For me, Feedly did fill some of the niche there, but it does not have that Reader or whatever next community was there to have "share with friends and discuss" part. But HN covered that part a bit too
I’m still feeling the pain from that. They built the best (for my use case) RSS reader, then completely shut it down. I wish companies would sometimes consider transitioning projects into the public space for the greater good. Look at what Microsoft has done with VSCode and the community editions.
The US has such lax anti-competition laws and enforcement, even if it was I highly doubt they'd ever even consider Google (Or Apple) in an anti-trust position let alone enforce it. The EU has done a little more here, but everyone online queues up to criticize them every time they do anything to try and protect consumers, so c'est la vie.
The textbook anti-competition case, US v. Microsoft, was thrown out at the end of the day and settled. There is effectively no anti-competition oversight in the US.
The US has a history of breaking up monopolies. Think of Standard Oil or Bell breakup. Usually when they react they react late, but when they do it, they make sure they don't have to come back again, as in they are very thorough with their breakup.
We still don't have a full-blown monopoly like we used to, but there's been considerable consolidation in the industry over the years. The T-Mobile/Sprint merger is the latest example.
There are massive economic incentives to consolidate infrastructure-like industries, hence why infrastructure is often nationalized, pseudo-nationalized, or heavily regulated.
Duo maintains a contacts list. It doesn't seem too big of a leap to assume Messages queries Duo to see if both parties have the app installed. Or, as others have suggested, it may take them to an app installation page on either the Play Store or App Store.
Was their only evidence the screenshot they included? It’s seems more likely that Google could have been looking for phrases like “Let’s look at it” rather than the term “Zoom”.
Right. Another thing is that it's not clear whether they're inserting an advertisement into the conversation in a way that's visible to the other person, or if they're only trying to bring up on-screen help for the local user. The former seems much, much more intrusive than the latter. I'd still like the option to turn off either of them, but I don't really consider Clippy-esque eagerness to be sinister as much as presumptuous and annoying.
>I don't really consider Clippy-esque eagerness to be sinister as much as presumptuous and annoying.
I would give you that if Google was a small company without much experience in the field. But they're, what, the largest tech company that exists? There is no way this was approved without MANY conversations about the end user experience and what this actually does/is perceived.
At some point, benefit of the doubt goes out the window. And I would argue that a company the size of google should no longer get the benefit of the doubt.
That's exactly what it is. In the Messages app if you enable Assistant Suggestions it'll usually give you quick replies based on the context of the conversation and sometimes offer app suggestions like set a calendar event or make a call. And you can turn it off if you don't want it.
This definitely is a features of the SMS app that comes with Android. Its the new AI features that offers hints and auto completions, so its just offering a suggestion based on Look rather than Zoom. largely #fakenews
if you are using SMS, and are talking to a friend and say something like "lets meet up for lunch", after the SMS is sent itll prompt you to share your location OR search restaurants.
"let's look at it" could be anything. this is an sms android app, the place where google does not mine your data (like gmail) for it to recommend duo it needs to know context, "join zoom" could be a trigger, but "let's look at it" would lead to to many false positives to be a real option.
But, I really dislike how Google often gets a free pass (from the tech community) on these things, and frankly, I prefer the sensationalized reality over our more accurate one because it rightfully puts pressure on them to stop messing up so often.
How often does Google get to say "whoopsie daisy, our silly AI messed up again" before we need to start asking them serious questions like "why is there an AI making recommendations in the first place when those recommendations have such a high probability of preferring Google products"?
The problem with these types of arguments with soft algorithms like machine learning is that the answer probably lies somewhere in between in the most literal way (it has non-zero influence from many input features). Accepting this ambiguity is where companies like Google/FB can get a free pass by blaming the automated algorithm.
You could even create intentional situations where you know how the algorithm will behave because you know the data you are training on but still have the option to chalk up mistakes to 'accidental'.
Many of Google's recent market practices feel very much like those of Microsoft in the late 90's, early 2000's. Producing unappealing products, and trying to use their influence to (unsuccessfully) deter users from switching to comeptition.
Search is to Google what Windows was/is to Microsoft then, their core business, but all other efforts/products/services seemed fringy.
> corporations change with successive generations of management, new owners
You can extend that to non-profits, or governments. Even individuals change with time and circumstances. We shouldn't DEPEND on anyone or any systems to "not be evil". We need rule of law instead.
The topic was why Microsoft's products now are so much better than they used to be in the late 90s and early 00s. The reason was, that Ballmer left the company. Sure he doubled the profits... by selling crap using shady methods.
So, what are you upset about? Because I used his commonly understood nick name to say it?
> After he doubled the company profits during his tenure.
That's what somebody in his position would claim. A more objective statement would be: "The company profits doubled during his tenure".
Besides, we have no idea what would have happened if a Pichai-style leader professing love for open source and sound understanding of the role of the Internet appeared instead.
> How did the rest of the story go, though? Microsoft now has a growing suite of great products that are no longer "fringe".
Sounds like it helps if your monopolist tactics get stopped, the company has incentive to actually offer valuable products and innovate and voila, stuff happens.
The trigger was the "let's look at this" phrase, not the "Join zoom" phrase. This is similar to when you say "where are you": it prompts the other person to share location (also on Android).
Looks to me like this is one of the google assistant suggestions. If you say "Let's go grab lunch", it'll show you "Find restaurants nearby." using Google maps, etc...
If it is that, it's a local suggestion (one that isn't a link sent to the other user, just suggested to you) in the same way they do the "quick responses" thing.
As far as I can tell, that GIF is showing Duo video quality before and after using a new codec design to improve quality particularly over low-bandwidth connections.
Yeah, what I've decided is that they both must be duo and the left is the new codec and the right is the old codec? They really should label that because it looks like "everyone else" vs "Google Duo" and what looks like the Google Duo looks like shit. Assuming that's what's going on.
But even then if both sides are Duo it looks like "we took your Duo and made it ugly"
It didn't add a link to the conversation for the other user. It's a Google Assistant suggestion feature in the Messages app that tries to be helpful by providing intentful snippets you can one-click reply with. And if you don't want the suggestions you can turn them off.
I've had multiple instances of scheduling Zoom meetings where GSuite automatically added a Meet link also. Had to send a fix to attendees the first time and caught it the next few times before I sent the invites. Very annoying practice and I couldn't find any obvious way to turn it off.
Has anyone here been able to reproduce this? I've just tried this with someone else who has Duo installed as well, and I've got all the fancy suggestions things turned on, and wasn't able to get this suggestion.
Might be worth waiting for a few more reputable sources to confirm that this is actually replicable before sharpening the pitchforks...
I flagged this and not because I'm a Google fanboy (quite the opposite) but because this seems like a classic case of fakenews clickbait that's based on a misunderstanding of someone's screenshot.
Not that different from Windows 10 proposing to use the new Edge version when starting a browser (it also happened with Firefox & Opera) via the start menu.
What Google needs is to allow quick and easy creation of rooms and invite links, no requested login whatsoever, just a single textbox to fill your name. Just make it easy like Zoom, or even easier for Christ sake. I am not a multi-billionaire company and even I know this is basic.
This prompt appears in many, many contexts - whenever the ML model decides that a Duo prompt is useful. These "smart suggestions" aren't sent in the chat to both parties, and have been around for quite some time. Maybe Google decided to retrain their models specifically to target Zoom, and maybe they didn't. Whatever the case, this issue is blown so much out of proportion. This place is starting to remind me of Reddit.
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 129 ms ] threadArticle from a few years back: https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/24/13389592/att-time-warner...
There are massive economic incentives to consolidate infrastructure-like industries, hence why infrastructure is often nationalized, pseudo-nationalized, or heavily regulated.
I would give you that if Google was a small company without much experience in the field. But they're, what, the largest tech company that exists? There is no way this was approved without MANY conversations about the end user experience and what this actually does/is perceived.
At some point, benefit of the doubt goes out the window. And I would argue that a company the size of google should no longer get the benefit of the doubt.
But, I really dislike how Google often gets a free pass (from the tech community) on these things, and frankly, I prefer the sensationalized reality over our more accurate one because it rightfully puts pressure on them to stop messing up so often.
How often does Google get to say "whoopsie daisy, our silly AI messed up again" before we need to start asking them serious questions like "why is there an AI making recommendations in the first place when those recommendations have such a high probability of preferring Google products"?
You could even create intentional situations where you know how the algorithm will behave because you know the data you are training on but still have the option to chalk up mistakes to 'accidental'.
Waiting for the HN-regular Googlers responses.
Search is to Google what Windows was/is to Microsoft then, their core business, but all other efforts/products/services seemed fringy.
Some basic rules for when it's acceptable to read/interpret data that passes through a company's systems need to be codified into law.
Or just update privacy laws in the US for the computer age.
You can extend that to non-profits, or governments. Even individuals change with time and circumstances. We shouldn't DEPEND on anyone or any systems to "not be evil". We need rule of law instead.
How did the rest of the story go, though? Microsoft now has a growing suite of great products that are no longer "fringe".
There's some middle ground between practices like this article and preventing companies from innovating in spaces outside their core business.
I guess if you have nothing really valuable to say, resort to name calling though am I right?
So, what are you upset about? Because I used his commonly understood nick name to say it?
That's what somebody in his position would claim. A more objective statement would be: "The company profits doubled during his tenure".
Besides, we have no idea what would have happened if a Pichai-style leader professing love for open source and sound understanding of the role of the Internet appeared instead.
Sounds like it helps if your monopolist tactics get stopped, the company has incentive to actually offer valuable products and innovate and voila, stuff happens.
Can anyone else? What's the trigger?
This article is misleading.
If it is that, it's a local suggestion (one that isn't a link sent to the other user, just suggested to you) in the same way they do the "quick responses" thing.
The Duo side of the screen looks awful quality compared to the other side!
But even then if both sides are Duo it looks like "we took your Duo and made it ugly"
Might be worth waiting for a few more reputable sources to confirm that this is actually replicable before sharpening the pitchforks...
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EPD13_oX0AEnhTb?format=png&name=...