What I meant is that the page itself doesn't tell you anything about how you would actually get it.
The first thing I did after clicking on the link was search the Play Store for "Google Now" - obviously it came up a blank.
What this means is that I'll probably forget all about it by the time I either:
a) get an Android 5 phone/tablet, or
b) update my Galaxy S2 or Galaxy Tab to Android 5
Google could have alleviated some of this by having an app ready for download and linking to it. I have to admit that I hoped that this was the way forward since they released Chrome Beta, as opposed to relying on manufacturers/carriers updating their phones. Alas, it wasn't to be.
Technically speaking it is Android 4.1, but yes I get your point.
Anyway. You can tell from the way this is implemented that this is a core OS feature, not an addon app stacked on on top. The reason it's not out for ICS or older versions of Android is because they can't run it. They lack the pieces it uses through out.
Same here. I find it absolutely astonishing that they don't tell you how to get it.
I had no idea how to get this. It wasn't even clear to me if this was an Android app or a web page. Especially from just looking at the pictures and without watching the video (which I am usually reluctant to do).
I wonder if they assumed it would be obvious to everyone or just didn't car.
Seriously. Features like this, although very cool at a glance, are teaching future generations of users to have no respect for their privacy or personal information.
Could be, but it is an honest question.
I fully understand and respect people who loves this, but I would like a little love back too for my desire to stay outside of this social maelstorm.
It's pretty easy to stay out of this, so I don't see the problem. Google is really good about telling you what it does and generally lets you opt out (or gets you to opt in). So what is the problem?
I don't trust facebook and thus I don't use it. It's easy.
I'm running it on my phone now and the first thing it did was ask "Hey. Is it OK if I do all these things?". It wont run without your permission.
Unlike Apple, Google is pretty good at asking these things.
Edit: Maybe Apple has gotten better. I just remember iTunes wiping my iPhone, iPod and all ID3 tags from my music collection numerous times when I was just supposed to copy/add some files. And that was before you even booted their OS.
Um, have you ever setup an iPhone for the first time? It walks you through absolutely every thing the device wants to do (Location, Siri, etc) and you can turn them all off and on. Please don't go making wildly incorrect claims.
iOS 6 is going to be introducing very fine grained control of which apps can access what, not just location - which it's already got, but things like contacts, diary etc.
From what I've seen on Android (I'm pretty new to it as a platform, so I could well have missed something), you do get told what the app wants to access but then only get a binary "allow everything that it's asked for/don't run the app at all" option.
Yeah, because Apple is the one that wants to track everything you do; either electronically, or via some stupid looking glasses so they can show you ads and sell all your information 100% of the time.
Yes...you actually have to go and buy a Windows Phone, preferably a Nokia Lumia 900, to get out of Google Now tracking. Maybe even a Surface tablet for good measure.
I bought the first iPhone the day it came out, but I'd much prefer this sort of addition to my next smartphone than what I've seen from iOS 6 so far (especially what I fear with the Apple Maps app).
The first minute of that video is more compelling to me than the entire Microsoft Surface presentation/website etc.
Indeed. Location-aware, time-aware. I'm seeing a Siri-killer. The best personal assistants know what you want before you ask for it. So, why not the same for digital assistants?
And a bad fit for something that's almost always in your pocket. When you pull your phone out because you want to call someone, how annoying is it going to be to dismiss the updates that pop up every time the score changes in a game your team is playing, or every time Google thinks you care about coupons to the restaurant around the corner?
I don't know that this will really make a big difference in phone-user interaction. I hope it stays on Glass where the use case is actually semi-relevant.
Google has definitely stepped up their UI design with Jellybean. Oddly enough, at Google I/O they showed the Sports card with real MLB teams, and on this page, it's fake teams (likely due to licensing rules).
I'm positive you're right. Blaze is at home, so they are at bat in the first half of the inning, indicated by their row being shifted forward slightly.
I think its a pretty clever design.
Edit: Not so sure about it now. Its too bad it wasn't misaligned in the correct direction.
Any Baseball fan (even those of us who are English) know that the home team are on the bottom of a linescore, and that the away team bats in the top half of each inning - no indentation is needed to explain this.
No, home teams bat second and are always listed on the bottom. This is simply misaligned. They're in the top of the 9th so that dash under the 8th inning for the Clovers should be shifted to the right.
Oops, that's what I get for not watching baseball. Its too bad they weren't misaligned in the other direction. I think it would be a great way to display the information.
Clean design, thin font, almost translucent colors, lots of space in between - this is definitely a preparation to and a testbed for the future functionality powering Google Glass
Sadly enough hardware manufacturers keep plastering their ugly skins on top of Android. The Android that most people will see is going to be an inconsistent mishmash of different designs.
I think this is just a symptom of a bigger issue. With these Google demo videos, like with most webpage commercials I see, the screenshots and videos don't look like actual screenshots, but just mock-up animations.
I'm sure the baseball scores are aligned properly in the actual app. But it serves as a not-so-subtle reminder that this isn't what the actual app looks like, or how it behaves. In my mind, they're associating themselves with other companies who show completely fake visuals in commercials, like fast food.
I love how you compare oranges to apples, rather than to Apple.
The most apt comparison you can make for doing this is "fast food", rather than the 800lb gorilla in the room, Apple, who had to be sued to include "screen images simulated" and "sequences shortened" in their iPhone ads...?
Jellybean is pretty, but most of it is pixel-for-pixel identical to ICS. Which I found beautiful; I think there is just this stereotype of Android being ugly and laggy and I don't know what else needs to happen for people to get over that mental image. Even my Mom's non-Nexus running Gingerbread is snappy and pretty (pretty, especially next to circa-2003 iOS0
It was on by default for me and I was really confused for a short period of time wondering what the heck they were trying to tell me as part of the video. It was hilarious, however.
Thanks for your tip. The subtitles are usually fairly accurate, but there's something messing with them on this video, could be the music or the narrator.
Usually speech recognition errors are fairly routine, but in this case they are hilarious. Oh, and the word 'Android' was not recognized.
Their subtitles (which are turned on automatically on that video) don't match up at all. Guessing it was automatically transcribed (speech to text)... would have thought they'd of tested that! (Or just manually entered them)
There will be some kind of API i guess, but another thing is Google Now is an app in itself, and i am not an android dev, but an app having developer API does not seem very fitting. For example, gmail can have intents but not an API for other apps to use, i guess.
Give us all your personal info, we provide you pretty UI. Oh and how about this recommended cafe to visit with your friend? If you go here is a 10% voucher.. Just saying..
Isn't Foursquare based kind of on a similar idea? You tell people where you are to get something out of it. As long as it's completely optional, and the user understands what he's getting into, I don't see the problem with it.
This is much less of a privacy issue for me than is when Google reads my email, for example. Here, I'm aware of the fact that my data (location, appointments, flight plans) is read, because I couldn't get the recommendations/information otherwise. So, it's much more of a consensual act.
If they use this data for other purposes (ads/paid recommendations/geotracking), that is a separate issue, and I would be very mad.
Google doesn't "read" your emails. The information completely secured from human eyes. A computer looks for words and phrases and tries to match ads to email content. Sometimes this is helpful, but the advertisers only receive anonymous data and no humans at Google or anywhere else read your data.
The information completely secured from human eyes
That isn't entirely accurate. There has to be a way to access mailboxes for troubleshooting/compliance purposes - A couple years ago, a Google engineer got fired for snooping into some kid's mailbox.
For now. But what happens when data mining technology increases to the point where they can deduce real facts about you as a person from all this data they're collecting. I think this is what people mean when they say Google "reads" your email.
"But what happens when data mining technology increases to the point where they can deduce real facts about you as a person from all this data they're collecting."
Like that NYT article "How Companies Learn Your Secrets" on buying habits (at Target) of pregnant teens.
This still counts as "reading" your mails. Google analyzes my email and comes up with a categorization, stored somewhere on their servers, attached to my account, that says something like "Show this guy ads about computer stuff". If that information is subpoenaed, it will be revealed that computers, programming, and other technical things are among my most frequently discussed topics.
By itself this information is innocuous, but in the right context and with just a pinch of the heartlessness of a giant computer system, the wrong set of categorizations could cause a really big problem.
However there are really three usage cases where I see this potentially becoming a problem:
1. Google sells data to advertisers directly, without anonymity.
2. Google is rendered insecure and the encryption they use is cracked.
3. Government forces Google to hand over data about individuals or large swaths of individuals.
The most likely scenario is number three, which already happens, and this can happen to any information stored anywhere (bank accounts, post office and online).
Google would face strong public backlash for selling data to advertisers (#1)directly and would have to change their user policies.
Google spends untold amount of money on #2. That's not to say they are completely safe or trustworthy, but it is to say they work very hard at protecting that data (for your and their sake). This situation could just as likely happen to any web provider, linkedin being a recent example.
My biggest fear is what happens if the government gets the power to subpoena individuals based on "categorizations" or "keywords". Then I think privacy becomes a serious issue for Google.
Yes, the number of application cards that require geolocation is vaguely disturbing. You think Google's in your pants now? Just wait until you routinely enable geolocation on your mobile device.
This attitude annoys me. Everything you do is about tradeoffs, and being online is no exception. You're trading privacy for convenience, and if you don't want to, then don't. People aren't wrong for being okay with that trade; they just have different priorities than you.
It's sad that all these generic names that Google is coming up with (Play, Now, Plus, Glass), can probably be copyrighted and everybody else would then be prevented from using them... What a wicked capitalistic world, what a sad day for freedom.
Our politicians thinking in ways that are (IMO) too capitalistic and corporationalistic is the cause of the copyright taking over the freedom of speech.
You probably can't get the trademark on a single word like those. Any trademark would likely have to include the word or logo for Google. That said, if Yahoo creates a music/video service called Yahoo Play, you can guarantee there will be a successful lawsuit.
That's what I meant. Play is the best/most obvious word when trying to combine the meanings of "listen" (to music) and "watch" (movies). And now, a single company controls it, and no one else can use it in this manner (e.g. for a media store).
1. Names can't be copyrighted, but they can be trademarked.
2. Google is using their name in the branding. E.g. Apple calls the iPhone just the iPhone, not the "Apple iPhone." On the other hand, Google prepends their name to all of their product names (e.g. "Google Play" "Google Now" "Google Plus" "Google Glass"), with Gmail being the only major exception that I can come up with (off the top of my head).
i think you'll find they acquired all of those, having said that....these are descriptive and cant be copywrited without the inclusion of the name Google eg i can call my startup Cognatin Play and have no fear with losing this case.
i think you'll find they acquired all of those, having said that....these are descriptive and cant be copywrited without the inclusion of the name Google eg i can call my startup Cognation Play and have no fear with losing this case.
I feel stupid for not coming up with prominent examples like YouTube/Blogger, but these are less 'generic' than things like 'Glass,' 'Play,' or 'Plus.'
Last year there was a lot of news about them possibly renaming Picasa as Google Photos and Blogger as Google Blogs, though that clearly never happened.
1. Sorry, my bad. English is not my first language.
2. So, you think it wouldn't go after another company calling it's media webstore Play Store or Supercorp Play? Now, I don't really know about Google, but Facebook has shown that it is possible to attack other companies even for using just a part of your (completely generic) trademarked name.
Yes, but the attack is a lot of times all that's needed. I've known a handful of small companies that were attacked in court for their names on completely unjustifiable trademark grounds. However the cost to defend against even the most frivolous claims can cost tens of thousands of dollars before things really get serious. Not many small businesses/startup are in a position to take on this kind of defense. In the cases of the companies I know of, they capitulated and changed their names to avoid having to undertake the cost of the very winnable defense.
The big corps like Google, Apple, MSFT, etc. will fight it out and not really worry about the legal costs. But for startups/small businesses, this can and probably will be a growing burden moving forward.
I remember during the android session someone asked the question and the official response was that it will take as much power when phone is active than when it's not. Don't know what that implies though.
I wonder about that too. Similar apps today are battery drains. But maybe it's using new 4.1 APIs that only fire events when the app really needs it? Since they announced it as part of Jelly Bean, makes me think so.
How come whenever Google launches something, I only know the who/what, but am never told the when/where/how? Telling me WHEN (if ever) this will be available on my device, WHERE to download it when that happens, and HOW it will integrate into my device/profile would be really nice to read about :(
Is it? I think Google Now is part of the "Google Apps for Android" suite. These apps are not part of Android itself, they are licensed by manufacturers to complement their Android-based operating system.
And these Apps are usually updated by Google and independently from the OS. So unless "Google Now" uses a specific API that is only available in 4.1, I would expect older devices receive the app as well.
It's not an app... it's like the notification tray. You can't simply 'take' the notification tray from one OS to another. Same with this. It comes with Jelly Bean.
Because they don't want to make any false promises. If they were to say it works on android they have to qualify that with something like "if all the stars align and your carrier, your handset manufacturer, and any other middlemen can't find a way to stop us".
Like with so much other stuff google makes, this isn't really something google needs to market to consumers. This is the bait they are giving to handset manufacturers to incentivize them to push out an update to the latest version of android.
This irritated the fuck out of me, I wish they'd explain what the hell it is.
Turns out, it's what happens if you swipe from the bottom up in Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, but I think it might be a broader thing (I can imagine it works with glasses).
Same here. I thought it was an app initially after reading about it. They should highlight that it comes with Jelly Bean and not as a separate add-on. Or state that an app is coming soon for devices on Android 2.x and 4.0x.
This is more than strange for a page which has 'landing' in the URL (www.google.com/landing/now/). Vague video, vague texts and no hints as what am I supposed to do with this Now-thing, or even what it actually is. Left me totally clueless of what to do next.
Also, I wonder if Now is going to be available in the future for Google customers with devices other than Android or maybe even as a web-app or iGoogle widget.
Folks, when you do something like this, always think from the perspective of the person reading your page for the first time. Otherwise what you get is this informational stonewall. It's supposed to tell you something new, but instead it's abstruse and nerdy like hell.
I don't think there is any worse sin as a copywriter than assuming that the reader already knows all about the topic at hand. Not telling me how to get the cool new product you are showing off, what devices it is for, when I can get it, etc., are all leaving out huge details.
It comes with Android 4.1
I flashed a Jelly Bean ROM today that came out on xda-developers. You access Google Now by swiping up on the lockscreen. Uploaded a screenshot here- http://s18.postimage.org/7obav45sp/Screenshot.png
Yay, just what I wanted: yet another software service to interrupt me thoughout the day.
Snarkiness aside, I'm sure the information is relevant and good. But if I forget that my favorite team is playing while I'm working on a design, do I really need to be reminded? People are not machines. I do not subscribe to and process an information feed in the same way that an email client would.
I see Google continually trying to work the problem of strong AI and transhumanism and that's great. I'm all for it. But they seem strangely blind about the real hard edges associated with being human. Instead of assistance it all seems to be about data, speed, and relevance. It seems the assumption is that people will adapt to however fast we can push the information at them. I'm not so sure that is an valid assumption. Or if it is, I'm not sure I like the way we would adapt to this vision of the future.
I'm not under the impression it constantly notifies you, only that the cards it's showing you when you launch it are shuffled (sorry) depending on what's going on.
We've never gotten there so it's an intriguing experiment regardless if you agree with it or not. 12 years ago I imagine most people thought it would be ludicrous that people would be walking around consumed in a mobile device - but that came to fruition just as stuff like this will.
But they were never mass market in the same way. Walk on to the tube today and 70% will have their noses buried in an iPhone (or less often, a 'droid). That wasn't the case with either PDA's or pocket TV's. Possibly with walkmans/iPods.
And do books count as well? Not really devices, but just as absorbing, for some of us. I don't really understand why we think about electronic devices differently from every other human invention.
A year or two ago, I had a short train commute (Loughborough to Leicester and back, on one of the main routes to London) on a daily basis and saw far more people immersed in books than in their phones -- I suspect it was a bit early in the day for the younger folk, though.
In fact, it was more common to see business people using laptops than books and phones combined.
Well personally I just swapped my smartphone (lumia 710) for a 10 year old Nokia 3310.
In the last two weeks since I disposed of it, I'm less stressed, considerably more alert, have slept better, feel like I'm slightly less thick, more productive and haven't had a single migrane.
The thing was a ball and chain.
EDIT: this move was motivated by Black Mirror. Thank you Mr Brooker.
Greatly recommended to watch, for everyone. That particular one was the best episode of the series too, IMO (they all tell a stand-alone future story).
Most of these are passive notifications -- i.e. they don't ping you they're just there in your notification bar (or if you swipe up to start the Google Now app).
In some cases, it makes sense for some of these to be notifications that ping you. I want my phone to remind me if I need to leave right now to make my next meeting.
Finally, you can configure each individual card provider to be on or off so if you don't like a particular type of card, just don't use it.
I'm excited to see if they will provide an API for this. I would love to write custom card providers so that I can get ambient notifications of things happening in my world (e.g. the build is broken on an OSS project I run, a motion sensor in my house was triggered, etc.)
It was pretty neat for me today. When I woke up my phone told me it would take approximately 18 minutes to get to work given current traffic conditions. As the work day was ending I got a card saying about the same amount of time getting back - though by the time I left the timer had increased to about 30 minutes.
I like this a lot, if there is an accident or something I'll notice via this card and potentially avoid it. Great potential here.
It was nice, but I'm not one of those "OMG Siri is the best thing ever" people. I'm the guy that upgraded to ICS... 6 months+ ago and I still unlock my phone, swipe to the other screen and tap the Camera icon instead of unlocking to the left. I have familiar usage patterns.
The extra info is "nice". That's how I would describe it. For those that like Siri, this is going to be up their alley. The natural voice recognition isn't as good as Siri's and there are some bits missing (I still freaking can't say "Navigate home" to get directions home, even though I can say "Navigate to McDonald's" and be launched into turn-by-turn).
I think in a few months or even when they release next month it will be capable of what Siri can do and will also have the intelligence to give you that info ahead of time.
I feel like it's intended to be more the information that you look up throughout the day, just all combined in one location. I mean, I get up in the morning, I check the weather, I check the traffic, etc. If the problem is about how much data we're processing, we're already there and we were long before this. This just removes some of the padding in between, perhaps making it a bit more obvious.
As far as I see, you have complete control of what type of cards you see as well as the extent of the notifications. Being customizable to that degree, I don't see how anyone could be overloaded with information they don't want.
As you said you do not care about when your team is playing or rather if you care, you will mark it down some other way and do not need Google's help with it so you most likely won't have that card "turned on".
If you care, but don't want to be interrupted by notifications specifically, then you'll either turn off notifications for that card, or if possible (the following is pure assumption based on the Jelly Bean notification priority options), you would set that specific card's notification priority to minimum, meaning it does not show up in your status bar and doesn't fire off any sound/vibration signals, but if you pull down on the status bar (meaning you are looking for information) it's there at the bottom of your notifications, completely unobtrusive.
I really doubt this is the case, from my experience with other Google products. On Google+ valuable screen real estate is devoted to telling me I could follow popular entertainment people, or trying to get me to chat, hangout, et al. My android phone is chock full of things I can't get rid of, things that start services which if turned off turn themselves back on, etc. To actually use android I had to finally break down and get a gmail account, and found that my youtube account switched irrevocably to gmail. I was not asked, and there was no undoing it.
Everywhere I turn with Google I am being forced into a Procrustean bed, and you tell me that everything with Google Now is totally configurable so that it'll fit me. Sorry, at this point I do not believe you.
Also, what the hell is a card? After reading the word "card" for the 5th time, even after reading the few paragraphs below the main image, I still have no clue what on earth a card is. Like an app in webOS? Or is it a game of some kind? Apps and websites that invent their own names for existing concepts and seem to assume that you're silly for not having inborn knowledge of what they mean are frustrating.
It's an item, an instance. Because they're all different types of thing Google couldn't call them 'appointment' or something like that so they've called them cards.
Watch the video, they show what a card is at the 20 sec mark.
"Card" isn't intuitive because this isn't the way people use cards in real life. The only analogy for using cards as a notification I can think of is in an old novel where a visitor comes to your door, your butler shows them into the parlour, and brings you their calling card so you can decide whether you want to see 'em. This nowadays lies outside most folks' field of experience.
What are the odds Google did user testing on this before launching? On one hand, cards seems like a strightforward label for an atomic collection of data on a digital device. On the other hand users may bring with them all sorts of connotative baggage, or it just might not resonate with them.
In any case it's likely whether or not it will catch on as a term-of-art will heavily depend on whether people want to use the service.
Google doesn't have a great track record when it comes to designing new products / interfaces so will be interesting to see whether this takes off or not.
I agree. These "Google Now Cards" hardly share any connotations I have with the word "card", except for being rectangular and containing a small amount of information.
To the other person calling them "atomic" bits of information, neither the information on "Google Now Cards", business cards, or index cards is "atomic". You can easily split the information and the bits still make sense. You probably meant to say "chunk" or "unit" or perhaps "self-contained"--though external links make them not very self-contained either.
I kind of get the idea they picked the word "card" because it's such a mundane, every-day word. And they want their product to appear like that. It's just a card! Must be easy to use!
Calling it a "message" or "notification" would also make it sound intrusive, like it interrupts your activity whenever it activates. A "card" has a very passive connotation, and that's the idea they want to give: It doesn't interrupt you, only when you look at your phone, it's right there presenting you with the info you need right now.
The problem I think is, we don't really have a every-day metaphor for such a thing. Maybe a "personal assistent", but I don't think they wanted to use a metaphor of something that is "alive", because it brings connotations of inaccuracy and doing all sorts of stuff with it, while they want just this thing that, when you look at it always happens to show exactly what you want to see.
They should've called it "psychic paper" :-) (Dr. Who)
Personally I feel a bit of annoyance at calling it "card" because if this thing really takes off they've claimed a mundane every-day use word with a rather inaccurate extra meaning. And if it doesn't, it's just a program that uses weird words for simple notifications.
I do like how they actually look like cards, rectangular with a subtle drop shadow, it looks good. I wonder what the three vertical dots are for? Some UI element or branding to make it look like a sort of sprocket perforations?
Or maybe, Google Now will figure out you are working on your design now based on your Google searches and prompt you to check out the latest relevant designs :)
> . It seems the assumption is that people will adapt to however fast we can push the information at them. I'm not so sure that is an valid assumption. Or if it is, I'm not sure I like the way we would adapt to this vision of the future.
If true, this would be very ironic, as Google's ascendancy was based on their curation of the wild wild web, making sense of the terabytes of data out there.
It's been interesting how every Google announcement on HN this week has had a negative reaction as the top comment. People here don't seem to like seeing Google innovating for some reason.
It's been a meme all over the internet for a while now. Its quite frankly childish and annoying. You would think a place like hacker news would be above that.
There IS always the possibility that people don't really like the product... the top comment of this post is well thought-out and provides valid reasons for not being interested in the product. It's definitely not a flame. And I, for one, agree; I like a little bit of randomness in my day. I don't need an algorithm telling me what I should be doing/knowing at the very moment.
And a few years ago, everybody cheered like crazy , whenever Google released something (maps, gmail, chrome, maybe even Wave)... Maybe they gradually lost the "cool" factor in some people's eyes...
Google has far more information about me than facebook does. My search habits paint a far more detailed and personal picture about me than where I went or what I ate today. It is completely reasonable to be weary of giving even more data to google. I'd rather not have all my information housed in a single company. I trust google just as much as facebook (very little).
There are quite a few privacy concerns about these technologies, and I think that proper legislation is necessary to address them. Most people trust a bank to hold their money, and there is legislation to control financial institutions. Now, people are increasingly trusting their data with data banks, and there needs to be legislation to control how the data is stored securely and not abused.
This means I have to leave wifi or data on to be notified in the morning which kills my phone. I already manually check the weather by turning on wifi and opening an app this just cuts out an extra tap!
I think this is a direct competitor to the recently re-launched Cue, but with perhaps better integration with things like Glass.
I'm eager to see how the Cue/Greplin team aim to address this shot across the bow, and having never used either, if there's something distinctly different about them that migh encourage me to use both (or Cue vs Now).
Interesting to see two such complete implementations of 'day-planning' hit so closely to each other.
I certainly appreciate the response, and hope for the best for you guys.
If anything should embolden you, it's that while Google does tend to do a great job unveiling new products (like "Now"), they often fall behind on iterating, at least as compared to smaller, nimbler teams are able to. Also, they aren't at all very likely to integrate with non-Google services, so there's that.
Of course, this is a new 'flagship' type of thing for JellyBean users, so they'll likely be focused on making it really good.
Again, good luck. I can relate to established giants announcing competitors before you've had a good while to get traction, so I know it can be disheartening, but it also validates the hell out of the market, and there's no saying that Apple will ever be able to approve their iphone client as it likely competes with Siri a good deal.
My thoughts too. Cue seems to have better design, but Google has massive resources for data mining and interpretation. Looks like a new app category just sprung up.
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 236 ms ] threadPerhaps I'm not looking closely enough, but I don't see anything that tells me how I can get it.
I agree it's not something you discover without being told though ;)
The first thing I did after clicking on the link was search the Play Store for "Google Now" - obviously it came up a blank.
What this means is that I'll probably forget all about it by the time I either:
a) get an Android 5 phone/tablet, or b) update my Galaxy S2 or Galaxy Tab to Android 5
Google could have alleviated some of this by having an app ready for download and linking to it. I have to admit that I hoped that this was the way forward since they released Chrome Beta, as opposed to relying on manufacturers/carriers updating their phones. Alas, it wasn't to be.
Anyway. You can tell from the way this is implemented that this is a core OS feature, not an addon app stacked on on top. The reason it's not out for ICS or older versions of Android is because they can't run it. They lack the pieces it uses through out.
I wonder if they assumed it would be obvious to everyone or just didn't car.
I don't trust facebook and thus I don't use it. It's easy.
I'm running it on my phone now and the first thing it did was ask "Hey. Is it OK if I do all these things?". It wont run without your permission.
Unlike Apple, Google is pretty good at asking these things.
Edit: Maybe Apple has gotten better. I just remember iTunes wiping my iPhone, iPod and all ID3 tags from my music collection numerous times when I was just supposed to copy/add some files. And that was before you even booted their OS.
Well yes, glad you asked, I am fed up with Apple.
From what I've seen on Android (I'm pretty new to it as a platform, so I could well have missed something), you do get told what the app wants to access but then only get a binary "allow everything that it's asked for/don't run the app at all" option.
Google, the privacy company.
Drama, much...?
I bought the first iPhone the day it came out, but I'd much prefer this sort of addition to my next smartphone than what I've seen from iOS 6 so far (especially what I fear with the Apple Maps app).
The first minute of that video is more compelling to me than the entire Microsoft Surface presentation/website etc.
I don't know that this will really make a big difference in phone-user interaction. I hope it stays on Glass where the use case is actually semi-relevant.
But even worse, is that they didn't notice the line scores are out of alignment: http://www.google.com/landing/now/images/card-sports.png
(Top row of Clovers is shifted over).
I think its a pretty clever design.
Edit: Not so sure about it now. Its too bad it wasn't misaligned in the correct direction.
Compare Google Now to Google Play- Google Play just sends me into convulsions.
Really hoping this design takes over Android, and ASAP.
I'm sure the baseball scores are aligned properly in the actual app. But it serves as a not-so-subtle reminder that this isn't what the actual app looks like, or how it behaves. In my mind, they're associating themselves with other companies who show completely fake visuals in commercials, like fast food.
The most apt comparison you can make for doing this is "fast food", rather than the 800lb gorilla in the room, Apple, who had to be sued to include "screen images simulated" and "sequences shortened" in their iPhone ads...?
Usually speech recognition errors are fairly routine, but in this case they are hilarious. Oh, and the word 'Android' was not recognized.
Because without asking it used my calendar, the GPS, Google Maps and calculated how long it would take for me to get to my next meeting.
This is pretty sweet tech. This is above anyone else on the market right now.
Give us all your personal info, we provide you pretty UI. Oh and how about this recommended cafe to visit with your friend? If you go here is a 10% voucher.. Just saying..
If they use this data for other purposes (ads/paid recommendations/geotracking), that is a separate issue, and I would be very mad.
Source: http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answe...
That isn't entirely accurate. There has to be a way to access mailboxes for troubleshooting/compliance purposes - A couple years ago, a Google engineer got fired for snooping into some kid's mailbox.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2369188,00.asp
For now. But what happens when data mining technology increases to the point where they can deduce real facts about you as a person from all this data they're collecting. I think this is what people mean when they say Google "reads" your email.
Like that NYT article "How Companies Learn Your Secrets" on buying habits (at Target) of pregnant teens.
By itself this information is innocuous, but in the right context and with just a pinch of the heartlessness of a giant computer system, the wrong set of categorizations could cause a really big problem.
However there are really three usage cases where I see this potentially becoming a problem:
1. Google sells data to advertisers directly, without anonymity. 2. Google is rendered insecure and the encryption they use is cracked. 3. Government forces Google to hand over data about individuals or large swaths of individuals.
The most likely scenario is number three, which already happens, and this can happen to any information stored anywhere (bank accounts, post office and online).
Google would face strong public backlash for selling data to advertisers (#1)directly and would have to change their user policies.
Google spends untold amount of money on #2. That's not to say they are completely safe or trustworthy, but it is to say they work very hard at protecting that data (for your and their sake). This situation could just as likely happen to any web provider, linkedin being a recent example.
My biggest fear is what happens if the government gets the power to subpoena individuals based on "categorizations" or "keywords". Then I think privacy becomes a serious issue for Google.
(Of course, I'm likely tilting at windmills. The carriers have been accumulating triangulation data for a long time. http://www.zeit.de/datenschutz/malte-spitz-data-retention )
Why not ? I think it is fair to believe there is one.
2. Google is using their name in the branding. E.g. Apple calls the iPhone just the iPhone, not the "Apple iPhone." On the other hand, Google prepends their name to all of their product names (e.g. "Google Play" "Google Now" "Google Plus" "Google Glass"), with Gmail being the only major exception that I can come up with (off the top of my head).
2. So, you think it wouldn't go after another company calling it's media webstore Play Store or Supercorp Play? Now, I don't really know about Google, but Facebook has shown that it is possible to attack other companies even for using just a part of your (completely generic) trademarked name.
The big corps like Google, Apple, MSFT, etc. will fight it out and not really worry about the legal costs. But for startups/small businesses, this can and probably will be a growing burden moving forward.
Does anyone keep web history enabled? Nice to see Google trying to get people to by making this seem useless without it.
Is it? I think Google Now is part of the "Google Apps for Android" suite. These apps are not part of Android itself, they are licensed by manufacturers to complement their Android-based operating system.
And these Apps are usually updated by Google and independently from the OS. So unless "Google Now" uses a specific API that is only available in 4.1, I would expect older devices receive the app as well.
Like with so much other stuff google makes, this isn't really something google needs to market to consumers. This is the bait they are giving to handset manufacturers to incentivize them to push out an update to the latest version of android.
Turns out, it's what happens if you swipe from the bottom up in Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, but I think it might be a broader thing (I can imagine it works with glasses).
Yay, just what I wanted: yet another software service to interrupt me thoughout the day.
Snarkiness aside, I'm sure the information is relevant and good. But if I forget that my favorite team is playing while I'm working on a design, do I really need to be reminded? People are not machines. I do not subscribe to and process an information feed in the same way that an email client would.
I see Google continually trying to work the problem of strong AI and transhumanism and that's great. I'm all for it. But they seem strangely blind about the real hard edges associated with being human. Instead of assistance it all seems to be about data, speed, and relevance. It seems the assumption is that people will adapt to however fast we can push the information at them. I'm not so sure that is an valid assumption. Or if it is, I'm not sure I like the way we would adapt to this vision of the future.
And do books count as well? Not really devices, but just as absorbing, for some of us. I don't really understand why we think about electronic devices differently from every other human invention.
A year or two ago, I had a short train commute (Loughborough to Leicester and back, on one of the main routes to London) on a daily basis and saw far more people immersed in books than in their phones -- I suspect it was a bit early in the day for the younger folk, though.
In fact, it was more common to see business people using laptops than books and phones combined.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mirror_(TV_series)#2._.22...
In the last two weeks since I disposed of it, I'm less stressed, considerably more alert, have slept better, feel like I'm slightly less thick, more productive and haven't had a single migrane.
The thing was a ball and chain.
EDIT: this move was motivated by Black Mirror. Thank you Mr Brooker.
In some cases, it makes sense for some of these to be notifications that ping you. I want my phone to remind me if I need to leave right now to make my next meeting.
Finally, you can configure each individual card provider to be on or off so if you don't like a particular type of card, just don't use it.
I'm excited to see if they will provide an API for this. I would love to write custom card providers so that I can get ambient notifications of things happening in my world (e.g. the build is broken on an OSS project I run, a motion sensor in my house was triggered, etc.)
Features like these are nice "demo" features. These make great ads but does it really get used in real life?
I like this a lot, if there is an accident or something I'll notice via this card and potentially avoid it. Great potential here.
I attempted to look for it on the Play Store this morning but I could not see it.
That wasn't counting the times I used it for the regular voice actions.
The extra info is "nice". That's how I would describe it. For those that like Siri, this is going to be up their alley. The natural voice recognition isn't as good as Siri's and there are some bits missing (I still freaking can't say "Navigate home" to get directions home, even though I can say "Navigate to McDonald's" and be launched into turn-by-turn).
I think in a few months or even when they release next month it will be capable of what Siri can do and will also have the intelligence to give you that info ahead of time.
As you said you do not care about when your team is playing or rather if you care, you will mark it down some other way and do not need Google's help with it so you most likely won't have that card "turned on".
If you care, but don't want to be interrupted by notifications specifically, then you'll either turn off notifications for that card, or if possible (the following is pure assumption based on the Jelly Bean notification priority options), you would set that specific card's notification priority to minimum, meaning it does not show up in your status bar and doesn't fire off any sound/vibration signals, but if you pull down on the status bar (meaning you are looking for information) it's there at the bottom of your notifications, completely unobtrusive.
Either way, it's the user's choice.
Everywhere I turn with Google I am being forced into a Procrustean bed, and you tell me that everything with Google Now is totally configurable so that it'll fit me. Sorry, at this point I do not believe you.
Watch the video, they show what a card is at the 20 sec mark.
What would you call them?
"Card" isn't intuitive because this isn't the way people use cards in real life. The only analogy for using cards as a notification I can think of is in an old novel where a visitor comes to your door, your butler shows them into the parlour, and brings you their calling card so you can decide whether you want to see 'em. This nowadays lies outside most folks' field of experience.
In any case it's likely whether or not it will catch on as a term-of-art will heavily depend on whether people want to use the service.
Google doesn't have a great track record when it comes to designing new products / interfaces so will be interesting to see whether this takes off or not.
To the other person calling them "atomic" bits of information, neither the information on "Google Now Cards", business cards, or index cards is "atomic". You can easily split the information and the bits still make sense. You probably meant to say "chunk" or "unit" or perhaps "self-contained"--though external links make them not very self-contained either.
I kind of get the idea they picked the word "card" because it's such a mundane, every-day word. And they want their product to appear like that. It's just a card! Must be easy to use!
Calling it a "message" or "notification" would also make it sound intrusive, like it interrupts your activity whenever it activates. A "card" has a very passive connotation, and that's the idea they want to give: It doesn't interrupt you, only when you look at your phone, it's right there presenting you with the info you need right now.
The problem I think is, we don't really have a every-day metaphor for such a thing. Maybe a "personal assistent", but I don't think they wanted to use a metaphor of something that is "alive", because it brings connotations of inaccuracy and doing all sorts of stuff with it, while they want just this thing that, when you look at it always happens to show exactly what you want to see.
They should've called it "psychic paper" :-) (Dr. Who)
Personally I feel a bit of annoyance at calling it "card" because if this thing really takes off they've claimed a mundane every-day use word with a rather inaccurate extra meaning. And if it doesn't, it's just a program that uses weird words for simple notifications.
I do like how they actually look like cards, rectangular with a subtle drop shadow, it looks good. I wonder what the three vertical dots are for? Some UI element or branding to make it look like a sort of sprocket perforations?
If true, this would be very ironic, as Google's ascendancy was based on their curation of the wild wild web, making sense of the terabytes of data out there.
https://www.cueup.com/
I'm eager to see how the Cue/Greplin team aim to address this shot across the bow, and having never used either, if there's something distinctly different about them that migh encourage me to use both (or Cue vs Now).
Interesting to see two such complete implementations of 'day-planning' hit so closely to each other.
If anything should embolden you, it's that while Google does tend to do a great job unveiling new products (like "Now"), they often fall behind on iterating, at least as compared to smaller, nimbler teams are able to. Also, they aren't at all very likely to integrate with non-Google services, so there's that.
Of course, this is a new 'flagship' type of thing for JellyBean users, so they'll likely be focused on making it really good.
Again, good luck. I can relate to established giants announcing competitors before you've had a good while to get traction, so I know it can be disheartening, but it also validates the hell out of the market, and there's no saying that Apple will ever be able to approve their iphone client as it likely competes with Siri a good deal.