whatever else GoogleX might be working on......Google is quite diversified in its strategies.

Oh yeah, forgot those too. I'm especially bullish on Fiber. I made this comment about Fiber a few weeks ago:

  This isn't about bandwidth. It's about content. The only thing standing 
  between YouTube and the CableTV providers is bandwidth.

  If Google cracks the bandwidth nut, they can essentially replace TimeWarner, 
  Comcast, etc. in one fell swoop because they can easily replace 100% of the 
  services those companies offer at a fraction of the cost.

  ...

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4491695

I think that you're ignoring the reality of getting into the telco business. Google is hardly the first company to jump into the bandwidth market, but without the corporate welfare they got in KC, they wouldn't have been able to build their network.

The reality is that as long as we have privately owned and operated metro networks, google's bandwidth access will be limited to the few metro areas that consent to their access requirements (and that's assuming the big telcos aren't able to successfully lobby against this incentive, as they've been successful in doing in the past).

The answer is publically owned, and privately operated metro networks. This is a dream that will never come to pass in America, and Google's ambition will remain just that: an unrealized dream.

Sorry for being such a Debbie downer, but bandwidth in the US is a really massive problem that won't be solved by one search engine or one company. We really need a national reform effort.

My impression is that Fiber is a project for the same reason that Chrome was developed. Not for profit per se.

Google depends on people having a good browser and a good connection to the net. Competition and progress had stagnated in the existing markets. By bringing out Chrome, they got Microsoft and Mozilla interested in security and excited about implementing new stuff again.

Hopefully they can do it for broadband too.

There's an "out there" way to skirt all of that.

Google (or whoever else) could simply create their own suburbs/towns/cities from scratch, streamlined construction and all, on cheap land bought in bulk in the desert out west. Not everyone would move, but many people would, especially if it was all managed by what they perceive as a trustable tech-savvy company like google. The might even cost them nothing if they would simply ask for pre-sale deposits.

It's a crazy idea but there's nothing difficult technically or financially to make it happen. There's probably at least 1 million customers who would sign up day 1.

Yeah, because ditching the urban infrastructure we'd developed from the 1600s to 1940 worked out so well for us in the last half of the 20th Century.

Better to create urban islands to both increase the re-urbanization trend and make the US overall more efficient, and extend those out.

Transportation, distribution and logistics, communications, and other infrastructure would be radically simplified.

There is a lot I don't like about Google, but Google Maps, Project Glass, and the automated cars are nothing but inspiring.

Just the fact that they transported us to other countries so everyone with an internet connection could go to Paris is laudable. And now they're going to explore the final frontier of Earth underwater.

After iPhone and iPad, like them or not, Google is the one of the "big" companies the most involved in inventing the future.

Though Glass is amazing, it will give a whole new meaning to tracking user information.

As you get information regarding what you're seeing, Google is logging everything you see.

A map with with a line detailing everywhere you've been over the course of years. A video displaying everything you saw on your real trip to Paris or wherever else-- not based on what you saw that day, but based on the information Google has about that area, those landmarks, etc.

Privacy could cease to exist while you're wearing Google Glass.

Recording alone is doesn't equate to a loss of privacy. If you kept detailed written notes on everywhere you go, as long as those notes don't get disclosed to anyone else, you haven't lost any privacy.

Taking a paranoid and oversimplified approach to privacy makes it's more difficult to have the complex, nuanced discussions necessary to actually protect privacy in meaningful ways.

I don't agree with your accusation of paranoia.

Keeping detailed notes on everywhere you go isn't something that would be done as lightly as putting on a pair of glasses. You would consider the implications of the existence of that data before keeping it. With something like Glass, that part of the process gets skipped.

The argument for trusting Google with your data is that their privacy policy keeps your data safe. I don't doubt that Google has the best of intentions, but that doesn't mean my data is safe. A snooping employee, a change in policy that isn't necessarily over the line but isn't comforting either, security breaches, subpoenas (in the spirit of http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/may/8/twitter-fight...). There are a lot of ways that having that data in someone else's pocket can backfire.

Yes, it would be fine if there were some guarantee that no one could ever see my data. There isn't. It was not my intention to oversimplify anything. The last thing I want is to cause damage to the cause.

Edit: grammar

It's not paranoid when you include the caveats, as you do here. But to simply say that "Privacy could cease to exist while you're wearing Google Glass" is fear mongering, or paranoia. That statement is both staggerly broad in nature and at the same time, unqualified.

At least Google Glass is an _opt-in_ form of monitoring and observation. If you don't want to wear it, you don't have to. If you want to take it off, you can. Those aspects alone mean it's a lot less worrisome than existing, and much more involuntary, invasions of our privacy.

Opt-in for the user, but not opt-in for the people around them. I don't get to choose to not be recorded. Compounded with modern law stating if you're in public, you can be legally recorded, and that it's already difficult enough as is to explain to people you'd rather they not tag you as being at a location or to take photos and instantly upload them... It's really worrisome. The only reason it isn't is because it's not popular.

If you "have nothing to hide", it's not a big deal. If you're fighting for custody of your child, transgender, gay, a targeted minority, visit a psychologist regularly, or even just happen to do a few things one day that could be misconstrued, all of a sudden, the potential of it taking off becomes a very big deal - sometimes much more so than current privacy issues.

In that respect it's no different from the hundreds of security cameras most of us pass by each day. If you're doing something in the presence of someone else's view, and you know they're pointing a camera of any type at you, it's hard to argue you have an expectation of privacy.

It's really hard to point at Glass and say it's materially different from the broad array of recording devices already out there. If you're someone trying to avoid being recorded, those are a much bigger problem - they're pervasive, generally have better viewpoints (can see more total area) and often have built-in illumination as well.

Privacy could cease to exist while you're wearing Google Glass

Sounds about right to me and I'd be extremely skeptical of any claims to the contrary. The default result of any data entering a computer system owned by someone else is that it is no longer private. Specifically the US, the government considers any data held by a commercial entity to be fair game.

Compare to:

Privacy could cease to exist while you're chatting on Facebook

My assumption was that it wouldn't necessary to outline the caveats. As I said in my response to your criticism, it wasn't my intention to be detrimental to my own cause. I'll keep in mind that I need to provide such details when voicing concerns in the future.

As for your second paragraph, I already voiced my concerns on that. The implications of opting-in are not well-considered by the average consumer. It's taken for granted that personal data is protected.

Posting this for nsmartt because maxvisit.

> A map with with a line detailing everywhere you've been over the course of years...

Sort of like.. hmm.. cell phones?

You lost this privacy years ago, at least to governments.

Yes, like cell phones, but no.

Privacy hasn't died yet. The problem isn't that Google Glass exists or that cell phones exist. The problem is awareness. The problem is the same for cell phones.

It's not laudable it's laughable, you want to go to Paris? Go to Paris.

Not everyone has that privilege.

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